DRAGMANTICAR: A Valentine's Day Exalted Datequest

You shrug. "Actually, let's go take a bath. The tour's not that all important, you can tell me about the rest of the school layout anyways."

"What about Ritani-laoshi?" Six asks, but you see her already packing up bathing supplies. "You probably don't want too blow him off."

That's true. You put a hand up to your chin and think. Hm. "He's coming back around, isn't he? Can Kalenti-senpai carry a message for me? If it's not too big of a trouble for her, that is."

Six purses her lips and after a moment, shrugs. "I don't see why not. I mean, she's the manager isn't she? This is kind of her job."

"Cool, cool." Six tosses you a towel and you snatch it out of the air. You quickly transfer it to your left hand just in time to catch in quick succession the bottle of shampoo and bar of soap Six toss to you next with your dominant. "Then I guess let's ditch the rest of the tour."

The two of you softly close the door and scamper down the stairs, like it's a stealth mission. Six convinces you of the necessity; if anyone else finds out that you're going to the hot springs they'll insist on joining you, which will make the ensuing bath extremely awkward. You find it certainly strange that they'd insist on bathing in groups (Is this a boarding school thing?) but you don't doubt her experience.

When the two of you step foot on the ground floor, Kalenti-senpai and Sesus Marsa are still chatting animatedly. Or at least the Sesus is chatted animatedly. Kalenti-senpai just seems to be nodding every so often. She's looking straight at the Sesus though, or at least on her hugeass eyebrows, so you guess she's paying attention?

"and then I grabbed her in a chokehold and she tapped out after like a minute. I mean she was pretty good-"

"Excuse me?" You venture forward to interrupt Marsa's animated storytelling. "Kalenti-senpai?"

"Eh?" Kalenti doesn't bother to turn. Instead she twists at the waist and careens her neck to glance at you out of the corner of her eye. "Who are you?"

"I'm Five," You start to say.

"Five?" Kalenti cuts you off. "No, no you definitely don't look five."

"No, I mean Five is my name," You explain. "I mean, my name is Five, and my sister is Six? That's also her name, by the way. I'm a first year who's moving into the dorm."

"Oh, okay." Kalenti draws herself back up to her full height and out of that terribly uncomfortable looking position. She glances at Sesus Marsa, who nods at her, before turning to face you full. "Right. I'm Cathak Kalenti. I'm the door manager, though you probably knew that. Is there something you need?"

"I uh, I wanted to know if you could pass on a message to Ritani-laoshi," You humbly request. "He was showing me around for a tour, but I met my sister, and I wanted to end it early because she invited me to do something...?"

Kalenti licks her lips. "Ritani-laoshi... as in the calligraphy instructor? He's tall, well built-ish, kind of scruffy looking?"

"Yes." You nod eagerly. So she knows him. "That's him."

Kalenti grins. Her teeth are unusually sharp and pointed, and you can't help think it sort of gives her the appearance of a shark. "No problem. Leave it to me."

You bow and repeat your thanks, before silently withdrawing. As you leave you can hear Kalenti asking Marsa if she would mind accompanying the Cathak to do... something.

You take off your slippers, slide them away, slip your shoes on, and find Six waiting for you at the exit. She waves as you as you pace up next to her. "So, she agreed to take the message?"

"Yeah." You smack Six's hand as she attempts to scruff up your hair. She pouts a bit. "Apparently she knows him."

"Huh, that's interesting." Six tosses her shampoo bottle back and forth between her hands from left to right and back again. "Maybe she took one of his classes?"

"Maybe." You shrug. You really don't know enough about her to make a conjecture. Something about the class Ritani-laoshi teaches bubbles its way into your head, and you remember something interesting you heard earlier. "Oh right. Speaking of which, I heard you signed up for a calligraphy class?"

"Huh?"

Six freezes three steps ahead of you. You walk by her without bothering to slow down and as she watches you go she eventually shakes herself out of her shock and chases after you.

"Hey!" She smacks on you the shoulder. You say ow reflexively. "Where did you hear that?"

"Well you're in Ritani-laoshi's class aren't you?" You point out what seems kind of obvious to you. "I heard it from him."

You don't add on the implied 'duh'.

"Oh." Six blinks and falls silent.

You let the lull drag on a few beats and then pry further. "So why calligraphy, actually? You're not usually one to sign up for stuff like that."

"That.... well.... I've never really been good at stuff like that." Six blushes like it's something shameful. You don't think it is, though. To you, that's just Six. Her weaknesses, her strengths, she's who she is. "You know, tearoom ceremony, calligraphy, politics mostly. I kind of want to patch that up. I can't just have a glaring weakness like that."

"Sure you can." You respond flippantly. Six gives you a surprised and slightly confused look. "I mean, if you have weaknesses, I'll be there to cover for them." You point out. "Just like you'll be there to cover for mine. We're twins."

Six smiles at your words, but it seem sort of bittersweet. "We won't be twins forever, Five. One day, you'll have to get married, and I'll have to start my own household. Your wife will be your partner then. Not me."

...it's this then. That thing they always told you was a part of growing up. That one day you'd have to let go of your siblings and embrace your new family, that you couldn't stay with your twin forever.

You have to admit, you don't like it. You don't like it at all.

The bathhouse is located a bit up the side of a small mountain. There's a flight of little stairs carved into the rockside, and you and Six race up it, a bit of sibling competitiveness dripping into the endeavor. She wins, of course, she always wins at this sort of thing, but you make a good show of it so even she's breathing hard by the time the two of you collapse against the sides of the giant wooden gateway that sits at the top of the stairs. The actual baths are not connected to the bathhouse, but a series of wooden huts, each leading to a series of hotspring fed pools. You wait at the gate while Six scopes out the baths.

After a while of pacing across the entrances she picks one. "That one." She points at the hut in question. "I think there probably won't be anyone in there."

"Really?" You follow her in the hutt. There's a little place for you to put your shoes since you're not barbarians who wear the same shoes outside and inside the house, and then another room further inside for you to put your clothes and your fresh changes of clothes. "How can you tell?"

Six shrugs. "A guess mostly. But seniors mostly go to the springs farther up and they're the only ones who'd really have free time right now. If there's someone already in we can always just pick another one, yeah?"

...you suppose she's right. Though it feels a bit shakey, to be placing something this important on a guess. You and Six shrug off your clothing in secondary room. Six of course, marvels at the outfit that One chose for you.

"Why do you have like three belts on this thing?" She tosses the belt that hung from your shoulder up and down in her hands. "Like what's this one for?"

You glance over at it. Oh yeah that one. "It's a holster," You explain. "Sailors in the south sea use them to hang firewands. And other stuff too, sometimes."

"And the other two are also firewand holders?"

You shrug. "Sometimes."

"How many firewands can one person possibly need?" Six throws the belt into the rack-box you're usually to store your dirty clothes with an exasperated sigh. You don't know why she's getting so worked up over something she brought up herself.

"You'd be surprised," You dryly comment to Six. Though actually, the discussion over clothes reminds you of something you forgot to ask Six before you came out. "By the way, did you bring spare clothes for me? My luggage hasn't been unpacked yet."

"Yeah, I got you some of my spare stuff." Six waves you off. "Just casual clothes and stuff. Don't worry, it'll fit."

She grumbles a bit after saying the last bit. Something about the chest area being too tight or something along those lines.

After the usual ablations, scrubbing the dirt out of your hair and entire body really with soap, rinsing the now filthy soap foam off, etc, you and Six creep into the open air baths. Six goes in first and, after scoping it out, drags you in. Her guess was on point, you can hear people talking in the upper pools, none near you. It's empty except for you and Six.

Six plunges straight in, splashing hot spring water all about. For your part, you gingerly step in. First acclimating your toes, and then dropping in wholescale. You sigh as you feel the warmth of the hot spring soaking into your bones.

It's only been like half a day, but it feels like it's been forever.

TALK WITH SIX
[ ] Her ambitions
[ ] Her friends
[ ] Her experience
[ ] OR NOT???

QN: @Estro convinced me to bring this gutter trash quest back. Now you can blame both @TenfoldShields and @Estro. Yay!!!