flo_nelja's story that I liked. This scratches a deep-seated itch of mine. Aoarashi isn't Ritsu's shikigami but Ritsu orders him around almost as high-handedly as he does the birds, who are. I know I'm a nuance-deaf gaijin and I should be looking at the subtle indications of mutual dependence in the relationship, but really: I have fifteen volumes of exasperated 'you're not much help' Ritsu and 'jeez waddaya want from me?' Aoarashi and it's all very nice in its family comedy fashion: the drawbacks of being an onmyouji's grandson when your father is a demon. But I'm still a gaijin and I'd like a little more than that. R's attachment to the birds is actually made overt in ohh vol 3 is it? the Akama and crystals story, where the birds get left outside the house. And that's fine and as expected from an onmyouji who isn't a total dork, as Ritsu so often is. (FWIW the TV birds annoy me almost as much as the grandmother does, but oh well.)
Aoarashi is another matter. The early resonant suggestions- in the first story or with pajama!Aoarashi- that Aoarashi isn't *safe* have faded lately. Adolescent Ritsu is generally being more bumptiously adolescent than I care for and his relationship with Aoarashi is getting too old-married for my tastes. So, you know, it did my heart good to see
Besides the fact that there's far more complicit sexual tension with 'I'll eat you later' than with 'drat the man, can't he catch even one small youma?'
