Mayumi breathed in deeply, her lips parting in a satisfied grin as the city's vivid scents washed over her. Smoke and oil, human and ghoul, the faint scent of rain on the horizon, rushed to her by the wispy wind raking its fingers through the loose strands of her hair. She'd missed this, the exhilaration of being on the hunt, the thrill of the night heating up her blood.
Of course, in the back of her mind, something terribly sensible told her how wrong this was, but she'd learned long ago how to block out that nagging voice and return herself to the here and now of the night.

She crouched low on the rooftop's edge, hands braced against the rough brickwork. She swept her gaze over the ground below, searching for a target; it was a slow night, unfortunately, with the incoming cold forcing the average street-goer indoors. But she was patient - to a point.

A half hour passed before Mayumi's head whipped around, her nose twitching, mouth already salivating. Prey. She picked them out in the dark, a young woman bundled up in thick layers to ward off winter's chill, head ducked down; Mayumi's eyes were keen enough to pick out the pinkish hue of the woman's cheeks and nose, painted on by the cold.
As carefully and quietly as she could, Mayumi angled herself over the edge of the roof, her kagune ripping free from her skin to wrap around the railing of the fire escape; she swung down to ground level, dropping lightly onto her feet and straightening easily, tucking her kagune away again - all the while reminding herself to keep to the shadows.

The woman, still unaware of Mayumi's presence, carried on down the sidewalk, passing from one pool of light to the next. She seemed to hurry her footsteps whenever she passed into the darkness that bordered the refuge of the street lights, and Mayumi couldn't blame her.

Walking alone at night in Tokyo was dangerous business.

Mayumi worked her way to the mouth of the alley she'd dropped into, her back pressed flush against the building beside her, waiting for the opportune moment to reach out and snatch the women for herself...
"... you do know it's impolite to poach, right?"
Mayumi stiffened, her muscles going taut as she spun on her heel, resisting the immense urge to allow her kagune to make a return appearance. Reckless as she usually was with her meals, she knew enough not to scare off her prey before she'd even taken a bite from them.

She smelled ghoul - but something was off. Mayumi took a step forward, fists held up threateningly before her, daring the shadowed figure to make a move.

"Poach?" she hissed, her voice low. "This territory's been unclaimed forever, ever since Copperhead got taken out by Doves."

From the corner of her eye, she watched as the woman quickened her pace again - the perfect moment, and she was missing it because of this ass of a ghoul.

Her brow furrowed; why hadn't she smelled them before now, though?

Shadows draped down the figure's front, muddling their features into a vague, unidentifiable silhouette. Mayumi sniffed again, her eyes narrowing to dangerous slits. Something was off with this ghoul, but for the life of her she couldn't place the defect.

"Unclaimed until last month," the figure drawled. "When it became mine." 

They didn't move from their position at the mouth of the alley, only shifting to brace their shoulder against the adjoining brick wall of the building Mayumi had recently scaled. Mayumi's lips curled into a biting scowl, her hackles raising at the brazen disregard this ghoul had for her; they didn't see her as a threat, at all.

"Therefore, poaching would indeed be what you're doing. Although, I'm willing to forgive the intention just this once, for old times sake, since you're obviously ignorant of the fact."
Old times sake? What in the hell were they talking about? 

Mayumi cast another longing glance at the woman, and her face went slack with surprise. She wasn't alone now; a man had joined her and they walked arm-in-arm down the street. And Mayumi had been too distracted by the new arrival to notice.

It wasn't that she couldn't take down two humans - it was that she was worried one of them would slip away while she went for the other, and she didn't need news of her revival reaching the CCG's ears. For all they knew, she'd died somewhere in the last year, and she wanted to keep that shield of ambiguity with her for a little longer. After all, if she wasn't causing a fuss, they wouldn't try to hunt her down like a rabid dog.

Mayumi had learned how to toe the line between what brought the spotlight on her and what kept her in the blissful darkness, and she wasn't about to swan dive over that line now just for one meal.

Breathing out a harsh sigh, she spun back to the ghoul, the level of her ire rising the longer she brooded over the fact that he'd cost her her prey.

But... that voice... she had to admit it had a ring of familiarity to it.

It suddenly clicked for her.

"Eiichi... you bastard!"

"What a wonderful term of endearment you use for your best friend," he retorted. "Or, former, I suppose, considering how long it's been since I've heard a word from you." 

He hadn't changed much, in Mayumi's opinion. Same off-blue eyes, same dark-toned hair. He was even practically the same size, in height and build. At least Mayumi had grown in their time apart. 

She crossed her arms over her chest, her fingers curling into the fabric of her jacket; she scowled heavily, brows knitted together in repressed fury.

"This territory is not yours, bastard," she spat. "If it's anyone's one, it's totally mine! Copperhead--"

She bit off the rest of the words, swallowing them down into the pit of her stomach.

If he didn't know who Copperhead was, then she wasn't about to tell him. Mayumi didn't need pity from anyone, especially not scrawny little Eiichi. He must have enough problems of his own as it was.

"And it's not like you tried to contact me, either, you know."

"And how was I to do that?" he questioned simply, nonplussed by her tone. "And would you really have welcomed it? If you'd wanted me, in my opinion, you wouldn't have disappeared in the first place." 

Mayumi bristled at the implication. What right did he have to say that? With what she'd gone through, she hadn't had the chance to call out to him back then. There hadn't been time--

"To finish, the territory is mine. Whatever claim to it you believe you have," he went on, oblivious to her silent fury. "It was lost when I claimed and defended it. You have to defend it if you wish to.keep it, my friend."

For a moment, Mayumi was stunned into silence.

He didn't know? Anything?

Why she left, why she dropped all contact within the ghoul community... hadn't it been obvious at the time? There were flyers everywhere, newspaper articles, there were Doves questioning people in the streets - all looking for Copperhead and Raven, the two newest threats in the world of ghouls.

Then again... Eiichi wasn't the type to concern himself with things that didn't directly pertain to him. If he'd ever even glanced at those papers, or listened in on one of those interviews, once he'd learned it had nothing to do with him, would he have bothered checking to see if it was about someone he knew?

No. Mayumi knew him too well to lie to herself.

He wouldn't have given a damn.

Her temper flared to life again, rippling through her blood like white-hot fire. Her hands clenched into fists, her nails digging so deeply into her palms the harsh tang of blood hit the air.

Goddamn it. Why had she ever been friends with this asshole?

"...Not interested," she muttered, stuffing her hands deep into her fluff-lined pockets and turning sharply to exit the alleyway. "Keep the damn territory, I'll go mooch off Anteiku some more. They like me over there."

She heard his footsteps as he started after her, keeping in time with hers. The blood pooling in her palms burned, chasing away the chill of the night. She didn't bother asking what he was doing - Eiichi did what he liked, and that was that. If he hadn't changed (and even from just this, she highly doubted that he had, at least not in any significant way), then there was nothing she could do about it. 

"Did I do something to piss you off?" he questioned.

Asshole, she mentally swore, exhaling sharply.

"Eiichi," she said, offering him a tight-lipped smile, "at the moment, your entire existence pisses me off. How the hell do you even hunt? You have the body of a malnourished toddler!"

Hurtful? Probably.

Necessary? Not really.

Worth it? Very much so.

"My existence," he mused. "Well, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. You always did have a talent for colorful answers. As it is, I can't change my natural build, you know. I was born with it." He hardly paused before changing the subject carelessly, "Where are you going now? That place isn't open this late, and you are a high-school student unless you've dropped out."

Mayumi knew she wouldn't get anywhere with that silver-tongued response. And it hadn't even been creative. She just wanted to be angry with him - maybe for the sake of being angry. Eiichi was just the sort of person she disliked the most, and yet, for years, they'd been almost inseparable friends. Still would be, in fact, if the incident with Yoshimura hadn't happened five years ago.

It had been a while since she'd let herself stay angry for this long; her current friends couldn't take her ire for very long.

"...home, I guess," she bit out from between clenched teeth, pointedly pulling up her hood to act as a screen between the two of them. She wasn't about to admit to him that she'd forgotten Anteiku was closed for the night; that was why she'd been hunting in the first place. "Or somewhere. I don't know. I'll be up in time for school, though, so don't worry about it too much, mother."

"You'll go to school hungry?" he countered. "That sounds... unintelligent." 

"It's not that big of a deal," she muttered, choosing to ignore the comment about her being unintelligent for now (because she could feel the underlying meaning of his words, and she wasn't in the mood to start a genuine fight with Eiichi). "I can control myself for a day or two before things start to get hazy, and by then I'll have put something away. Nothing'll happen."

She'd had practice with this; she knew her limits.

Nothing would happen. It couldn't. 

"I suppose taking that risk is like you," he mused, and Mayumi bit down harshly on the inside of her cheek to stay herself from lashing out with another retort. "Still, I doubt even you would do something horribly unsafe."

Ugh. Apparently she hadn't made it very clear how off-limits a subject that was.

"Where have you been, anyways?"

"...Around," Mayumi answered, and even she winced at how terrible a response it was. She sighed. "Laying low, mostly."

Again, she was ignoring his barbed words. The last thing either of them needed was to get reported to the CCG for whipping out their kagune in the middle of the city.

"Laying low?" Eiichi questioned, a frown appearing on his lips. "Why?" 

"Shouldn't we all be laying low?" she replied off-handedly, vaguely. "We're ghouls, Eiichi - not exactly seen in the best light, are we?"

She just didn't want to tell him at this point. It might have been pride, it might have been shame, it might have been fear, but something kept her from telling him the truth. She didn't want to know what had happened that drove her into hiding. Eiichi wouldn't care, anyway; he only bothered with her for all those years because she was right there in front of him. And now she was there again, so he engaged her. Were she to disappear again... she doubted he'd be that affected.

And truth be told, she hadn't thought of him that much in those five years - apart from the first one, anyway. 

"And?" Eiichi retorted. "Just because we're ghouls doesn't mean we have to hide. As long as we're careful not to be exposed, we'll be fine. '

"Yeah, but that's the thing, isn't it? I'm not careful. Never been like that, probably never will be. Eiichi. You know that. Right? You've called me a reckless fool often enough,even when we were kids. Niisan and I... we... neither of us were careful, okay?"

That's all she was going to say.

She sped up her pace, practically jogging to get ahead of Eiichi. She didn't know where she was going. It was too late to ask to bunk with Irimi for the night, and, saying she was able to track him down, Yomo wouldn't bother with her. But regardless of that, she just wanted to be done with this conversation - she was too hungry for it. 

Eiichi didn't chase after her this time.