Curate, connect, and discover
She exhales quietly, some tension leaving her body. She had gotten herself into this stupid situation, and she didn't want it to end as anything other than a forgotten interaction for both parties. The fact that he drops the mention of money, seemingly conceding with giving her a warning, is enough for her to mostly drop the snarkasm.
"Sure thing," Chiari says, backing up with a nod, hoping she can quickly stroll away from this interaction once he's done. "I'll make sure to not take any leisurely strolls for my sanity around here," she says gesturing in his vicinity. So much for reducing the snark.
"Have a good one..." she turns on her heel, rolling her eyes once she's facing away and makes for the treeline. The sooner she is forgotten, the better.
Kotetsu squints more. He squints even harder. It’s hard to tell if he’s got his eyes open right now he’s squinting with such ferocity.
His lips curl down into a disagreeing pout. His brow furrows. His arms cross.
He’s trying to be a better person. He’s made a pact with himself recently to try and be nicer to people. To make friends and allies!
And… trying to extort money out of this poor woman who’s found herself in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong shinobi on his patrol would surely turn him back to his life of being an antagonist, wouldn’t it?
But it’d be so easy! No paperwork, no record of this lady, AND he’d walk away with some extra spending money!
It’s tempting… it’s so, SO tempting!
“Mnnnnn—“
Kotetsu breathes out the air he didn’t know he was holding.
“Fine!” His inner turmoil dies as he drops his head with inner shame, “just a warning for you this time, Ms. uhh—“ he glances into his book before closing it again, “Ms. Hidaka. But! Now that you know the rules and the laws, make no mistake.”
The tips of his pinky and pointer finger point to his eyes then point at her, oscillating in rapid succession between the two of them,
“We’re keeping an eye on you.”
"Surely not," she says, feigning innocence, all charm and pleasantries now. Whoops. Maybe this is not the time to antagonize.
And then he hits her with little miss and it's painfully difficult to keep her lip from curling with disgust at the phrasing. He's talking about fines and the numbers fly past her without much consideration.
"Going for a walk and loitering are hardly the same thing," she's trying to maintain her casual composure from before but there's the tiniest bite to her tone. "So unless you can come up with a legitimate grievance with me, I'll be off."
He’s squinting alright. He’s squinting real hard.
“Is that snarkasm I’m hearing?” Kotetsu puts his pen between the pages of his notebook and gives it a hard snap closed before resting his knuckles on his hip.
“Listen, little miss, I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but a fine for loitering outside of Konoha’s gates without express permission from the Hokage, accompaniment of a guide, or a notice of travel can run anywhere from 150,000 to 500,000 ryo,” Kotetsu pulls the numbers completely out of his ass as he waves his notepad at her derogatorily. He’s sure the numbers are somewhere in that ballpark…
“So if you can’t produce evidence of a travel notice or a Kage’s signature, I’ve got half a mind to smack a trespassing violation on top of the loitering charge! That’s another 75,000 to 250,000 ryo I’m sure you don’t have right now.”
It is a monumental effort to not roll her eyes when he says he will be the one asking questions. Chiari watches him write down her name with feigned interest, mostly playing along.
"I was told that walking outdoors was good for one's health... so I am aimlessly enjoying a stroll with no destination in mind...is that allowed?" The last bit almost has a touch of snark to it, if he squints enough. Surely she can talk her way out of whatever silliness this was, and next time she'd pay more attention and not drift too close to civilization, particular this area.
Hidaka Kiyori… definitely didn’t ring any bells or set off any alarms. Maybe she really was just an average civilian wandering too far from home.
“I’ll be the one asking the questions here, okay?” Kotetsu squints, pulls a pen and paper from his pocket and writes down her name.
“Where’re you coming from and where are you headed?” For as dorky as he was previously acting he’s now as serious as stone.
Izumo wasn’t here so he’d have to play the Good Cop, Bad Cop routine on his own.
Chiari makes it about three steps before 'hold it' reaches her ears, and the tone, far more authoritative than it was a second ago makes her scrunch her nose up in displeasure.
Fix your face, she chides herself before turning back around with a much more pleasant expression.
"Hidaka Kiyori," she says smoothly, as if she didn't just pull that name out of her ass. She can't lie - picking a name, a new persona whenever she had a random interaction was a bit amusing. "And don't worry, I definitely fit the passerby description." She pauses and then decides to mess with him a little. Just a little won't hurt.
"And what do I call you?"
...
Damn.
She got him good.
His face turns a handful of shades pink at the embarrassment and he takes the moment to look away from her and straighten out his flak vest. He smooths his palms over the front of it then taps on the pouches on each side.
"Right, well," Kotetsu mumbles as he thinks, clears his throat, and watches her start to walk away, committing her face to memory as best he could. Has he seen her before...? Maybe not. He squints an eye and cocks an eyebrow at the back of her head,
"Hold it," his tone is as solid as cold steel, "I'm gonna need a name. It's my duty to this village to report any and all trespassers and passersby. It's standard routine stuff."
Chiari acts mock offended, pointing at herself and mouthing the word me with emphasis. She even looks behind herself as if to intimate that surely he is addressing someone else. While this act is occuring she's eyeing him, trying to figure out if this is a situation she needs to make a hasty departure from. It seems like something she can talk her way out of.
"Isn't clearance to exit the village only required for people from the village?" She says this casually, with a wave of her hand, as if it's not a big deal. Internally she's cursing herself for having gotten lost in her own thoughts and wandering too close, but he won't know that, and it's been years since she's been around here so no one would be any the wiser if they spotted her. "Sorry, no ID - I'll just be going," she takes a step back and twirls on her heel to head away from the man, the village, everything she'd tried to forget. Easy enough, she thinks. He's got a post to guard, he won't follow too far.
Kotetsu points at her with all the authority of a child wearing a police uniform for Halloween, "Do you have clearance to be outside of the village gates right now!? There's some very dangerous people out here young lady and it's the gatekeeper's duty to make sure every shinobi and civilian both entering and leaving the village for aaaaaaaaany purpose is accounted for!" He puts his hand back on his hip and squints his eyes. God he loves ribbing people. Best perk of his job by far; legal allowance to be a complete pain in peoples' asses.
"I'm gonna need to see some ID, miss! Pronto!"
@haganekotetsu continued from here:
The shinobi had run into the woman during one of his routine checks. Just on the outskirts of Konoha, doing his daily patrol duty as one of the gatekeepers. "I dunno," Kotetsu shoots back the same exact expression he's been given and puts his hands on his hips with a pointed flare of sass, "Are you?!"
Chiari is studying him, noting the mirrored expression, with the addition of hands on hips and she tries to not laugh, just a little.
"I was just out for a stroll - is that not allowed?" She gestures around herself to point out the obvious pleasant weather, light breeze included. It does occur to her that she's unintentionally wandered a bit too close to the village, but no matter - it's not like she was doing anything suspicious.
“I’m just trying to figure out why you’re here.” from @haganekotetsu 👀
Chiari freezes in place for but a second, turning to look at the man with a look that says excuse me. "Am I not supposed to be here?"