The lady tightened her grip on her stroller, as if she feared the two unshaven young men might next defy stereotypes by swooping down to steal her baby, and quickened her pace. Ryouma grinned, reckless, and raised his voice. “Should be careful about tellin’ people they rescued you. Last two people I rescued both had sex with me afterwards.”

“Ninja,” the woman muttered, not quite inaudibly enough. She drew to the far side of the path as she passed them, stroller wheels bumping over grass. Ryouma ducked his head in a polite bow.

“Dude,” Asuma complained, “I got you a cake, a present, and an offer for coffee, and I brought your boyfriend back in one piece. You want me to put out as well?”

Ryouma considered this. “Depends how good the present is.”

Asuma’s laugh was as pleasantly bass as his speaking voice, rumbling through his ribs. He unslung his arm from Ryouma’s shoulders to slap him on the back. “Fair point, well made.”

“You didn’t do too badly yourself,” Ryouma said graciously. They were coming to the edge of the park; to one side the grass sloped gently down to the river, carpeted with the scarlet-and-gold of fallen leaves. Ahead, just outside the park, a stone bridge curved gracefully over the water, linking rows of shops. A striped awning on a shop above the other bank of the river announced the coffee shop.

He’d been here before, hadn’t he?

Well, they did have good coffee.

He hefted his armload of boxes and glanced sidelong at Asuma again. “So how’d you end up back here, anyway? Last I’d heard the rumors had you all oiled up as a slave-boy in somebody’s harem in Jungle Country. Were you really just in Fire Country the whole time?”

In the Guardian Twelve, the Daimyo’s elite, hand-picked bodyguard. That had to be a story in itself.