It was unfortunate, Katsu thought as he and Yokuzoma-sensei stood outside of the Tatamisu residence, that whining was unbefitting and shamefull for a man his age. Otherwise, this might have been somewhat tolerable. He sighed, then straightened his shoulders and gritted his teeth. It was going to happen, and there was nothing he could do about it, and he'd be damned if he'd shame his sensei over a little thing like not being able to control his emotions.

The door-servant let them in far too soon, and Katsu walked forward into his - temorary - Hell ...

... Only to find later that someone had doused the fires and was serving chilled drinks with little paper umbrellas in them as refreshments. The drinks were not of any recognizable color, and they tastes a bit like fish, but overall ...

Overall, there was a limit to how far one could stretch a metaphor, and he had not only just passed it, he had demolished it and scrawled rude graffitti on the remains.

.... Right.

The point was, it wasn't as bad as he'd thought it'd be. Not that he'd ever admit that to anyone. Kijou seemed ... distracted today - occasionally she would forget to give a completely vapid answer, and end up with a comment that was actually intelligent. Whenever that happened, they both tended to fall silent for a few moments until one of them (usually Kijou) broke the resulting awkwardness with a brightly meaningless statement. He learned a great deal from that "talk" - probably more that Kijou had meant him to.

It was very ... interesting.

And, try as he might, he couldn't find another way to put it when Yokuzoma-sensei asked him.