Izeki thanked him with a simple, "Domo!" It was suprising how willingly they helped out.
"Everyone here is so nice to you," he said to Ame. A handful of dockworkers ran up the gangway and into the cargo hold of the Anki. One by one, the workers emerged from the Anki, each carrying far more items than he should.
Ame and Izeki strolled out of the hangar and down the hallway, with the dockworkers following behind them. They arrived at a pair of elevators that would bring them to a residential deck, and Ame pressed the up arrow on both. There was an awkward silence while they were waiting for the elevators. Izeki turned his head to the dock workers, who were all at least ten paces away from the couple. Each one seemed to have some sort of box or briefcase in front of his face.
Ame and Izeki put the items they were carrying in the first elevator that arrived and stepped in. The dockhands didn't move an inch.
"More room in elevator, cabbage!"
Izeki agreed. "There's room in here for another person." The dockhands exchanged a few body gestures and nudged each other, as if no one wanted to get in the elevator with the couple.
Ame pressed the elevator button, taking the two up to one of Roppongi's residential decks. The massive station housed numerous housing wings, home to many foreigners, corporate employees and offices, and entertainment venues. Ame-chan had lived on the station ever since she was 'Rescued' from the Golden Chrysanthemums by Ayane Matsamura, the sitting CEO of Renzu Corporation.
In the months since then, most of the residents and workers on the station knew that it was best to not try and attract Ame's attention, lest the young woman slough them with talk of 'Cabbage', or attempt to eat those who earned her intense dislike...
...several Hogosha operatives and insurance sales people had gone missing on Roppongi since Ame arrived...
Finally, Ame and Izeki arrived at the woman's apartment.
"Here new home, Cabbage!" She said as she input the unlock code and opened the door to the apartment.
The apartment cabin was quite underwhelming, turning out to be a tiny affair with one bedroom and bath, quite cramped, and with various objects and articles of clothing (and what may have been a sun dried human heart) laying about.
"Better then stuffy barracks! Hai? It has holovision and bed and shower so you not smell like rotting cabbage!"
Ame's possessions were thrown about in such a manner one could barely navigate the apartment. Clothes, undergarments, hats, shoes, bags, food, fliers, electronics, optronics, flags... there was so much clutter everywhere that he could easily mistake her apartment for a thrift shop. Izeki had never seen such disorder. Back in the Kusari State Police barracks, cleanliness was a policy. It's mandatory to make your bed, iron and fold your clothing, clear the floor, and clean the latrines...
This lifestyle didn't start with the barracks. His father was an inspector before him, and forced Izeki from a young age to make his bed. "Tight corners or do it again, chibikko," he would always say. Sometimes Izeki wondered whether or not he would have become an officer if his father had never joined the University program when he was younger. The old man always said that Izeki would follow in his footsteps...
"Ame... I - I!" Izeki didn't want to sound too excited, but he could hardly contain himself. "I love it!"
"Hai! It better then stuffy barracks with lot of other men." She said, 'carefully' setting down her armfull of stuff in a heap next to a couch in the main room.
The cramped apartment consisted of a main living room and small kitchenette, with a single adjacent bedroom and bathroom. Despite the clutter, Ame had managed to create a pathway through the room, and a relatively open space for Izeki to drop his stuff.
"I have shower. No other man-police watching." She sat on the couch activating the holovision. She grabbed the remote and turned it on. "Unless you like other man watching, Hai?"
Immediately when she did so, 'something' small, scaly, and cat-like lept out of the holo-well directly toward Izeki...
The lizardy-feline creature wiggled and slithered at him, as Ame laughed uncontrollably. Izeki leaped off the couch and ran through the pathways of clutter screaming with the creature in pursuit.
"Mrehehahahahahaha!" Ame laughed and giggled as the Lizard-cat chased Izeki-san about the room. While she could have explained the creature was totally harmless, she again was quite overjoyed at Izeki's panicked reaction.
She rolled around on the floor laughing. The Lizard-cat finally stopped chasing after Izeki and hopped over to Ame. She patted the creature on the head and held it in her arms, cuddling it lovingly.
"Izeki-cabbage. Come here! It just pet."
The strange but oddly adorable creature licked at Ame and chirped slightly.
"You can set up stuff in bedroom if you want Izeki-san. So it not in way."