Half a bowl of rice, five pieces of pepper, three slices of shredded pork, and eight stalks of celery—Reishin counted when Kouyuu suddenly announced he was finished eating.

Was the foolish boy trying to deify himself through starvation? Because Reishin knew for a fact that nirvana was not reached this way…

"Is the food not to your liking?" He posed the question with the characteristic mockery he always used with people.

"No, the food is fine." Kouyuu stammered hurriedly.

"Know that when you are faint with hunger tomorrow morning, I will not deduct a single scroll from your workload."

"Yes, Reishin-sama." Kouyuu cast down his eyes and looked away. The reprimand had scratched a lot deeper than Reishin intended.

Reishin's eyes remained on the half-shadowed face of his adopted son a moment longer, trying to decipher the exact nature of his lack of appetite.

"May I be excused?" Kouyuu, feeling his guardian's prying eyes, ventured to ask.

Reishin peered at him. Now it's really odd, because usually Kouyuu would never (dare to) ask permission for something like that.

"Do as you please. I don't care either way." He replied at last, his tone just a twinge angrier than he liked.

Kouyuu stood, gave a slight bow, and hastily exited the dining hall, unaware that a pair of eyes followed him all the while until he disappeared behind a corner.

Reishin continued to poke at his bowl of rice for half an hour after Kouyuu had left. Maybe it was time to change chefs…he has had this one for fifteen years…maybe the workload was just a tad too much for Kouyuu to handle….or maybe the boy was in love…?

His thoughts came to a screeching halt on that note. He remembered the way Shouka was when he fell in love with Shoukun; the lovesick expression that hung on his face, which neither food nor sleep could ease…But who could it be? The boy hardly has time to go to the bathroom with his current workload (Reishin would know), and after work he comes straight home. So…one of the other shinshis perhaps? Or maybe a palace maid? Well, Kouyuu does get lost very often, and it wouldn't be too far of a stretch if he just ended up in some back storage room with some lady-in-waiting…

Reishin frowned. Honestly! A palace maid! His son could definitely do better…but this was probably just a one-time thing, a trial to see what adulthood is like…

His brows smoothed out on that thought. Yes, just like a girl putting on rouge for the first time…

Wait! How does that explain the lack of interest in food?

Oh, maybe it wasn't very good. Or, maybe he wasn't very good. That would explain the low spirits; Kouyuu's ego was bruised because he lacked skills in bed…

Reishin completely relaxed at that. That could be easily fixed; a few trips to some top rate brothels should do the trick. Now all that's left was to very subtly hint his wishes to that friend of Kouyuu's.

He smiled satisfactorily, glad that he had worked out such a flawless solution.

"Leave the leftovers in the kitchen tonight." He ordered the servant as he stood up to leave. He knew sometimes that Kouyuu had the habit of getting up in the middle of the night to eat. Perhaps later tonight his stomach might come to its senses…

"Danna-sama, would you like to keep the leftovers until noon, or can we throw it out?" his servant asked the next morning, when he came into the dining hall.

Reishin frowned. "Was it not eaten?"

The servant looked confused. Why would the leftovers be eaten? "It was not, danna-sama."

"Throw it out, then."

Once he had finished his work (passed it all, untouched, to Kouyuu), Reishin strolled casually into the eastern garden, which was right next to the palace guards' training ground. And very coincidentally, there was Ran Shuuei.

"Ran Shogun," He called. "I was wondering if I might have a word…"

"How is it, that the Senior Secretary of Civil Affairs has the leisure to visit the Department of Finance in the middle of the busiest month of imperial management?" Kijin inquired sardonically as Reishin strolled through the open doors of his office.

"Kouyuu is taking care of everything." Reishin answered nonchalantly with a wave of his fingers.

"Oh, I see. So while the new shinshi is crushed with an impossible workload, you wander around the palace aimlessly because you can afford the spare time?" Kijin snapped with a twinge of resentment (just a twinge, because he is not jealous of Reishin, the cold and arrogant bastard that he was, because Reishin has a new slave on whom all official work can be dumped, while he didn't).

"Hah…" Reishin scoffed, accepting the cup of tea offered by his friend's assistant, Yuuri. "Say what you will. I've worked hard for ten years. It's about time I get a break."

Behind his mask, Kijin sneered. "You do realize, as a government official, especially one with as high a rank as yourself, you are supposed to work hard the whole time you are in office."

Reishin smiled, and whipped open his fan. "That applies only to idiots."

The brush in Kijin's hand was about to snap in half from the pressure of his irritation. Better not murder the Senior Secretary of Civil Affairs right here in his office; people might get suspicious…

Sensing the murderous (extremely non-figurative) rage emanating from his superior, Yuuri commented quickly with a nervous smile, "Well, you seem to be in a good mood today, Kou Shousho." At least good enough to let one of Houju's snide remarks slide without a fuss. "What's the occasion?"

Reishin smiled, remembering the conversation he had with Ran Shuuei that morning. The Ran boy was smarter than he'd expected, he mused fondly.

He just knew. He just knew that when his pervert of a friend offered, out of the nonexistent goodness of his even more nonexistent heart, to walk him home, something was bound to go wrong.

"Shuuei, this doesn't look like my house…" He managed to grind, relatively calmly, out of his throat with twitching brows.

"Oh, did I forget to mention that we are taking a slight detour?" Ran Shuuei, fighting the urge to burst out laughing, replied as lightly and innocently as he could.

Kouyuu's face lost its composure at that instant. "A slight detour? TO THE RED LIGHT DISTRICT? ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?" He exploded at the top of his lungs. Passerby stopped in their tracks, and turned to stare at the sudden commotion, trying to divulge the identity of the murder victim, as a shout this loud could indicate nothing short of murder.

"Shh…calm yourself, Kouyuu, you wouldn't want anyone we know to see…" Shuuei consoled smoothly, completely unfazed by the murderous vibe coming from his friend.

Kouyuu closed his mouth abruptly, and looked fearfully around.

Looking at his friend's frantic gestures, Shuuei wanted to laugh.

Nobody would see them, and even if someone did, no one would care, but of course Kouyuu, being the adorably ignorant prude that he was, wouldn't know that.

"This is ridiculous. I'm going home." Kouyuu declared.

Shuuei cocked an eyebrow. "Oh really? You really think you, who can get lost as long as the destination is over thirty paces away, can find your way back to the Kou manor from the Red Light District?" He smirked. "Well, be my guest. I wonder what Reishin-sama would say if you were late for work tomorrow morning because you couldn't find your way back in time…"

He watched with satisfaction as Kouyuu's face blanched at that thought.

Reishin was in the middle of his letter to Kurou when he noticed his personal steward in the doorway, waiting for a chance to speak.

"What is it?" He asked without looking up.

"I apologize for the intrusion, danna-sama. Kouyuu-dono has taken ill. Shall I fetch Tou Roushi?" The servant bowed and asked respectfully.

Reishin's brush paused, resuming a moment later when he replied, "Yes. Do that."

The servant gave another bow, and left.

Reishin put down the brush, and leaned back into the chair. The complacency he felt for the last few days entirely dissipated. He had learned over the years that Kouyuu's immune system took an inevitable vacation every time something was bothering him; like the time he ran a fever after being taken to court, or the time he got the stomach flu right after the Official Exam.

He wondered what it was this time. It's not the workload, because Kouyuu was handling the work just fine (but Reishin would never admit that to another living soul…). It's not sex, because Kouyuu had come into the office, after having stayed out all night, several times with dark circles under his eyes. (although unbeknownst to Reishin, those resulted from Kouyuu's night-long efforts in attempting to pry the woman, whose arms had the remarkable stickiness of an octopus, off of him and explain (convince) her that he liked his pants the way it was—that is, on his body—just fine.)

So what could it be? Reishin wondered during the carriage ride form the Kou manor to the palace, all the way through the morning as he dealt with the various requests and complaints that Kouyuu's absence forced him to deal with, and on the way from the Department of Civil Affairs to the Department of Finance during lunch.

"You are remarkably free even though Kouyuu is taking sick leave today." Kijin remarked as soon as Reishin stepped into his office, although he knew that, in reality, Reishin was more capable than anyone else, if only he could work up the stamina to not be so lazy (and arrogant, annoying, calculating…but those should be saved for another time).

"How do you know Kouyuu's sick?" There was way too much irritation in Reishin's tone for such a simple question, Kijin noted.

"I was in the vicinity when your servant came to get Tou Roushi." He explained calmly.

Reishin tapped his fan in his hand, feeling his irritation mounting to new levels as the subject, with which he had been occupied all morning, returned to him.

"Well, it's rather understandable," Yuuri joined in as he set down a cup of tea for Reishin. "after what Sai Shousho said the other day." Yuuri, who had heard about Kouyuu's pattern of illness from Houju (who had heard it from Reishin himself when he absentmindedly commented that Kouyuu was almost as bad at holding his stress as he was holding his liquor), commented. Although, he and Houju both had difficulty understanding how was it that Reishin, as perspicacious as he was, failed to see that Kouyuu only got sick when his worries were somehow related to Reishin.

Now Reishin was genuinely confused. "Sai Shousho? What does he have to do with anything?"

"Ah, you haven't heard?" Half the palace was talking about it, Yuuri knew that, because half the palace would have to be talking about it for him, the Assistant Secretary of Finance, to hear of it.

Reishin flashed him a blank stare, and Yuuri noted with amazement that it was without his usual mocking cynicism.

"It seems that Sai Shousho, while teasing Kouyuu-dono during lunch several days ago, called him an abandoned child," Yuuri paused. "in front of all the officials present, which is to say the Senior and Assistant Secretaries of at least four departments." That is, all except the Department of Civil Affairs and the Department of Finance, as Kouyuu was the one being insulted, Reishin was with Kijin, who never joined the other officials during lunch, and Yuuri himself was probably serving the two.

Reishin's eyes narrowed, and the light in them became eerily sharp. "Oh, really…"

"I guess we will be seeing Kou Shousho at Shou Taishi's banquet next month for sure." Yuuri commented that afternoon, after Reishin had left in a flurry (rage).

"Most likely." Houju conceded without looking up from his work.

"We should probably advise him to search all guests for weapons. Although whether Kou Shousho would murder Sai Shousho in public is still a matter of uncertainty."

"No, but we should probably prepare a few vials of antidote before attending, in case Reishin decides to poison us all in a failsafe effort to get back at Sai Shousho." Behind the mask, Houju's voice remained flat.

Yuuri chuckled nervously. "That's not funny, Houju." Because Kou Shousho might really pull something like that…

Reishin was in the middle of another letter to Kurou, requesting to borrow one of his ninjas, when his steward informed him of Tou Roushi's diagnosis: Acute Bronchitis.

Acute Bronchitis in the middle of summer…oh, this is going to cost you very, very dearly, Sai Shousho…

At that moment, servants throughout the manor thought they heard the crackling sound of a brush being crushed coming from the master's study, and the summer air around them became just a few degrees cooler.

Kouyuu bowed, for the nth time that night, to some official whose name and rank he had already forgotten. There were certainly perks in being the adopted child of the Senior Secretary of Civil Affairs, and attending social banquets, where officials of all ranks gathered, was definitely not one of them. Yet the most frightening thing tonight was not the constant array of people coming to pay their respects to his father, although his having to bow back to every one of them did rank top three; rather, it was his guardian's eerily happy mood that terrified Kouyuu the most, because whenever Reishin-sama was abnormally happy and non-irritated with the "idiots" (Reishin's exact words) that surrounded him, it's a sure omen that something very bad is about to happen.

"What's with the long face, Kouyuu? Do you not find the banquet amusing?" Reishin purred, his voice so smooth it practically dripped honey.

Kouyuu felt the hair on the back of his neck stiffen. "Yes, Reishin-sama, quite." He mumbled.

Out of the corner of his eye (honestly, how can one miss something as wide as that thing?), Reishin caught the approaching figure of his target. With a devious grin, he flipped open his fan, and, hiding his face behind it, whispered to Kouyuu, "Well, it's about to get a lot more amusing."

Kouyuu winced. He just knew it…Reishin-sama was about to pull something very shocking and impolite.

As though cued by his thoughts, Sai Shousho's figure leveled with Reishin's at that exact moment. Kouyuu saw a slight shift in his father's posture, and the next thing he knew, Sai Shousho's robes were flurrying in the act of crashing to the floor. Instinctively, Kouyuu reached out in an attempt to steady him…

A dead silence ensued in the banquet hall, in which only the sound of a cackling flame could be heard. Then suddenly, the loud roar of collective laughter exploded.

"I can't believe that guy…" Houju sighed, looking unsympathetically at Sai Shousho's frantic person in the middle of the banquet hall, before turning away to get more tea.

The triumphant smirk on Reishin's face didn't fade during the whole carriage ride back from the Shou manor. When he extended his foot, he knew that Sai Shousho would fall and Kouyuu would reach out to catch him; he even knew that when he tripped the fat old geezer at that angle Kouyuu would surely grip nothing but his hair (wig); at the utmost Reishin thought Sai would simply fall with the wig still grasped in Kouyuu's hand, but never, never in a thousand years could Reishin predict that the wig would fly out of his son's hand in a moment of excessive force and shock, and land directly on top of a burning candle. No, not in a million years could Reishin have foreseen something like that, could he dare to hope for something like that; having the wig burned and Sai forced to leave the banquet early, without a wig and in the middle of roaring laughter that showed no sign of dying down. Oh, that was just too rich…

Kouyuu looked over at his father, at the evil, satisfied grin on his face, and shuddered. "Well, whatever it is, you have certainly exacted a very expensive revenge. I'm sure the gossip mill will not let this one pass easily."

At his words, the curvature on Reishin's lips suddenly smoothed out, and the expression in his eyes became unbelievably sharp.

Kouyuu squirmed uneasily under his father's gaze, wondering which part of his comment had angered his guardian.

Reishin's eyes narrowed as he hissed, very quietly, "Oh, but Kouyuu, I've only begun." There's no way he'd let Sai off with just a slight (not so slight) public embarrassment, oh no, not for a transgression as great as his…

That night, as Kouyuu laid on his bed, he wondered what it was that Sai Shousho had done to incite such an intense feeling of hatred from Reishin…