A moment of weakness @fireworkvamplee
(23. Your muse has blackmail over mine.)
He hadn’t really meant to do it.
He hadn’t meant to go back, not ever. The house was maintained, the rites had been observed properly, for both of them. That he still visited was... wrong.
It was wrong, and it was sentimental, and he was not sure how to feel about any of it. He’d also been visiting temple more when he was back, and he didn’t know why he did that, either.
It used to be enough to sneer as he walked, quickly if it had dragon imagery, away from it. Then it had been enough to stop in to a temple if he passed by. Then, on the last trip back for business, he had gone out of his way to visit.
Maybe he didn’t deserve any blessings even if the spirits were real. But he went and he observed the forms. It was a comfort.
So when he discovered, by accident, a shrine in Brooklyn, he went out of his way to visit. Inari wasn’t his usual, he preferred the water kami of his youth, but she was something.
As he was turning into the entrance to the garden which held the shrine, he saw Jubilee. She saw him, and hurried to meet him. He stuck the coin he held in his hand back into his pocket. and greeted her hesitantly. To his mind, there was only one reason to come to the garden, and she would know it. He was, to his increasing horror, embarrassed.
“Jubilee. This is a surprise.”
