/jp/ - Otaku Culture

Goodnight Yamame.

Then, I felt the pillow thing my head was resting on shift again. Curious, I tried to drag my arm up and over my head to see, and it landed heavily on something really soft which elicited a sharp gasp. "Ugh...You are...so lucky that it's me up here." Yamame's voice was about as faint and weak as I imagined mine was. "I'd be a little upset if you were squeezing someone else's chest..." I considered moving my hand, but I didn't think I could go through the movement quite yet, so I just shifted my hand upwards until it arrived at Yamame's hair, which I ruffled through painstaking effort. "You should know...I'll get you back for that." She grumbled. "Can you, er, get up at all? Not that I don't like this, but I need some water fast."

I tried my best, and after the first attempt failed and had my head falling back onto Yamame's navel and making her moan in discomfort, I finally managed to drag myself upright, despite the way the world spun, and my head threatened to pull itself out of my skull. After a moment, Yamame followed me up, and I got my first proper look at her that morning. Her eyes were red, bleary, and exhausted, and she was squinting with a furrowed brow. Her hair stuck out in every direction and her ribbon had completely collapsed, leaving her hair to stick out much like Kisami's but with a fraction of the length. She was gritting her teeth and breathing heavily through her mouth. Her outfit had also taken a hit. Her overalls were down, leaving half of her outfit pooled around her waist, and her shirt looked like it had ridden entirely up over the night, which made sense since my head had been lying on her navel. She must have been extremely hungover, possibly even more than me. "How do I look?" She asked me faintly. Beautiful, I said, and I wasn't lying at all. She weakly smiled. "Flatterer. You stay there. I'll get water." She used my shoulder as a brace and forced herself up to her feet, then staggered off, picking her way over sleeping bodies.

I took the opportunity to finally survey the room properly. It was full of sleeping bodies, empty food platters, more bottles that I'd ever seen in one place, and over by the front of the hall, a group of sleeping youkai who were clutching their instruments to their chest. Presumably they had been the band from the night before. I saw no sign of Yuugi, Suika, or either version of Ibaraki-douji, so I wondered if they'd actually stuck around or if they'd gone off to continue the party elsewhere. Over in the corner sat Okuu, resting against the wall with her eyes shut. Orin was curled up in her lap and the former's wings enclosed the latter. I imagined that it was rather warm and cosy. Over there, collapsed over the table was Nai. There were two bottles resting against either side of her head, and a sake cup balanced atop, which made me wonder if she'd made the grievous mistake of falling asleep first. Over there, Yura and Ruka had fallen asleep on their backs, each other's arms supporting the other's head. I heard a crash somewhere off in the distance, but even so - It sent painful tingles rattling around my skull.

I was hearing a noise. I hadn't noticed before because the headache from the hangover was drowning most things out, but I could hear it now. It was the sound of someone eating. Frowning, I slowly, gingerly, gently turned my head to see the opposite side of the table. "You know," The straw-hat girl said conversationally, taking another scoop of rice from the platter between us, "That took longer than I'd thought." I hadn't even realised that there was rice. Well, I suppose I might have, but I definitely didn't remember it. "That headache must be killer. Am I correct, boy?" She tilted her head up to ensure that her eyes caught mine. Her eyes shone silver like steel, and she looked as if she'd been entirely unaffected by the entire party. Slowly, I nodded. "As expected. That's oni liquor for you. Well, doesn't compare to the average uni party in the outside world, but alas..." I wasn't really sure what that meant, or what a 'uni' was, but I nodded regardless.

She was scraping at the bottom of her bowl with her chopsticks, seemingly trying to scoop up every last grain of rice. "Tell me your name." She didn't ask. No, she told me to do it and the idea that I might not want to tell her didn't seem to cross her mind. Slowly, still trying to get my pounding head to work properly, I gave her my name. "Hm. Interesting name. Suwako Moriya." She replied, pointing one of the chopsticks at herself. Moriya? "Yes, like the Shrine." That was a funny coincidence. Suwako stopped at that and stared at me for a moment. I wondered if I'd done something wrong, but then a flicker of a smile crossed her lips and she nodded. "You're right, boy. That is a rather funny coincidence. Why, it's almost like it was planned." She laughed, low and husky. "It was quite a party, this."

>>44800937
We reached the bump limit so she will live to see another thread.

due to some boring personal reasons, I'm not going to be able to write tonight, sorry.
>>44727903
this is lovely, thank you very much
it definitely captures what I was imagining her wearing, though perhaps with the chain being silver, but the darker chain is good too

I didn't realise that I was struggling to breathe until I registered arms around my shoulders, and then I felt the primal part of my mind take over and I was kicking and screaming, but I felt the arms wrap around me to stop me from moving, and then I registered a voice filtering through the haze of my overloaded consciousness shouting at me to just run, as far away as possible. "It's me! Hey, hey, calm down!" I could feel my heart rate shooting up into the stars, and it took me more than a few moments to realise that I was being held up entirely, because my legs had apparently given out at some point. "Come on, let's get you somewhere to lie down, before you render the whole tunnel deaf." I found myself falling slack, though that didn't seem to be of much concern to whoever was carrying me. I seemed to be passing out, and I hoped it wasn't going to become a trend.

It wasn't quite so dark when I woke up. I tried to keep my heartbeat from rising, and I was mostly successful because I felt very comfortable. I swallowed thickly and found that my shirt was gone, and I was topless. I couldn't feel my right arm, apart from that same dull throbbing I felt from the scars when it was numb. I looked up, and slowly my mind managed to remind me that I was somewhere I had been before. The bedroom of Yamame Kurodani. Feeling a little trepidation, I slowly looked to the side, and felt the urge to swallow heavily again, because Yamame herself was sleeping right next to me, my arm pinned under her and a peaceful smile on her face. She looked tired, with some slight shadows under her eyes and a sort of tightness to her jaw as if she'd been clenching it for too long. I stared at her, and all my time spent thinking about what I was going to say to her went straight out of my brain. She didn't look like a monstrous youkai. She didn't look like she was plotting a scheme on how to eat me. She didn't look evil.

She just looked like a tired girl.

And she must have sensed me stirring, because she let out a throaty sort of moan and groggily rubbed her eyes with one free hand. "Hey." She finally said. I found that I couldn't speak, because there was a war going on in my mind between the 'Distrust Youkai' faction and the 'Trust Youkai' faction. "Nai found you in the tunnels, screaming your head off." She whispered. I felt like the Trust faction had just made a strong attack on the Distrust faction. Nai had found me? "She brought you straight to me. You'd passed out by then, so I thought it'd be best to let you stay inside. At least it's familiar here." I tried to control my breathing, and I felt Yamame shift, pulling herself up so she could look at my face properly while I stared at the ceiling. "What's wrong?" She asked. I opened my mouth, but found I couldn't get the words out. "You've never had that sort of reaction before. Something's changed, hasn't it?" I felt myself sink back into the bed, like it was swallowing me whole. "...It was Satori, wasn't it?" She gently put her hand on my arm, but I still found myself flinching. "She's done something to your memory again, hasn't she?" I tried to speak again, but I just broke into a coughing fit. I felt Yamame's presence behind me disappear, and after a moment, she returned with a glass. "Water." She told me, and I drunk deeply. After the coughing fit subsided, Yamame sat by my side on the bed again. "You're acting differently toward me." She said quietly. It wasn't an accusation, but more of a statement. "Please, tell me why."