You shouldn't apologize about not having seen that earlier story, or not having commented on it! For one thing, I'm pretty sure I posted it back in my days as a complete newbie, when I would have been too intimidated to put it anywhere you might have actually seen it. It makes me very happy that you liked it when you did find it, though: there's nothing quite so lovely as finding that someone whose work you admire likes something you've written.

As for Oriya, if it makes you feel any better in the short run, I can tell you that in this universe (or at least, in my version of it), Muraki is somewhat saner than he appears to be in the Kyoto Arc, and that while he's still a sorcerer and murderer and all, he really does love Oriya. And he would turn time around for him, and take care of that looming winter, the very instant he believed he had Oriya's permission to do it. I feel very confident that the two of them will work all of this out.

And then poor Tatsumi will be miserable instead. But, what can you do? Some people can probably fix things for all their characters at once, but I don't seem to be one of them.