Kyuden Shika

She nods at his words about Bo, then looks back to him quickly. "I'm so sorry, Raizo; truly, I am. I have no words."
Narumi frowns, angry with him.
"Truly, their cruelty knows no bounds." A significant pause, letting that sit in the air. "Former nakodo-in-training," she finally corrects him.

She laughs at that, honest and true.
"Asahina Bo-san. He's a guard, so you'll have to be particularly sneaky." A pause, and a slow sigh. "I don't deserve him. The Deer are cruel to saddle him with me."

"Ah, my reason for being, how will I wake up tomorrow knowing your face is denied to me?"
A wry smirk, and a glance to him.

She watches him, watches his face contort with the mix of emotions, and she rubs her lower lip absently. Then colour blooms on her cheeks. "I haven't stopped." she admits quietly, and pushes a lock of hair back from her face to tuck behind an ear, gaze falling to the table. "I thought I had. I tried...

Narumi laughs at that, and holds him close. "So tomorrow we leave then? And go from there, whatever's in store? I'm sorry I hid this all from you. I'll spend the rest of my life making it up to you."

Narumi flinches at the abrupt explosion from him. When he seems to settle, she shakes her head slowly. "I don't want you implicated." She's still trying, and failing, to protect him. It hadn't all been a lie. She had fallen for him, irrevocably. There was an honesty to her eyes that spoke as much to...

She leans closer to him, and her expression darkens just a touch. "The following has been decided," she begins ticking things off on her fingers, "-we're to pay a fine in koku for what I've stolen in the past. I'm to be demoted, no longer a nakodo. While we'll get the izakaya we talked about.. a um,...

"That's not untrue, either," she says quietly, watching his reaction and it pulls at her heartstrings. "I spent this miai crafting an image: the image of what my aunt hoped I'd be. Now that that image is no longer necessary, I am tired, but still I can't rest," she gives a small, reassuring smile at...

The smile helps, she'll admit. His confidence is reassuring, but she can't let herself believe him. Not really. Not completely. When she releases him, her arms remain lazily around his shoulders, "I don't think that's possible. After all, I want to wake up to your face everyday for the rest of our l...

She scrambles into his lap, facing him and straddling so his face fills her vision. Arms slink around his neck and fingers toy with his hair lightly. "You're never a burden to me, Bo." she looks at him seriously, this mountain she's fallen completely in love with, who loved her back so thoroughly. S...