A/N: Yes, yes, this is still alive! Sort of. Anywho, you'll notice here that I obviously love banter. Actual description may be a bit weaker than I'd like, but hopefully the banter is strong? So if you like a bit of witty back-and-forth, you'll like this chapter. If not, welp! At least fanfiction is free, right? :P

Happy reading!

xXx

Chapter Ten: Below the Belt

xXx

The clank and chink of café ware were as light as the chatter hovering about him. French, Tai found, was naturally spoken low, susurrous and blending. To speak it (and speak it well), seemed to require use of the entire mouth. Half of its intonations were spoken from the front, on the tip of the tongue and against teeth, and the other half lay in the back well of the throat.

During his years studying the language, programming his brain to effortlessly manage that switch was one of the most difficult. His mother language was flat, even, quick. But French, like other Romance languages, was lilty, tilted. He recalled the dancer's comment from the night before, about him having an accent when he spoke, and he was tempted to murmur a French phrase into a cupped palm to listen for himself, like a person discreetly checking if he had bad breath.

He was just about to test his theory when he saw the dancer from the night prior enter the café, lifting large, oval sunglass frames up from the bridge of her nose, resting them atop her dark hair.

Shit, Tai thought. He looked away, leaning an elbow on the table and shielding his face with a forearm. His temple throbbed, a micro, excited pulse, and he massaged it, morphing pressure into calmness. He wouldn't have felt like a school boy spotting his crush in public if it weren't for the fact that he had been openly gawking at her dance but a half hour earlier, observing her like a creep from a window.

What the hell are you thinking, Taichi? he mused to himself. You were a creep staring at her out of a window!

"You know..."

Without thinking, Tai lifted his head at the words. The empty chair in front of him was yanked, metal feet scraping across the tiled floor. The dancer stood before him, hand on the backrest of the chair, her lips twisted in a way that seemed to suggest she either didn't know what to say, or she had so much to say she didn't know where to begin. Tai stared on in unabashed embarrassment, heartbeat and heat rising in the vital arteries in his neck. On reflex, he pulled his shirt collar, inviting air to cool off the sweat at the damp nape.

"I'm beginning to think you lied to me the other night," she said.

Tai grimaced. Limply, he raised a shoulder.

"… About?" he asked, calmly.

"Not being a stalker."

Tai choked on his spit. His body bucked forward from the chest up, phlegm catching in his throat. Atop the table his water glass and empty plate rattled from the tremor.

"I'm not angry," she explained, rounding the chair before welcoming herself to its seat. She crossed her thin legs, leaning back and folding her hands neatly over her lap. Her face was completely stoic, straight. "It's happened before—hard to avoid it when you put yourself on stage like that—but it's perfectly manageable. I just need to write up a restraining order."

"Look."

Tai, now recovered from his hiccup, straightened his posture, which he felt inclined to do now that she, for once, was not sitting with a perfectly erect spine. "I know what this looks like, but I'm not..." He cut dismissive motions in the air with his hands. "…This isn't... I'm not stalking you, all right?"

Her green eyes narrowed.

"Were you or were you not peeking into my studio?" she asked.

"I was waiting for a friend," he defended—perhaps too easily for his own comfort. He played off his readiness with a smile, though he wondered if that suggested he enjoyed making excuses for himself. "We were supposed to go to lunch in this area, but things didn't work out. And I sure as hell wasn't going to freeze my ass off waiting outside the Palais."

She had already been squinting at him, but now her suspicion sharpened, to the point where the only parts he saw of her eyes were the reflected dots of light over the irises and pupils.

"And you... somehow found yourself in a part of the Palais typically closed off to the public... again."

"I..." Tai scanned the café walls and windows, seeking in the striped wallpaper and backward lettering in the glass for ideas to an answer he didn't have. All he encountered was a neat and ignorant line of turned heads, none of them facing him—except hers. He drummed his fingers on the table edge. "I… have wanderlust," he said, nearly phrasing it as a question. His resolve strengthened with an even straighter back. "What can I say?"

Her cheek muscles twitched, as if someone had acupunctured the flesh beneath her eyes. The severe frown of distrust warped to one of confusion—or possibly faint disgust. She even looked ugly for a moment.

Tai dared to wait a second longer to check her reaction, holding his smile until his teeth ached, and he was rewarded with a laugh. She exhaled and sputtered, lifting a hand to her lips, blocking both the light, mocking titter and its accompanying spit. As imperceptibly as possible, he edged back, putting himself out of range. At the least, he was reassured that she wouldn't be calling the police on him—for now, at least.

"I am sorry about your lunch date," she said, when her giggles quieted.

Tai shrugged, picking up his glass of water and drinking from it.

"It happens," he said, looking away. "You get a rain check."

"Just don't collect too many." She paused and, without turning around, raised a hand, pointer finger tapping at the air. A waiter instantly came to her.

"Mademoiselle Kurosawa," she was greeted. "What can I get you?"

Before addressing the question asked, the dancer turned to Tai, her voice suddenly dropping to a whisper.

"You don't mind if I order?" she asked.

Tai shook his head, too startled to deny her. He'd be lying if he didn't like having company—any company—after being placed second behind an interview with a red-bearded psychiatrist.

"Go for it."

"Merci."

She turned to the waiter and placed her food order, her fingers animatedly assisting her in giving shape to the meal that would be coming. Tai couldn't help but notice the familiarity between waiter and dancer, how she used the informal 'you' to speak, the quiet laughter issued only between two people who shared insight and jokes.

"You're a regular here, aren't you?" Tai deduced when the waiter left.

"Well, considering it's literally a block down the street from where I work, yes, they know me here. Also, a lot of dance students may work here part time."

"Did you?"

"No. I was…" Her voice trailed, dribbling to a dead end in the form of a cough, which she covered with a fist tapped to the mouth. Her green eyes lifted, peeking at him before seeking something else to look at. Tai followed the shift in her stare. The feet of their café neighbors was apparently more interesting than him.

"I was lucky," she finished, quietly.

Tai's face contorted in curiosity, interests piqued by her cryptic response. Her gaze drifted back to him before he could prompt her for an explanation. It was a look that was unexpectedly intense, but not in such a way as to be daunted by it. Like her posture, her walk, her stare had the power to command, and Tai swore as he looked back at her, the café murmur quieted, faded as if one had water in one's ears.

"So... what?" Tai posed. "You're a prodigy or something?"

She laughed again, her giggle springing out of her mouth, spontaneous and childish.

"No, no, no. I've studied ballet since I was three, but I was by no means a genius at it. What I meant by 'lucky' was that I... I had people take care of me. My parents... my career was as much their dream as it was mine."

Tai wrinkled his nose. It took moxie for her to admit that she had, essentially, been coddled, handed everything she needed on a silver platter, but that didn't erase the fact that she had been unfairly fortunate in her upbringing. He was reminded of Mimi, whose success, he was sure, was due to her parents' money, and, perhaps indirectly, the connections that money bought them. Of course, he had nothing against Mimi. She could have squandered her inheritance. She could have sucked her parents dry of their income, but she hadn't. Instead, she doubled it. She built an empire on it.

"So... you don't fit the 'starving artist' stereotype?"

It was a joke, but he might have executed too directly. She didn't laugh.

"Oh, I wouldn't say that," she sang, and her levity was generous of her given Tai's unchecked jab. "It's difficult to dance—here, overseas, anywhere, really—and I'm lucky because I was spared several hardships—not just because I was an only child and my parents were prepared and willing to do anything and everything to ensure my success, but also because I didn't break a leg—or get pregnant." She paused. "That was a joke."

He didn't laugh, though he remembered the last time he had asked her about her job, and how even then she had used the same caustic humor.

"I'm sorry if this came out the wrong way. I just... Well, I just don't get it."

"Get what?"

"You know..." He gestured at her and her eyebrows knitted. "The dancing."

She pitched in her seat, head lowering at an angle that forced her to look up at him.

"You don't understand... passion?"

"What? No, that's not what I meant. I mean—"

"You don't understand why anyone would want to choose this life—a life where destitution and failure are highly likely and fame and success and financial stability are at probable lows."

"No—"

"You can stop. I'm not angry. I've dealt with people like you before. It's amusing to engage."

"People like me? What do you mean 'people like me'?"

"Do I really need to answer that? Anyway, I am not here to argue. I'm here to eat."

As if on cue, the waiter returned with her food, and the dancer unwrapped her silverware, spreading the linen napkin across her lap before picking up a fork and knife. Tai, displeased with the abrupt end to their topic of conversation, breathed noisily through his flaring nostrils. He glared at her plate of food, feeling his eyebrow involuntarily rise at her chosen meal: a croque madame and french fries, food he remembered eating as an exchanged student after a cavorting night of bar crawling.

"You never told me your name, you know," he said, finding himself talking to her again. She considered the truth with a bob of her head, chewing a bite of her sandwich throughout.

"C'est vrai," she agreed. "I didn't."

"Why not?"

"Well, I didn't think I'd see you again. And even if I did, I didn't think you'd actually remember me. You were pretty soused."

Tai snorted.

"You insult my liver."

"That wasn't an insult to your liver," she corrected. "It was to your brain."

His mouth clamped shut so fast, his teeth smacked against each other. He contemplated petty revenge—hooking his foot behind the front leg of her chair and hauling her forward, "accidentally" knocking her drink over, asking her about her job again—but he saw her still tapping and cutting and scraping away at her sandwich, fork spearing her French fries and bringing them to her mouth one by one. He suppressed an inward groan. That was embarrassment enough. Why couldn't she just abandon the silverware and use her hands?

"Okay, fine," he said, daring to continue, "but here we are again, and I do, in fact, remember you. That's twice you've underestimated me."

She paused mid-bite, her singular French fry hovering below her lips.

"Is that a threat?" she wondered. "I was originally joking about the stalker and restraining order comments, but now I'm concerned."

Jesus fucking Christ.

Tai rubbed his forehead with the heel of his palm, kneading the furrows loose. "Can we... can we start off on the right foot?" he proposed. "Introduce ourselves like normal people?"

For some reason, the suggestion moved her to release her utensils. She set fork and knife down, resuming her original and distant pose of hands folded and legs crossed.

"You do remember how our initial meeting went, right?"

He was so irritated he couldn't even bother to blink. He could only force a polite grin.

"And that's exactly why we're redoing this."

She laughed, patting the grease from her lips with her napkin.

"All right." She sighed. "I'll indulge you."

"Good. Ladies first."

She cleared her throat and preened, rolling her shoulders and flexing her hands, as if she had wings and was preparing for flight.

"I'm Hana Kurosawa, Monsieur. Principal dancer for the Paris Opera Ballet." She extended her hand across the table. Tai played along and shook it. It was soft to the touch, expectedly feathery, as if he were holding bird bones. "Enchantée."

"Taichi Kamiya, Mademoiselle. Or just Tai. United Nations officer."

She chuckled, dropping his hand to giggle behind her fingers.

"What?" he asked, annoyed.

"Your accent," she said.

"Right. Ha ha. I'd like to hear you speak Japanese."

"Would it make you feel better? Because I can tell you now my Japanese is far worse than your French."

"Then let's hear it."

She shrugged and took up her silverware again, pinkies arched.

"You don't enjoy being made sport of, do you?" she observed, openly dodging his goad. She glimpsed at him, but he couldn't (and didn't want to) look at her. Instead he followed the trail of her food, the little bite of sandwich pinned against the plate with her fork, sliding back and forth to mop up smears of melted butter.

He cleared his throat.

"Does anybody?"

A soft "meh" was all she allowed, again accompanied with a shrug of her skeletal shoulders, though she didn't say anything else.

"Is it important business that brings you to Paris?"

He was thankful for the question. The switch in topics eased the tension building in his jaw, though he couldn't quite attribute her tact to sheer intuition. She didn't know him.

"Not really," he answered. "My work is actually in Geneva. Paris is a detour—sort of. Lots of wining and dining."

"Ah." She smirked knowingly, lowering her eyes to gaze fondly (if not embarrassedly) at her half eaten meal.

"Familiar territory?" Tai posed.

"Very. Though, it's not surprising to hear it from you. You take me for the type to do that. Lavish. Pandering. Schmoozing. Boozing."

"What? Me?" He jabbed his chest with an index finger, doubtful of being accused.

She stopped munching and eased back in her seat, wrists resting against the table edge as she studied him.

"You were wearing an Hermès belt last night."

"A what?"

Puzzled, Tai looked down into his lap, trying to find evidence of the fact. He was certain Sora would have recognized the name instantly, but fashion wasn't (nor would it ever be) his forte. Unfortunately, the name did sound familiar, and he caught a gleam off of the broad, silver "H" smack in the middle of his waist.

God damn it.

"It was a gift," he said, which was true. The belt was a gift—from Catherine.

Hana cocked a dubious eyebrow, lips thinning in snideness.

Tai scoffed.

"Besides," he began, feeling his face heating, "what... why... why were you looking down there anyway?"

She giggled.

"You're not the only one whose profession requires them to wine and dine. I notice these things."

"You notice money, you mean."

Her laughter dove sharply, almost snagging in her throat, but her smile held fast. He figured her mouth trained to smile in the face of humiliation, of error, of judgment. It was a smile that could withstand earthquakes and lightning, torrents and fire without so much as a twitch.

"Well, oui," she said flatly. "I won't deny it, especially when most theatre patrons I have to entertain dress exactly like you: fancy suit, designer belt, silver cuff links." She paused, her smile expanding, revealing teeth. She leaned forward.

"Or," she resumed, setting a hand down on the table, placed in such a way as to suggest a partition separating them, or an offer to heal the breach. Her voice carried low, heavy. "Maybe I just liked what I saw."

Tai could feel his eyelids stretching, intrigue tasing him like a zap from a stun gun. He tilted his head, a knuckle brushing against chin, his stare making a not-so-subtle shift south as he gave her a once over.

Hana smirked, retracting her hand as she resumed her former position, legs crossed, foot swinging.

"I was talking about the belt, of course."

"Right," he said.

She chuckled.

"Hermès is not cheap."

"I got that much," he snarked, but he frowned nonetheless. Honestly, he had no idea how much Catherine's gifts to him were valued. He knew they were tasteful (obviously because he wore them and wore them proudly) but he never questioned them otherwise. All of them were utilitarian anyway. A belt. A watch. A tie. Items he could use and use daily, which would justify any slightly outlandish price. Still, Hana's fixation on the brand had him on edge—and openly curious.

"How much does a belt usually go for?" he wondered, casually.

Hana stared up at the ceiling, calculating numbers, before she abandoned the heavenward gaze for one trained on the floor. She counted on her fingers.

"Oh, maybe seven hundred euro?"

What... the...

Tai's mouth hung flaccid and open, ready to accept any wandering fly.

"Fuck. You're kidding?"

His surprise surprised her little. In fact, she seemed to ignore it altogether.

"Is your belt made out of crocodile?" she asked. She leaned to the side, bending to look under the table, and Tai mimicked her, meeting her gaze at eye level just under the table top. "If it is, then we're talking multiple thousands of euro then."

"I think you're fucking with me."

"Why would I do that?"

"I'm serious."

"So am I."

"Shit."

Hana righted herself, laughing throughout. She nudged her plate further across the table, pushed her silverware to the side, and drew her purse onto her lap. After paying her bill and tucking a tip under her plate, she stood and rounded the table to his side, hip against the edge in such a way as to suggest she wanted to sit on the tabletop. He shifted in his seat, pointing knees at her. Her proximity tempted him, and he caught himself fantasizing what it would feel like if she were sitting on his lap. Based on the feeble airiness of her handshake, he doubted she'd even wrinkle his clothes.

"This could feed a village." He pointed at the belt in question. "Hell, it could build a village!"

Hana tipped her head, supporting the tilted cheek with a raised pointer finger.

"We're still talking about the belt, right?"

Whatever attempts at speech planned, they dissipated as soon as he opened his mouth. He only smiled, suppressing a chuckle with a wipe of his fingers over his lips.

Hana's laughter was chiming, evidently pleased with herself.

"Well," she resumed, "you said the belt was a gift, oui?"

He nodded.

"Ask whoever gave it to you, then come back to me. Pretty sure our numbers will be similar."

He snorted.

"Do I have a deadline on this assignment?"

"That's up to you, isn't it? You're the visitor here." She took a step back, hoisting the handle of her purse over her shoulder. "Anyway, if you want to report back, you know where to find me. And if not, well, I'm sure those stalker skills of yours will come in handy." She winked.

"Never going to let that go, are you?"

She smirked and tapped the side of her nose.

"À plus tard, Monsieur. And no, never."

xXx

A/N: If you're concerned that Hana is getting the upper edge here (because I just so happen to pair her with Tai in all my other stories), then you're right. But I wouldn't get too comfortable. What's it they say to writers? Kill your babies? ;D

(I'm not killing anyone, I promise! Just... don't take everything at face value here.)

Anywho, look forward to some intimacy next chapter! (hehehe.)

If you have thoughts on this chapter, this story, or any part of it, I'd love to read them! :D Thanks again for reading!