COFFEEHERBAL TEA
SCONES
HOT WATER
MUFFINS
What a menu. A menu full of a bunch of words that didn't make any sense to her. They were on a menu, so they had to be edible, but what were they? Could she even pronounce them, had she decided she wanted to buy one? The food here had so many strange names, and one plant could come in so many forms. It was almost unfathomable. She had spent her childhood eating plants in their raw form. That's it. But these people cooked them, and turned them to liquids, and used some to make their houses smell good. It was unbelievable how creative this culture was!
Monogoi Kurai was new to town, obviously. A young woman with hair the color of ripe strawberries, and eyes the color of sunshine stood out in the crowd, no doubt. Because of this, despite her high Shinobi ranking, she dressed as a civilian to avoid more stares and confrontations than she was comfortable with. She was finally becoming familiar with the common language, and how things worked in this strange city--no need to over complicate it.
"Um, coff-eh?" Her accent was thick like caramel, and her lips seemed to tremble as she spoke in a desperate attempt to be understandable. The woman behind the counter gave her a strange look, her thick black hair pulled back in a pony tail. An eyebrow raising slightly, "Coffee?" Kurai stared for a moment before nodding, "Er, sure." The woman waited for something, looking at her with her pen on a sheet of paper. "Black?" She finally asked impaitently, and Kurai shrugged, "If that's what color it normally comes it." The counter girl laughed, and gave her a price. Kurai pulled yen from a little purse that laid across her torso and onto her side, and paid, moving to the other side of the counter while she waited for whatever she just ordered.
Her foot tapped impatiently as she looked around the little cafe. It looked like a library, but served food. Like a... book cafe, of some sort. The smell of books, and some strange drink that Souji had once. The woman came up with a styrofoam cup, it was steaming and hot. She took it, and gave a slight smile, turning to leave as she moved towards a door, putting one hand on the door and pushing it as the other raised the cup to her mouth to sip it--
OH JESUS FUCK HOLY GOD?!
Kurai dropped the cup, it exploded on the sidewalk as she stumbled backwards and put her hand over her mouth. "Ó, cac. Tá sé te!" She cursed in her native tongue, her lips and mouth burning as she did a little dance of pain. "Ow ow ow!"
Cream? Of course cream. It was key when it came to coffee; it was what made it into the lovely drink it was rather than just some combination of brown and water. Add a bit of sugar to it, and voila: you've got the perfect beverage to keep you running for a few more hours. That the little puppet girl was capable of drinking it was questionable in and of itself (albeit, that was one question she couldn't openly ask and had to ponder herself); that the woman who just burnt her tongue would accept and drink the gifted coffee was another event questionable in its occurrence. It was a negligible fee, the coffee was; just until she was enrolled into the Academy did she have to make purchases like coffee on rarer occasions.. Without the funds that belonged to Karurosu, she wasn't exactly wealthy; still, minor acts like this were no big deal.
Small talk.
The red-headed woman seemed as socially inept as Kari had become since she came to Maruishi. Whether it was due to the fact that it was someone who appeared as a child giving her a replacement for her coffee or actually her being uncomfortable with conversation, she wasn't too sure of. Kurai spoke in small, broken phrases, as though she was trying to carefully build each statement and hadn't confidence in its correctness.