Cold-Blooded: A DC Universe Fanfiction (#Wattys2015)

Chapter 18: Slade: Ramen and Reasons

Slade returned to the ryokan, pleased with the results of his meeting. Traveling with Yukie and Rose was going to prove very useful as cover. A man traveling alone, especially a foreigner as distinctive in appearance as he was, attracted unwanted attention. A couple was much less conspicuous, and a family traveling together could hardly be more innocuous. Five jobs lined up for Tokyo and two others, one each in Kyoto and Okinawa. Then there was the big job in North Korea, to which he had not yet committed himself, as it would take several days at least. If he added it on to the end of this jaunt, that would mean leaving Yukie to either spend another week in Japan on her own or fly back to the states alone…

He heard voices, footsteps coming closer down the ryokan's hall. No need to tense up—it was them.

"Hey, Dad!" Rose breezed in with more energy than he'd seen in her in a long time, swinging shopping bags in both hands. She no longer looked, he noted, like a waif who was prepared to hook up with nearly anyone just to have somewhere safe to spend the night. Instead she looked very young and fresh in a blue coat and a white cabled sweater over a dark plaid skirt. Her face was barely made up at all.

"Hello yourself. You look very nice. I take it you had a good time. That's fine, but I'm not sitting through any fashion show," he informed her.

"Who's offering one?" Rose retorted, but with good humor in it. "Let me go stash these and then let's go to lunch. I'm starving!"

Yukie followed, carrying a bag of her own, and judging by the expression on her face he concluded that the morning had gone as well as he could have wanted.

"Now if it's you who's offering the fashion show, I might be up for it," he confided in her while wrapping an arm around her waist and drawing her closer. "Later, with the condition that—."

"I can guess the condition," she interrupted with a smile, putting a finger to his lips. "and I agree. Later. However, all I bought was a new ski jacket."

"With a GPS built into the zipper pull!" Rose returned to the suite. "There's all this stuff for sale here that we don't have in the States yet. Oh, come on! No displays of affection in front of me, okay? I know this is kinda like your honeymoon, and that's good and all, but I'm young and impressionable."

"You were the one who snuck out of the country and flew here to observe how we interact, so no complaining when we do. There's no one as puritanical as the young," he replied.

"Well, somebody has to be! Yukie, what are we doing for lunch? And what about after?" Rose asked.

"For lunch I thought we'd just go to Raishuken for ramen. It's walking distance from here. Have you ever had a proper bowl of ramen, Rose? I don't mean the dried kind from the supermarket. I mean with fresh noodles, good ingredients and broth that tastes of something other than salt and MSG."

"I didn't know there was any other kind," Rose said.

"Prepare to be amazed, then. in Japan, ramen is not junk food or fast food. It is an art form and an obsession. Afterward, we begin our personally guided tour of Haunted Japan with visits to two shrines in the area," Yukie said, leading them out of the ryokan into the frigid air of the afternoon. "That is to say, personally guided by me."

"Haunted?" Rose exclaimed.

"'Supernatural' would be more accurate, but I think 'haunted' sounds better. Do you know what yurei or yokai are and what the difference is? Either of you?" She looked from father to daughter.

"No," Rose replied.

"Not in the least," Slade responded.

"Then I will explain. Yurei are simple to explain: they're ghosts. More specifically, angry or unsatisfied ghosts who want to take it out on people. The sorts of people who become yurei are not those who die in their own beds of natural causes at the age of ninety with their families gathered around them. Their deaths were usually untimely and involved great pain and suffering. Without exception, they had time to form a… 'Grudge' doesn't begin to cover it. 'Dying curse' is better, but not complete, because some are motivated by other passions. Let's just say they died in sufficient emotional turmoil that they couldn't shed their attachment to the world and move along as they should have.