Young Rev. Mifune trudged up the hill. Shota had been very bad about attending school over the last few weeks. His excuse was that the family had houseguests, but Rev. Mifune knew that Shota would seize any excuse to avoid studying the precepts of Confucianism and classical Chinese. He'd been debating whether or not he should speak to Yuta-sensei about that. Today, he had reasons for his visit so this would be a good time to bring it up.

It was time and past time for ...