"It wouldn't surprise me if the joke ended up being accurate. Poor guy couldn't even swing a tanto properly," Youko asserted as he moved closer to the workbench, ultimately taking a seat atop it next to the red-haired woman. Apparently, the cooks in the Kage's mansion were quite busy on this day. For a simple lunch, the amount of food listed was quite the hefty amount. "That's a lot for just lunch. They must be bored in there today."
Benihime couldn't help the snicker which came from her at the white haired man's assumption. She didn't know for certain, but the joke was in her head already. Soon enough her second in command was joining her atop this work bench where they would ultimately share the meal prepared by the Kazekage's cooks. At the mention that the meal was quite large, she couldn't help but smile and nod. "It wouldn't surprise me. And it makes me fearful of dinner." she said offering a bit of a shrug. She soon broke open the large basket setting between them different bowls full of the necessary food stuffs in their orders in their portions between them. There were also dipping sauces and bowls of white rice, in addition to the actual eating utensils. It took a couple of seconds to get it all set up, but once it was it was a pretty sizable looking meal. "Sugoi!~" she said before picking up her chopsticks. "Itadakimasu~"
"With a spread like this, I doubt they have anything left for dinner," he commented nonchalantly. With that, Youko retrieved a pair of chopsticks for himself, and waited for Benihime to finish digging through the basket for the various pieces of the meal. When she was done, he chose to begin with a bowl of rice, taking it upon himself to add the sashimi to it. "Itadakimasu," he said while mixing the two, immediately following this by taking the first bite. He was relatively silent otherwise, seeming to have indeed been made quite famished by the day's work thus far, as there was hardly a moment taken between bites.
His commentary about there being nothing left for dinner spawned a small chuckle from the young woman, who soon began to eat, while casually glancing in the man's direction from time to time. Even with the idea of them sharing a meal together, she hadn't quite figured out how to broach the subject of the oddness between them. She ate consciously starting with the Sashimi and rice which she didn't mix together and instead had a bite of each occasionally dipping in soy sauce as she did. Not to her surprise the food was amazing, but as Youko seemed to be enjoying his meal, she wouldn't interrupt with a conversation which might spoil it. Her gaze would flicker away from him, and she'd keep eating. 'You are an adult, the least you can do is converse with your husband.' she thought to herself, trying to hype herself up to speak with him. She was more than halfway through her bowl and finishing a bite as she finally let a single question fall from her mouth, and it would likely seem a bit random. "Do you hate me?"
The silence between the two allowed Youko to progress virtually uninterrupted, though this was sure to change momentarily. He was within a few bites of finishing his rice bowl when Benihime spoke, and her choice of words caused him to take pause just before another bite was brought into his mouth. He had no choice then but to lower his chopsticks back into the bowl, and heave a sigh before responding properly. "Now why exactly would you go and ask a question like that?"
Benihime had let a very odd question fall out of her face, and she'd be the first to admit that. But Youko's response was no less strange to the woman than her own question had been. She seemed to be thinking about it, and as such had stopped eating while figuring out how to word her query. Surprisingly enough, the Kazekage, didn't have much experience in having these sorts of conversations and immediately became a bit flustered, speaking fairly quickly. "Well, I mean... I would understand if you did. But this is kind of confusing, and things are really weird between us." she said, and then realizing that this likely sounded strange she continued. "I mean, you feel strange, but I don't really get it, and I don't know what to do... so I had to ask... I guess." the woman had gone red in the face, and was now looking down into her rice bowl like it'd defeated her. The truth was, she was very unsure of how to take Youko's emotional output, and she really wanted them to be like they were before, but she wasn't sure how to fix what was broken between them. She figured if he hated her, at least she'd have a clear answer, and she'd know not to bother him. "I mean, if you hate me, I get it, and I won't bug you anymore. I just really don't know what to do with myself when I'm around you, now."
Suddenly, the otherwise vague purpose of Benihime's original inquiry became clear. Frankly, this was a topic that had indeed been troubling the white-haired man for months on end, and he was having his own problems resolving the issue within himself. Only now did he consider that this had been an obvious thing outside of his own mind. "Yare yare," he said as he placed his bowl on the workbench. He went silent for a few moments, using said time to cross his arms and shut his eyes, seeming to be in thought. "Gomen. No. It's just that... well... Even when I have access to the Blue Moon, my other self still retains consciousness inside. I have few memories of what happened when I was in that state the first time, but there is one in particular that shows clear as day. I think... maybe if I hadn't shown up when I did - if I didn't see what I saw that day - things would be different."
After she finally finished making her statements, she seemed unable to look up from her dish. She didn't notice Youko's shifting, and beyond this the closure of his eyes. Her own were glued to her remaining rice as she finally heard his voice. It seemed that her husband had returned to fetch her at a very bad time for him. And that he retained the memories of the event, and something about that crushed her just a bit. "Sou ka," she murmured. In all actuality, Benihime also remembered when he'd shown up, and knew what she'd been doing in that moment. She hadn't known how badly it would affect him, though it'd also taken her a little while to get over it. Still, it made a great deal of sense of why he couldn't talk to her, and why things were odd between them. Still, there was nothing she could do about it now, that it was already done. She spent several minutes staring into her bowl.
"Hai," he said with his eyes opening slightly. It was never that he had anything against the woman next to him; he simply could not unsee the visions. It was not quite the all-consuming thing, but whenever he laid eyes upon his own wife, the visions return. "I can see it right now. It's almost laughable. I killed the entire Blood Cult, save Aiko and Hiei, without a second thought... but this is the source of my nightmares." At that moment, the white-haired male actually snickered, though it did seem quite forced. "It's funny, you know? You didn't even know who I was at that point."
The woman still stared at her own bowl. His words about what he saw, and the things his nightmares were made of, made her nod her head. She at least understood this, to be fair, she'd been having a similar problem. She felt the bitterness of his laugh at this situation which was kind of horrible, even now. "Yeah, I know. It was the source of my nightmares too." she finally spoke again, her voice rather small. "And you're right, at the time, I had no idea who you were..." she commented. "And then I did, and I knew everything. And it was horrible, because I couldn't explain why I did that. I drowned trying to figure out why I couldn't just stop myself." the young woman said. She realized in this moment, that her husband likely didn't hate her, but that their interactions were tainted by something that had happened between her and the man Uchiha Yuichi. "I was weak, and fell to something that shouldn't have been able to control me anymore."
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