/jp/ - Otaku Culture

Was that...How it worked? "Yep." Reimu looked very convinced. "Anyway, I'll let you two, uh, enjoy yourself." Before she could disappear again, I congratulated her on both the speech and the spectacle. "Heh. Thanks. It's - Well, basically, I have to do a huge amount of running around in the days leading up to it to get everything set up, but once it all works out, it's usually pretty great." It definitely seemed to be. "Ah, there's never enough praise. Alright, have fun. I've got a date with a sake bottle up here." She immediately disappeared from view, presumably pulling herself back up and onto the roof properly.

Yamame and I stepped off of the veranda. The first stall we came across was, funnily enough, belonged to that rabbit. 'Seiran's Delicious Dango' graced the sign on the bottom of the stand. She did look slightly familiar now that I was seeing her close-up. Something about her face...Perhaps it was one of my muddled up memories. She was turning gently sizzling dango atop a box of charcoal, her eyes flicking between the box and the dango that she'd already made. There was a lot of it, and I wondered how her business was. Perhaps she'd brought a lot of stock to run through? Either way, she seemed focused enough that she hadn't actually heard us approach, which was rather impressive given the size of her ears. That golden thing I'd seen glinting earlier turned out to be a cuff, wrapped around the top of her ear, past where it bent. There were bits cut out, and I thought that perhaps they spelt something out, but whatever it said was unreadable. The cuff looked like it had seen better days. It was meticulously polished, but there were scratches that ran deeper than the rabbit could buff out on her lonesome. Her dress was the same; I could see spots where she'd scrubbed at them harder during washing, and there was a patch or two where she'd sewed it back up as best she could. Practicality was the word that came to mind. I'd seen outfits much more elaborate tonight.

After a few moments, I cleared my throat and apparently started the girl enough that she nearly dropped the dango sticks that she was still turning over. "Yes!" She cried, her hands flying behind her back and her posture going stiff. After a moment, I slowly asked her if she was okay, and she seemed to realise what she was doing. "Um." She replied, her hands slowly coming out from behind her and her posture relaxing. "Yes. Yes, er, customer." She looked from side to side, then at Yamame and I. "Fine." She nodded. "You - Er, want to order?" She asked. It seemed that I'd caught her on the back foot. I looked down at her menu. Black sesame dango sounded good to me, and I turned to Yamame, who agreed. "Right. Yes. Coming - Coming up." The rabbit nodded and reached down to fetch two new skewers.

While she got to work, I watched her quietly, then looked over at Yamame. She shrugged, then gestured toward her. I shook my head, poked Yamame in the chest, then gestured toward the rabbit instead. Yamame breathed in sharply, put her hands on her hips, and gave me a strong stare. I crossed my arms. She tilted her head. An intense standoff followed.

Finally, I admitted defeat and asked the girl - Seiran, I assumed - if she was alright. "Yes." She replied sharply. "No one bothered to inform me of the venue change." I winced and offered my sympathies. "Well, it's fine now. Rushed my ears off getting everything disassembled and the like. Only barely managed to get over here and set up before the rush started. It's all fine. Now." She turned the dango atop the charcoal box. I cast an eye over her stock. Slowly, I asked her how business had been, then felt Yamame squeeze my hand slightly tighter as if I'd just made a mistake. "Things sell. Law of the land at a market, no? Could sell more, could sell less, but it sells all the same." That, I thought, sounded like a lot of words for 'sales are good' and I wondered if sales really were that good. I asked Seiran if she'd done this sort of thing before. "Thing? What thing?" I waved a hand around us at the Shrine. "The Shrine thing? Yes. Not many vendors who haven't. Never done the end of the year, though. Wasn't really a thing on-" She snapped her mouth shut, then shook her head and muttered something under her breath. "Anyway, I'm nearly done." She went back to her work, her ears drooping down over her head.

tired bunny