During Mitsunari's update on the latest reports from Echigo, Hideyoshi noticed his vassal had grown a tail.
I fell asleep at my desk. This is a dream.
Mitsunari was occasionally absentminded (if one defined "occasionally" as "daily") but even he should have noticed the furry tail sticking out of him. Therefore, Hideyoshi attributed the tail as evidence that he was dreaming. He needed to wake up and finish whatever he had been doing before he fell asleep.
Then Mitsunari bumped the desk, spilling a bowl of rice crackers. A tiny paw shot out, grabbed a cracker, and pulled it underneath his hakima. Faint crunching noise ensued.
Not a dream.
"Mitsunari." Hideyoshi interrupted his vassal mid-sentence. "Are you aware there is a creature living in your clothing?" Surely, he was aware. Possibly he was aware. Hopefully, he was aware.
"Oh yes," Mitsunari assured him with a confident smile. "Kitty." He leaned over, lifted the edge of his clothing to reveal a sweet-faced grey cat.
The cat looked at Hideyoshi and hissed. Hideyoshi mentally retracted the 'sweet-faced' part of the description. "Would it be futile to ask why you have a cat in your clothing?"
"Of course not, Lord Hideyoshi, you may ask me anything you would like." Mitsunari fed the feral beast another cracker.
Hideyoshi waited.
And waited.
Mitsunari looked at him expectantly, as if he were the one waiti – oh. Sometimes, Hideyoshi wished that his brilliant friend was not so literal minded. "Why do you have a cat in your clothing?"
"It was raining, and I lost my umbrella." Mitsunari gestured to his report. "Should I continue?"
"In a moment. If you have decided to keep it- " he paused, and Mitsunari nodded. "Then you should give it a name. One that's easy to remember." In fact, Hideyoshi thought, as the cat gave him the glare of death, 'Yamauba,' after the flesh-eating ogresses, would be suitable.
"Kitty has a name." Again, he rattled the papers. "My report?"
"And its name is?"
"Kitty."
Right. Hideyoshi added Kitty to the list of things that would inevitably be his responsibility: "soothe maids when Shogetsu tracks up the freshly scrubbed floor," and "placate cooks when Wasabi gets into the garden." Kitty was small. Perhaps it wouldn't –
Kitty hopped onto the desk, strolled across, and batted a container of ink to the floor. Then it plopped onto his list and began grooming.
He reached to move it. It growled at him.
"She's purring, Lord Hideyoshi. She likes you." Mitsunari petted the cat. "Shall I continue with my report now?"
"Carry on." It could be worse, he rationalized, as Keiji's pig trotted past the door, a stolen packet of konpieto in its mouth.