"I think I realized something." Mitsuhide swallowed the lump in his throat, "Too late."
"You figured something out?" Obi, who had previously looked somewhat bored, stopped throwing one of his throwing knives in the air and catching it to now listen more intently.
"About Kiki." Mitsuhide sighed, dropping down next to his friend, and now very trusted companion, but Mitsuhide felt embarrassed to go to Zen, didn't feel comfortable opening up to Shirayuki about this, and didn't want to ruin things for Kiki to go to her about this. And yet his chest feels heavy from keeping secrets, so here he is before Obi.
"What did you realize?" Obi sits up, grin pulling up into a playful smirk like he's getting ready to tease Mitsuhide, and suddenly the knight wonders if he shouldn't have come to Obi with this.
"Maybe I shouldn't say." And Mitsuhide's face goes bright red, and he feels as embarrassed now as he felt the dire need to tell somebody about this.
"You should say." Obi's golden eyes glimmer with a hint of curiosity, "Besides you know you can trust me." It's almost snake-like more than cat-like. But Obi's not betrayed them since he became Zen's retainer and swore his loyalty to him.
"Well..." Mitsuhide feels anxiety as if it is cutting off his air flow; how does he even begin?
"Well?" Obi repeats.
"I think I might have fallen for Kiki?" Mitsuhide stumbles over his words, "Or something like that? I don't think I like how close Hisame is to her, and not because he and I don't get along, but because...?"
Mitsuhide stops talking, as if the avalanche of words just quit, like it hit the bottom of the mountain finally.
"You're jealous of him." Obi says it like a statement of fact.
"I guess so." Mitsuhide sighs, "And I shouldn't be, and Kiki deserves someone who can marry her and be there for her. And I can't. I need to stay loyal for Zen."
"Sounds almost romantic to me." Obi cracks a joke.
Mitsuhide stares blankly at him for a moment, not sure how confessing to having romantic feelings for Kiki could sound like anything less than romantic.
"Oh, never mind." Obi sighs, looking somewhat disappointed with Mitsuhide.
"It's romantic to have romantic feelings for Kiki?" Mitsuhide prods, not sure if he likes the clunkiness of the sentence.
"I was talking about Master."
When Mitsuhide doesn't reply, Obi goes on, almost seeming reluctant.
"I guess we're the not going to marry duo?" Obi suggests.
"You won't marry?" Mitsuhide looks a bit taken aback at that.
"No plans to." Obi shrugs, though that's a box he doesn't want to open up for Mitsuhide to peer into.
"Maybe it was good I came to you." Mitsuhide moves just a tad closer to Obi, a bit more relaxed now.
"I'd tell you that you should have told Princess something different, but..." Obi paused, "I'd be a hypocrite, so I'm not going to. You lucked out."
Mitsuhide felt a chuckle, light and not really amused, half rise through his chest.
"Thank you?" Mitsuhide wonders if perhaps they are more alike than he thinks.
On second thought, no, not really. They are very different, but having this in common does seem like something that adds a bit more depth to their friendship.
Mitsuhide's glad they met, even if he wasn't expecting to open up to Obi like this or for that conversation to go quite the way it did. Their friendship really is special and a place where Mitsuhide can breathe with a bit of compassion from the least likely source.