Twelve Lies I Told Shingen Takeda

Chapter Fifty - Radiance

Rather than join Sasuke in Kyoto, we elected to spend our time in the modern world living in Nagano. Thanks to Aki's generosity (I considered it an employee bonus and figured I had earned every penny – especially since he hadn't ever paid me an actual salary), I had more than enough money to rent a decent furnished apartment for a few months.

Before the winter kicked in, we rented a motorcycle several times and toured through the countryside, riding down to the Yamanashi Prefecture, formerly Kai. After some discussion, we elected not to visit the Tsutsujigasaki historic site – it would be too strange and jarring. "When we go to Tsutusjigasaki Castle," he told me, "it will be as it was, so I can introduce you to its people."

In return, I showed him all of my old kid haunts – not that there were that many – and my favorite places to hike and climb. And of course, Shingen being Shingen, we created our own tour of Teahouses and bakeries around the city.

Sasuke came up from Kyoto every other week, mostly to hang out, but also to report what was going on with the wormhole and his investigation into the mystery of Aki. The latter was unfortunately stalled due to his parents having taken a sabbatical trip through China – they'd rented their house out to a businessman from India.

On my own, I was doing similar research on my old mentor, but to no one's surprise, he kept an extremely low internet footprint. Nothing like putting your primary residence 450 years in the past to help you stay off the grid. Similarly, though I haunted the library and archive sites, I was unable to find a lead on "Hikosane." If he had done something important during his lifetime, it wasn't in the historical record.

The first weekend in December, Sasuke came up and took Shingen out for a man-bonding afternoon. That was how Sasuke described it. I described it as "get him out of the house so I can bake him a birthday cake." The birthday meal itself, I would trust to delivery, but I wanted to at least make him something sweet.

Cooking and baking were not activities I had done a much of after my mother died, but prior to that, I'd been the primary cook, not just for meals but also desserts. I had gone through a phase where I baked the most decadent things I could find, hoping to tempt her to – Ah... maybe that was why I wasn't a huge fan of sweets now? I jotted that down in a notebook my therapist was having me keep. I had decided to see a therapist for my claustrophobia and nightmares. They were never as bad when I was with Shingen, but I felt it wasn't his job to deal with my mental health – I needed to take responsibility for that. Obviously, there wasn't a lot I could accomplish before we headed back through the wormhole in the Spring (I told my therapist I was moving to Vancouver) but I hoped to at least have the tools I needed to keep moving forward.

I checked the temperature of the cake layers that were cooling on wire racks. Online, I'd found what looked like (per the number of stars the recipe had) an extremely decadent recipe for chocolate and strawberry cake. While I might never win any cake decorating contests, I was confident the cake would at least taste good. Just as I finished mixing up the buttercream frosting, Shingen and Sasuke came through the door, stomping snow off their boots.

"Sorry to bring him back early – the snow's getting fairly deep." Sasuke hates driving in snow. For that matter, Shingen's not terribly fond of being a passenger when Sasuke is driving, so I ought to have expected an early return.

"No worries." I'd been listening to the weather reports. Deep snow tonight meant this weekend I could finally take them snowboarding – an excursion that we'd planned for as soon as the weather cooperated.

"What's all this?" Shingen eyed the cake and the bowl of frosting with the intent interest of a sugar fiend who'd been held hostage in a health spa for a decade. "If it tastes as good as it smells, then I'd say we've gotten back right on time."