Café Reimaru

Welcome to our humble abode, may we interest you in our menu?

• Menu

Menu

All of our meals are prepared and served with love.
~ Click on the images below to see more details ~

Surf & Turf

Classic tender grilled beef and fish, served with a special homemade sauce and a side of mushy mashed potatoes.

Fishball

One large ball of fish paste, deep fried, served on a fancy plate.

Spicy Kitsune Udon

Udon noodles cooked in a spicy broth that will bring tears to your eyes, topped off with seasoned aburaage and naruto fishcake.

Croissant with Ham and Cheese

A buttery and flakey pastry stuffed with smoked ham and cheese.

• Music
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Daily Life

Current status: Married
14th December 2020
(The marriage is official on paper, but a ceremony hasn't been planned yet.)

Our first meeting was a disastrous mess. The plan was to meet my friend at a café, but it turned out that she and her friend set me up with this scary-looking man wearing a beanie and glasses and a constant glare on his face. He looked like he didn't want to be there either. I was too nervous to talk to him and the conversation was kept short between us.

Our friends (who were dating at the time) kept bringing us out as the third and fourth wheels on their 'group outing', giving us a chance to hang out at least to get to know each other better. With my friend around, I could relax more, though we found ourselves left together alone more often than not.

Our friends arranged yet another group outing to the amusement park. Again, Ranmaru and I ended up as a pair together and we lost them in the crowd, but somehow, the excitement of going on the rides and seeing the attractions made me forget my nerves for a moment. He was surprised at that and didn't say anything however, but I caught a little smile whenever I looked back at him. It was the end of the day after our group outing to the amusement park when he asked me out on a date, just the two of us.

Our first proper date together was at the aquarium. I was still afraid that with just the two of us, it wouldn't click like we did at the when we were at the amusement park. But after I cracked a joke and he chuckled at it, the tense air between us seemed to dissipate. He wasn't as scary as my thoughts painted him to be, and I liked being around him. I learned more about him when we went out for dinner, when he shared about his job and his passion for music.

He invited me to a bar where he performed at even before his idol debut. I was enamoured by his presence the moment he stepped into the spotlight, not to mention his performance. Ranmaru shone so brilliantly on stage and I could see that singing rock was truly his passion, passion strong enough that I could feel it and made my heart beat fast. (And I bought his CD albums the next day.)

Both of us have busy work lives, so our usual dates tend to be meeting each other after work and going out for dinner. If we have time on the weekends, we go out on proper dates (group outings turned into double dates). It's simple, but I cherish the moments that we spend together. We have our ups and downs since we're such different people, and through these moments we learned more about each other.

I'm not really into the big romantic gestures and neither is he. Special occasions are an exception, of course, to celebrate our times together.

I remember the time when we took a bus ride to a beautiful garden that held nostalgic memories for Ranmaru. As we walked, he told me that it was where his parents met and fell in love, and where he had visited often in his youth. We reached the heart of the garden, and it was when he took my hand in his and held a velvet box in hand that I realised what was going on. He told me that he loved me and that he wanted to spend the rest of his life together with me. It was a simple proposal, but I cried from all the overwhelming happiness, to think that I could be with the man I love so much as part of his family.

A few months after his proposal, we signed the marriage papers and we moved in together. Now, we share part of our daily routines with each other, waking up next to each other, cuddles in bed, cooking meals together in the kitchen... Domestic life.

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Pirate & Mermaid

art by @pokki_ittoki on Twitter

Content warning: mentions/implications of death/violence

Malraux is a free pirate roaming the seven seas with a new crew after Ikki has found his father and the rest of the crew decided to retire from the pirate life. He was captured by the local marines and thrown into jail to be executed by dawn.

Thanks to the help of the Admiral's son, Reginald Kingsley, he managed to escape.

On a deserted island, they find a mermaid dying of heatstroke on the sandy beach. She was lost and doesn't know how to get home. Malraux is hesitant to take her on board, but Reginald manages to convince him. She now lives in a wooden washtub on deck, part of the crew as their food gatherer (certified tuna hunter) and a (not as good) navigator of stormy seas.

When Reginald arranges to meet his wife at the dock, the marines storm their ship and capture Malraux under the impression that he had kidnapped the Admiral's son and made him work on the ship for a whole year. Malraux, again, is scheduled to be executed that morning.

Malraux's arms and legs are chained when he is presented to all the marines, kneeling on the wooden dock. The Admiral gave a speech on the end of piracy, but Malraux has enough of his dry speech, shouting one last defiant cry before jumping backwards into the ocean below. The weight on his leg tugs him into the watery depths of Davy Jones' locker and soon, he is almost close to passing out, until the mermaid comes to rescue him with a kiss of air. He only has vague memories of that time.

After Reginald's wife joins the crew, Malraux spends more time with her to give the married couple space. They eat dinner under the stars together, though if there is heavy rain, he will move the tub indoors. He plays his harmonica and she will sing along to his sea shanties. If they find any deserted islands, he will carry her down from the ship to swim in the sea.

Their relationship is still a budding slowburn romance.

**Fishball comes from Fish (mermaid Rei) and Malraux (maru means circle, which is the shape of the ball)

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Kijin and Nogitsune

art by @RoxyUmber on Twitter

Content warning: Mentions of death, blood, violence

A white fox found herself escaping yokai hunters and ended up exhausted and completely drained of any spiritual power. She was about to be attacked and eaten by wolves but she was saved by a passing man skilled in the way of the sword.

He takes care of her for the night, not knowing that she is a kitsune. In the morning, he is gone, leaving behind only a scarf that she had been laying on. She transforms back into the human form, wearing the scarf and promising to find the human again to repay him for his kind deed.

She finds him again in a human village, but he doesn't want to accept her repayment as he doesn't want anything to do with the spirits. She follows him along anyway as a travelling companion that he reluctantly agrees to. Ranma is a rōnin, travelling the lands after he lost his previous master and home to avenge them.

They become partners in battle, Ranma with his katana and Rei with her fox magic watching his back. Eventually, they meet some strong yokai hunters that injured Ranma, and Rei decided to give him her hoshi no tama. A back and forth argument ensued, but it ended up with the hoshi no tama hanging around Ranma's neck, providing him with spiritual power. To keep her spirit and power pure, Ranma refused to let her kill any humans, doing it himself.

Once he has attained his revenge, they settle down in the forest, building a home to spend the rest of their lives together. They get married and their lives are peaceful. Ranma continues his work as a mercenary for hire in the local human village while Rei takes care of their home and garden.

Over the next couple of months, Ranma is more unsettled as the days go by, though he never told Rei what was going on. One fateful night, their home is stormed by yokai hunters. Unfortunately, Ranma is gravely wounded protecting his wife. Anguished, Rei transforms into a beast and slays the remaining hunters. As a result of killing humans, she loses Inari's blessings and her fur turns black.

When she returns to her senses, she buries her husband by the cliff where they used to watch the stars together. She returns to the house, which is now too big for just her alone.

She considers returning back to the forest where she once lived, but she finds a child at her doorstep and decides to raise her. Over time, she adopts and cares other human children as well, though once they come of age, they leave the home, memories hazy of the spiritual world.

Years pass since then. One morning, as she tends to her garden, she senses an unfamiliar power approaching her home. Wary, she watches a figure walk through the gates, stopping by a bed of wind orchids.

-

"They're beautiful like I remembered," he says. It was as if she had just seen him yesterday, his spiky silver hair, the figure that she thought was lost to her memories over the years, right in front of her. The only difference was the purple hue his eye has taken and the two horns that sprouted slightly above his forehead.

It was a kijin in the form of her lost husband. But it was unmistakable, the scar on his chest where the blade had made its fatal blow, and the hoshi no tama that hung from a bead necklace resting against it. It was him.

"Rei, I'm home."

She couldn't stop the tears falling from her eyes. "Welcome home, Ranma-san."

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Demons

art by @BisasterCentral on Twitter

A junior demon learns ins & outs of being a proper demon from her senior.

[still in progress]

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ReiMaru Playlist