#hyuuse

“Right,” said Reiji. Immediately the car took a turn down a narrow side road and barreled towards the nearest supermarket.

“Right,” said Reiji, and he grabbed Youtarou and marched into the supermarket, Chika following him as she snagged a shopping basket as fast she could scurry.

“You might as well come in,” said Yuuma. “Miden markets are pretty interesting.”

Hyuuse sighed heavily.

“Keep your hood up if you do,” said Osamu. “I’ll… stay in the car since Reiji-san hasn’t locked it.”

They all looked at the front driver’s-side door, still hanging open.

“Or shut off the car.”

“Keep Osamu company then,” said Yuuma.

“Fine, I’ll go,” said Hyuuse. He followed Yuuma to the supermarket doors to see Chika attempting to stop Reiji and replace the child in his hand with her shopping basket.

Yuuma helped her lever Youtarou out of Reiji’s grip and Chika said, “Here! Here’s the milk and eggs!”

“Right,” said Reiji. “What else does Yuri-san want?”

“ICE CREAM,” screamed Youtarou, still held aloft by Yuuma, seeing the opportunity and seizing it with both hands.

“Right,” said Reiji.

Hyuuse hung back, studying the assembled produce to identify his nemesis. He picked up a yellow fruit and smelled it, surprised when the scent came back sour.

He went down the row of fruit, stopping only when he reached for a basket of some of kind of berry and collided with the hand of another patron.

“Sorry,” said Hyuuse automatically. He kept his head down to keep his hood up and walked off quickly in the direction of Youtarou cheering “COOKIES” at the top of his lungs.

He wondered why the man kept looking after him until Yuuma appeared at the end of the stack of foodstuffs and waved his hand to the scarred man. Hyuuse turned his head backwards then, and met the edge of the cold gaze as Border’s Commander vanished into the dairy aisle.

Hyuuse looked at her. “That’s servant’s work,” he said down his nose, as though he’d never gone hungry a day in his life until the hour that his master had taken him in.

“It may be servants work where you come from, but here at Tamakoma we all take turns at cooking and we pitch in whenever we can,” said Usami, cheerfulness unimpaired.

“That’s-” said Hyuuse.

Reiji, sitting quietly at the other end of the coffee table reading a newspaper, simply looked at Hyuuse, who looked back at the broad shoulders and bulging arms and remembered that this Miden fighter had punched him in the face once already.

“That’s right!” cheered Usami, helping Hyuuse take off his jacket to wash his hands in the sink. “Now, do you know how to use one of these…?”

“Of course I know,” said Hyuuse. “It’s a knife.” And this woman and the Miden fighter were letting Hyuuse use a knife so close to her, how low they rated his skills-

“It’s a vegetable peeler, Hyuuse-kun,” said Usami, handing it to him. “You just drag it down the vegetable and take off the skin. Do you need me to show you how to do it?”

Hyuuse examined the ‘peeler’. It would indeed be hard to kill someone with this, he conceded. And Usami stood prudently near the drawer where the knives were actually kept. At least they remembered to do that much. “Of course not,” he said, rotating the strange Miden produce, bright orange with a pointed end, sighing at the latest Tamakoma indignity. “It’s only peeling vegetables.”

Hyuuse still thought that the Miden language looked like a bunch of completely random squiggles, but he took the pudding that Youtarou had drawn a pair of horns on.

“Hyuuse,” said Osamu, who had been lurking on the landing for a full minute, as if Hyuuse hadn’t heard him coming down the stairs in the first place. “Are you free? I was going into the study.”

Hyuuse stared at him, pudding spoon still in his mouth. Osamu looked back, still, as always, equipped with that sense of wavering uncertainty.

“We’re not friends, Osamu,” said Hyuuse.

“I mean,” said Osamu. “I’m looking over match videos of our opponents, and I was wondering if you’d like to watch them as well.”

“I’ve already seen your matches,” said Hyuuse. “Youtarou showed them to me.”

“These are the recorded videos of the other battles they’ve participated in during this rank war,” said Osamu. “How they’ve changed since they fought us.”

Obviously. “You could just give me a tablet, and I could watch them,” Hyuuse pointed out.

Osamu’s eyes met his, and this was the thing about Tamakoma 2’s totally ordinary captain. When everything else about him was indecision, he could look at Hyuuse like he was utterly, perfectly sure. “I think it’d be better to do it together, if you’re free.”

Hyuuse sucked sweetness off his plastic spoon. “When I’ve finished this,” he said. “I’ll find you.”

“I’ll set up then,” said Osamu, all the surety coming out of him in a big gulp. “We can talk strategy and… go over anything you’ll need to ask.”

Hyuuse sits quietly with his back straight, arms folded in his lap, deeply conscious of being in the presence of a living legend. This is a wonderful opportunity for him, for his talents, his skill and his house.

“He’s very promising,” says Visa. “Very promising. I would be greatly honoured to tutor Lord Hyuuse in the art of swordplay, and I am grateful that you approached this humble servant of yours to impart his training.”

“And when-” says Hyuuse’s master, voice proud.

Visa’s fingers tighten ever so slightly on Organon’s hilt, brushing the molded lines with his fingers, calloused and strong when they corrected Hyuuse’s stance, positioning, posture. Hyuuse can’t stop staring at it, even now. To keep Organon in their service- to maintain House Ellin‘s service to their lord-