There was always something bittersweet about seeing him again. He would laugh and smile and call her Sayaka just like he used to, no matter how much she told him to call her Saika Magoichi. It was less tiresome than she acted like it was. Despite herself, she always found herself smiling at it. The sake went down smooth. For all his boasting and apparent lack of taste, he could pick a good booze when he wanted to…

"Where're you and yours off to after this?" Motochika asked, sipping at his cup. Magoichi finished hers, and held it out for a refill. Being in the society of such men, she often found herself drinking like a man herself… It was a little troublesome since despite her considerable tolerance, it still wasn't anything like that of the men twice her size and far more accustomed to the strong liquor…

"We don't have another contract yet, so I'm not sure." She glanced towards his face. He was different around her, softer and gentler. She wasn't sure if it offended her, or if it was pleasant… Keeping her thoughts inside, Magoichi turned her gaze and stared into the liquid in her cup. "We were probably going to head north."

"Well there's not a hell of a lot south'a here, so I guess that'd be the logical conclusion…" A smirk, making him truly look like the demon of the sea he was called by the rest of their land. He was handsome. In a different way than her late husband, but handsome nonetheless. It was probably the sake talking, but the glint of humor in his eye reminded her of their younger days. When there was less worry to go around between everyone. She sipped the sake, toasting those days silently.

"Oi, Sayaka, stop looking so grim. Tonight we gotta enjoy ourselves. Forget all those strategies and daimyo for a few hours, eh?" A nudge of her shoulder. So he truly had accepted her as one of his own… Perhaps not as hard as he might another man but it was true in the end. He had never dared to do such a thing before.

She shot him a glare nevertheless, and couldn't help but chuckle at his sheepish expression. To see even the great Chosokabe chided by the likes of a woman half his size was enough to break through the scowl. "I suppose you're right." She raised the cup. "To battles won and standing at the end of them."

"Ah, didn' I just say to let it go? But in troubled times, isn't much better to drink to." He downed his sake, and she followed suit, fighting a cough.

"Then what would you propose we drink to?"

"Old friends, and good times," he said without missing a beat. Magoichi shrugged one shoulder, and waited for her refill. "You seem to think it's folly to do so…"

"Old friends may become enemies overnight. I've learned to keep my emotions off the battlefield."

"Ain't a battlefield around here, last I checked…" He grumbled, and his scowl only deepened as he poured the last drops of the bottle of sake into his own cup.

"Very well. I've learned to keep my emotions in check, lest the men I associate with think me weak." A twitch of her lips into a smile, vague as it was.

"Tch, you're stronger than some'a those that take my banner into battle, Sayaka. Nothin' wrong with being a woman."

"Tell that to the other daimyo. They think me weak and unfit for battle… Especially since it's been so little time since…" Her gaze fell. It had been so long since her husband's death but it still stung to think of it. Distracted, and lost in her own thoughts, she didn't see the arm reaching for her until it was wrapped around her shoulders, and pulled her into an embrace, the fabric of Motochika's yukata soft and warm beneath her cheek, her hands, which closed into fists around it.

Foolish thoughts slipped through her mind. No, I mustn't. It would be nothing but disrespecting his memory… And Chosokabe will never think the same of me… Her eyes closed against the tears. But she didn't break away from the embrace, and shivered at the warm breath trickling down the collar of her own yukata from where Chosokabe had set his cheek against her temple.

But it was perhaps the sake, or the small voice in the back of her head that told her he would understand… She drew back, tilting her head, catching Motochika's lips against hers. Chapped and rough, and tasting of sea-salt and sake. Nothing like his. It was a relief. He pulled away at first, but her hand slid up, tangling in the hair at the base of his neck, pulling him back into the kiss before he could speak a word.

It lasted but a few moments, yet it felt like so much longer, and when she finally pulled away, there was a question in the violet eye that met her gaze. She said nothing, gaze dropping to the new sake bottle from the pot of hot water. Picked up, opened, and poured herself another cup. A moment later, a large, rough hand was lifting the other cup, and she poured him one as well, glancing towards his face to find respect, and the glimmer of something else that made her heart flutter like a girl's again, lifted the weight that had settled over it for so long.