[ PROSPERITY TOSS ] ━━ a common tradition to signify the end of the year and the birth of a new one is to create a bowl of fruits, vegetables, fish, and other fresh foods, and to feast. many restaurants host these during the lantern rite to bring us together !
if this little sun had to be honest, she’d argue that the hype over crabs was lame! why, you ask? well, you couldn’t eat them without breaking them open. they could cut you with their spikes. they had spikes. they could cut you if you broke it open. they had to be broken open. and a whole lot of other complaints that she made sure to add in her rambling, which she directed at the tall, dark-haired man sitting beside her:
“...and klee never knows how to clean them beforehand! did you know you were ‘pose to clean a crab before eating it? like all of the guts and stuff? i mean… i did, but… bleh, anyway, i━━oh. are you done?”
he had to be, since there had been little cracks and pops the entire time she ranted. and, to fill her cup of curiosity, klee put her hands on the table and leaned forward, peering into the smaller bowl in front of him━━taken from where it was beside her bigger, ceramic bowl of fruits and fish ( not that many vegetables. she’d rather not ).
scarlet eyes widened, her mouth agape in surprise. “no way, you broke it so fast! wowww, can you do the others? i…” a pause; guilt blossomed across her face in the slightest blush. thus, klee looked down at her hands, laughing nervously as she continued, “well, uhm, yeah, i have others. like, klee has a lot of others. but she wasn't taking them to waste them! really! she just couldn’t say no to all of the nice guys giving them away…”
however, she smiled brightly, and away went the awkward instinct! “but you’re really really strong, sir, so you’d be fine cracking the rest, right?”
For every one of Klee's frustrated huffs, Wriothesley commiserated with a well-timed groan, and "Is that so?"s weaved in between complaints drew out explanations that reminded him that children, if allowed, lived in a world of fantasy - of monstrous crabs with terrible spikes, and the wars undertaken to catch and cook them. So he merely hummed at the inconsistencies between her stories and reality, smiling to himself as he worked on the task she had presented to him with so much seriousness. She couldn't have possibly guessed that he had cracked crabs when he was her age (her apparent age, that is), or that he had only ever seen them as spiny obstacles to cut his hands on for the Mora to survive another day.
Tough callouses and tougher leather wraps protected his hands now, and Klee's warm, lively chatter made those stormy memories feel as distant as a dream. The table they occupied was tucked off to the side of the balcony on the restaurant's second floor, from which drifted kitchen noise, the muffled hum of lighthearted conversation, and the tantalizing scent of frying spices that hung ever-present over the harbor. Every now and then, Klee's animated storytelling would bump against his shoulder, or rock the table beneath them, and Wriothesley found that his smile was more than just patient appeasement.
With the last joint broken, and its meat torn out and deposited with the growing collection in the bowl in front of him, he leaned back in his chair to let Klee assess his work.
"More, huh?" A glance behind her found the bowls of bright red crustaceans still in one piece gathered near the table. Wriothesley let out a soft snort of laughter, but pushed back from the table to retrieve one of them.
"You got it, Boss."
Choosing the fullest of the collection, he returned to his chair to get to work.
"Surely you're not here by yourself." He plucked one hefty crab from the top and started snapping the legs off, glancing sidelong at Klee. "Are you planning to share this with anyone?"
