Two days later, they saw each other once more.

It was Raiga who arrived first, followed by a particularly fatigued Jiroubou roughly a half hour afterwards. The guard had been noticeably relieved when, the day before, the owner had told him of Raiga’s schedule. It meant that Jiroubou’s new ritual of working double-time to finish his duties early only had to occur every other day. Otherwise, he would still be on duty all day and have to make these visits at night, which was unacceptable by Lord Orochimaru’s terms and blasphemous by Jiroubou’s. Making his new acquaintance wait all day? How decidedly impolite.

Jiroubou took his seat next to the mist ninja, whose greeting was nothing more than a sly grin and a snide comment.

“You’re late.”

“You’re early.

“Better early than late. I like to avoid keeping people waiting.”

Jiroubou grumbled a bit - things were starting off rocky again. “Some of us have other business to take care of.”

“Precisely why I was early.”

Before Jiroubou could make any sort of comment, the owner was there once again to interrupt with a fresh cup of coffee. The guard stared blankly at it as the elderly man slid it over to him, then looked to Raiga. The mist ninja smirked and nodded toward the cup. “To take care of that.”

Jiroubou promptly found himself at an impasse. On one hand, he was relieved that Raiga had once again ordered his drink. It meant they were still on good terms - neutral at the least. It would have been a shame to go through all that trouble to find someone who wanted nothing to do with you. On the other hand, however, Jiroubou felt somewhat betrayed by the gesture. Polite conduct dictated that it was his turn to order Raiga a beverage – it struck him as somewhat rude, accepting a drink from someone twice in a row.

Raiga smirked at Jiroubou’s dubious expression. “Only trying to be friendly, you know.” The larger of the two snorted a soft “thank you”. Raiga chuckled, apparently finding this reaction quite amusing. “So high-strung. Now, what about that nice conversation we wanted?”

This time, Jiroubou was the one to laugh. “My, but you jump right into things.”

“Well, I didn’t come all the way out here to argue.”

“Is it that much of a trip, then? Or are you having trouble getting away from your comrades for a bit?”

Raiga balked and looked down at his own beverage. Somewhere in the farthest corner of his mind, he realized that perhaps tea couldn’t solve everything. “Comrades…”

“It’s like that, sometimes. I’m sure that mine wouldn’t have the most pleasurable things to say if I told them I was going to some vague little hut to talk to someone I barely know,” continued Jiroubou, running a hand through his mane of ginger hair and momentarily reflected on the arduous task of growing it out after the revival, “’You dumb fatty. If you wanna good place to masturbate, just do it in your room.’ Of all the inconsiderate…”

Raiga forced a smile. “I remember when I had comrades.”

Jiroubou promptly stopped talking and cursed inwardly for not having paid better attention to Raiga in that short moment. Now the situation was awkward. “I’m terribly sorry.”

“No, no. It’s alright,” Raiga turned his face to Jiroubou. It was such a forlorn expression that Jiroubou felt a weak twinge of pity run through his head. “Most of them were given a wonderful funeral, and for that I am grateful.”

What Raiga had neglected to mention was that he had buried most of them himself. Furthermore, he hadn’t mentioned the state that he had buried them in: Pre-mortem.

Jiroubou searched Raiga’s despondent face. There was no overzealous reaction; no break in the man’s mental state; no lashing out or mumbling to himself. He was just reminiscing, and in this case Jiroubou thought that perhaps he could afford to be curious. “Most of them,” he ventured, looking at the older man expectantly.

Raiga was silent for a moment, looking intently at his tea. “I’m sure a couple of them are still around.”

“And you don’t know where they are.”

“…No. I know where one might be, at least.”

“In that case, I’d think you do have a comrade.”

The man’s head sunk lower toward his cup, deep green hair blocking view of his eyes. “No…The only reason is because I know who took him from me.”

Jiroubou bit his lip. Well, wasn’t this a pleasant situation? Damn my mouth, he thought ruefully to himself, and damn my curiosity. How am I going to handle this? Comfort situations are certainly not my forté.

As Jiroubou opened his mouth, however, a pair of bowls were there to intervene. Or, more specifically, there was the owner with a pair of bowls to intervene. Jiroubou looked at Raiga, who shook his head that no, he had not ordered him the soup. The owner chuckled brightly at their reaction. “It’s on the house, boys.”

The ninjas looked at him dubiously, though Jiroubou couldn’t help but smirk just a bit. “You’re awfully good at interrupting, sir.” And awfully good at the timing, he thought. He almost added that, but quickly checked himself against it.

“Please,” said the owner with a wave of his hand, “It’s Mr. Yogi. You sure don’t have to be that formal, son.”

Raiga grinned a bit - much to Jiroubou’s relief - and prodded a bit at the contents of his bowl. Miso soup, how quaint. Raiga dipped his spoon in and brought it to his lips…

He paused; blinked; stared at the soup; tasted it again; blinked; and then stared at the owner with something of a bewildered expression. “It has a…”

“A bit of a kick to it, yes?”

“It’s not bad or anything, just…different. In a good way.”

Jiroubou looked curiously at his acquaintance and took a taste of his own soup, finding Raiga’s claim to be true. “What is that?”

“That would be the chili powder!”

The two ninja looked at each other.

Mr. Yogi pointed to the kitchen behind the counter, where one could see the basket of powder which hung next to the stove. “It’s a wonder what a pinch of the stuff will do. I put it in everything, you know.”

Jiroubou blinked. “Everything?”

“Everything.”

“…Everything.”

“Everything.”

Jiroubou and Raiga looked down at their drinks, causing Mr. Yogi to chuckle again. “Except for the coffee, of course.” And with that, he toddled back to the kitchen, leaving the other two alone. Jiroubou breathed a sigh of relief, but Raiga still stared cautiously at his cup.

”He didn’t say anything about the tea…”

On his return trip to Sound, Jiroubou mulled over the night. It had been perfectly fine after the soup – the two of them had made the same idle conversation as the first meeting and Jiroubou had once more left on good terms.

That wasn’t what he was thinking of, however.

He was thinking of Raiga. He was thinking of the look on the man’s face when he had told of his comrades – the despondent, almost pitiful look of one who was lost in the most psychological sense of the word. And yet, he wasn’t bitter. He wasn’t closed. He was reaching out. And that, Jiroubou realized, was what had drawn him to Raiga. He was alone, and despite the laws of human nature which dictated such people to be acrimonious hermits, he was perfectly willing – anxious, even – to share with someone. Jiroubou had assumed that he would find such a thing rather pathetic. But…perhaps he was wrong. Perhaps, despite the obvious intellectual issues, this aspect of Raiga struck him as endearing. It was like a single, aspirant little light was still lingering in some far corner of a plane of black pitch.

It was such endearment that made Jiroubou want to reach back; one that made him think that maybe, just maybe, they could touch.