Smiling, he thought, You’ve got a cat, Kei. They have always liked you. He sighed deeply. The loss ached like a mortal wound. His karma, his fault. He had tried to bury his grief in the war. It kept him busy and kept him from home but not from his demons. Once in a while, sometimes in the middle of the day, out of nowhere, he would remember the weight of his boy riding on his shoulders as they strolled in the woods. Soft little hands pulling his ears. He hummed an old Edo lullaby.
