After they had been escorted up to their room, Kurt barely had time to change and get changed, before a tray with hot tea and two bowls of miso soup was carried in by a young Oni.
“I am so glad you returned safely.” She said as she placed the tray on the table in the middle of the room. “We don’t have much warm food on hand at this time of the day, so will sadly have to settle for some Miso soup.”
“That’ll be fine.” Eva says as she kneels down at the table, “though how long were we out there?”
“Only the night at most.” The young woman replied as she got back up. “We first noticed your absence when no one was here to be served dinner.”
“I see. Thank you for the food.” Eva says before taking a sip of her tea. Kurt too, just dropped onto the cushion on the other side of the table and began to enjoy the warmth of the provided food.
“So,” Kurt began half way through his bowl of soup, “what next? Not sure I’d want to get drugged again in the baths.” He then let out a frustrated sigh, “and that much free alcohol wasn’t going to result in anything good either.”
“Mhm.” Eva nodded after putting down her own bowl. “Definitely need to find out if there’s a way to stop shit like this with magic. Though first I really want to figure out how this suddenly works.” She finished as a ghostly blue flame flickered into existence in her palm.
“Why? If it works now, isn't that good enough?” The Werewolf inquired, perplexed.
“No, because I have no idea why or how it suddenly just works.” The Kitsune ranted. “And that after spending days practicing with no idea how to make it work.”
“You ever considered if just not thinking about it is why it now works?”
“But what if there is more to it?” She countered before bringing her bowl of soup back up to her mouth to finish it.
“Well how about we just enjoy the pool we got on the room’s balcony today then?” Kurt offered after taking a sip of his tea. “You can try and figure that magic stuff out, and I can simply relax.”
With her mouth currently full of soup, Eva simply gave a short nod.
~~~
Saturday evening found a frustrated Kitsune resting on one of the wooden loungers on the balcony. Eva had luckily quickly figured out how it allowed for adjustment to be comfortable for patrons with various configurations of non-human extremities such as a quartet of tails.
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What she hadn’t figured out yet, is what led to her newfound pyrokinetic abilities. Throughout her day of making little fires dance, and form a burning, barely accurate, Eiffel tower, to her frustrations it seemed that Kurt might have been on to something. As far as she had been able to determine, any of it involved as little conscious thought as moving her arm.
Kurt meanwhile, had made the most of the bath, and been lounging in the hot water all day long. Albeit with breaks to grab something else to read every now and then.
They had eaten Lunch in their room, which wasn’t too different from the day before, this time serving Gyudon as the Donburi[1] part of the meal rather than Oyakodon.
And the loud knock on the room’s door indicated that dinner was about to be served. As the only dressed one on the balcony, Eva reluctantly got up and went to open the door.
To her surprise there wasn’t just one member of staff there, but three. One was carrying what looked like a weird pot or something, Eva was not able to figure it out. The second held a small basket of coal in one hand, and a large wooden bowl. Although the bowl had a lid on, Eva could still clearly identify the cooked rice by its smell. The third one carried two large plates, one filled with cuts of meat. It looked like it was all from the same animal due to the near identical color, but she was not sure what it came from. Her best guess was ‘not poultry’. The other plate was filled to the brim with sliced veggies and mushrooms. Sitting in the middle of that was a small pitcher with a dark brown sauce.
“Ah good evening.” The Oni carrying the grill began. “Tonight we are serving you a popular dish from the north of Japan.” The trio then quickly moved past Eva to lay the things they carried down on the table, with the coals off to the side from the food.
As what the Kitsune might have thought the lid of a pot was lifted from the strange contraption, the fact a few coals were dropped in and set a flame meant it was some kind of small table grill.
“While the coal gets prepared, let me explain it to you.” The same Oni addressed Eva. “Once the grill is hot, you simply grill your own cuts of mutton. You can then also add from the prepared selection of vegetables, but we’d recommend grilling some meat first, so the rest will take some of the flavors from the juices of that.” Waving to the basket of coals she continued “You’ll probably have to add more coals once or twice depending on how fast you are eating. Please take care not to burn yourselves. We’d also advise against using magical flames instead, unless you are very used to cooking with them.”
“Ah sure.” Eva replied a tad overwhelmed when Kurt stepped in from the balcony after having put on his yukata again.
“What drinks would you like with your meal?” asked one of the younger Oni that had set up the grill. “I’ll be right back with them. Probably even before the grill is hot.”
“Just some sparkling water please.” Eva says as she sits down at the table.
“An Asahi for me please.” Kurt says as he walks over to the table.
“Of course, I’ll be back shortly.”
Indeed she returned with their drinks shortly before the grill was hot enough to begin. Once the grill was ready, the staff left them a small bell to ring if they should require more drinks, or someone to clean up once they were finished.
“Well then let’s dig in.” Kurt suggested before picking up the first piece of meat and dropping it on the grill. The sizzling sound it made immediately making both of them that much more eager to get a taste.