Here We Go Again

[Omi]

"Well, she seemed like a nice girl to me," probed Komachi, needling him just a little further. The fact that he was still listening to her and not just mumbling an uh-huh or mmhmm in her direction was enough to signal that she had him trapped, caught on a subject that was equal parts irritating to acknowledge and dangerous to ignore. "She's kinda local, too, if she's still knocking around Shikoku. Maybe she wants her money back- or, wait, maybe she just wants to shoot you for being such an asshole." Tal's spilled coffee was on the move now; a gelatinous, tar-like excuse for a drink slithering into a nearby drain as the flowing rainwater washed it away. It was the sort of thing that could mutate sewer rats into six-foot-long hulking monstrosities, and even watching it slide away turned her stomach. They must have looked an incredibly conspicuous pair - the tall, drab Libertonian and the cherry-pink clothed Kusarian both cowering under the awning, each looking just as awkward and out of place as the other. She didn't even want to think about what any passers-by might have been thinking. Fortunately, though, the torrential downpour was keeping the streets as clear as could be.

"Okay, so, it's cold and it's wet and if we're going somewhere else then, like, can we go already?" she whined, her tone finely etched with just the right amount of nasal inflection to really get Tal's teeth gritting. "Seriously, you could have just had us meet up wherever it was right away. I don't know why you dragged me out to this dump when you could've just sent me all of this over the neural net."

She slouched over to complete the sulky image, fixing him with the kind of disdainful stare that took years to really perfect. "Give me your coat, too- or an umbrella or something," she added, making a give-give gesture with her hand. "You're meant to be, like, ex-Marines or something, right? I'm going to get soaked again in this rain."

By now, the downpour was vicious enough to force Komachi to raise her voice over the din. The rivulets of water swirling around their feet looked set to blossom into a full-fledged stream, and somewhere down the street a car alarm could be heard wailing through the New Tokyo evening.