Rico, seemingly undaunted by Carina’s skillful use of overtly unbearable cuteness, briskly ruffled the little girls hair once more before walking down to the end of the hall. In truth, it wasn’t that he was so cold to her affection…but rather, he was just really hungry, having no so much as a snack the entire trip home to Los Apagos. Of course, now that he was here and he had nothing else to do but ponder the fate of himself and the girl, Rico decided filling the void in his stomach took top priority over finding an immediate replacement guardian. “Well, common then,” Rico called back to Carina. “If there’s one thing I know how to do right, it’s pick a burger joint, baby!” The sergeant sounded rather proud of his own self-made award.
As he neared the front door, Rico casually reached his hand over to a small framed photograph hanging on the wall…but paused just before touching it. He threw Carina an momentary, intense glare, assessing just how much of a threat it would be if she knew what he was about to do. After a few seconds (and another glance around the house to make sure nobody else was around), Rico shrugged and removed the framed photograph. Hanging on the nail that was originally holding the picture up was a small key ring, holding a single silvery key. Rico snatched it, pocketing the item before carefully replacing the photo.
Not bothering to explain his actions or what exactly the key was for, Rico opened the door and nodded outwards towards the street, expecting Carina to follow through.
Carina was all smiles at the prospect of finally getting some honest to god food in her belly. Her father's enthusiastic attitude about being able to find a good burger joint was enough for her at present. Even if it wasn't all that good, she wouldn't care as long as it was filling. Her little tummy mewled the empty feeling in her gut causing her to rub at her stomach as she trotted along after Rico, only being momentarily repulsed by the glare he'd directed towards her seemingly for no reason at all save to pick up a key.
Rico closed the door behind him (leaving it unlocked, just like he always has) before beginning to make the trek across the street. Core was beginning to set behind the tall buildings and hanging highway overpasses, setting most of Los Apagos in a dim orange light. Normally a Nepleslian street would be extremely busy this time of the evening, but Rico’s block of houses resided on a single dead-end road, making mainstream traffic more of an afterthought than a problem. He and Carina continued on, walking a few blocks away from Rico’s childhood home towards their unspecified destination. The sergeant scratched at his uniform jacket, wishing he had taken the time to change before leaving. Rico shrugged, and continued on, checking to make sure Carina was still in tow.
The little girl was indeed still in tow, walking along at a brisk pace to keep up with her father's longer stride. As the light of the sun began to wane, she however grabbed hold of one of his hands as he looked to see if she was still there.
A little further down the road was a familiar looking cab, it approached at a legal speed until stopping abruptly. A fit of yelling ensued from within the vehicle, which resulted in a woman with green hair stepping out of the vehicle. "Yeah? Well fuck you too!" yelled the angry green-haired woman as she stepped out and started to walk off. The Cab let out a loud honking noise, which caused the woman to groan loudly, turn around and throw what seemed to be the fare into the driver side window. With that, she stomped off down the street, towards Rico's direction. As she approached closer towards his target of crossing in the orange light of the sun, she could be recognized as Suku Matsobuki.
The woman had taken the shuttle to Los Apagos after making a short visit to her brothers in Roger Wilco. At the end of the street, was her eldest brother's, Wii Matsobuki, house. It seemed in her anger, she had failed to notice the man crossing the street as she continued to stroll down the sidewalk.
“…you’ve gotta be shittin’ me.” Rico said rather loudly as he watched a very familiar figure emerge from a taxi further up ahead, verbally berating the driving in a remarkably familiar fashion as she left. Despite the short length of time and the relatively mutual understanding of the relationship (or rather, lack thereof) between the two, Rico still felt naturally inclined to avoid girls whom he viewed as ‘trouble cases’. However, the sergeant couldn’t just run away; in the distance, further down the sidewalk, Rico could spot his goal…a lone house on the corner with a closed garage. Having come this far, Rico began to think quickly about how he could avoid the angry green-haired Geshrin and still get himself a helping of hamburger from his favorite restaurant.
Rico halted to a stop as the answer came to him with a soft, fluttering crumple. There, below his foot, was an old discarded newspaper page, most likely left by its owner to join the rest of the street refuse on a one-way trip to the waste management facilities. Rico had a new destiny for this old newspaper, however, letting go of Carina’s hand and quickly picking the paper up, unfolding it and positioning himself to read it as he walked. His perfect disguise attained, Rico continued to walk on the right side of the cement walkway, listening intently and hoping the approaching footsteps quickly begin to fade away behind him.
Carina simply stared at the little scuffle between woman and cabby. The loud yelling, the cursing...the throwing of fare... In reality, it didn't really bug her considering where she'd grown up on Fortuna as well as vague memories of other places she'd lived. The little girl then looked to her father as he spoke, and the look on his face, as if he knew that person. It was when he grabbed the newspaper, and was trying to use it to hide himself that she simply looked between the two, curiosity pique'd in regards to this, and her father simply trying to hide himself from the seemingly volatile woman. Either he thought girls were icky, like the boys her age usually did, or something bad had happened between them to cause this. Carina tugged at the loose sleeve's clothe along the elbow of his uniform, and pointing to her. "Papi? Papi? Why are you hiding from the loud lady with the pretty green hair? Are you afraid of her, Papi?" She asked, actually pointing towards the woman as she looked from him, to her, and back.
Suku stopped abruptly when she heard 'pretty green hair'. She looked at the young girl pointing directly at her and then a man who seemed to be a little too into a newspaper. Even though, something had been said about her, she didn't exactly say a thing just yet.
Rico had to concentrate all of his willpower to avoid immediately biting his very tongue from his mouth as Carina utterly ruined his perfect disguise. ”SHH! Shut up!” The suave sergeant glanced down, an abrupt whisper hissing from his mouth as he continued walking, the newspaper still in front of his face.
Carina continued staring at the green-haired woman, and to her father. The hissing whisper only made her face scrunch up into a pout that made her eyes watery.
Suku had already had enough, she huffed and walked up to the two. She looked down at the girl for a moment, seeing a little reason in making her quiet down. It was impolite to point to strangers, her own father hammered this in her head enough. Then again, she wasn't very polite. "Uh, hey, why are you crossing the street while reading the newspaper with your kid in tow? You could get hit by a car or somethin'!" Suku piped at the crossing man.
Stopping his slow, careful stride, Rico swallowed hard as he stared into the newspaper. Although he couldn’t see her, the sergeant guessed that Suku had stepped in front of him…this would make continuing to walk much more difficult. Rico looked around for an answer that could possibly get him out of this situation. “Umm…” Rico answered Suku in a deeper voice than his usual one. “...this is a good story.” Rico grimaced as he forced himself to give the half-assed answer, suppressing the urge to take a hand off of the paper and clasp it over his forehead in anguish.
Carina looked up at Suku and gave the woman a cute little smile before looking to Rico, figuring he was just more or less embarrassed. She however just kept her trap shut right now, watching the man becoming rather awkward it seemed.
Suku caught Carina's smile, and couldn't help but smile back at the young girl. Though, her gaze quickly picked back up to the newspaper reader. The fact that he didn't even pull his newspaper down to look at her straight and talk was a slap in her face itself. "A good story, huh? Wassit about, then?" asked Suku, daring this rather rude man to answer her.
Rico fell further into despair, quickly running out of routes to take. With no apparent way to avoid the impending encounter he sighed inwardly, his shoulders rising and falling with the short breath as he prepared to make a different approach. “It’s about some bar fight a few weeks ago on the Davis station,” Rico answered, his voice still a little distorted. “Says the two that started it got away, but looks like somebody got some photos of one of ‘em. In some purple underwear, too. Pretty shockin’, baby.”
Suku almost spat at hearing the story, and about grit her teeth at the mention of purple underwear, until he heard her call him 'baby'. His impoliteness was beginning to steam her, so she shouted out. "Listen bub, where do you get of--...!" She began as she pulled down the Newspaper and the first glimpse of the man's true identity hit her. Her jaw dropped and her eyes widened. "Y-Yo... You...." Suku's hold on the newspaper turned into a fist, crumpling up the top of the paper under her grip.
Carina peered at the pair, just wondering what in the world was going on when she saw a small group of kids off on the lawn of one of the houses they were standing close to. She fidgeted a little bit, personally not enjoying this grown up talk, and slipped off over to the kids, mostly around her age it seemed, leaving the pair be for the time being.
Rico did his best to put on a sly, joking smirk…quite a feat when he fully expected her to throw the fist hovering over his failed disguise at him. After all, it happened once before. “Hey hey, sweetheart,” Rico laughed a little nervously. “Small world, am I right?”
Suku ripped the newspaper from Rico's grip, or if he still held, simply tore out the midpart. Her nostrils flarred as he grabbed his collar and held up a fist. "Alright, Sanroma, give me one good reason I shouldn't embarrass your ass in front of your ki--..." Suku started, then suddenly stopped seemingly in shock, and looked a Carina. After a moment, she looked back at him with a somewhat less angered, and more stern face. "Y-you... 'spawned' something...?" Suku said in astonishment.
Rico’s face flushed. He had completely forgotten Carina was standing right next to him. Impulsively, Rico raised his arms up in a stopping motion. “Whoa whoa whoa, she ain’t my kid!” Rico said. “She’s…a cousin a’ mine. Visitin’ my folks. I was just takin’ her out to get somethin’ to eat,” he said with a nod, looking down at Carina for support, giving her a very strained expression. “Ain’t that right, shortcakes?”
By this time however, Rico would only see an empty spot beside him, and the sound of loud children on a nearby front lawn. Carina was standing there, puffy cheeked as she stared down a boy a little taller than her who more or less seemed to be speaking to her, the other kids more or less ignoring the two.
"Oh? So why'd she call you 'Papi'?" Suku jerked Rico's collar again, and pulled her fist closer to his chin.
As Suku pulled at Rico’s collar, the military-suited Nepleslian’s smile briefly vanished as he grasped her hand, pulling it off of his overshirt and pushing her back a step. Apparently, he wasn’t in his usual mood for her antics…but this didn’t stop him from resuming his smile after he was done silently conveying his ‘back off please’ message to her. “Her real dad ain’t around anymore. She’s called me ‘Papi’ for a long time…don’t bother me much, so I don’t tell her to cut it out,” Rico lied expertly, taking advantage of the fact that Carina was luckily not within earshot to disprove his claims.
"You're a lying bitch, I know f'sure you don't have a caring bone in your body." Suku glared at the the man, her gaze intense.