/jp/ - Otaku Culture

I couldn't do it. Not to Yamame. That feeling, that constriction around my heart. It was guilt, longing, and pain, all wrapped up into one. It was my heart screaming out that I absolutely could not do that to Yamame.

I looked at Reimu, and she looked back, and my emotions must have been written on my face because she let out a giggle and pressed her forehead against my arm. "You've decided something, haven't you?" I nodded. "Good." I looked into her eyes again, trying to catch whatever it was that I'd been missing. I thought about everything I knew about Reimu Hakurei. Then, I asked her if she had a family. Reimu was silent, then turned, leaning back against my arm. "My mother died younger than I am now. Youkai attack. I never knew who my father was. I think he might have been an outsider, but old Genji - the turtle in the pond behind the Shrine - was the only one I could really talk to as a child. After that, it was just me and the Shrine."

My parents were dead. I had never had any siblings, or anyone to talk to at all while I was growing up. I likely still had holes in my memory, and I didn't know exactly when my mind had made me forget my family, but I knew that I must have wanted something, at some point. Someone to talk to. I quietly asked Reimu if she had ever wished for things to be different. "...Sometimes. The early winters were bad, when no one came to give donations and no came to visit at all. I used to imagine how things would be if I had...someone. Someone I could take care of. Maybe I just wanted to try my hand at what I never really got." Reimu was starting to look sad, and that was making me feel sad. We were inextricably linked. We'd both lost our family young and we both had wished we had something new. We had met on that horrible night. Reimu had promised to protect me, and I'd done my best to take care of her. We were even roughly the same age, though she might have had a few months on me.

I looked up at the ceiling, listening to the storm raging outside. Family doesn't mean blood. It doesn't have to mean the people you grew up with. All it really means is having someone who you can trust. Someone you care for.

I looked at Reimu again, and I thought that she had come to a similar conclusion. Things had changed, and it didn't need to be the way it was before.

Neither of us needed to be alone.

I pulled her into the tightest hug I'd ever given. I needed to communicate this to her as well as I possibly could, and words didn't seem like they would suffice. I screwed my eyes shut and buried my face in her wet hair. It took a while for me to find the strength to pull back, but when I did, I found that Reimu looked just as relieved as I felt, and now, I thought that we understood each other.

We had each other. Maybe that's all that family needed to mean.