Twelve Lies I Told Shingen Takeda

Chapter Four - Occupational Hazards

"Halt!"

With his mouth set in a determined line, Yuki barred my progress toward Shingen's room. Every time I tried to go around him, he leaped to block me like a goalie defending a football net. "Where are you going with that?"

Since I was carrying a handful of messages and a basket of pastry, I thought it should be obvious. "Don't ask a question you already know the answer to."

Yuki looked over his shoulder and scowled in the direction of Shingen's room. "I see he's already trying to bypass my orders by sending you out for dessert."

"Your orders?" When did he join the calorie cops? "Why? Is there something wrong with these?" No one in the shop had seemed to have any issue with them.

"It's not good for him to eat that many sweets, that's all." Yuki reached for the basket, presumably to confiscate the contraband, but I scooted out of the way.

"Really? He looks like he's in good shape." Really, really good shape. My job is to stay observant, so observing that Shingen is a decent specimen is an occupational hazard – especially given all of the pec airing that he does.

At that exact moment, the Occupational Hazard stepped out of his room, and there's no way that he could have avoided hearing my comment, so I looked him right in the eyes, and tacked on, "for his age."

I know. That was petty of me. But I was still angry at that setting me up to be killed thing. On an intellectual level I knew his "black powder test" had been a perfectly logical strategy, but what if I had gotten that powder on my hands by accident? Would he or Chiyome have killed me anyway?

With his back to Shingen, Yuki considered blithely on. "That's not the point. He refuses to watch-." Yuki got a look at my face, then sighed. "He's behind me again, isn't he?"

I nodded, as for the second time that day, Shingen thwacked Yuki on the back of his head. He eyed the confections. "Thank you, Katsu. I think I look like I'm in good shape too. For any age. Also, your former master was correct in his assessment that you're insubordinate."

That could simply be the adrenaline rush of being not-dead.

On my way back to the castle I had considered his distrust of me. If I acted overly deferential, slinking around with my voice quiet and my eyes downcast, that would be more suspicious than if I were just my own, unfiltered, slightly insubordinate self. Maybe it's a cliché, but in this case, the best defense would be a solid offense.

"Bring that inside," Shingen motioned to the basket. "I'm dying for dessert." At Shingen's beckon, Yuki and I followed him back to his room, where I deposited my prize onto his writing desk (GOOOOOAAAAAALLLLLLL!). Shingen immediately dug in with the attitude of a man starving in the desert. Then, he tipped the basket towards us. "Help yourselves."

"Nah, I'm good," Yuki said. He continued to glare at the confections as if they had caused him a great insult.

The smell of the pastry had been torturing me all the way back from the shop – I honestly can't remember the last time I had dessert... four years ago... maybe? I gratefully took him up on the offer, picked up the closest dumpling, and took a decent bite. My blood sugar level instantly tripled. Apparently Shingen has the palate of a nine year old boy. "Oh my God," I managed to say.

Help!

"I know, right? Yuki doesn't know what he is missing." He fished around the basket for another sweet bun.

Tooth decay and a diabetic coma – that's what he's missing.

"Yuki can live with the deprivation," said the man in question, who was clanking around in the fire pit.