Moto Ruhe had little restraint in things he cared about, so after some initial misunderstandings with the staff about the scope of his voucher he threw in the necessary money for the top-notch service for the evening. It's not like he calculated to make an impression, for he honestly didn't know if it was something she'd find impressive, it was more about his attitude that for meaningful pursuits interstellar space is the limit if he had means to go there.

But there it was, a private cabinet, waiter waiting, Ruhe himself dressed in his slick black leather jacket and pants, hair tied into a tail, beard groomed, basically what he thought of amounted to a good date. Not that he had any rich experience in this regard, but the miai seemed like a last chance to grow some serious dating skills.

Having found out the restaurant she'd be going to was rather nice, Tenma had gotten her dress pressed and wore that with her mask before catching a cab there. Getting to the Snow-Moon-Flower, she was surprised to find that Ruhe's reservation was a private room upstairs. After the servant showed her upstairs they opened the sliding door, Tenma smiling as she saw the Moto, giving a bow after walking in.

"Wow, this is all so nice. You didn't have to go to this kind of trouble for little ol' me, Moto-san. But... it is really pretty," she said as she looked around the room, the servant closing the door behind her.

He bowed to her as well, having taken in the image of her, and spoke after one silent breath, with a smile. "While you are on the petite side, you won't fool me about the old part." He chuckled. "I suspected you'd look this elegant and stunning, so I figured out something roughly corresponding so you wouldn't feel out of place." He gestured toward their seats. "I haven't been here before but it has a reputation as a top-notch place, so I guess the food and drinks are going to be nice too. Speaking of, what do you usually drink?"

"Oh, you like it?" she does a little shimmy in the dress, looking at herself, "I find it easy enough to dance in, as long as I'm not wearing too high of heels."

She walked over and took a seat, tucking her legs to one side, since it had traditional cushion seats, "As far as what I drink, I like whiskey and bourbon and sake. Oh, and most wines. Not much of a fan of beer, but I try to watch my figure anyways, so I consider that happy coincidence."

"I really do. Makes me really want to dance with you, but that's something we can talk about later." He took a seat before her, cross-legged, because Unicorn. "Does it feel like a wine evening or a whiskey evening for you then?"

"Wine, maybe a rice wine or plum wine, or something like that, neh? Feel like I've gone back in time, in a place like this..."

She saw a small menu on the table in front of her, glancing down at it before looking back up at Ruhe, "I like what you've done with the outfit and hair; The tail makes you look even more handsome you know."

He hadn't expected a compliment, so it caught him off guard, but he improvised a reaction as he did in many other spheres of life. "Oh? You know that saying things like that are going to embolden me in praising you, right? I've been barely holding back anyway." He smirked. "And since we're travelling back in time..."

He cleared his throat, made a pause, and...

"Bewitching sunsets
The poet would hardly know
If not for your hair"

He raised his brow. "And since we're also being bold, umeshu it is."

A light blush touched her cheeks.

"...people out here do seem to like the red. Maybe I ~shouldn't~ go back to dying it black, even if it is my favorite color..."

Picking up her menu self-consciously, Tenma looked it over, speaking as she did so.

"Do you just do music then, or do you write out poetry with that kind of talent for words?"

"Night's shimmering spell
The poet would hardly know
If not for your hair"

Ruhe recited with a smirk. "You should have the very hair colour you kamidamn like. I am really gripped by how you look now, but it doesn't mean I wouldn't be by any other version of you. The way you express yourself is more striking than any particular expression. Like with a moon and its reflection in water, I prefer to stare up than to look down."

He opened the menu as well, but really wasn't that eager to take his eyes off her, so it took a moment before he focused on its contents. "I write lyrics for songs, it's more or less the same thing. I don't do haiku with any regularity, it just felt fitting because it felt retro like this place. So... what would you like for a starter?"

A warm smile crossed her face as he talked, the thing not leaving as he finished, "Nothing wrong with some retro sensibilities sometimes. Almost makes me wish I'd worn the yukata I packed here, though this seems to work well enough. As to my hair... I'll think about it. Another time. Focus on the now. And the now..."

Her eyes went back to the menu as she trailed off, "...perhaps their agedashi tofu with sentai mushrooms? It's a local specialty, apparently. And I do like good tofu."

He didn't linger on those subjects either, though the warmth in her smile was like a battery cell for his own mood, expressed in the brightness of his gaze.

"Grand. I'll throw in an assortment of local veggies in tempura with ginger ponzu dip." He chuckled, having his reasons to avoid certain types of seafood. "Where have you had your best tofu so far?"

"Well home, actually. The area I lived in grew a lot of soy beans, and my grandmother made tofu the old fashioned way. My favorite is when it would be given time to firm up, then fried with red pepper sauce and scallions. I could eat that every day and never get tired of it."

"I'd eat that, I love spice." Ruhe listened to her intently, the placed the initial order before sharing. "My sentimental food would be my mom's trout with rosemary and salt. And my father's hellfire lamb... but while you could probably handle the copious amounts of spice he put in it, it's still red meat and it's probably not that popular outside my Clan."

"Perhaps you're right. I've heard lamb is a rather strong flavor as well... perhaps not for many in the Empire. Trout though... finding a samurai who likes fresh salted fish with herbs would not be so hard I think. I used to try to catch isefish in the stream by my families house with my bare hands as a kid; Caught a couple over the years and even had them cooked up, mostly by the servants but once by myself."

"Do you remember how those tasted?" He was happy to go with her down the memory lane.

"Which ones? The ones I tried to do or the ones the servants made for me?"

She smirked a little, imagining the Moto was more interested in the former.

She imagined right. He chuckled at the tease. "The former."

"Well... honestly, you can't go too wrong with fresh caught fish over a camp fire. Stick it on a stick, give it a turn once after five minutes or so. Admittedly, the first time I tried that I didn't know how long it took and it unded up a bit undercooked when I first tried it. But it was hardly the end of the world since I just stuck it back over the fire. I'm sure I could have done more with them, but that's the way I always saw heroes eating fish in comic books, so that just seemed like the right way to do it, you know?"

Their starters and umeshu arrived, so Ruhe took a pause to let them be served before replying. He had been listening to her story until that happened, imagining young Tenma or whatever her childhood name was in the wild, frying fish over the campfire. Her outdoorsy background would be heart-warming for any Unicorn, and it certainly was for Ruhe. Was she wearing a mask then? He didn't know Scorpion customs well enough to make a definite call, but probably she wasn't. It drew him back to the masked one before him, but he had already seen the full of her face and so it wasn't hard to juxtapose her features over the hidden parts.

"Itadakimasu." They could continue their conversation after a few bites. "Are you still into comics? Wonder if any of those superheroes has inspired your mask."

"Um... comics. I, well..."

She took a bite of the tofu; It really was delicious, even if she didn't recognize the mushrooms.

"Not recently, I suppose. More into informators these days. I find when I read, I tend to kind of get lost in reading and lose track of the time. Plus, comics are for kids. So I started watching mysteries on my breaks instead, cop shows. Not like reality I.F. or anything like that, but dramas and action and such."