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Luke's, Sunday

Mitsutada had agreed to a switch of shifts this week, and he was going to follow through even if he was battered and bruised.

When he'd joked about being 'battered' to the other staff, well, the specials board was finished before he could object.

Today's Specials
Panko Cod Strips
Scotch Egg
Pigs in a Blanket
Pancakes (Mitsutada-Style)

"I don't even know what one of those is," Mitsutada said, blinking at the board. He shrugged, and went about his work. He wasn't going to ask what 'Mitsutada-syle' was.

Luke's was open ~~and OCD free~~.

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Look. Due to one circumstance or another, Summer realized she didn't even realize just how long it had been since she'd had a good Sunday pancake sesh with BDG, because that's how long it had been, and clearly this tragedy needed to be fixed, and so she was making it into Luke's that day even if it meant having to fight off a million gremlins to get there.

Which, thankfully, she didn't have to do.

But there was still one slight hitch, which she discovered with a slight delay as she walked in, started heading over to her usual stool, was halfway about to chirp out a greeting, and then stopped in her tracks and blinked to find Mitsutada behind the counter instead.'

Blinked again. Whipped out her phone from her back pocket to check the date.

"It...is Sunday, isn't it?" she double-checked.

Hey, being a squirrel for a whole week could really mess with your concept of time and space!

"It is, my apologies for any confusion," Mitsutada said with a comforting smile. "It is odd for me to be here on this day of the week, but circumstances led to this being arranged. Did you want food or were you looking for Kanan?"

Well, at least she hadn't lost any days in mix; that just sounded like it would be annoying to deal with, and Summer plopped onto her usual stool, just as much out of habit as anything else, and shrugged. "I was looking for Kanan," she said, "but I also wanted food," because it was Sunday, dammit, "so at least I can take care of that second part, if you don't mind."

She had already started eyeing the specials board, which lead her to dubiously ask, "What's a Mitsutada-style pancake?"

She figured it was going to make a big difference whether or not it was Mitsutada-style by Mitsutada's own hand, or if it was just something the kitchen staff was trying to make in to thing despite literally no one even remotely wanting it to be.

And she had a sneaking suspicion it was the latter, because...well..she knew how those guys were.

"I don't..."

And before Mitsutada could finish what he was saying, there was the staff presenting a plate of pancakes, with a face made of fresh fruit and bacon strips for a mouth, with one small blueberry pancake positioned like an eyepatch.

"...Apparently that," Mitsutada said.

Summer stared at the pancake face staring at her, blinked, looked to Mitsutada, and then back to the pancake.

"Yeah, no," she said, her attention shifting toward the kitchen staff. "I'm not eating a pancake of the face of a guy who's literally right there."

Even when she ate people, she never at their faces.

"It's not even that good," she informed them. "You guys are better than that. Just stick with what works. Get back in that kitchen and get me pumpkin spice and chocolate chip, and don't skimp on the chocolate chips, because if you do, I'm gonna have to come back there and show you how to do it right!"

Listen, yelling at the kitchen staff was just Summer's thing; the person behind the counter wasn't going to change that. But since he probably didn't know that, she just sort of offered him a now sheepish smile and waved her hand a little.

"They're used to that."

Mitsutada had not been expecting that one bit. He was, however, a little impressed.

"Well then, I think you might be more used to doing that than I, too," Mitsutada said. He pushed the plate of Mitsutada pancakes to the side and poked at the eyepatch pancake with a fork.

"You should have done blueberry compote for the hair," Mitsutada said. "Though I'm just glad they weren't impaled on a candlestick, if I'm entirely honest."

Summer was just wondering if this whole person-style pancake was going to be a new theme that the staff would be pursuing, in which case she might have to stop into Luke's a few more times over the week, just to see what they came up with. And if they improved, but then again, how realistic did you really want your people-style pancakes?

But that little kernel of a detail was more than enough to distract Summer from venturing into that line of thinking, quirking an eyebrow at Mitsutada. "Impaled on a candlestick?" she asked. "Is that how you....?"

She trailed off, gestured a finger in the general vicinity of her eye.

It's not like there was a good way to casually ask about what kind of business lurked under a person's eyepatch, okay, but she had to ask.

Mitsutada looked confused for a second, then chuckled after he realized what she was asking. "Oh no," he said. "Technically I never had that eye at any point in this body. When summoned, I was like this. The missing eye mimics that of my old master, Masamune Date. He was called the One Eyed Dragon... often by himself, though it stuck in history. No, the candlestick thing is where I get my name, I'm sorry to say."

"Shokudai means 'Candlestick'. Kiri, cutter. So my name quite literally is Candlestick Cutter, after the time Lord Date got angry and cut through one of his servants with me, and managed to cut a candlestick behind the servant in half as well."

Don't say anything about 'One Eyed Dragon,' Summer...

...thankfully, the rest of it was enough to distract her away from that well enough, what with all the slicing through servants and everything.

"Oof," she said. "Note to self: don't piss off that guy. But now I've got to ask what the servant did to make him angry in the first place."

"You know, I'm not entirely certain," Mitsutada said. "It's been hundreds of years, and you'd think I would know exactly what had caused it all, but sometimes our memories of such events are a little fuzzy. It doesn't help that I burned at one point, that has a sad tendency to mess with our memories."

He shrugged but put on a smile. "Luckily Lord Date is more known for his better achievements than his bouts of anger."

"Well, that's good," said Summer, "except maybe for maybe that servant. And hundreds of years is a pretty long time." Her head tilted, eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "So, how long have you been person-shaped instead of sword-shaped, anyway?"

Was it rude to ask those sorts of questions? She didn't know how any of this worked; all she knew was that it was weirdly fascinating to her. She sort of felt that anytime she came across something for which she'd yet stumble into a frame of reference for, it was worth digging into. He seemed pretty comfortable talking about it, anyway.

"Under two years?" Mitsutada said, thinking about it for a moment. "Or around two years, at least. Not a very long time for being human as opposed to just a sword, but enough to get the hang of it. It's interesting having two entirely different ages, but it turns out it's more how you act than the number of your age."

"That's what I always say!" Summer agreed emphatically, because of course she would, she was eighteen. "But two years doesn't seem that long at all. What's, like...the weirdest thing about being human you've found so far?"

These were clearly very important questions.

"The fact that you can accidentally attempt to breathe your food, because those passageways are linked," Mitsutada said. "It's so weird! It's amazing people don't do it more often, it's so... odd. But, eating in general has been one of the good points about being alive."

"Ohmygod," said Summer, faintly awed, laughing. "That is possibly one of the best answers to that question ever."

Choking on food had not even remotely been on her radar.

"It's so strange you can be bad at a thing you have to do to live," Mitsutada said. "It's baffling, if you ask me, but luckily I was formed with the knowledge of how to do so... at least, with a minimum of errors."

"Yeah," said Summer, head tilting thoughtfully. "It's kind of weird how we just sort of grow up and manage to figure out any of the stuff like that that we wind up taking for granted. And I guess it kind of goes the other way, too, kind of. Like, I just spent the last week as a squirrel, and I never thought I'd ever actually miss having a tail."

Which prompted her to move her head slightly, trying to flick her ponytail a little, and then she shook her head with disappointment in the results. "Just not the same, like, even remotely."

Mitsutada chuckled. "I imagine it would be a particular sensation," he said.

And with that, Summer's pancake order arrived from the kitchen, and Mitsutada set it down in front of her. "Are you now having to find all the places you buried your nuts over the week?"

"Mmmm." Summer looked over the plate with an appreciative hum as it was set in front of her, grinning faintly. "These look good. I feel much better digging into these than an approximation of your face."

Because that was just weird. She hardly knew the guy!

"Thank you!" she then called out to the rest of the staff, leaning slightly toward the kitchen, because she might yell at them all the time, sure, but she showed her appreciation for them keeping her consistently in pancakes, too.

"And, yeah," she added, going right back to the conversation, "those nuts are gone for good now. Maybe one of the radio squirrels will unearth them and have a really good spring, but I'm definitely not going looking for them."

A pause.

"Except the ones I buried in my apartment. I'll be finding those for years, I'm sure."

"That would be my worry. Finding nuts in the spice cabinet, under the sink, in my sock drawer," Mitsutada said. "All sorts of surprise nuts where I don't want them to be."

"...I'm not sure if I should be happy you don't want to eat pancakes that look like me," he said. "I suppose it means you don't wish to hurt me?"

"I mean," Summer reasoned, "you haven't given me any reason to want to yet, right? But, typically, yeah, eating someone's face is general not a thing most people like to do, it's just kind of weird."

"It's weird, you guys," she said a bit louder, literally for the people in the back.

"I thought it was cute, but then again, I suppose I would find it odd to eat someone else's face," Mitsutada said. "Especially if they were talking to me. Either of the faces. Oh no, this has gotten horrifying."

"Now you're gettin' it," said Summer, smirking faintly as she dug into her non-face pancakes. "Here I was afraid I'd have to have them make some that looked like me to help get the point across."

Which, she realized, could also lead to finding out Mitsutada had no problem eating her sort-of face. She didn't know what she'd do with that kind of information, either, but she figured she'd worry about that if it came to it.

"The joys of still being relatively fresh to having a face I suppose," Mitsutada said. "You get bento in Japan, with little animal shaped things often, but that's different than someone you know, now that I think about it."

"Yeah," said Summer. "There's a lot of cute things out there intended to be eaten, but it just gets a little next level when it starts getting personal."

Unless it was a power move. And then getting personal was a must, and this chain of thought was dancing a little too close to someone's people-eating days, short lived as they were, so she just speared another bite of pancake with her fork and twirled it around a little as she brightly chirped out, "Anyway! Here's where I'd try and find something else to talk about, but I have no idea what I would pick!"

Sometimes, being just honest was the best, really.

"I could always leave you to eat in peace," Mitsutada said. "I know I was not your intended company today. Though I have enjoyed getting to chat again."

"It hasn't been a bad surprise," Summer offered with a faint smile. "I've definitely enjoyed it, too."

It definitely didn't hurt that he was kind of nice to look at, too.

Except when he was made of pancakes.

"I'm sure you've got work to do, too," she offered as a possible out for him, although it was Sunday. There was never any work to do, if her usual visits were any indication, anyway.

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Luke's, Sunday

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