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Tensa curled in his right hand, cupping it within his left, fingers tracing the compass rose shaped scar. Was it imposing too much to pull the foxtail free? He would have imagined it a small favor for the gehaka not to be walking around with grass bits in his hair. There were a few snagged to his clothes as well, but as he was still working, it wouldn't have done much good.

Crouching down swiftly, Riyuyi Tensa began to pack away his things. tools folded into one nook of the blanket, spare parts into another section, and the clock body itself doubled over. The corners of the blanket were tied together to craft a makeshift pouch, in which he carried all his things to the meadow earlier that morning. It wasn't very heavy, so he didn't think to bring a cart or anything.

Tensa grasped the pouch as he stood again.
"Do you mind particularly if I walk with you? I won't interfere with your task."

He waited a moment for the Gehaka's answer, swatting away a large fly that had discovered them.
"I noticed you are not married now, are you currently long term employed?" He motioned to the basket with his free hand.

Tensa's eyes flashed with joviality. Like perfect mirrors, the twin silver orbs reflected whatever was before them, the depths obscured from view. Right now they were the same blue as the sky, dotted with white clouds. His ears twitched slightly as he thought, or perhaps it could still be from the bugs in the air. Fortunately, the cicadas were not out.

He kept pace with the older gehaka, watching curiously the manual labor.
"I never wondered why people bothered with the flower shop. Why pay for the blossoms when you could easily see them for free out in the meadow? I suppose though perhaps everyone might want a little of this natural beauty in their home." Tensa remarked to himself, stopping as Amikai stooped to sever more flowers to touch a lilac flower.

"Do you ever worry about your future?" He asked, settling a calm eye to Amikai, "That perhaps no one might be hiring? It seems like a stressful way to live."

"Truth." He replied to Amikai's assertion, nodding to him. The Gehaka wasn't paying him much mind, but it was fine. At least he was replying. Some just silently worked, and he wondered if it was just from personal taste, tight lipped from being ordered around, or if they were afraid of making a blunder.

He'd seen haka strike errant gehaka for speaking out of turn. He could determine which scars were made by fingernails.

Before long, the basket was full of colorful blossoms and green stems. They looked lovely even undecorated, lying simply in the damp basket. As his eyes drew up to Amikai, he saw the familiar pursed lip expression, and wondered if he upset the Gehaka. His face otherwise indicated nothing.
"Lead the way." He said, falling into step once again, pulling foxtails free of his own dark kimono.

A few steps toward the city and his curiosity was getting the better of him again.
"Do you have a preferance to your work? Is there a task you enjoy particularly?" He imagined this gehaka had little free time to himself, but there must be an assignment that was less arduous. He was very slowly working to a point where he would feel comfortable propositioning this gehaka for work. He was a jack of all trades it seemed.

"Splendid!" Tensa chirped despite himself. So easily pleased, his father had placed gratuitous emphasis on never taking anyone or anything for granted. Everything was appreciated in the Riyuyi households, that is, except for vermin. Mosquitos and flies did nothing benificial to hanze. They didn't even polinate flowers, and maggots were just hideous.
"Then I have made my decision. Whenever your employment for this shop ends, I want you to work in my shop. I am in desperate need of an assistant, as I have been falling behind of late. Do you object?"

The young haka looked up at Amikai with bright eyes. From afar, it would appear they knew each other more intimately than two who happened to meet in the meadow that day.

Amikai looked more serene now, he noticed, than when he first spotted the gehaka. With the faint smile barely curving up his lips, eyes half lidded but not squinted, he did almost look happy. He paused for a half second to tap his sandal back into place over his tabi, but kept an even pace with the Gehaka, though his hand was starting to ache from the weight of his parcel.

Tensa was ever more thrilled to see he had such an impact on the stoic gehaka. Had he some personal aim to stir emotion in the male before him? It didn't matter, though it seemed Tensa was no haka at all. Where were the demands? The cursory scans to determine competance? Where was the snotty disregard for the gehaka's opinion?

Other haka gave Tensa odd looks from time to time, dismissing him as a fanciful and hopelessly distracted hanze. Really, only children seemed to find him facinating, children and unjaded gehaka.

He stopped walking as Amikai did, facing the older gehaka fully, shifting his parcel to grasp it with his left hand. Before he had chance to answer before those deep topaz orbs turned away from him again, revealing his contracted employment was to be terminated that night.

"I confess being curious to see the shop you are employed in, and fancy perhaps making my first bouquet purchase. When you are dismissed, I will show you to my shop."

After a beat, a thought suddenly crossed his mind.
"Amikai, do you have a perminant residence?" It just occured to him this unmarried gehaka might be living on the street!

Well, what good would it do the haka to walk in front of the gehaka to a place he did not know the location of? It was foolish and irritating when he asked to be led somewhere, and the dunderheaded gehaka expected him to somehow magically go there before him. Especially when they were hesitant to pipe up directions.
"I'm glad to hear that." He said absently, sincerely glad this one was not living sub standardly.

"Where then, if you don't mind my asking? Do you keep rent in a hotel?"

Amikai had correctly assumed he had thought the vagabond might have been homeless, but without being married, and without a long term employer-- ah! How foolish he was being! Widowed Gehaka kept what their husbands left them, or he could live in an apartment. A hotel was not the only impermanant residence.

Ten squinted out into the distance, briefly shading his eyes to see how crowded the city streets were today, if it was discernable from the distance.

The sun did not feel so hot in the city, because most of it was shaded by buildings. The absence of the sun on his dark ears felt very good, because of their hue they tended to absorb a lot of heat. His mother once told him had be been a gehaka, his wings would have been black as well, that would be terrible in this heat.

"Oh! Those little things? I've seen them, it must be nice to live right on the river, the moving water has got to keep things cool, and easy access to fishing, no?"

As they waded thicker into the street, Tensa found himself falling further and further behind Amikai. The large red wing of a robust gehaka fell into his line of vision, but as Tensa ducked beneath it, he emerged again to find Amikai out of sight. Suddenly alarmed, he quickly turned to press an inquiry to a smaller haka, who went to swat him before realizing he was both a haka, and of higher rank.
"Do- do you know of a small flower shop nearby?"

He got a solemn shake of the head as the haka continued on his way. A blue eyed Gehaka had no more advice. Someone offered a left turn at the small noodle stand, and Tensa hurried to find Amikai.

He burst out of an alleyway on the opposite side of the bookstore at a fast clip, narrowly avoiding a collision with another fast moving form. Pressing a slim hand to his chest, silver eyes scanned for Amikai, finally spotting him to his left.
"You sure know...How to navigate quickly." He gasped out, seeming more embarressed than angry he'd gotten left behind.