This captured Gilly’s imagination. She was lost in thought for a moment, considering this. Then she looked at Tenshio, a certain realization dawning in her eyes.
“How do you always know the exact right thing to say to me?” she asked him slowly. “My whole life… you always have the perfect thing to offer me.”
“Gilly,” he said humbly, “that’s very reassuring to hear. I myself feel as if I’ve been bumbling from one mistake to another. But for what’s worth, I try and prepare for you.”
“You prepare for me?” Gilly asked, beginning to smile. “As though I were a test?”
“You’re not like a test, Gilly,” he earnestly explained. “And I would be a poor mate if I hadn’t taken the time given me and learned the best way of supporting your healing. Besides, as Daitoku, I was already very familiar with human injuries and human healing, because of the way they affect the Kagamihara.”
“So, all along, you’ve been planning in advance for… me?”
“It is like a game of Shogi,” Tenshio explained, his eyes lighting up. “I can plot out the course far in advance, by calculating what pieces you have in your possession and where they lie on the board. Usually, this works.
“However, just when I have become complacent, thinking that I have arranged all my pieces exactly as they should be, you frequently drop onto the playing field a piece I had not previously even known existed, and I must rethink my entire strategy.”
“I must be a formidable player, then,” she said, trying not to let her laughter escape.
“Very,” Tenshio replied, his voice serious.
Gilly remembered all those times he had sat amid papers and maps, a cup of tea or sake by his elbow, lost in research. He had been plotting out the best course for them to take. She realized then that he had never stopped; he had been doing that all her life.
When she couldn’t walk on her own, he had carried her. When she had gained a little strength, he had walked beside her. When she didn’t know what to say, he had taught her the words. When she was imprisoned in a cage of her own making, he had shown her how to dismantle it from the inside out.
Gilly felt a rush of love for him such as she had never felt before. For a moment, she felt it so acutely that she was frozen in one spot. Then she was released from it; she went swiftly across to Tenshio and threw her arms around him.
“I love you,” she breathed.
“I love you,” he replied, taken by surprise. He enfolded her in his arms and patted her back gently.
“I’m so sorry,” she said.
“Sorry for what?” he asked, bending his head to hers.
“For complaining about childish things, like romance,” she answered passionately.
“You don’t have to apologize, Gilly. If it’s important to you, I can try to provide you with some,” he said earnestly. “But to be honest, I’m not quite sure I know what that is.”
“That doesn’t matter,” Gilly said fiercely. “That’s nothing. I don’t know what it is either. Something like meeting in a tea house where no one knows you and holding hands under the table.”
“We might have some difficulty with that. I don't know any tea houses where we won't immediately be recognized."
"You think it might be difficult for the Daitoku and his living human wife to go incognito, is that what you're saying?" Gilly asked, her eyes dancing. "Maybe we'll have to go all the way back into the Kagamihara."
"I'm not entirely convinced that romance is worth that level of dedication. Besides, doesn't romance have something to do with flowers? I seem to remember hearing that somewhere..."
