Utaka tried to be halfway decent the next morning so he could check in with the Hiroki head. He still woke up late and he had a headache, but he could sit through some military talk if he needed to. His family didn’t really know what the word ‘rest’ meant anyway.
The Hiroki family lived in a fort, if it wasn’t an outright castle. Somehow there were more hallways than the palace at Gin no Shuto, so he just walked around until one of the Hiroki boys saw him—usually one of the older ones. By now they were used to it—offered a bow and wordlessly led him to their father.
The head of the Hiroki family—Hiroki Izo, who was close to Takeo’s age and thus prone to giving Utaka very little respect if the man had any to spare at all. Utaka was used to it, really—Okimi managed to befriend a good portion of the nobles west of the capital, so a lot of the older ones still saw him as an antisocial teenager. Being married and having a daughter meant nothing when he still acted like how they knew him when he drank.
Utaka nodded and murmured his thanks to the boy that helped him, to which the boy nodded in return. Utaka opened the door to see Izo just sitting there.
“Wondering when you’d get up, boy,” the man said. “Sober yet?”
“Sober enough,” Utaka replied simply. He took a seat across from him. “Your son mentioned yesterday that you were going to consider going on the offensive.”
“If you don’t mind,” Izo reasoned. “I just thought you would prefer to get everything done within the next few years, instead of waiting until they tire themselves out.”
“I’m willing to hear it as long as its not suicidal. You can always call Takeo back here if you don’t trust my judgement.”
“I trust your judgement fine when you’re not drinking—not that I need strategic input. We were able to get a good amount done without you weighing us down.”
“Yet you keep me here anyway.”
“It’s a pain to send a letter to you every time we need something approved, so until your girl gets on the front lines or if Kuro gets far enough in that its better for you to be at the capital, you’re stuck here.”
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“Either way I’d have failed, so let’s get this over with.”
“All right, sir.”
Izo went over a few basic strategies that the Hiroki family had come up with earlier. Utaka listened to all of them, made mental note of which ones sounded more promising, then gave Izo permission to pursue two or three in particular. At that point, Izo called for someone to bring in his older sons to flesh out the basics to make them useable in the future.
Utaka decided he could stay until he was either excused or he could no longer follow what the more tactically-minded of them were suggesting—the latter came sooner, although Izo caught on fairly quickly and let him leave. Okimi taught him everything he needed to be a decent, if not good, king, but tactics were never something he found particular interest in. Oddly enough, Gin royals seemed to prefer stabbing their problems instead of thinking about them; the tactics they were known for tended to come from other people.
He tried to stay away from drinking—a daily struggle he always failed at. After nearly three years, it was mere habit at this point; he poured himself a glass before he fully realized it, and drank it all just about as quickly. He never really did realize it until an hour or two passed and someone checked on him, and by then he had five or six cups if he hadn’t moved on to the bottle itself. Whether or not he stopped depended on his mood.
He was left to hope and pray that Kuro would decide to stop attacking once they were invaded. Utaka knew it likely wouldn’t stop the people, but there was a small hope. Maybe then he could actually be a father, instead of a sorry excuse for one; he barely knew his daughter, yet he understood that she deserved much better than what he had to give him. He wasn’t any better than anyone else in his family.
The next few days passed similarly—nothing really changed until the Hiroki boys came up with a decent strategy. Just as a possibility, they came up with a few more—variations for a few certain outcomes, and alternatives if everything else failed. Worst case scenario, they might lose a few hundred soldiers and be no better off than how they started; it wasn’t preferable, but at least they could try.
That being said, most of the men and women that were picked out to fight had been pulled aside prior to leaving. Utaka wasn’t particularly fond of driving more families apart than those that have already been ruined, so he didn’t want to let anyone with close family go into Kuro on a mission that might not even succeed.
Utaka himself, being the king, was more-or-less required to go. It wouldn’t quite be ‘right’ if he stayed behind, relatively safe, while others went and risked their lives—as such, him and Izo were the only ones who would have family waiting for them back home. He made sure there was very little—if any—alcohol brought with them; he’d have a better chance of coming home if he wasn’t trying to drink away his worries.