/jp/ - Otaku Culture

You were the kind of tired that sleep couldn't fix, about a day had passed since you woke up in the recovery room of Eientei with an IV of blood and saline pumping into you at a steady rate. You were still tied down by those deep brown leather straps despite your inability to move much anyways as the blood loss saw to that, you didn't ask for them to be taken off as you knew they wouldn't. The room itself was a small affair clearly only ment for one or two people at most and much more homely then any hospital you've seen in the insides of in the outside world, although thanks to Eirin's obvious genius it had some of the same functions like call buttons on the sides of the beds, health monitors that ran off of esoteric principles that didn't need connection with you to work. Despite the seemingly simple appearance of the monitors that seemed like they'd fit in an 80's hospital you could tell they merely appeared as such and were much more under the surface, however as far as decorations went they fit perfectly in with the white tiled floor and functional drapes which surrounded the bed and hung from the ceiling.
Reimu was a constant shadow at your side for the time you've been awake, and after your simple question upon seeing her again she's been as quiet as one. You supposed you should've felt bad and maybe a part of you did but it was hidden behind the regret of not going for your neck first, after all you should've known that a miko so well versed in combat would know a few things about keeping someone alive that was shedding blood in such a way either through her charms or simple hard learned practice. In the end you couldn't hate her, you were long past such things and if she were to do the same while you were still taking care of her you'd have done whatever you'd have to keep her alive.
You didn't pay her much mind and after that one word question she decided to sit alone in a chair only a few feet from your bed and she largely had her head down or otherwise cast to the side, never wanting to look directly at or the bandaged wound that throbbed despite whatever pain medication Eirin saw fit to dope you on. Sometimes you could see Reimu working her mouth out of the corner of her eye but she never seemed to form the words she wanted to say despite what you counted to be the fifth attempt by now and you had little interest in asking what she wanted to speak about either. Finally it seemed Reimu seemed to scoot her hair closer and gingerly placed her hand in yours while trying to ignore the large mass of bandaging on that mortally injured arm, you didn't resist her desire for affection in anyway but neither did you return it. You could hear her tearing up as the sounds that normally accompanied such a water works began as quiet sobs filled the space between you and her.
Part of you realized that it would be better for your miko wife if you apologized or even just spurned her for pushing you into this corner, you had a feeling that no matter what she would accept it and respond in kind but to do that would imply you had anything left to give and while you couldn't say what drove you to impassivity you knew it wasn't anything as simple as spite or sadism in wanting to see her suffer. You just felt tired of it all and whether it was from the drugs or your body compensating for the blood you fell into a sudden and deep sleep, the sleep from what you remember was dreamless and soon the blessed veil of unconsciousness lifted.
It seemed that there were new colorful flashes at the corner of your vision and the silhouettes of two girls you knew well were with you in the room, Marisa was standing there without her hat on and trademark broom nowhere to be seen and Kasen was there as well in all her glory. The small looking miko was sitting on her legs on the ground before Kasen while Marisa was slightly off to the side, at first the words were just noise but they crept into your consciousness and only then did you realize it was Kasen who was doing the lion's share of lecturing. Her voice had the usual haughty tones but underneath that there was a desperation that was clear to those that knew her, "-and another thing, what kind of wife lets her husband have to nurse her back to sanity only to strip it away from the one that was nursing you back to health! When he insisted on coming back to you claiming that you were sick I didn't believe you were anything but a failure but it seems I was more desperately wrong then I wanted to believe!"
The first one that noticed you were awake again was Marisa who for a lack of anything better to do would glance over at you her eyes drawn to your damaged arm and noticed you staring at her back. With a small gasp she seemed to draw both Kasen and Reimu's attention towards you as well and before you knew the three girls were at your side and despite her loud mouth even Kasen seemed unwilling to comment for the moment.
A simple one word greeting left your mouth for the trio to hear.