PSL for Hannibal, post-concert

[electro_kinetic]

"Not that I mind a field trip, but how exactly did you talk the Professor into me staying in your house?"

She was still wearing her concert attire, leaning against the doorjamb of Hannibal's house. Helpfully, she had clothes with her, though how well they measured up to what she wore at a semi-formal event was anyone's guess. She was a reasonably polite guest thus far, short of this hesitation: nothing had yet mandated she get mouthy or violent.

"Should I take off my heels or do you not hold to that tradition?" She knew enough of her therapist by now to know he had connections to Japan and the culture, but how far those extended was unknown.

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[electro_kinetic]

She snorts softly, watching Hannibal move; he's competent and confident about having someone else in his space, which puts her at ease. It's hard to relax around jumpy people "I find the gesture lovely. Just unusual," she says. "Never had a therapist make me dinner before."

Clearly she doesn't find it all that uncomfortable, for all that she finds it weird.

"I'm not a samurai, so I'm hardly an expert on it either. It's just the favorite topic of the wild neckbeard." She may be something of an expert in that field, but it's really not the topic she wants to expand on. "Besides, I already fail at the filial piety thing."

[il_mostro]

"Well, I have always been told I am an unusual therapist to begin with, so I suppose this is only fitting." He smiled at her, before gesturing her to one of the stools to sit down on.

"Ah, I see. Well, I am afraid I will only be asking you what you would like to drink." He stated with a completely straight face. He paused, and gave her a curious look. "I suppose it must be obvious, with the blue hair and the mutant gene. Have your parents directly disowned you?"

[electro_kinetic]

"Well, if you're going to ask me those sorts of questions, what king of alcohol do you have?" she asked, taking a seat. She wasn't uncomfortable watching people cook; she didn't want to be in the way, but she was at least passable with knife skills. Communal kitchens, teenagers, the doctor at the school had gotten tired of patching them all up constantly.

"Formally, no. They've never sent me any legal indication of being disinherited, or of being served with a notice of no trespass. But seeing as I live very nearly on the opposing side of the planet, I don't know that they'd think it necessary," she amended with a sigh. "But the last time I spoke to my parents, they said they'd rather I be dead than mutant." So there's that. It was pretty final to Noriko.

"Why?"

[il_mostro]

"Well, I have several good wines I can go open. Scotch. Brandy. Whiskey. I do have a cask beer I have been brewing for two years now, using animal blood." Hannibal stated, as he continued to prep the food to be pan-fried, versus that which would remain raw for the contrasting flavors. He glanced up at her as she spoke, dark eyes looking pensive.

"I see. Yet despite having the classic problem of one's parents never understanding them - you've decided that you prefer to be your own person to the hilt. Do you regret any of it? Or do you find yourself stronger because of the distance? I would guess the latter."

[electro_kinetic]

"Well, they're not going to spontaneously change their minds. Or my father won't, and my mother won't contradict him." She knew this as intimately as she knew the back of her own hands. Currently she's not looking at those, though, just at Hannibal. "Whiskey sounds fine." She shrugs.

"Do I regret not staying on mind-numbing medication and lying about what I am? No. Do I regret leaving the country without saying I loved my little brother? Yes," she says. "Strong is relative. Being a homeless female teenager in Manhattan changes the scale a bit."

[il_mostro]

Hannibal turned his wok on medium, and poured a measure of sesame oil within. He wiped his hands on his apron and gave Noriko a warm smile, "Coming up."

He sauntered easily to the bar in his study, and poured her a whiskey neat. She did not seem the type who would take it on ice, after all, and called back into the kitchen as he carried the glass. "Do you find a great deal of the need to depend on yourself came from this rejection from your parents? Also, your need to protect younger children than you, as perhaps ... a stand-in for your little brother?"

[electro_kinetic]

She took a deep break and sighed, lifting her shoulders. "I don't know that it comes from them particularly. All they said was that I was unwelcome in their home--they didn't tell me to leave the country, that was all me." She'd hitch-hiked to Yokota Air Base, and from there flew to some shithole town in Georgia, made her way up the coast.

"There's no stand-in for Keitaro. I don't know if he's like me or not, and if he is then we're both combatants in the same conflict. I don't want to leave him to take on a situation that's impossible to live with."

[il_mostro]

Hannibal put down a coaster before her, and then handed over the whiskey at her elbow. Moving back before the counter once more, he started to gently put the food into the wok, lowering the heat so everyone would cook neatly. He checked the rice cooker, and then went back to rolling his sushi.

"So your family has very little to do with who you are today?" He asked, fingers rolling slowly.

[electro_kinetic]

"I never thought about what precisely has made me 'who I am' other than my own decisions. Because let's be honest, I fucked up my life way more than my dad ever did. I don't want to leave my classmates to inherit a war I walked away from."

Noriko picked up the glass idly, sipping. And she was impressed, that showed on her face. "Is this the Hibiki twenty-one?"

[il_mostro]

Hannibal hummed under his breath, giving her a knowing look. "Here we return for you taking responsibility for a war you did not start. Even if you do manage to stop it single-handedly, it will still have not been your doing that it began in the first place. You are doing what you can, Noriko. That is more than most."

He went back to the wok, glancing at the glass, "Yes it is. You have excellent taste-buds."

[electro_kinetic]

She smiles. "I've had it twice before. It's pretty distinctive."

She brushes back her hair, pushing it carefully away from her face. "It doesn't feel like it. It's like...I can't conscience not doing what I'm doing."

[il_mostro]

"Which is why it is one of my favorites." Hannibal smiled warmly at her, before neatly plating the first course for her to try here in the kitchen. "Many would not consider others at all, unless it benefited them."

[electro_kinetic]

"Well, what little Latin I know is actually useful here. I'm not many people. Very evidently, if we're going by the hair and the gauntlets as well as attitude," she says, watching him plate food and flicking glances to it, him, and the doorway to the dining room. Presumably, anyway.

"Are we eating in here?"

[il_mostro]

"Oh no - I never eat in here. Even when I eat alone, I eat at my dining table." Hannibal stated with a prim if not amused smile. He walked over into the dining room, that was already beautifully set, with an elaborate center piece.

[electro_kinetic]

Noriko snorts softly. "When I eat alone it's on the floor," she chuckles. "Or in someone's office."

[il_mostro]

Hannibal looked over his shoulder at her, and tutted softly as he properly put the plates on the table. "How absolutely barbaric. Please, sit. I am going to get a bottle of wine for myself. Please, do start without me."

[electro_kinetic]

"We didn't have chairs with legs at my house when I was little," she laughed, taking a seat elegantly. "We always sat on the floor. Not on mats, but same concept. It's just easier."

[il_mostro]

"That is traditional Japanese eating style, and while I admire it I shall never emulate it unless I am in Japan. It is rude for me to appropriate it." Hannibal stated, as he came to sit down at the corner next to her. He poured himself a glass of wine. "I've done traditional Japanese dishes - sushi, sashimi, white rice and various small dishes."

[electro_kinetic]

"Given your interaction with the culture I doubt it qualifies as appropriation anymore," Noriko says. "Pretty sure as long as you're not making squinty-eyes and being racist it's fine."

She doesn't care. She's pretty sure she's appropriated something at some point in her life, but she ain't mad. "It looks really good."

[il_mostro]

Hannibal gave her a pleased smile, before he settled in his chair and folded his napkin into his lap. He gestured to the ivory chopsticks on the fine linen napkins. "Thank you, I am grateful for the compliment, and your understanding. Please, eat." He plucked up his own chopsticks, and delicately began to take small bites from each portion. Chewing, savoring, and then taking a sip of wine.

"So, how are you finding our trips to the outside world?"

[electro_kinetic]

"Ivory, so we're going Chinese?" she asks, picking hers up with ease. The gauntlets haven't impeded her use of normal utensils, though she hardly insists on chopsticks for everything. She's fairly thoroughly Americanized by this point. (And she's teasing him with the jab about going Chinese; the shape more than the material differentiates the several types of chopsticks, used for different purposes.)

"Kind of weird, to be honest. I keep expecting something to happen, and riding on adrenaline makes me jittery." More than usual.

[il_mostro]

"I have a weakness for fine things. Besides, as you may have noticed - I do like blending my cultural influences." Hannibal smirked at her, as he continued to take small bites, savoring each one.

One eyebrow raises. "You keep expecting us to ... be attacked in my dining room. That would certainly make for an interesting change of pace."

[electro_kinetic]

"Hopefully these were antique," she says. "Elephants, endangered species, conservation. All that," Noriko elaborates as simply as possible. She hates the idea of the ivory trade being so demanding as to kill creatures which are already in danger of no longer existing.

"I didn't say the concern made sense, just that it was there. And I've been attacked at a school, it's not like physical location has a whole lot to do with it."

[il_mostro]

"Oh yes, these particular chopsticks are almost a hundred and fifty years old. I won them at a charity auction, in my early days of medical practice." Hannibal stated, smiling at the utensils. "I have always had a weakness for beautiful, old things. These were no exception."

[electro_kinetic]

Noriko snorted softly. "Pity me, you're not into beautiful young things," she quipped dryly. "I mean you did make me dinner."

It's more joking than flirting, but it's still there.