Kyuden Shika

Nesshin was certainly right about that. It didn't bother Hikimasu to have the Deer there. He let the quiet go on for a while, and kept thinking about what he would do in the future. He could relax, in the immediate future, anyway.

"performance must have taxed me more than I thought", he said. He wasn't going to apologize, or tell him not to worry about it, though. Those things should be worried over.

"When we all leave here, do you think you will be as well?" he asked, possibly inferring Nesshin planned to marry out. "If so, that might be a very difficult thing, if there is war." he shook his head at the thought of being away from family while they are being attacked.

"Almost as much as if I stay," Nesshin replies. "And that seems more likely than not, at this point. Mutual interest is such that my partner would likely marry in."

He shrugs. "We keep an eye on things, but that doesn't mean we let tomorrow rob today of the joy it holds. And the prospect of the next day being the last...it makes today's joys keener." Nesshin smiles. "Or so I try to live, anyway. Fortunes know whether I'll be right in the end."

"Perspective is important", the Scorpion agreed again. "Having someone to help with that is even better."

He sighed.

"I have no idea where any of this will go, I can't say I have a grand scheme." He chuckled.

"Nor yet I," Nesshin replies. "I imagine I'll have to start thinking that way at some point, of course, but for now? I do my duty when assigned, and I enjoy myself as much as I can otherwise." He shrugs. "It's worked so far, to be certain."

He winks. "I hope it's been working for you here."

"Things...hmm...", he shook his head and chuckled. "If you'd asked me on the way here I'd have said i was dreading this. I didn't want to marry a stranger, I thought perhaps i could find someone pretty, but then knew that was a foolish goal, such can be a lifelong heartbreak if you don't get along." He faced Nesshin. "Then i thought perhaps there'd be someone I had met before, but looking on the past that didn't seem to be a great prospect." A scratch behind his head, a grunt. "So when i arrived i was focused on someone who shared certain qualities with me, but I don't believe that worked out... yet all this time I've been seeing someone still... someone i did meet before who is beautiful far beyond what I believe I could encounter again, and somehow we speak and I don't think I've upset them, somehow..."

It was odd to see a man so worriesome about claiming to do well.

"And you don't want to foul it," Nesshin offers. "It's not an unreasonable concern."

He pauses.

"Do you know if your feelings are reciprocated?" he asks. "Know, rather than suspect?"

"I don't think I'm capable of believing it without being slapped in the face with an answer", he laughed. "Though do I believe I have a chance? Absolutely."

"You might ready your cheeks, then," Nesshin says, "and simply ask."

He grins. "You'd be surprised at how often it works, really."

"Risking everything is fine, it's just...I'd prefer a flat no over something like hearing them say I'm ok but they don't want to decide now." He.shivered. "i doubt i could handle that."

Nesshin nods.

"Then maybe say that to...whoever it is?" he offers, shrugging. "But heartache's a survivable thing," he says, his hand touching his obi. "Unpleasant in all kinds of ways, even years on, but instructive even so. And it makes the loving after all the sweeter."