[Tenka takes the touch from Souza easily, appreciating the sentiment and curling his fingers around the other man's in turn, keeping them entwined. His gaze falls to their touch and.... he pauses. It's not absurd at all to think that Shirasu is kind and worried about another person's well-being.]

.... Shirasu helped me raise my brothers. He taught Soramaru once he'd gotten tired of going to school and dealing with too many books. You should've seen him struggling the first time that he had to try to help Chuutarou take a bath.

[When he meets Souza's eyes, there is warmth and fondness. Shirasu was also family and Tenka loved him. Then as he goes on, his smile strains at the edges.]

But the Fuuma creed is to place the clan above all else, and we might have been Kinjou Shirasu's family, but we are not his clan.

[Though the pain is thick in Tenka's voice as he says it - something raw as he's never quite been able to talk to Sousei about Shirasu, not knowing how bad things are between the two of them.

Yet it just makes Tenka all the more emotional as he explains.]

Please be his friend, Souza-kun. He needs more of them. He's never been the type that was accepted at face value back home. I think getting to know people would be good for him. [ . . . . ] But.... please be careful.