/jp/ - Otaku Culture

Komachi fell asleep seconds later, and I decided that it was probably time to make our escape. I wasn't looking to care for more sick girls already. I'd done two last year and that was enough to keep me happy for a while. "Kept me up all night, coughing her lungs out and sneezing." Raki muttered, watching the sleeping Shinigami. "You could hear it from all the way up at the top of the dojo."

I raised an eyebrow to Yamame, who waved her hands defensively. "I really didn't make it that bad! Either her immune system works differently, or she's a drama queen!"

"Probably the former." Lady Kasen interjected. "She's usually so laid back that I can't imagine her milking this in private. In front of the Yama, perhaps, but she never needs to hide anything around me." Komachi chose that moment to groan and roll over. It reminded me of the sick Reimu doing the same thing, so I again decided that we should get out of there. "You'll probably want to start on the wedding preparations soon, but not that soon." Lady Kasen told us. "Take some time to relax. An unbalanced mental state can be as dangerous as any attack." She was raising her finger into that lecture pose, and I didn't think I wanted to be stuck here listening to it for hours.

"Houso, you're eating too much." Raki suddenly said. I looked over at her to see that she was lifting Lady Kasen's tiger with one hand. She placed him on her lap - Never mind that he was too big for her lap, and both his hind legs and his fore legs were hanging in the air - and began to scratch him behind the ears. He let out another tiger-like purr, and Raki smiled, looking very pleased about it.

I took that chance to stand, and Yamame joined me before Lady Kasen could start again. "So, er, we'll go and...Relax." Yamame announced. "Um, will we see you again soon?" There was a note of hope in her voice.

"Of course you will, Yamame. I'm not leaving him alone for too long, or he'll start to forget his training." I stood up straighter and looked away from Lady Kasen, who was eyeing me with some amusement. Much as Lady Kasen's training had been immensely helpful to me as a person, I, much like Reimu, would rather not repeat it unnecessarily. "Will you be at the Shrine soon?" She asked, tilting her head. I cleared my throat and told her that Shameimaru was looking to meet me there on the fifth of the month for some sort of interview. I didn't know many details yet, aside from her old request for an exclusive. "Then...We will likely come to the Shrine on that day, too."

Lady Kasen nodded. "Ah, I almost forgot. Have you thought about wedding rings? It's not exactly...traditional, at least by Gensokyo standards, but neither was the engagement ring, and you all seemed to love that regardless." I asked her what she was trying to say. "Well - I suppose this should come as no surprise, but I've been to the Outside World several times since Gensokyo formed, and I was there for most of the time before that, too. Wedding rings as an element of a marriage ceremony only showed up right before right before barrier went up." She stopped for a moment, as if getting her thoughts straight. "But, in the time since, they have become very popular in Japan. And, perhaps somewhat popular in Gensokyo too, since the youkai have learnt about them, and the humans have learnt about them too. Those outsider families in the village, one of them is from the west, isn't he?"

I thought for a moment. Yes, there was a man with distinctively different features to most of the village. "He, I believe, keeps a wedding ring, though his wife has passed away." That was right. He'd remarried in the village, but I'd seen the gold band that had presumably once sat on his finger hanging from a loop of string around his neck before. Slowly, I nodded to Lady Kasen. "He explained the tradition as best he could, and so the rest of the village got the idea. It didn't take long after that for it to catch on, though given the danger of mining out here, I doubt anyone there could get something quite like what you got for Yamame." That did make me smile a little. Knowing that I'd been able to give Yamame something that not many else would have been able to do.

At about that point, I realised that I'd been caught in exactly what I'd been trying to avoid: One of Lady Kasen's lectures. "Partner, I think you're overloading his poor brain." Raki muttered from where she was stroking Houso's back. "Give him a rest."

Will we see her ever again bros?