Great Lakes and Expectations ch 6 draft post

Osafune came into the room at a high clip, openly stressed.  

Regina lowered her pen and eyed him cautiously. This was new, and she did not like it.

He gestured for her to get up and follow him, not even bothering to speak. He went back the way that he had come.

It seemed important, so she moved quickly to follow him into the receiving room. Two women were waiting there. One looked absolutely pleasant and demure, in a dark yukata. She had a sweet face and unassuming posture. In other words, she was not the one who had Samurai Dad shook. So Regina turned her attention to the person on the other cushion, behind the tiny brunette.

Regina's heart missed a beat. The other woman had apparently bleached her hair blonde and gotten the best push-up bra the world had yet known. She was sprawled back indolently, but the stare she leveled on Osafune was seriously intense.  

'Oh, my god. Oh. God.'

It was 100% clear that this was the person who had ruffled the unruffleable Osafune. And no wonder. She looked like she had just gotten off her personal plane from a working business trip to someplace with a beach and was annoyed that she had to come here personally to fire them all. And Regina would be totally fine with that, she was honestly just flattered that this woman was looking at her.

“Oh no,” Regina said. “I'm really gay.”

Everyone turned to look at her. She froze. And then took a moment to be very, very grateful that no one here spoke any English.  

'Please god, don't let either of them know any English.'  

“kochira desuka?” The blonde woman fixed her stare on Regina. “Jiraiya no musume? Honto da?”

Oh, god. She did not want to lie to anyone that intimidating. But she also really did not want to get kicked out of Osafune's house. So she nodded. “Hai.” Her voice came out very small.

“Hazukashii kodomo, desune. Nani kangaemasuka?” the woman drawled.

“Kirei,” Regina answered honestly. Then she corrected- “Kawaii. Honto ni kawaii.”

The dark-haired woman choked. The blonde's face went flat. Osafune looked relieved.

...It was not usually that inflammatory to tell a Japanese woman that she was pretty. Something else was going on.

She did not know what she had missed, but apparently that had not been the right thing to say. Regina felt her face turn red.

“Jiraiya-baka no musume,” the blonde woman snarled. She nearly put a fist to the floor, but stopped right before impact. “Kuso. Ano baka ga mittara, koroshimasu.”

...Regina tried to be really, really still, because maybe that would make her invisible. She was 90% certain that the pretty woman had just said that she would kill Jiraiya if she found him. Jiraiya would take one look at her and allow it. He might even thank her. Or maybe Regina was projecting a little bit.

“Kiite,” the woman barked. She was already standing up. She fired something off to Samurai Dad that Regina could not parse. Regina was still trying to decide if she should obey the woman or go hide.  

Osafune stepped forward and obviously disagreed, saying something fast and conciliatory. Regina caught words, but most of them were fractured bits of grammar that didn't tell her much of anything -however, and so, many people, Jiraiya- the woman snarled- and… Regina blinked. Movie? Had he been talking about a movie?

The blonde woman clearly caught something that sparked interested. She repeated it back, low and… rather sexily evil, Regina thought. It reminded her of her childhood crush on Shego. And then that made her think of the green and black catsuit, and then she was thinking about this amazingly terrifying woman in a green and black-

Osafune agreed, but added a conditional that really sounded a lot like “only if (something something) movie.”

The dark-haired woman spoke up for the first time. {Tsunade-sama,] she begged. {dfsdf ikimasu. Jiraiya-san ni renraku shimasu.]

Regina mentally logged the name. Tsunade. Got it. It was Tsunade who she wanted to follow around and worship. She was bad at names but this one mattered.

{iie, Shizune.] Tsunade cracked her hands. Impossibly, it seemed that a dark cloud was forming around her eyes. {takusan jiraiya-baka no okane wa watashi wo matteimasu.}

...Jiraiya knew this woman, and going to give her a lot of money, Regina guessed. Or else she was going to take it. And that was why she would stay?

She felt better about her crush. Murder-Punch-Dad had obviously planned for her to meet Tsunade. So he approved of her. That boded well, based off of how reasonable Samurai Dad had turned out to be. She was tentatively leaning towards deciding that Jiraiya was a better option than the man who had attacked her in the bathroom.

Tsunade and Shizune disappeared not long after, and Tsunade deigned to let Regina stay with a protectively hovering ADAD. It took two days for her to understand why Tsunade had agreed to stay. The women returned and grimly waited for a delivery, which turned out to be formal wear and boxes of papers. The first dress on top of the pile was...alarming. It was a red slip of a thing with a low neckline and about 2 inches of skirt. But Tsunade made a disgusted sound and reached out. She held up the dress and casually ripped it in half. So clearly it was not going to be a problem.

Also, wow. Regina shifted in her seat. She swallowed. Tsunade was, like… really strong. She could pick Regina up, no problem.

Shizune looked over at Regina. Whatever she saw made her sigh and shake her head.  

Jiraiya had probably sent the first dress as a joke, because the next three were much more appropriate and actually coordinated in the same cut, with different colors that went together well-enough. Regina was once again impressed by his taste. He liked to act like a total trash can, but he'd matched Tsunade's green dress to the sage jacket she habitually wore, Shizune's deep purple highlighted the sheen to her hair, and Regina would look pretty good in the dark blue she'd apparently been assigned.  

(they go to the venue)

Tsunade stopped walking and made a sound of pure fury. Regina followed her murderous glare upwards, over the door.

...The banner outside the venue had three cartoon women who were clearly intended to represent the three of them, in their current outfits. They looked deceptively friendly and cheerful. They seemed to be offering papers. Regina sort of appreciated it, this was the best information she had gotten so far about what they were meant to be doing today.

Whatever else he was, Jiraiya was slick.  

Tsunade seemed absolutely pissed off by the banner, probably because it meant that Jiraiya had been absolutely correct that she would agree to go to the movie event. She clearly considered tearing it down before she eventually stomped in. Shizune gave a distressed little sigh and hurried after Tsunade.  

But Regina was honestly kind of impressed. Jiraiya had his life on lock, in the weirdest of ways. When had he had time to do that? Had he given his agent the instructions in that bar, weeks ago? Amazing. Murder-Dad was pretty cool.

She spent the next 20 minutes being coached with a couple of phrases and gestures. It kind of reminded her of being in Rainbow. Yeah, sure, fine, she could smile at someone and ask for their name.

People were starting to gather outside. Regina saw them through the glass doors and gave a confused frown. She looked at the papers again, confirming that the movie reception was not meant to start for another hour. They were early. Who came to a movie that early?

It took a couple of minutes for her to realize that everyone she could see outside was apparently a man.

Slowly, Regina looked down at her dress, and then at the two women to her left. She was beginning to have a bad feeling about all of this.  

“Shizune-san,” she said. The other woman turned a grim stare at her. “Donna shirui eiga desuka?”

Shizune looked shocked and horrified. She put a hand to her mouth.

Oh, no. That did not bode well. Why did Shizune not want to answer that question? “What kind of movie is this” is a perfectly normal question. Please answer the question.

Tsunade was the one who answered. Her lip was curled up in a sneer, her gimlet stare fixed at the visitors. Regina mentally contrasted her visage with the cutely beaming cartoon representation dotted around the room. “Hen na eiga,” she said ominously.

Wait, what.

“Chi-chi ha...” Regina let her voice trail off helplessly.

She received a nod in response and sympathetic look from Shizune.  

“ooki hentai.” Tsunade said it flat. No sugar-coating that one. A big pervert. Fantastic.

Alright, then. So. Murder-Dad had recruited her to hand papers and greet people who came to the premiere of his pornographic movie. She and Shizune and Tsunade were… like, meant to be eye candy. The beautiful assistants.

“Tsunade-sama,” she said, calmly. This needed to be said. “Jiraiya wo koroshite goro, watashi ha tetsudaumashouka?”

She heard Tsunade's laugh for the first time.

The event opened early, not long after that. Men flooded inside. Armed with knowledge that they were enthusiastic perverts, Regina eyed them cautiously. She had no idea what the posters might have implied about her role today. Or how socially adept this group might be. Shizune had protested a lot about coming here today, and Regina was now really anxious about what those objections might have been.

There was staring. Of course there was. But as the line churned on and no one tried to pull anything worse than touching her hands as she handed them a card, Regina began to relax into the monotony. Until she met her first real weirdo.

Regina handed the flyer to the next person on autopilot. He shied back and took the paper with the very tips of his gloved fingers. She ignored that, because a lot of Jiraiya's fans were unique individuals. She braved eye contact to start her spiel- or tried to, at least. He had cleverly made that difficult by combing his light-colored hair to entirely cover one eye, and barely allow the other to peek out.  

This man, she thought, might take the prize for the day's most unusual pervert.  

He looked like some sad variety of sheepdog in an oversized sweater, fuzzy scarf, and bizarrely tactical looking leather gloves with metal plating on the back of the hands. His steel-tipped boots were definitely too big for him. It was not a good look, man. He looked like he was hiding from the world in his mom's old clothes. His mom had liked dogs, apparently. There were ratty pomeranians falling apart on the sweater. Some of them had hints of fluff where puffball tails had once been attached.

...she was kind of digging it, as long as he did not think it was Fashion. Wearing something that aggressively ugly could be a power move. But if he thought it was normal or good, she had to judge him a lot.

The customer looked down the aisle and saw Tsunade, apparently for the first time. His weirdly pale eyebrow shot up. He probably didn't see people like that on the knitting farm in Hokkaido where he obviously did heavy labor and punched hungry wolves.

That was the first time she saw a glimpse of something she could understand in his thought process. She could sympathize. Tsunade was wow.

“お名前は“ , she prompted. She held her pen at the ready to take the note. She was fully aware that she would probably take it incorrectly if it had any long vowels, but did not really care.

He looked back at her, somehow looking startled and unhappy with about 2 square centimeters of skin showing. That expressiveness implied that this ensemble was not new for him.  

Her smile was beginning to feel strained.

'Please, answer the question. Say your name,' she mentally coached. 'You know this one, buddy.'

It was not a hard question. She set her jaw and waited for him to tell her his name. Any name, if he couldn't remember his. There were an awful lot of “Tanakas” and “Sakamotos” in the room tonight, aka Smiths and Johnsons. She just had to have a name for the stupid statistics so that he could take the stamp card.

He seemed stuck on his name. He had not prepared for this test. He had never considered that he might be asked for his name when he got in a line to be signed up for some kind of loyalty rewards program.

“It is okay to lie,” Regina said, and then she tried to say that in Japanese. 「嘘して嘘して.」She might have said 'please lie.' That was close enough.

The scarf he was wearing over his face moved slightly. Oh no. He was mouthing names to himself, trying to come up with a good one. The first thing he said was, “Boku ha… watashi.”

She stared at him like he was the dumbest person she had ever met. He might be. 'I am myself?' What kind of bullshit stalling tactic was that? She had asked for his name, not what passed for philosophy in middle school. “I didn't say it was alright to lie badly,” she said. She didn't bother to translate that into Japanese. If he couldn't get it from her tone, he hadn't even earned her disapproval.

“Watashi Satake,” he elaborated. He sounded a little hopeful at this point. He stole a glance at where Tsunade was glowering at some poor fool. His head ducked a little further and he turned his face away from the area where Tsunade and Shizune were taking turns answering questions, or giving directions, or whatever it was that they were doing.

Either he was answering her in broken Japanese that “I Satake,” or he wanted her to believe that his first name was actually “Me.” That was his name, for sure. Me, Bamboo Son. Plausible.  

She looked deep within her heart, stared into the one black button eye that remained on the knitted dog, and gave up on this fucker.

Fuck this guy and the clown car he hitchhiked in with. It was absurd and intolerable. She kind of wished Jiraiya was here to wave his murder fist around and get a better answer, or at least mock Mr. Satake fluently.

Regina considered her options- she might pass over the paper and have him write the kanji he would use for that, to see if he really was claiming that his name was “Me, Satake.” Satake was a real name- the kanji for son, and then the kanji for bamboo. But Watashi was definitely not a name. He was making that shit up. He was a crap liar and he looked like a mop. He owed her a better lie, at least. That was just insulting.

She nodded and plastered a customer service smile on her face as she scribbled on his card. Regina handed him his card to get rid of him. It wasn't registered to any name that he would ever be able to read. That was fine. She would tell Jiraiya to find the worst-dressed man on the continent to accredit the points. He needed to do this personally, so that they could judge him as a family. It would be good for bonding.

Mr. Me took the card and tucked it away… she didn't know where. His hands were very fast. Like horrible spiders. She didn't trust anything about this person. Who said it was even a person underneath all of that knitwear? Maybe this was a real Kumo nin and that's why the disguise was so bad. She took a step backward.

In English, she brightly said, “Your fake name is very bad. I hate it. Go away!” She pointed at Shizune with her whole hand, demonstrating which route he could take directly to hell.

I, Satake, gave her a grateful nod and shuffled away. She bent over to write “Mr. Me. A bad liar,” on the line for his name, matching his card. Then she turned to the next man nervously avoiding her eye contact. He looked like a Sakamoto. “Flyer?” she said, holding it out. This particular weirdo got a bit too close when he took the paper. She caught a hint of...nervous sweat, probably. Fantastic. What the fuck was Jiraiya doing with his life? Why did so many incredibly suspicious people come to see Jiraiya's movie? Why had he exposed her to them?

She glanced over to her left and blinked in surprise. Shizune's line was still empty. The man who had dared to talk to Tsunade was now fully sobbing while she laughed. Watashi Satake, the man with a singularly stupid alias, was gone.

Maybe he went home to think about what he'd said. She hoped he did better next time.