As Things Should Be

-4- Guilt

Months passed and the two shared a level of... cohabitation? It was more than that but Doma lacked the words to describe it. Kotoha was just... pleasant. He enjoyed her company - the way she could just derail his every expectation.

They spoke of past pains and current struggles. She had plenty of opinions about how to improve the cult and he was lacking human insights. She was deceptively good at making him laugh (which was apparently a sort of uncontrollable reaction). Once, during a prayer, one of his particularly loud devotees had sung praise for twenty minutes and it had been fine until he'd met Kotoha's gaze.

It was impossible that she saw he was bored. He was the picture of divinity and interest up on his throne... and yet somehow she knew. Their eyes met and she rolled her eyes. It was playful - mocking in an amusing way. So much conveyed in a simple movement and he'd almost laughed.

He guised it under a cough, which still concerned his cultists, but in his defense, something about it had been disarmingly amusing. He couldn't even explain it!

She was deceptively observant, recognizing his emotions before he did.

"I can ask Tsu to tone down the presentation ceremonies." She'd make some offer of the like and he'd frown.

"Why?"

"Do you... like them?" she'd asked incredulously as if the alternative surprised her. Which... how? He always smiled and nodded and did all he was supposed to!

How did she know?

"I find them... repetitive." He'd finally admit it and she'd grin as if that was a victory.

"What if I told you Tsu does too?"

It was no surprise when he elevated her to... well Eternal Paradise didn't have ranks but he supposed she was a sort of right-hand. A consultant? A top entertainer? She came and went as she pleased but she took precedence over his usual repertoire of prayers and praises.

She still sang, for the community, and sometimes for him - always for Inosuke though. She played a sort of liaison between him and the cult, it seemed his followers were happy to talk to her and for some incomprehensible reason, she was happy to talk to him.

Eventually, and painfully, he gathered that she believed they had some shared kinship. That was preposterous, a human woman sharing any likeness to him was so utterly idiotic he failed to comprehend how she came to that conclusion. But, telling her such would definitely kill those gentle talks they shared later at night in the gardens or in the halls - and he... enjoyed those.

He enjoyed... a lot about her. Inosuke too, in a way. The child was just so... blank. A clean slate that loved to eat and laugh and cause all sorts of mischief in a way he supposed children were supposed to do.

One time he plucked him off the floor before the child could eat a stick of incense and wondered who decided to leave such offerings on the floor. Then he was thrust back into a plethora of memories that were borderline unpleasant of his own childhood with numerous thuribles burning low to the ground or offering plates within reach.

He found himself wondering if he'd ever burned himself. Had he ever crawled? It seemed as if one day he just... stood up from his padded cushion and had been tended to ever since.

Perhaps... Kotoha was not completely unfounded when she critiqued his upbringing. Inosuke seemed far more typical than he had been. Wild, destructive, and yet disarmingly charming.

"You're manipulative in your own way, I suppose," he accused the boy in his arms lightly. The child wasn't picky about who held him, as long as they respected when he wanted to get down.