We’re back with another chapter of ‘Downtime’, as a big thank you to all of you for helping us to his the 100 subscriber mark! We hope to give you a glimpse into what our characters get up to when they aren’t working, and how they interact with one another in more casual scenes.
This chapter features Minoru and Yuzume engaging in some harmless skulduggery, as we learn about their relationship before they came to Hirosaka, and what Minoru’s promotion could do to change that.
There may not be many clan shugenja in Hirosaka, and those that are here seem to have done a fairly decent job of avoiding one another up until now. Yes, the woman who owns the inn is friends with an Agasha, and she knows there’s an Isawa kicking about somewhere, but they haven’t sat down and had a proper conversation yet. With the temple district still in shambles, one would think they might have made the time to discuss its future, but instead they’ve all fallen into a routine where they drop by on days that the others won’t be there, offering support to the local priests and services to the populace as requested.
Unsurprisingly, Yuzume doesn’t get that many requests. She doesn’t often have the free time to do much more than talk to the local spirits, mostly to make sure Yoshi’s ‘scary friend’ isn’t still lurking around, and not many people ask for advice from a Scorpion. Today though, she has time in abundance, and is using it to quiz some of the priests on local legends in the hopes of finding out what might be lurking at the House of the Porcelain Heron.
It’s unfortunate, then, that they don’t have a lot for her. She’s learning a hundred little rumors about Hirosaka as she goes, like the gossip about blue lanterns and reflections in the water leading one to other realms, but none of them tie to the inn, nor to the description Hajime had given her about what he’d felt calling out to him.
I’ll have to put some wards up round his room tonight, just in case, she thinks, turning away from one of the locals with a prim and proper smile. Maybe ask the kami to keep his candles burning through the night. That might help.
It’s as she’s walking back toward the inn, mulling over all the many ways to keep Hajime completely and indisputably safe from unknown spiritual foes, that she bumps into Minoru. Almost literally: it’s only because he sees she isn’t paying attention that he’s so loud in saying hello, so exaggerated in his movements that she cannot help but be snapped out of it in time to stop herself colliding with his shoulder.
“Bayushi-sama,” she laughs nervously, realising her lack of awareness. She allows herself a split-second to take a calming breath, and then puts her game face back on. “So good to see you! I must thank you for the afternoon off; it’s been very relaxing thus far.”
“Well, I am glad to hear it,” he says, his practised air of politeness betrayed only by a familiar glint in his eyes. “I was about to return to the inn for the evening, but since we’ve run into one another, perhaps we could go for a walk? You can regale me with stories about how you’ve spent your day.”
Her face stays much the same, as does her tone, but Yuzume’s eyes gleam right back, and she nods. “I’d like that very much, Bayushi-sama.”
Their walk is actually quite short - there aren’t many buildings in Hirosaka that are tall enough for their purposes left standing, and so picking one out doesn’t take as long as it would in another city. They move quickly and quietly, sinking into the long shadows of the early evening so that no one can see them, and when they’re certain they won’t be spotted, Minoru starts to climb the wall of the building they’ve chosen. It’s maybe three storeys tall, and parts of it do look damaged from the flood, but it’s made of sturdier stuff than many of its now-abandoned neighbors. Perfect.
Yuzume follows after him, considering for what must be the hundredth time how much more elegant he is at this sort of thing. Her leg isn’t holding her back - it was designed for this kind of work - but her outfit is too restricting, even if she did gird herself at the start. Still, even when she’s fully prepared for one of their ‘walks’, Minoru has always made it look as effortless as breathing. He’s never rubbed it in though, and once he makes it to the roof he holds out his hand for her as though it’s the easiest thing in the world to just reach out and take. And she does, because she can’t think of a reason not to that she actually cares about.
They settle, as they often do, on a view facing the setting sun, and make themselves as comfortable as is possible on a tiled rooftop, gazing out at what might have been some beautiful scenery before the calamities of winter. They both must be realizing this at the same time, Yuzume thinks, because there’s a pregnant pause before Minoru says anything, and it feels like a change of subject already.
“So, how was your outing with Asahina-san?” he asks, genuinely curious. “He seemed excited to go out with you for… What was it? Alcoholic breakfast?”
She snorts in spite of herself, remembering how it was that very sales pitch that had her interested in going in the first place. “I suppose you could call it that. And it was lovely, right up until the end.”
“Was it very alcoholic?” The look Minoru gives her is a little weary. Unlike Hajime, he will talk about that vice with her, much to her dismay.
“I had hardly anything,” she pouts, and the disappointed twinge in her voice must be what convinces him it’s true, and that she didn’t make a fool of herself (and by extension the Emerald Office) by getting off her face in public before midday. “And it was a wonderful time until the yokai turned up.”
Yuzume watches as the visible half of Minoru’s face goes from shock, to mild fear, to exasperation, then finally acceptance. He pulls his palm down across his mask, and when he speaks it’s with all the energy of someone who already has too much to do, and has just been asked to do more.
“Is there going to be paperwork?”
“You know if there was, I’d take care of it for you, darling,” she laughs, and watches him sit up with his shoulders slumped. Perhaps taking it lightly wasn’t the right approach, she realises, and brings it down a notch. “Don’t worry about it for now. Whatever’s in there hasn’t completely made itself known yet, though some of the staff suspect the kami are playing the occasional trick on them. They only came out because Asahina-san is like a signal fire for spirits and doesn’t know how to shut it off. So long as no one else like that wanders in-”
“-and they will eventually-”
“- we should be able to set it aside until we’ve finished our initial discussions with the surrounding clan representatives. And there are local priests who will be asked to handle it anyway.”
It feels wrong even as she says it, but she dreads to think of what will happen if they overstep their boundaries. That and she’s already begun her own informal investigation anyway, for entirely selfish reasons, so the hypocrisy of her advice remains at the forefront of her mind. Minoru seems to share some of the sentiment, shaking his head as he stares out across the city.
“It doesn’t feel right to do nothing about it, Soshi-san.”
“If you feel it’s necessary to inform the priests of the issue, and offer aid, then I will do so right away, my lord,” she offers, more formal and rigid than she’d like for this kind of rendez-vous. He picks up on it, she can tell, because he sighs again and lies right down against the tiles, as uncomfortable as they must be on the back of his head.
“No, it’s… It’s fine. We don’t need to worry about it right now. Not up here,” he says, and shakes his head again for good measure, though he doesn’t sound convinced. Yuzume shuffles a little closer, again with less grace than one might expect from someone trained to be stealthy, and puts her hand on his shoulder.
“I didn’t mean to give you more work when we should have been gossiping, darling,” she says, and gives him a very small smile. “We can talk about something else; whatever you like.”
Yuzume’s not sure what expression Minoru makes under his mask as he reaches across his chest to put his hand on hers, and he nods his head. It’s the kind of cliche one finds in stories about Scorpions, particularly the Bayushi, Yuzume thinks. Up on a roof, holding hands, looking at the sunset - it’s the perfect setup for a cheap romance whichever way you look at it. But the truth is much less rosy; roof tiles leave legs and backsides numb from discomfort after a while, and climbing down three storeys in the dark is a nuisance. Sometimes the view one looks out on isn’t a picturesque field or the bright lights of a bustling metropolis, and is instead the wreckage of a city battered by every element at once until there’s hardly anything left.
Sometimes holding hands just means you’ve been through a lot together, and that everything around you is changing so quickly that the only things left to hold onto are each other.
And he has always been her rock, hasn’t he? Sent to work with Kitsu Shogo with no yojimbo of her own, no history of working in law enforcement; Yuzume would have drowned without him there to pull her out of the water. He’d often been busy with Eiko and a slew of other yoriki whose names had faded from her memory just as quickly as their faces, but Minoru had always looked after her. Stepped into yet another role he’d never asked to fill, without complaint, and done his very best to keep her afloat.
She tries to keep her expression light as she ponders this, and finds the perfect topic of conversation to keep things from getting too serious again.
“I have to wonder how you spent your afternoon,” she hums, and she knows that he knows she’s about to tease him something fierce. “Was Seppun Ishima part of your reasoning for giving us all that time off? Did she want to spend a little time with the new Emerald Magistrate?”
The noise Minoru makes can best be described as a choked squawk, and he gives her a serious frown that doesn’t at all match the pink just under his eyes. He smacks her hand gently, then rests his on it again, and now it’s his turn to pout. “No. And I would appreciate it if everyone stopped insinuating that she has some sort of fascination with me.”
“We’ll stop insinuating it when it stops being true,” comes the deadpan retort, and Minoru flattens his eyes at her.
“Doji-san made the same comment.”
A beat, and Yuzume makes a face of sheer upset.
“Then I apologize for behaving in poor taste,” she says, rolling her shoulders as though it will somehow slough off the knowledge that she behaved like Eiko. “And I’ll stop teasing. What did you do today, darling?”
Minoru makes a very amused noise, and she knows he’s smiling. “I found out that Doji-san likes some of those books I lent you.”
*No!”
“Yes! He tried to talk about the crime thrillers, but I’m certain he’s a fan of the author’s earlier works after our conversation earlier today.”
“... Fortunes, I dread to think what this means,” she says, not realizing that she’s gripping Minoru’s shoulder a little too tightly. “I thought he was like me, that he didn’t have any interest in that sort of thing.”
“You still read them, my dear,” he points out, and rubs his thumb on the back of her hand. Perhaps he’s hoping to get out of her vicelike grip, or that her nails won’t dig in. She doesn’t know, because she still hasn’t really registered that she could be hurting him.
“For the plot!” Yuzume insists, and snatches her hand back to fold both arms across her chest. “The character development is absolutely fascinating, even if their activities are… well, not my cup of tea.”
Minoru just laughs, but it’s hearty and good-natured. He’s never once questioned why she loves books about activities she has no interest in ever participating in, and it’s one of the reasons why she trusts him. He’s always accepted her as is, and never expected anything more. Perhaps that’s why, even though he’s laughing right now, she can’t help but feel so sad. He’s her superior now, an Emerald Magistrate, and it won’t be long until this game they’re playing, where she just pretends that he’s her boss, becomes reality.
There won’t be any more stolen moments to ‘go for a walk’ and scramble up onto a roof together. They won’t be able to sit and gossip like this because there won’t be time, and even if there is, there will be too many prying eyes.
It won’t matter that in the past he acted like her yojimbo even though she never asked him to, that all he ever did was keep her safe and be her friend. All that will matter is that he is her magistrate, and that she does everything she can to support him.
It can’t be hard, she thinks, looking over at him, unwilling to hide the fondness in her expression as he continues to regale her with stories about his day; his plans for the rest of it. I can give good advice. I can help him with the local magistrates.
I can keep him safe too.
