Meeting of Families

[Eidolon]

Usually others did not persist when faced with her polite rejections. It made for a surprisingly efficient shield. However in this case, the stranger’s entreaty continued regardless. Though Eido had made no move to retreat from her perch, a defeated sigh filled her lungs, for she would not be rude enough to simply turn her back and walk away. She did not let the breath spill out, just buried it deep in her chest, and listened.

"It is not something I have done. It is something I have not.” It is something I am. She did not utter the last aloud, suspecting it might only ignite some unwanted curiosity as to her meaning. Eido’s tone was resigned, but gently so. Her life was a habit, and she was as caught in its loop as a yūrei bound to earthly plains. It had been foolish to say anything at all and think she could do so without consequence, because she immediately heard that awful note of recognition in his voice. It was a connection of kinship she did not want to hear, nor to feel, but it was already too late. Eido was hard-pressed to shun the injury revealed in her carelessness, and she felt a pang of guilt. Though she was sure he was a criminal, and the weight of his burden duly deserved, she did not think it usual for gokudō to be plagued by conscience for what they did. "But for the living, there is always hope,” she amended softly into the silence left by her own condemnation. Whatever he had done for him to wrongly think he spied commonality with an abomination, it could be atoned as he said.

Her protective concern relaxed when he revealed the man he sought was a brother. She did not feel the need to see the photograph, knowing it was unlikely to be Kota’s image now, and nor was she happy to close the distance between them on an errand of favour. He attempted to lull her like the animals Kota brought in his cages, or the birds they had raised in their youth. She was aware of it, but what protective instincts roused at the possibility of Kota being in danger, she did not expend so wisely for herself. Though it was not assault she was afraid of. He gave no sign of intending violence. It was herself she didn’t trust.

“If it was as simple and innocent as that, you would not be skulking in shadows,” she said plainly. It was not quite a chide. She did not answer his question about brothers, but she did obediently descend into the shadows. The muffled noise of the kitchen faded, replaced by the general city night noises. The soft pad of her footsteps did not bring her closer than necessary, and in the soft light of his wallet she first glanced up at the fence behind him. There was no other way into the small compound than over it.

The glow of the screen bathed her own face when her attention fluttered down, robbing what adjustment her eyes had made to the darkness. A good time to spring a trap, she noted, but since she had resigned to the possibility the moment she chose to investigate the disturbance, she only observed the photo as bid. She did not reach to bring the image closer. If she recognised anything of what she saw, it was not immediately evident. “A description would serve better. I hear more than I see. Will you tell me about him?”