/jp/ - Otaku Culture

yammy legs...

And...They could come back, if Kasen wanted to separate again. Without thinking, I pulled the merged oni into a hug, rather than her pulling me into one as she'd done earlier. "I...Reiki, thank you." She murmured, gently wrapping her arms around me. Finally, she'd gotten the hang of controlling her strength during the hugs again. I would come and see Kasen again, regularly, so she knew that I wasn't staying away from her. "Good. That's - That's good." We separated and I spotted Yamame looking up at us with a small smile. I smiled back, hoping that she could see it. "Oh, it looks like your services are needed." Kasen commented, pointing.

She wasn't wrong - The Horismriver Ensemble was moving toward the peach tree. They stopped and rose into the air. At that point, they already had everyone's attention, so I bid Kasen farewell for now and hurried back down to Yamame.

"Husband?" She said to me as the quartet in the sky organised themselves. "I think that's for us." Wife, I replied. I do believe it is.

"Okay." Raiko began to speak, and a hush fell over the party immediately. "We've had a wedding, so now we've got a party. We'll be playing for a good while, but...Well, the first dance is always something special, isn't it?" She cleared her throat. "Reiki and Yamame Kurodani-Hakurei?" She called. "Care to dance?" Steeling ourselves, I offered Yamame my arm and we pushed through to the space in front of the tree, not too far from the gazebo. "I've got something special selected for you." Raiko told us, looking back at the Prismrivers. raising her sticks, she counted the song in as I took Yamame's hands and entered the poses for one of the dances that Lady Kasen had taught me in the past. Yamame didn't look strictly familiar with it, but...More familiar than I'd expected. "Miss Hecatia said I had to work on something that wasn't the clothes, you know." She murmured to me. "So...She picked dancing just so I'd be ready for this."

Merlin Prismriver started off the song quietly. We started to spin, pushing into the dance. Yamame had clearly been a fast learner, because she moved with just as much skill and grace as I had. As we moved, I saw a few familiar faces smiling back. "Reiki?" Yamame murmured as I placed one hand around her lower back and held her close. I breathed back a question. "...Love you." My wife, Yamame Kurodani-Hakurei murmured.

The smile, as it usually did, came unbidden, in a way that it never could have a year ago. All those dates. All the experimentation at Eientei. The fear and worry. The time since - Preparing for the proposal, doing it, organizing the wedding...It all built up to this. To me and Yamame, dancing in front of the peach tree, identical wedding bands catching the light on our fingers.

I squeezed Yamame's hand tighter as I whispered back.

"...Love you too."  

"It's quite nice here." Yamame commented, looking around at the bank of the Sanzu River. "Warm, too." It was definitely a lot warmer than the valley was at the moment, that was for sure. The snow hadn't really touched here, possibly because it was a lot more humid.

"Sure," Reimu said, nodding. "But it does mean that you're leaving right next to, you know, the afterlife. It's a little weird when you think about it like that."

"Yeah, but I live in the underground, so I already lived right by where the old afterlife was." Yamame shrugged. "Actually, I like the underground too much to live here. Let's, uh..." She hefted the packages in her arms. "Yeah, let's just get going..."

I begged Reimu to not carry me by the wrists this time. My hands would fall off. She looked at me weirdly, then sighed and made me hold her gohei so she could carry me in a way that wasn't agonizing. Sighing with relief, I let her lift me from the ground and, together with Yamame, we left the Sanzu River behind. I was forced to shift the fishing rod that I'd obtained from Urumi to the side because Reimu kept complaining that it was poking her in the face, but apart from that, the trip back to the valley properly wasn't too bad. I wasn't sure how I was going to go about actually learning to fish from this point, but I was determined to do so. It had been something sitting in the back of my mind for half a year at this point. There were a few reasons, but some were better than others.

Tenshi. It had been because of Tenshi. The first time I'd properly met her when I'd been on my way to Marisa's house, she'd been fishing. And we'd just...Talked. It had been nice and relaxing, especially since I'd been half drowning in a deluge of confusing, half-missing memories and nightmares at the time, and I wanted to go fishing with her again. I hadn't really had a conversation with just her for a long while, too. Perhaps I could ask Wakasagihime to teach me. Or Tenshi herself, though I imagined that she was probably busy enough as it was. Then again, I also suspected that she would love to be the one to teach me. Hmm...Decisions, decisions.

"You've been, like, really quiet for the last five minutes." Reimu told me. I blinked, then realised that we were somewhere above the Forest of Magic. Looking around, I realised that Yamame had disappeared. "She spotted Narumi at a glance through a clearing, so I told her to just go before she lost track of her." Reimu explained. "This place is too hard to navigate even when it's not snowing." She grumbled. On the plus side, the sun was shining and it wasn't as cold as it had been, so I wondered if we'd start seeing the snow thaw soon. "Well...Spring's not far away, so...Maybe." I swapped Reimu's gohei to my other hand. Just for something to do, really. "So...I think we'll have to go and see Kasen and Raki in a few days. When's your next interview with Aya?" I thought for a moment. A couple days. "Alright...we could go after that. I just...I don't know. I'm a bit apprehensive about this, even if both Kasen and Raki are doing much better than they were." I was a little nervous too, but I really did believe in them, so I hoped that it would all turn out fine. "At least someone's optimistic."

Reimu mumbled in response, floating vaguely to the left of where we were. "What's taking Yamame so long? Shouldn't she- Oh, wait, there she is." She nodded down toward the Forest of Magic, and sure enough, Yamame was emerging from a clearing, coughing slightly. "That'll be the miasma. Gets in your lungs something fierce. I'll never understand how Marisa does it." Tenshi, too. "Yeah, but she's an ex-celestial. Her lungs probably refuse to store anything that isn't perfect oxygen." What was oxygen, again? "Air. Rather - No, it was complicated and I didn't really get it, but Misumaru explained it to me." Ah. I didn't hold much hope in identifying that, so I just nodded instead.

"Air's not pleasant in there..." Yamame mumbled once she'd returned, gasping in cleaner breaths. "Ugh. I guess she's immune to it because she's a jizo." She shook her head, then placed her one remaining package under her arm. "I invited her to the wedding. She sounded happy, but a little nervous about it." Even so, I hoped that she would come along. I still felt fairly bad about letting her believe I was dead for so long. "So...Myouren Temple?"

"Huh? Oh, er, yeah. That Mamizou hangs around there a lot. No idea if she actually lives there, though." Reimu spun around, my legs swinging until she was facing vaguely in the direction of the village. "Alright, let's do that so I can go home. Kuro's probably worrying." She began to move, then sped up once she saw that Yamame was following. "Hey, how much do you get paid for these?" She asked Yamame, who caught up to her shoulder.

I poked the wall. It was cold. I tried putting a fist through it, which was even colder and had absolutely no effect on its structural integrity apart from leaving my hand and arm cold and wet. "This could be a problem." Yamame told me, watching from behind with her arms folded. The path to the surface had been snowed in, and I couldn't get out. "It's never usually this bad. Maybe the rainy summer has made for an even snowier winter?" I shrugged, stepping back from the wall and shaking my head. It could be that, I guessed. Yamame took my arm and gave me a reassuring squeeze. "It'll be fine." I hoped so. It wasn't exactly doing any favours for my propensity to panic. "I could just try and blast through?" Yamame asked me, but I shook my head. It seemed like a bit of a dangerous solution, especially if it would turn a bunch of the snow into ice which would then freeze and be even more dangerous. "We could just fl- Oh, right." I looked back at her with a raised eyebrow. "Yeah." She muttered. "Home, then?" I sighed and nodded, then followed after her.

It had been five days since we'd returned from the Hot Spring Town. We'd both slept for roughly half a day, lazed around for the other half, then spent the time after that simply relaxing after all of the time spent with Yamame's sisters. Some of the time was then spent forcing me to model clothes and assist Yamame with bits and pieces of her work, although that was never too taxing, so I wasn't particularly bothered about it. I thought that we both needed a bit of peace and quiet, although the peace and especially the quiet had soon faded once Yamame had announced that she was feeling very pent up, but I did feel very relaxed by the end of it, if a little - or a lot - dehydrated.

"I think that there was probably a very minor avalanche coming from somewhere up the mountain." Yamame was speculating on the causes of the snow blockage from the living room where she was curled up underneath a blanket with a book, while I was busy in the kitchen, stir-frying some of the fresh vegetables we'd gotten just before going to the underground along with some strips of meat. "It's happened before, but usually it's not enough to completely block the tunnel." I shrugged, then called back that I'd never really seen the cave entrance from the village before, and the snow never really seemed to get deep enough to cause any problems over there. I suddenly had a thought about the figures I'd seen from the Hakurei Shrine during that heavy storm in the summer. If they really were working to keep the rain from causing too much damage, then perhaps that was why the snow never seemed to be bad enough to cause real problems. Either way, such protection clearly didn't extend to the cave entrance, which was what had led to the current predicament.

"If it's still there tomorrow, I'll just break through it and save us some time." I flipped the meat over in the wok to double check it was cooked properly, though I very much doubted that Yamame would get sick from eating raw food. Shrugging, I divided the contents of the wok onto two plates along with the rice that I had prepared beforehand. One larger portion for Yamame and a smaller portion for me, though I made it just big enough that Yamame would get the chance to steal from my plate, which I knew she loved doing. Carrying the plates over to Yamame, she accepted hers gratefully and smiled. I sat down next to her, ate the amount I actually wanted, then pretended not to notice when she snuck the rest off of my plate as we talked about the book she was reading. It was some sort of romance novel, but when I asked her what it was about, she blushed and refused to tell me, except to tell me that it was a very moving story. I wondered who had wrote it, but when I glanced over and found that I couldn't read any of the characters, I decided that the possibility that it was someone human had been ruled out. Maybe tengu, since I knew that they had a large printing operation to support all the newspapers that the crow tengu made.

With the food finished and my plate suspiciously emptier than when I'd stopped eating, I took the plates back into the kitchen to wash up, then came back to see that Yamame was raised the blanket and inviting me to join her, which I did gratefully. She'd kept it nice and warm inside, and once she had climbed up onto my lap, I felt comfortable enough to nearly drift off to sleep, and so did Yamame, because she was resting her head against me and had a small smile on her face.

It felt like an eternity. She had spotted me, so I left Suika behind and waded through the crowd to meet her halfway, where I wrapped her in my tightest hug. "Whoa, what's the matter with you?" She asked me, and I just buried my face in her hair. I hadn't really realised, but Raki's nearly successful attempt at...Whatever she had planned to do had really gotten to me. I didn't want it to be anyone but Yamame. "O-Okay, well, this is nice too. Really nice hug. Yep."

And then a moody oni yelled at me to stop blocking the way, so I was forced to break the hug and pull Yamame out of the way of the crowds. "Um, what's going on?" Yamame asked me once we had a bit of space. "I saw one of my sisters on the way and she said something about a party." I sighed and explained Yura's little outburst. "Oh, that girl..." Yamame growled. "I told you she was too immature! You should have stopped her." I raised my hands in my defence and said that I really hadn't been given much of a warning, so I'd just done the best I could. "Right..." Yamame didn't look entirely convinced with the whole thing. "Did I see Miss Raki go flying into the hot springs? I thought I did when I arrived." I slowly nodded, but said that I'd explain later.

Suika was still waiting back where I'd left here, but she didn't look all that interested. "Well, I'll be off, but I'll be sure to show up for your party." She said, scratching behind her ear. "Need to find my gourd, anyway..." She muttered as she wandered past us.

After a moment, I asked Yamame if she wanted to start heading in the direction that Suika had told me to go, and she chewed on her lip for a moment before agreeing. I said that her sister would probably be there anyway, and I needed to hand back the papers I was holding in my other hand. On the way, I asked Yamame how Kagerou's hood had gone. "Oh, it was easy. Came out looking great, too. I might have beaten my speed record." I congratulated her, then slowly asked how she had finished it so fast. "Oh, it was just an easy design. Why?" I was silent for a moment, then finally said that Reiko had mentioned something to me about limbs. "Limbs? What does - Oh..." Yamame trailed off. I squeezed her hands tightly and told her that I just wanted to know why she hadn't said anything. "I just..." She trailed off, looking away from me for a moment. "Does it matter?” She asked with a bit of a whine. I told her that it mattered to me, because it was part of Yamame and that meant that I wanted her to know she could share it with me. “…I was scared. I hid them because I was scared." She mumbled, and I held her close once more. "I was scared that you'd reject me." I didn't think I could reject her anymore, so I told her that I'd like to see them once we were home. "A-Are you sure...?" She asked me, and I nodded seriously. It was important to me because I loved her.

Yamame was quiet as we took the twists and turns of the streets. As we climbed the stairs and went past the tofu shop, she finally replied quietly. "I Love you too."

I was starting to get that sinking feeling that only came with the knowledge that one was about to be forced to do something embarrassing. I could still hear the talking going on outside, and now that I'd managed to hop my way over to the door, I was able to vaguely make out snippets of conversation, from Yamame asking a question, to an exclaimed cheer. I still couldn't really tell what was happening, and now, I'd find that I was possibly in an even worse situation. The door. The door was shut and I couldn't even grasp the handle. Still, I wasn't going to be deterred, so I tried to lean against the door and use my forehead to push down on the handle. This seemed to be going well until I realised that the voices had stopped.

At that point, the door was flung open and I went flying straight through and straight into Yamame's arms, who had clearly been expecting this very thing to happen and was finding it extremely amusing. Less amusing was my face when I realised just who her guest was.
Lady Hecatia Lapislazuli, dressed the same as usual, but with her hat taken off and her blue hair trussed up in that same sort of loose ponytail that I had seen Hearn wear, had been the one to swing the door open. She looked amused, in the same way that I assumed that someone might find a juvenile joke amusing. "I know that I told you that you should totally come and visit me, but I didn't think that I would be the one coming to you quite so soon." Lady Hecatia told me, and I said that I hadn't particularly planned on this either. To Yamame, I begged her to kindly release me from the blanket hell I had woken up in. "Oh, now there's an idea." Lady Hecatia muttered to herself, and I wondered if she was planning to pass it along to the red version for an addition to her Hell project.

"Must I?" Yamame asked me lazily. "I think I rather like you like that. All soft and cuddly." To punctuate the point, she wrapped her arms around me and lifted me, then deposited me on the couch. Happily, she did then begin to pull the blankets free, which she had wrapped around themselves in some sort of intricate way that required her to carefully pick them apart. Lady Hecatia took the other seat and watched the scene with that same restrained amusement.

Resigning myself to Yamame's tender ministrations, I asked Lady Hecatia what she was up to. "Hmm...Do you recall a conversation you had in the Dream World?" I nodded, because unlike my normal dreams, my lucid dreams in which Doremy Sweet had been involved hadn't faded away. I'd met the blonde Lady Hecatia there. "You mentioned the sequence of events that led to you being in your present situation, and more specifically, you mentioned that the lovely Miss Kurodani here guided you through the Underworld."

"Underground." Yamame corrected, pushing my head forward so she could get to the back of my neck easier.

"Underground, yes." Lady Hecatia took the correction in her stride. I wondered if it was some sort of habit she'd built. "I told you then that I definitely needed to meet her, so I made good on it and here we are." More specifically, she had said that she was going to make Yamame one of her worshippers, but I decided not to mention that bit. I did still owe Lady Hecatia a favour, so getting in her bad books probably wouldn't end well. Assuming I was still alive at all when it came time to pay up. That was a cheery thought. "We've been talking about design, y'know?" This version of Lady Hecatia wasn't quite as energetic as the blonde one, but she still had the same curious speech patterns. I hadn't seen the red one since my trip to the afterlife, though I remembered her being rather energetic too. "Since you never told me just how good of a seamstress she was."

>>41158963
Spider leg lock with Yamame-san, so lovely