Kyuden Shika

"Hell, you're skipping the really bad part. Suppose you do feel for one another, but the Deer choose otherwise, hm?"

He sighed.

And poured a refill.

"I'm very bad at playing the field, Kitsu-san. In point of fact, I'm somewhat amazed to have... enjoyed such success as I have. I sometimes wonder how anyone can enjoy this sort of thing."

"So you've been successful then? I'm glad to hear it," he replies with a nod. "I supposed I could say I haven't been unsuccessful entirely. Just... that the trend seems to suggest I'm doomed to be a lucky charm for the women I court to find a man they love. And that man will not be me. I am happy for them, but I can't help but feel like I have failed or am inadequate since they are basically admitting that they know someone better than me in their eyes."

Raizo chuckled.

"I daily give thanks for her poor taste in men, if that helps you any, Kitsu-san. Fortunes know I'd be adrift without it. But then again, we've only been here five days. I've had indigestion which lasted longer. Pace yourself."

He nods. "I didn't expect that I would need similar luck. But apparently a bad taste in men in those I court is something I need as well," he says with a shrug.

"Or the right sort of good taste. All joking aside, I've met- and liked- plenty of the young women here. But I've only had a... spark with one. Kaito-san? Lovely, but also something like what I imagine a sister to be like. Usogawa Narumi-san? I think she'll make someone very happy as a wife, but it won't be me, even though we get along famously. Kaikoga Koi-san? A vision of loveliness, and someone I find easy to talk to, but there's no... chemistry there."

Well. Not as such. But we definitely had fun.

"Moto Mitsuki-san? Fierce, brave, well-traveled, lovely... and nothing between us. And so on, from Kuni Yasu to my clanmate Shiba Tomoe."

He took another sip.

"Which leaves me very much on edge about what the Deer will decide. Shila Pei Pei-sama has offered me some advice on broadening the scope of my attentions, but truthfully, Kitsu-san, I look about with a great deal of trepidation. So."

Sip.

"I think plenty of us will be drowning our sorrows in the days ahead. You'll be in good company."

Murato gives a sardonic chuckle. "I just thought about something. You were here with Asahina-san talking and him getting drunk. I imagine he had some sort of parallel concern if not the same. How often do you have people bending your ear like this?"

Raizo lowered his voice for the sake of decorum.

"Lately? It feels like all of the fuckin' time."

He offered a smile of his own.

"When I'm not whining to Shika Pei Pei-sama, dodging insane Moshi, practicing in the dojo, or..."

He sighed.

He and Aimi had done everything out of order, but that was... good? Somehow going from a kinky threesome to just sitting with her in silence during their spare hours felt... more fulfilling?

"... unwinding, anyhow."

"I have not met any Moshi here. There's an insane one?" he asks raising an eyebrow.

"Only one I've ever met."

Unless she's just some sort of nightmare that only I see? But no, there were others at the market that day...

But wait, I haven't seen them in a long while. Any of them!

"I would honestly like to meet them. I have a dream of someday going on a pilgrimage to all the major temples of the empire. I'd love to hear about their Temple to Amaterasu-no-kami from a member of their family," he replies with a subdued wistfulness.