>>5948051“Gross! So you’ve already solved it?”
Otomo heaves out a weary sigh and begins rubbing his temples, trying to increase the obviously lacking circulation of blood to his brain. He draws in a deep breath like he’s going to speak, but then he just sighs again, weaker in resolve this time. “I want to talk about something else.”
“Poop?”
“No!”
“Why don’t you carve those cute figurines anymore?”
“Because doing that requires a large amount of free time, which I don’t have because I’m always on the job or training these days.”
“So, you have plenty of time to just sit there on your lazy ass thinking about the solved nature of piss release chakra, but you can’t make any room in your busy schedule to carve cute crabs?”
“I always have time for cute crabs.”
You turn away from him immediately so he can’t see how you feel about that sentence. “I’m going to go get some wood, and you’re carving crabs.”
“I’ll wait.”
You scamper over to the trees crowding the edges of the path. You see Hotaru up in the branches, watching you from her high perch in the branches from where she’s grown accustomed to following the caravan from. You give her a subtle wave.
She smiles at you, giving you a gesture to continue whatever it was you were doing.
It made you feel really comfortable that she was there. Knowing Hotaru was watching always made you feel resolutely calm because you knew that nothing could go wrong under her watch, at least, not without her fixing it immediately.
You want people to feel that way about you one day.
Collecting two pieces of good carving wood, you return to Otomo’s regal palanquin.
“Here’s your figurine.” You say, tossing him a piece of wood. “And here’s mine.” You say, holding it up for him and shaking it lightly so that he can take in how sturdy and aesthetically pleasing it is from multiple angles quickly.
“You’re going to carve one too?”
“No, it’s already done.”
“What’s it supposed to be? A wooden block?”
“Yes. I call it ‘Otomo Mizutani’, and it’s some of my best work.”
You don’t get a response. Checking back in on him, you see that he’s already mentally gone. He’s scanning his block of wood, rotating it end over end, rubbing it with his thumb to assess its texture.
Holding it close to his eye, he gazes down upon its surface like a deity looking down upon an earthly plane and assessing what was to be made of it.
You notice he has a cute little pouch of special carving knives that he gingerly selects from, and then he starts carving. At first he seems mildly annoyed, like he’s coping with an annoyance you’ve contrived to set upon his shoulders. But the longer he goes, the more his expression softens, a childlike smile of wonderment forming on his lips while he focuses on it.
That’s the kind of look you wanted to see on his face.
