A few hours later, Eva was about to head upstairs again to grab another sack of rice when Asahi called after her. “No need. We’ll be done for the morning after this last pot is boiled just right.” He informed her, the Kitsune barely catching the shake of his head as she turned to look at him.

“And then?” She asks, curious to learn if they would continue in this fashion in the afternoon.

“For today? Not much.” He informed her with a shrug. “After lunch we’ll have our usual fifteen minutes of fitness and stretches. Then we’ll plan out how to proceed the next few days. And maybe lend a hand storing the Koji infused ripe so the fungus can grow nicely.”

“So what do we do until then?”

“Not much. For now we wait on this pot here. Then we’ll head to Lunch with Ms. Satou. I hope you like ramen.”

Not too long later, Eva found herself trailing behind Asahi and Ms Satou. While the late had been polite enough when the Kitsune had been introduced to her, she’d been rather reserved until the foreigner fell a few steps behind. Which was when she started to chat rather animatedly with Satou. Mostly small talk as far as Eva could make out.

The small town they were passing through was quite interesting to observe though, so Eva didn’t mind too much. There was an interesting mix of more recent buildings that, outside of the Kanji on the signs near and on them, could have been from her hometown in Germany just as well, to some older buildings mixed in between that looked much closer to how she had envisioned houses here in Japan.

One of the later had been a small shrine, where Eva nearly tripped trying not to step onto another Kitsune’s tail as it suddenly appeared out of the torii and rushed through their group and then up ahead. She was about to yell after it, until she noticed her coworkers not noticing. Deciding it would be too weird to shout out at, in their eyes, nothing, she took a deep breath to calm herself down instead.

Not much after that, they reached a small ramen restaurant, where a slight hitch in Asahi's idea was revealed. Though once they stepped inside, the waiter at the entrance revealed another issue with Asahi’s idea for their lunch break.

“Ah, welcome Mr. Tanaka, Ms. Satou. We’re a tad busy, but I kept your usual table free.” He greeted the regular customers.

“Oh, actually, could we get a different one today?” Asahi inquired hesitantly nodding towards Eva as she stepped in behind the duo. “I brought a new acquaintance today.”

“Oh ah. You see..” the waiter began to mumble. [1]

“Not even some seats at the counter?”

“Well there’s two, but not together, so…”

“I don’t mind that much.” Eva said, in an attempt to cut through this rather awkward conversation. “You two can just take your usual table. I’d take one of the seats at the counter.”

“Ah yes that would be great.” The waiter said with a nod, before picking up a menu and leading Eva towards the counter. The other two meanwhile quickly made their own way towards the only empty table in the small restaurant.

After bringing the two menus as well, the waiter returned to Eva, waiting patiently for her to order.

“What would be your recommendation?”

“Our Chef is most proud of his family recipe for his miso broth, and usually suggests people take it with an extra egg and extra slices of pork.”

Nodding to herself Eva hands back the menu. “I think I’ll take that then please.”

“Of course.”

As the waiter leaves, the Kitsune could have sworn she could hear Hanako mumble despite having no reason to be here instead of in Tokyo. Still turning around, Eva was left a bit confused until she spotted a young woman chatting with a friend nearby. Writing it off as just mishearing, she takes a sip from the water she’d been served for free and waits for her food to arrive.

When it did, she ate quickly and silently. While it was decent enough, Eva had had better in Tokyo before when going out with Kurt. Soon after she had finished, Asahi came over and let her know they’d need to head back soon. Following him to the cash register, they all quickly paid their bills before heading back to the brewery.

As he had predicted, there was a mandatory fitness exercise of stretches and some light running, before they were dismissed for the day, with only a handful of people staying behind for one reason or another.