Kyuden Shika

Yasu lifts an eyebrow, but tosses her tea back as well, pouring both cups full again and setting the pot aside, lid askew, for a server to refill.

Hmmph, she huffs out an amused breath. "Think it was Narumi who said something that fits, actually. Tanabe's been a waterfall. I couldn't ignore the way we felt if I wanted to. Whooosh!" she makes a swooping sort of motion with her hand. "All at once. I was suspicious! It's too easy. He'd turn out to actually be a coward under all that bravado. Wouldn't take it seriously. Something would be all wrong at the heart of it." Her lips soften into an immensely fond smile, "And he's not and didn't and it's not, and...yeah."

"But your Kitsu cousin is that slow fire. If we just kept adding fuel, you can tell it would grow." A long sigh. "And I cut that short, because letting it grow would mean eventually having to do that cutting my heart in half thing. Or just letting the Deer do it for me, I guess. But..." She stops short of saying that felt like cowardice. She wasn't in the middle of perhaps exactly that, and it felt unkind to judge a path she'd shied away from.

"But if the Deer chose as I did? I'll always wonder what that would have been like." There's a small sad smile. "Couldn't tell you which way is better. Not from here. Maybe when I'm watching my own kids start breaking *their* hearts I'll know enough to say."

Yasu's thoughts maybe aren't all the assurance that Ishioka wants, but how could they be? A logical, practical Lion like Ishioka couldn't make sense of all this, so why should anyone else? Especially someone already deep in love?

"Yasu-san, I... I think perhaps neither of us can reassure the other right now. Choices have been made, we are doing what we are doing... If neither of us can tell the other that they are wrong, it unfortunately follows that we also cannot tell the other that they are right." He looks tired, but no longer confused. "I have felt as confused by Narumi-san as I have by Inoshishi-san, and I don't think there was a time when I could have said, here I have love now and over here is only a love that will come in time. So perhaps in time you will prove correct. I hope you will." He stops, exhales heavily, and bites back adding a comment he expects he'll regret. His eyes flicker to Yasu then jump back to the teacup, probably making her more suspicious. He forces a friendly smile and says again, "I hope you will be proven right."

Yasu nods. "I...hmm.. Thank you." She can't very well ask if her being right would make him wrong and if he was wishing to be. Well, she could, but she wasn't a courtier and it would come out horribly.

Of course that's not really what's stopping her, as is shortly obvious.

"Do you love either of them? Both?," she asks bluntly, though not unkindly, "you talk about passion and hidden hurts, but not what these matches mean for you, or your family, or your clan...or even your heart. Things might clear a bit if you tried sorting them a bit. Running headlong...it isn't _like_ you."

Ishioka grimaces. Quietly, he admits, "I don't know what love means." He seems to shrink.

"I've thought so much about all of it. Going home to tell my parents their new daughter is a skinny nonbushi from a clan with no serious military traditions... That the one thing they thought their plodding, weak-kneed son was good at - thinking and planning - got him a match that..." Even in a funk, Ishioka can't continue and squeezes his eyes shut. His hands curl into tight fists on either side of the tea cup.

"But I see women who are smart, and complicated, and who challenge me in ways that I think are good..." He sighs. "Perhaps the nakodo will have none of it, and kindly sentence us all to be miserable."

Yasu sighs, setting her cup down to reach out and place her hands around his around the cup. "You loved your sister, yeah?"

There's more to say about parents and duty and thinking, but...first...

He looks at her almost suspiciously, but he trusts Yasu and takes a deep breath.

"Of course. Hachiko was the best." He exhales forcefully rather than verbalize his next thought, which would just another negative tangent.

"How do you know that?" Yasu keeps her hands where they are. "I mean...I'll tell you it's not exactly the same, because there's passion all mixed into what I feel for Tanabe, but...if you leave that aside?"

The Lion considers, thinking about the complicated relationship he'd had with his little sister. It was complicated, thanks to how differently their parents treated them, but even when he'd felt bitter toward Hachiko for being better at him at everything that mattered, he'd still loved her. She was his best sister; he loved her at least as much as everyone else had. And you still couldn't protect her.

Ishioka had closed his eyes, and he actually shivers at that horrible voice from the back of his mind. Too late he realizes that Yasu will see the shiver and feel it too. His head sags.

"I know I loved Hachiko because even when I was angry, even when I thought I hated her, she was always my best sister. The love held on and shined through the dark shadows that tried to block it." Ishioka's voice came out gritty, a little forced, but the feeling was genuine and he was following Yasu as she helped him through this.

Yasu nods, hands tightening at the shiver. "And you want to protect them, and want what's best for them, even if it hurts you," there may have been a small tightness to her voice as she says this. "Any of that coming through with them? I mean, the protective thing is kind of...you seem the sort to want to protect most anyone, so that's not reliable, but the rest?"

Ishioka squeezes his eyes shut.

"I'm... Not," he says with a waver in his voice. "It's not a good idea to get that level of attachment here. Too much uncertainty. I do want to protect them. I..." He takes a sad breath. "But I couldn't protect..." He trails off meekly. Maybe they need to be protected from you.

Ishioka shakes his head, hard. He's thankful for Yasu's hands or he might have shoved the entire table over.

"I know I love them, Yasu," he whispers, haunted. "But I can't... I... I don't..." He shakes his head again, slower and tired.