Crisis
Souji felt uncomfortable in his suit as it was, but there was something about the day that caused him unease. He’d thought doubly so when one of the neighborhood cats who frequented the garden hissed at shadows, rather than Souji himself as he went out for his morning exercises.
When he’d woken that morning, chest heavy with the night`s accumulation of disease, he’d felt like there was something wrong. Nothing so noticeable as a change in air, but more like a change in how the light might reflect off the windows. Something impossibly small and so inconsequential it didn’t have a name, because no one could identify just what was strange. Being logical and plain thinking, he knew there was no reason for him to feel uneasy about the day, and he’d forced himself out of his futon, drifting as though still asleep, or perhaps already dead as he put on water for tea.
He would let Crow sleep today, but planned tomorrow to start the boy`s
fencing lessons. While the water was heating, he changed into an old,
well worn and patched kimono and took his sword out into the garden to
remind the disease in his body that it hadn’t beat him yet. That had been when he’d noticed the cat, hissing at shadows.
The strange foreboding feeling hadn’t left him even after exercise,
washing, dressing in his crisp and uncomfortable western suit, and sipping at tea, milky with medicine. But there was nothing, that he could identify, that was amiss, until he arrived at the Embassy.
Work had increased in the last week, with plans for a large meeting the Ambassador would be representing Japan in. He’d gathered, with Susumu and several of the Ambassadors assistants, but found that the Ambassador himself was absent. Souji’s snake of unease, coiled in his stomach struck and ignoring the assistants and political advisers who told him merely to wait, Souji left the room, heading for the wing of the building, home to the politicians.
He found the wife, talking nervously in hushed tones with two maids, her hands nervously crumpling and twisting a silk handkerchief. Without any of the proper greetings or apologies, he pushed past her, heading towards a closed door.
The women fell on him, trying to hold him back from entering, and he pushed them off, with no gentleness. Women had never been a weakness for him, and they would not interfere now. The maids backed away quickly of course, sensing his mood perhaps. The wife, he suspected was of old samurai blood. She tried, both physically and verbally to keep him from entering the Ambassador’s private rooms. Souji would have admired her courage-but the unease he’d felt since he’d woken, and her actions now, had made him single-mindedly determined to enter.
Once he’d stepped into the room, he’d wished that he had minded her, and the advisers and had simply gone home for the day. He stepped back outside, closing the door and leaning against it.
“Get Yamazaki-sensei.” He ordered the wide-eyed women. “Tell him it`s an Emergency. And have someone send for Lusk-san and escort him to my office. Immediately. And lock this door. No one is to enter without my personally expressed permission.”
When he’d woken that morning, chest heavy with the night`s accumulation of disease, he’d felt like there was something wrong. Nothing so noticeable as a change in air, but more like a change in how the light might reflect off the windows. Something impossibly small and so inconsequential it didn’t have a name, because no one could identify just what was strange. Being logical and plain thinking, he knew there was no reason for him to feel uneasy about the day, and he’d forced himself out of his futon, drifting as though still asleep, or perhaps already dead as he put on water for tea.
He would let Crow sleep today, but planned tomorrow to start the boy`s
fencing lessons. While the water was heating, he changed into an old,
well worn and patched kimono and took his sword out into the garden to
remind the disease in his body that it hadn’t beat him yet. That had been when he’d noticed the cat, hissing at shadows.
The strange foreboding feeling hadn’t left him even after exercise,
washing, dressing in his crisp and uncomfortable western suit, and sipping at tea, milky with medicine. But there was nothing, that he could identify, that was amiss, until he arrived at the Embassy.
Work had increased in the last week, with plans for a large meeting the Ambassador would be representing Japan in. He’d gathered, with Susumu and several of the Ambassadors assistants, but found that the Ambassador himself was absent. Souji’s snake of unease, coiled in his stomach struck and ignoring the assistants and political advisers who told him merely to wait, Souji left the room, heading for the wing of the building, home to the politicians.
He found the wife, talking nervously in hushed tones with two maids, her hands nervously crumpling and twisting a silk handkerchief. Without any of the proper greetings or apologies, he pushed past her, heading towards a closed door.
The women fell on him, trying to hold him back from entering, and he pushed them off, with no gentleness. Women had never been a weakness for him, and they would not interfere now. The maids backed away quickly of course, sensing his mood perhaps. The wife, he suspected was of old samurai blood. She tried, both physically and verbally to keep him from entering the Ambassador’s private rooms. Souji would have admired her courage-but the unease he’d felt since he’d woken, and her actions now, had made him single-mindedly determined to enter.
Once he’d stepped into the room, he’d wished that he had minded her, and the advisers and had simply gone home for the day. He stepped back outside, closing the door and leaning against it.
“Get Yamazaki-sensei.” He ordered the wide-eyed women. “Tell him it`s an Emergency. And have someone send for Lusk-san and escort him to my office. Immediately. And lock this door. No one is to enter without my personally expressed permission.”