Poki NPC - Minoru

Fine Clothes | Green Tea | Sake and fine wines | People who are easily teased | Sleeping | Children | Money

People bothering him when he's made it clear he isn't interested | Cheap anything | Jasmine Tea | Being woken up | People who are too serious

Vain, lazy, interested only in his own luxury, and entirely too smart for his own good—Minoru hardly seems like any kind of good-hearted person. He is entirely self-absorbed, knowing full-well his own attractiveness and not afraid in the least of flaunting it. His utter refusal to wear anything but the finest clothes, or eat anything but the finest food, would break any bank past the point of recovery—thankfully, he is never short of customers or patrons who are more than willing to buy it all for him. Such vanity would be disgraceful in someone dim-witted, but Minoru is incredibly quick-minded and intelligent, making his vanity entirely insufferable. He enjoys teasing people who make it all too easy to be teased, and has no time for people who are too serious, finding them boring and not worth his time.

But in more than two-hundred years of life, vanity and luxury are merely ways to spend the time. The intelligence that he gleefully uses to tease and brag is born of a deeper wisdom and understanding of the harsh world and business he lives in. He despises seriousness, but is himself a very serious, practical person when necessary, and can be frighteningly ruthless when his patience is truly tested. But time does not make all things dark and tired of living—he truly cares for the men and women who work in his brothel, and will defend them entirely by any means necessary. The names and faces may change with time as people come and go, but he treasures them all just the same.

Minoru never did learn where he came from. All he knows of his early life is that his mother worked in the brothel, and eventually came to have him. Of a father, he knows nothing. Soon after he was born, they told him, his mother left, departing in the night for places unknown and leaving him behind. But the women in the brothel were kind to him, and the owner of the Okiya a decent and honest woman. She allowed him to grow up in the brothel, expecting nothing more from him that he behave and keep out of the way of the ladies as they worked. So he did that, growing up swathed in colorful silks and perfumes, doted on by women who found him small and adorable, more sisters than mothers.

As he grew older, he began to poke his head into the business side of the only home he'd ever known. He would flirt with customers and then scamper away, laughing, when his sisters swatted him away. Though it was never expected of him, the brothel owner never demanding that he work for his keep (since he was more a nephew than a free-loader to her at that point), he began to pick up clients of his own. It was a lifestyle filled with luxury, customers competing with each other to see who could buy his favor (as they did with many of the popular courtesans). He even accepted a patron, a good man who was as wealthy as he was respected in the area. It was a good life, sleeping well into the late morning, getting gifts, surrounded by good people.

But foxes are magical, long-lived creatures. Eventually, he stopped growing older. Time seemed to forget about him, passing him by to sweep the people he loved along with it. The owner of the okiya turned its management to him, trusting its upkeep and its occupants to him for however long he saw fit to keep it. And because it was special to him, and because it was given to him, he stayed there, and he has not moved from it since. Minoru takes in anyone willing to work for good food and a safe place to sleep, and in return, he protects their interests fiercely. He takes his own customers and patrons from time to time, but less so than in his "youth". There are times when he feels as young as he looks, and there are other moments, at night when he's alone, remembering how he was left in a strange and beautiful place so long ago, that he feels every moment of those two hundred years. But who has time to be morose for long when there's good sake to be had and stony faces to tease?

- To Come -