World 2.3

-aaaand I guess we're already here... Andromeda sounds disappointed. Boo. She pouts.

I'm sure we can talk more tonight, Yuri says, then as an afterthought, she adds, I have some more questions for you anyway.

And with that, Yuri returns her focus to her surroundings- most immediate of which is Kaoru just barely finishing tugging her boots off. With a shoe in one hand and one of her feet in the other, he almost resembles Cinderella's prince, for all that he's doing the complete opposite of putting a glass slipper on her foot.

"Thank you very much, Kaoru-sa-kun." Yuri says, probably more polite than necessary. Kaoru looks up at her from where he's knelt on the floor before her, and his face lights up, as if she'd given him something immeasurably precious.

"It's nothing," he says casually. "But still, since you already seem to know my name, may I have yours?"

She tenses up as realization sets in.

Oh crap! I really have been using his name this whole time! This thought is immediately followed by wait- isn't he going to ask how I know? M-maybe later....?

"Yuri," she says stiffly. "J-just Yuri."

Kaoru nods his head. "Yu. Ri." He tries. "Yuri." He tests. "Yuri-san..? Yuri-chan." He nods again. "Yuri-chan. It's cute."

It rolls off his tongue nicely, too- in a way that almost compels him to say nothing else; as if he could only speak one language, with said language consisting of only her name.

Since that would probably come off as weird and off-putting, though, Kaoru keeps this thought to himself.

He stands up and takes a moment to place Yuri's boots by the front door, beside his own shoes, then straightens up.

"I'm going to prepare some snack," he announces as he begins making his way to the kitchen. "Would you like something, Yuri-chan?"

"No- that's okay," she insists.

"Understood," Kaoru calls over his shoulder. I'll just surprise you then, he carefully doesn’t say.

His kitchen is as high quality as the rest of the house, with two marble-topped islands (each with its own sink, not even counting the main kitchen sink), a double-oven, an electric stovetop, a good sized fridge, a separate ice chest (too big to even stand upright, hence why it's a chest instead of a freezer), a walk-in pantry big enough to comfortably fit six people, and more cooking and dining utensils than Kaoru knows what to do with. He doesn’t even know the names of at least two-thirds of them.

(His grandma (whom he barely knew, but who apparently wanted to leave her entire house and fortune to him) must've really enjoyed cooking. Or something.)

Kaoru was, however, able to fill up a decent amount of space, mostly by purchasing at least a little bit of anything edible (or drinkable) that he could think of. If anyone asked, he'd say he wanted to appeal to any and all potential guests (and, well, that's not wrong, necessarily; he just doesn’t get many guests).

Never let it be said that he's not an excellent host.

From the pantry, he grabs a container of cocoa powder, then a second one of sugar.

She looks like a sweet girl, he thinks, so this will probably be fine, right?

Setting them on an island, he opens the fridge and grabs some milk and cream.

Nothing could beat hot chocolate on a rainy day.