"I don't wanna."
"Yes, you do."
Shin could cut in two cunning strategists, skilled swordsmen, brutal giants, but he was completely unable to resist Ten when she frowned at him. For some time, he'd wondered if he had a weakness when it came to shrimps with a bird mask. Or maybe it was Ten's special attack: glaring at people until they gave up. She was dragging him to his tent, just when he was going to drink some wine and relax after a hard day's work. In Shin's opinion, it was a captain's duty to be with his men to enjoy a summer's evening, but Ten had other plans in mind.
"Why do I have to do this? Who needs something like that on the battlefield?" he whined while she finally pushed him into the tent.
"Because you're a five-thousand man captain. You're starting to be vaguely important. At some point, you're going to be in trouble if you can't manage at least this much."
"Can't I pay people to do this sort of useless stuff for me?"
"Mouten can do it."
"You don't need to tell me that Mouten's cleverer than I am," Shin protested. "I already know that!"
Ten had a devilish smile.
"Ouhon can do it too."
Suddenly, Shin looked like he'd just swallowed a lemon. Ten could nearly believe that smoke was coming out of his ears. He sat down, his arms crossed.
"Guh! How hard can it be? Come on, Ten. Let's do this!"
He was so easy to manipulate. Ten sat down in front of him and unpacked her writing kit between them. Shin glared at the ink and brush as if he was trying to scare them into surrender.
"Alright! I'll learn how to write in a month!"
She laughed at him.
"Idiot, that's impossible."
"I'll show you! I'll learn it in three weeks!" he retorted.
She sighed, as she unrolled the models for the basic strokes. Making bold claims like that was just like him. But even though he'd completely fail to meet those ridiculous goals, he'd work hard and surprise her with his achievements. That was the kind of guy Shin was.
"Hold the brush like this," she told him. "First, try to copy this..."