Title: Bad Luck Day Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda, SohRyu, Tenkou, Kouchin, Suzaku, Genbu and Rikugou Prompt: 059. Food.
Word Count: 1020.
Rating: G Summary: SohRyu made Touda eat with the family. It might have been a mistake.
Author's Notes: No, SohRyu isn't actually picking on Touda here. He's trying to be nice and include him in the normal day to day life in the palace. Unfortunately Touda isn't quite up to it.

Some days just went wrong from the get go. He probably should have stayed in bed that morning.

He'd run into SohRyu when he'd slipped into the kitchen to get some breakfast and the dragon had been in a bad enough mood to accuse him of stealing food and order him to eat with the rest of the palace's inhabitants. And he hadn't meant the servants either.

Servants weren't all that bad. They frowned at him most of the time and were reluctant to obey his commands, but they didn't dare show their dislike openly. They might do a bad job, but never outright attack him. With them he still had some kind of status, though even Touda himself wasn't sure exactly what it was.

Eating with the family, though ... well, at least Tenkou seemed to like him. She'd proudly shown him that she knew how to fold a paper aeroplane from her napkin and Touda had in turn shown her how to make a boat.

In hindsight that hadn't been too clever, because once Tenkou had messed up her brother's napkin, Kouchin had refused to donate his and Tenkou had nicked her father's instead.

SohRyu had been furious. Apparently origami fell under things not done or mentioned in polite conversation. Neither Touda nor Tenkou were particularly good at polite conversation. Kijin knew most of the rules, Touda suspected, but wasn't a particular fan of the custom and liked to push the limits. Tenkou due to her age was allowed to get away with not knowing. Touda's problem was his low birth, though, and that earned no understanding at all.

He'd fled SohRyu's wrath even though he hadn't finished the meal yet and found that a virus had gotten into his computer. At least the several hours required to hunt down every last infected file and performing damage control had provided him with a good excuse to skip lunch, but the servants had received strict orders not to allow him any food outside of the official meals, so by the time dinner rolled around he felt famished.

He absolutely had to participate in this meal, but the moment he entered the dining room he realised his bad luck had struck again. SohRyu was entertaining guests. Not just any guests at that, but Suzaku, Genbu and Rikugou.

Could the situation get any worse?

It could. They made him sit between Suzaku and Rikugou rather than next to Tenkou.

He tried to tell himself that it hadn't been a deliberate move to hurt him. Most likely SohRyu had advised the servants not to place him next to Tenkou for a formal meal. They did tend to incite each other to 'nonsense' like the origami session at breakfast and SohRyu didn't like to be embarrassed in front of his fellow protectors.

That he'd ended up next to Suzaku was probably just an oversight, or lack of knowledge on the part of whoever had arranged the seating order.

He couldn't expect any help from either neighbour, though. Tenkou might not be an expert in polite conversation, but she understood the basics of table manners well enough. As in: What fork was he supposed to use first?

Rikugou would ridicule him, if he asked, Suzaku would probably lie. Or attack. Tenkou would have told him. Now he'd have to watch the others surreptitiously and guess when he couldn't see it.

Why in the world they couldn't eat a formal dinner with good old fashioned chopsticks he had no idea either. They had a much greater tradition than silverware, were comfortable and easy to handle. And you could get through a meal with only a single pair.

At least the situation had one redeeming quality. It made him so nervous he didn't feel hungry anymore. That meant he could get away with eating very little, though he'd probably regret it during the night.

For a while he hoped on the unlikely chance that Tsuzuki would summon him out of the damn dinner. Not only would he get away from the only outwardly friendly conversation, he'd also have a chance at a meal in JiChou or perhaps Meifu. Tsuzuki could almost always be tempted into eating, enjoyed sharing his food with his shiki and had about as little regard for silverware and table manners as Touda, Tenkou and Kijin put together.

He cast a pleading look at Tenkou who was caught between SohRyu and Genbu which meant she was currently expected to participate in a discussion of the ethics of politics. A least the look he got back was just as desperate as his own.

Kijin had ended up between Kouchin and Suzaku and was actually doing his best to keep the phoenix's attention on him. If he failed at that task for only a moment, the dinner would probably turn into a real disaster as Suzaku rarely bothered to even pretend to being nice to Touda.

Between SohRyu and Kijin Kouchin was concentrating solely on the food. It wasn't his place to engage the protector of the east in conversation, if SohRyu didn't invite him to and he was probably aware of the consequences distracting Kijin would most likely have.

Rikugou was on a tirade about SohRyu's suitability, or the lack thereof, for leading people. No new arguments there, but if SohRyu noticed, Touda was caught between a rock and a very hard place. If he tried to defend SohRyu, he'd probably anger Rikugou, whose method of revenge was usually unpredictable to him. If he agreed with Rikugou, he'd anger SohRyu whom he depended on for room, board and freedom. Neither of the two liked him in the first place.

In a subconscious attempt to flee the situation he inched away from Rikugou and ended up bumping elbows with Suzaku.

"You worthless, treacherous snake!" The table cloth went up in flames and Touda just barely managed to jump out of his seat before Suzaku's sword clashed down on it.

With his luck they'd all blame him for ruining this dinner as well as breakfast. Why couldn't SohRyu just have left him to eating kitchen scraps?