Brick by brick

They parted after that, nothing more needed to be said. And though it went without saying, Hattori appreciated Seiko too- for the most part his youngest children were all agreeable enough. He exhaled, moving deeper into the bamboo, shouldering past the thinner thickets to where the shadows outnumbered the light that filtered through the canopy. He wondered what Kiriko would make of this, she was a rather...absent mother at best, which honestly surprised him in a way, he had expected...so much more from her. She did not seem to still be healing from it all, so what then? Hattori was unsure, but started to feel the stirrings of displeasure, aimed solely at his wife.