Back again to the club. It felt like way longer than six days since she had been there, and honestly she really missed it. She didn’t bother to bring the jacket this time, but overall Hide’s thing for button downs persists. It felt classier than one of her military issue shirts.

Hide waited by the bar, much like last time, but took to tapping her fingers against the table to the beat of the music that played.

Hide was perhaps left to her own devices at the club on her lonesome for some time, left wondering if her date was even going to show up at all or she was just going to have the company of the solely the music without a dance partner.

"Hey, samurai-san, do you want to buy me a drink?" a voice called out from behind her.

That person would turn out to be Eriko, who was dressed in a stylish grey-blue robe-inspired outfit.

"I think I'm getting mighty thirsty just standing here all night," she smirked at Hide.

Being left to her own devices for so long did make her feel a bit anxious. By the time Eriko had come up behind her, Hide’s foot was tapping, and it was not to the beat of the music. As Hide heard her voice, that nervous energy dissipated instantly. She turned her entire body to face the Kuni and a warm smile spread across her lips.

“Of course. Wouldn’t want such a fine woman to go thirsty all night.” She leaned against the counter in this overdramatized fashion, in such a way that one would confuse her for an Ikoma. “Got any preferences?”

Eriko gave her a small smile and rested an elbow on the counter, although she didn't go all in as Hide had done. "I think I could really go for some top-shelf red fungi shochu when I think about it, especially when the med are slowly weaning off of me."

"Careful, don't try to get too cozy with that counter or people might think you're going to get real friendly with it," she joked regarding her style of counter leaning.

“Top-shelf, huh?” Hide stood up straight and motioned to the bartender to bring over a couple of drinks. Definitely a ‘make it two’ kind of deal because it sounded better than a low quality cocktail. “Oh that would be very rude of me. Making friendly with the bar when there’s such fine company beside me.”

The Matsu glanced to Eriko, as she had heard something that really caught her attention. “What meds? Is something wrong?”

Eriko continued as if she didn't hear the question and gave her a casual look over. "So...is this the shirt you went shopping all day for before you made it out here tonight or do you just own this many shirts to hit the club? I'm kind of surprised you aren't collection club points around here by now? Do you think you have enough to trade for a bottle of the whole stuff? That would be really swell too."

Hide gave the bartender a look before requesting the entire bottle as well. She wasn’t hard to convince.

“...I actually do collect these shirts. They make me feel classy without going overboard.” Hide looked down at one of the few shirts she had picked out while shopping the day prior with Ichika. “I also got dressed up by a Crane and she kind of sold me on buying something nicer, but I didn’t want to go out in the gross heat that came out of nowhere. I learned my lesson last time about jackets on this planet. Also, she tried talking me into a kimono but that’s like the last thing I want to wear on this planet.”

Eriko’s evasion of the topic did not go over her head, so the concern lingered.

"Shirt collector, huh? You know, you could have spoken up more regarding Ujina-sama's poor shirt situation. I think he might have run off to the local department store to find himself something nice. Something should get a party to find him before the miai's over. It looks nice but maybe you should have considered a kimono," she smirked slyly at Hide, "they say there's a festival coming here, the one where the two lovers meet once per year?"

The bartender would return with the bottle. It seemed the alcohol that Eriko had in mind was shochu with a distinct red colour. The bottle was squared and made with frosted glass, the handwritten label on it would indicate this was something that was made in limited batches to hold this sort of prestige. Two shochu glasses were placed on the counter and the bartender would carefully pour them both one with ice in it.

"Top shelf stuff, let's hope I actually appreciate it."

It looked decent enough. Maybe Hide would forget that it was made from her worst enemy: fungus. But it would be the blood of her enemies made into a nice strong alcohol. Might as well enjoy it? She took the glass closest to her, holding it out in a ‘cheers’ gesture. “They find so many things to make with mushrooms here, huh? I’m never going to want to eat one ever again after I leave.”

When Eriko mentioned the festival, the gears started to move in Hide’s head. “So... If I get myself a kimono... Would you consider going to the festival with me?”

"Ah-ah. Hey...careful now. Don't just gulp this like you're drinking a can of Washi Lights, even if you went out of your way to get a whole bottle for some crazy reason," she quickly called out when she saw that Hide was doing the toast gesture. She leaned forward and intercepted her drink with her own drink, placing it atop of hers, "Let's do this right and make a toast out of it. Something good has to come out of mushrooms, don't you think?"

“Hey you said you wanted me to get the whole bottle!” Hide glanced down to the glasses as a smirk started to form on her lips. She was taking this in good humor, however, her tone less defensive and more amused. “Well, I guess you’re right about a good and proper toast. Got anything special to say for the toast?”

"Just because I wanted you to, doesn't mean you should have. There's a bit of a difference that you're going to have to start learning in that smart head of yours. You must know me that well but you've hung around me long enough to know how I might make some decisions around here," she gave her a wink, "that said, kind of happy that you have a bottle here but I think this is something you should nurse on the next few days. Shooting this stuff is a real waste unless you had a bad day..."

"I think you're supposed to be the speaker between the two of us? You got something special to say," she said as she looked at her expectantly.

“It’s almost as if you’re giving me cryptic advice that may be useful in the future. Did we have a Dragon at the miai all along?” Hide grinned, her tone teasing. “What I’m getting from this is that I should be a little bit more level-headed to temper the decisions of someone a little on the rash side? Sounds like a tall order, there.”

She held her glass up as she cleared her throat. “Okay, I admit I’m only passable at these toast things. But honestly, I have to be thankful for some of the little things that have kept me plugging on at this here miai. And I’m most thankful, though, that you agreed to meet with me tonight. So, I guess this one’s to you, Eriko-san.”

"That's pretty useful advice, I'd say. Probably something that would come straight from my sensei. Maybe one day it'll be useful if you run into someone with a rash side," she shrugged, "but it could even be useful around someone as careful as me, don't you think?"

"You make it sound like they're making you do menial work here, Hide-san," she chortled at that, "and you're really making me sound like I was a celebrity or something. You know that you have my number. But hey, it's a pretty adorable toast and I'll take it."

"Kampai!" she cheered before taking a sip from the shochu. The shochu was exquisite top-shelf alcohol, as Eriko would say. There was an earthly fragrant flavour that wasn't too overpowering and that allowed it to go smoothly when served in a glass with ice.

Hide couldn’t help but smirk at Eriko calling herself cautious, albeit probably jokingly.

“Kampai!” Eriko had chosen pretty well, couldn’t even tell it was made from mushrooms! Hide was definitely going to take her time and enjoy this drink.

“You might joke about menial tasks, but they had us makin’ tea serving drones yesterday.” Hide not-so-fondly thought about Vending Machine and it’s annoying voice. “They let some people keep their’s. Mine was too much of an abomination to let live.”

Then, Hide felt her comm buzz in her pocket, which brought out an exasperated sigh as she fished it out and took a look. “I am so sorry about this... Oh, it’s Yul.”

Eriko set down her glass and smirked at Hide, "That's a pretty goofy exercise. It is like what passes for arts and crafts around here to keep us busy? I'm sort of glad that I missed it but maybe if I did all of the events here, I would be less likely to find myself accidentally getting in trouble..."

She frowned when she felt her communicator buzz as well. While she didn't want to answer it, she just had to, in case there was something worthy of her concern. She opened her purse and took a glance at it, "Hmm, me too...what's he's saying now?"

Eriko inched closer to take a look at Hide's communicator, assuming it was the same message, "he hates my guts or something?"

“Why in the world would he hate your guts?” After giving Eriko a puzzled look, Hide took a look at what was on her comm and was more than fine with Eriko scooting in closer to her to see the message.



“I have no idea who that is.” Hide said with a slight frown. “But he sent it to all of us.”

She quickly input a reply.

Eriko gave a wave of her hand at the question, the details weren't so important about that, especially if he decided that he was going to message her again.

"Maybe you should have said date and he might give you bonus sympathy," she snickered before getting serious once more, "so...a voice and I get the feeling he isn't talking about that night we did karaoke, he wasn't around to witness that dinner and show. do you think he meant back on the ship?"

“Oh man, you’re right. I just wanted him to know that there’s no conceivable way for me to listen to much of anything right now.” Hide’s comm buzzed again, so she made sure they both could read it again.



Hide tilted her head to the side, “Huh... I haven’t been focusing on that kind of thing.” She then turned her attention back to Eriko. There was the slightest frown visible on Hide’s lips. “Want me to tell them you’re similarly not in any position to find a voice clip?”

"We're not exactly at the library at the moment, that's for sure," she smirked before taking a sip from her glass, "it's a mite short notice and we're not exactly at a place of research. Well, I suppose depending on what you call research. I'm sure you've done research here. You're the clever one."