"You travel to places you choose," Ashiko corrected him, her tone almost lazy in the wake of a belly full of sake. "That's the main difference. Maybe. Nobody kicks me out the door, you see, but I have what comes after mapped out for me. At least partly. The endpoints, always. Things can get a little troublesome between where I start and where I end. It's fun, sometimes, and I meet new people, but it's like floating away from..." She trailed off, brow wrinkling. "I...don't really know where I was going with that. I don't get water metaphors much."

She glanced up cup lifted halfway to her mouth, and paused when she saw that almost bitter curl of his mouth. She set the cup down as gently as possible, then leaned up bodily over the table to flick him gently on the forehead with her index finger. "Evil spirits be gone," she murmured, frowning slightly, but smiled in a surprisingly mischievous sort of way as she dropped back down into her seat. "You looked plagued. Or...possessed." Ashiko explained, sipping her final cup as though she had never been interrupted in the first place. "One of those two, at least. It was really very unfortunate."