Welcome to Gaia! ::

His hands fidget with one another as he mulls this over. As much as he'd like to make amends, he's not sure what it would say of him to simply leave gifts on her doorstep from the hands of someone else.

And if she were to catch him doing so...? His mind just for a moment tries to imagine Oukou's face if she were to open her door at the precise moment he were to arrive and....

...just as quickly he shoos the mental vapors away, finding he doesn't want to think of what she may do.

Clearing his throat, allowing his mind to pour back out from behind its mental wall, he looks to Rinny properly once more.

Hitsuga apologizes, Madame Rinny, he was caught up in his own head for a moment. sweatdrop If....if she would like him to, though, then he will do so.

And hope for the best...

----- That Evening -----


After Rinny's departure, the waning afternoon had brought with it two other customers -- one who'd only come to look, and one who'd purchased a bottle of fragrance modeled after Gaia's fare of wildflowers. She'd gone on for many minutes about how it reminded her of the fields where she'd grown up as a little girl and she would be sure to tell anyone who asked her where she got it exactly where they could find his shop.

He rather hoped she would. Though, for having expected no business, he felt he had done well his first day.

.....which left one last thing undone as the sun's departing rays began to fade out of the sky, darkening the landscape to evening. As Hitsuga nudged the stone aside that was holding the door open so that he could properly shut it, his eyes wandered across the road to the small building Oukou had disappeared into hours ago.

There were no lights on inside, though that could simply mean she was in the same boat he'd been in when he'd first moved in and HAD no lights. ....and if she WAS here, that meant she'd at least done well by Rika, yes...?

So, then, perhaps....

His thoughts wandered to the things Rinny had picked out for the young lady, still sitting under the counter, waiting to be delivered.

Well, if nothing else, the sooner he got it over with, the soon it would stop needling at him as an undone obligation. Stepping back into the darkening storefront, he fetched up the citrus-smelling items, sending an open projection through the house that he was going across the street for a minute.

And that done, he started out...

Oblivious to Oukou's plight inside, or the skulking black cat outside, Hitsuga creeps up to the walkway of the small home, lingering for a moment at its end uncertainly.

Then, drawing a breath, and with it some vapors of resolve, he steps forward to set out the bottles and soaps on the doorstep and turns to go...

.....

....right after he straightens them a bit, he decides, turning back and dropping to one knee to readjust the haphazard arrangement into something a bit more eye-pleasing. Something looks moreso like a presentation of a gift and less like someone had flung them there and run away.

At the same time the open projection of worry and longing emits from the walls of Oukou's home, immediately drawing Hitsuga's attention, so too is there a sudden draft under his garments and something warm and scaley whispering over his ankles with a pattering of little paws.

Giving a startled yelp, not so much jumping backwards as giving a clumsy lurch, the perfumer spills onto his rear, half on the grass and half on the walkway. gonk

Looking much like someone who's been caught in the act of something he shouldn't be doing, his projections radiate frantic and guilty apologies, even as he reaches out to pick up the dragoncat currently crawling all over him and quickly get back to his feet, the small beast cradled in the crook of an arm.

Hitsuga is very, VERY sorry...!

He'd only been leaving some--some things. he explains, sheepishly looking to the bottles and soaps still sitting on the porch, miraculously having not been spilled or broken.

They've been paid for, so she needn't worry, they're hers to keep and...

....and is this cat hers, by the by...? sweatdrop he asks.

Stepping forward to offer her the cat, seeming eager to get it out of his own hands, relief emits from him at the beast having an owner. He worries if Baikou were to hear there was a friendly stray wandering around, it would not be long before TWO of them were devising his downfall.

And....and he's afraid he cannot take credit for the gifts. Madame Rinny had purchased them and asked him to leave them.

A beat of silence passes

"You know..." he begins aloud, seeming to choke on the words as he fidgets back into projections.

.....Hitsuga really IS sorry, by the way, that she had to see him in such a state. He knows from experience it is not an easy thing to wake up in a strange world. Had he been given such a greeting on arriving here, he's.....well, he's not sure what he'd have done, really... sweatdrop

He nods in acknowledgement, if not understanding, offering a tentative smile in return.

He sees.

Shifting his weight a bit, listening to the chirr of the wakening crickets, he continues.

If there is anything this one can do to help make her transition a bit easier, he would be happy to do whatever he can. 3nodding

At this, his brow knits and he shies back from Oukou a bit.

He....he meant no offense, he assures her. He was only--

He trails off, drawing into his thoughts for a moment, and reflecting on what Madame Rinny had said in the shop. And how the nearly-hidden-but-not-quite wisps of sadness only reinforce it.

Well....at the moment, the only two who would begin to know a way home would be Lady Rika and Baikou. He's afraid he's just as clueless as she is on the matter otherwise...