"She's a Shifter. An he told." Her cheek fur was fluffed.

"Shifter?"

A red-haired man had come to try his luck in place of the nameless blond. He was grinning giddily, teetering on the chair a little like a drunk. The Phantasm rolled his eyes, set his book aside, and then proceeded fluently into small talk. The redhead grinned until his cheeks hurt.

"Gender-changer. Half normal-looking, half-different. People... some places people mistreat 'em." Her purple eyes focused on the pale man in black and his red-haired challenger. "If know, people don't tell. S'rude, an other things."

"Oh. She didn't look, um, different..."

"Normal-half."

"...Oh." Taya herded a lone slippery noodle around the confines of her plate. "I'm sure he didn't mean it like that. Nobody else even noticed, anyway."

"She knew. Felt it, felt horrified."

Taya stabbed a pile of noodles with her fork and twirled them around the fork until the fork was overwhelmed by unraveling noodle pieces. She tried again, plunging the unruly mass into her mouth before it could complain.

The redhead swaggered with excessive ego and leaned on the table to stare down the performer. The performer raised both eyebrows and grinned very slightly. "Your tattoo, good sir, is a white tiger with the characters for 'study' written beneath it. The artist in question forgot how to write 'strength' and assumed you wouldn't know the difference. If I were you, I'd call him on it, but I'd need to look to know for sure. Willing to share?" He winked and the man laughed.

As the man stepped down from the tiny stoop of a stage, he furrowed his brow and glanced at his side. The astute observer could see him calculating how expensive a mistake that could be, and how much legal recourse he could demand.

Taya beamed, craning her neck to watch, the slender braid behind her right ear dangling dangerously close to her dinner. "How would he know something like that? It's like magic! But I never learned that kind of magic..."

"No magic. Empath trick." Koneko smoothed her facial fur back and ran a moistened wrist across her mouth as she did after most meals. "Ask questions, feel responses, then know if it's true or false."

"So you could do that?"

"Yeah." She grinned. "Not so good at it, but yeah."

"You'd even know what his tattoo looked like?"

"...No."

"...Oh."

The Phantasm seemed bored with the momentary lull. He propped his head on a hand and scanned the crowd. "No one else? Have I scared you all away?" He sulked into his chair. "Really, I'm not that good. If another young lady steps up, I promise I'll be gentle." A half-hearted twitter from the audience. His winning grin thawed slightly into a sigh.

"In all seriousness, I don't get paid if nobody challenges me. Is there a kind, generous, possibly attractive soul who could pay me a visit?... Anyone trying to skip their dinner bill?"

Taya laughed with the rest, charmed by the pale stranger. There was something comforting about his lack of professionalism. She glanced around, wondering if another gorgeous passerby was going to pay him attention.

"I'm going to start picking you at random, and then won't you be sorry. Still nobody? Hmm. All right. Since I have a thing for blonds, what about the girl in the fifth row dining with a cat?"

Taya glanced at the stage, counting rows on her fingers. Her eyes widened in terror as five ones miraculously turned into five rows and she turned to gape at Koneko. The feline showed incisors in a way that was, if possibly, less warm and fuzzy than her usual.

"Mmm, go ahead. So amazing, so mystifying." Sarcasm was surreal out of the mouth of a cat.

"But I... in front of people?" She squeaked.

"Handsome too."

"I--"

"I'm feeling quite jilted, miss, am I not worth meeting?" Taya's face burned three shades of red under the heat of several dozen stares. She slouched in her chair, stared at her plate, and shook her head in a flurry of blond hair. The man laughed. "I'm hurt. She won't come see me."

Koneko nudged her. "Go. Wanna meet him, right?"

Taya choked. Seven shades of red.

"She'll come if you stop teasin'!" Koneko grinned up at the stage and nudged Taya.

"I know, I know, I've been absolutely awful. I did say I'd behave."

Taya flashed Koneko a withering glance as the cat helped her out of the chair. Instead of wilting under pressure, for the first time in her life Taya would not try and vanish. More than that, she'd go up on that stage and meet him, because she'd regret it otherwise! She wanted to meet him, didn't she?

Such internal bolstering was just enough to get her to stand, slouching terribly, stuff her hands deep inside her pants pockets, and slink onto the stage. The audience applauded her surge of courage until she stumbled like a scared rabbit onto the stage.

"That was quite impossible. I'm not sure I have the energy left for your question." He winked. Up close Taya couldn't avoid knowing how attractive he was. While he was distinctively pale, paler than she thought a person could be, it suited him. He was the kind of man best described in elaborate flowery metaphors that use the word "snow." Even his hair was white though he was too young for it to be logical. But the whole only brought out his better features, and the confidence in how he carried himself was appealing.

She blushed. "S- Sorry."

"Don't apologize, miss. Ask me something easy so I can earn my wage faster."