/jp/ - Otaku Culture

"She's not gonna do it." Marisa Kirisame said tiredly, shaking her head.

"She absolutely will do it." Tenshi Hinanawi replied, punctuating each word by hitting her fingers against the bamboo she was leaning against.

It was sometime after dark, though Marisa had lost track of time what must have been hours ago. "No, she definitely won't." Marisa pointed a thumb at herself. "You might think you're very smart, but I've been in this game longer than you. Reimu's not that type of person. She doesn’t do that sort of thing lightly."

"Well, unlike you, I can read temperaments, so I'm better qualified to judge this. She'll do it." Tenshi rapped her fingers down on the brim of Marisa's hat, knocking it down over her eyes.

The two had been bickering about nothing to pass the time. They were sat on the cliffside above Eientei that Marisa had previously met Mokou at for infiltration, taking turns to watch down on the complex enigma that was Eientei below. The place looked almost deserted. There was not a rabbit in sight along the outer walls, and no movement inside. There was some light, but they seemed to be almost ethereal in nature, because Marisa couldn't tell where it was coming from for the life of her. She wondered if it was even real, or if the Bamboo Forest was playing tricks on her. She’d always suspected that there was something more about this place.

The pair had been sitting on the cliff since the evening, not long after their two charges at the Shrine had fallen asleep, wrapped around each other like they had been the last time Marisa had seen them. It seemed to be becoming a habit, once that Marisa would not lose a chance to tease Reimu about. "Well, unlike you, I'm not a delinquent who was so awful at existing that she got kicked out of Heaven, so I'm more qualified to judge character." Marisa picked up a tiny rock and threw it at Tenshi's head, then clicked her teeth in annoyance when Tenshi shifted her head just slightly and sent the rock whizzing right past her ear. "They're not going to do anything."

"Are you seriously telling me that you think those two are normal together? “He’s my personal heater right now.” Like that?" Tenshi looked down at Marisa, who had long since gotten bored and stiff enough to sit down. She crossed her arms and looked up at the moon, which was shining down with the brilliance of a full moon. "What, did you often sleep nearly naked and hugging Reimu, too?"

"I didn't sleep with Reimu, no. She has a spare futon for a reason. And spare clothes." Marisa shrugged, throwing another rock, this time at Tenshi's midsection. Again, she found herself annoyed when this time, Tenshi pushed herself off of the bamboo she had been leaning on right as the rock shot through where she had just been. It was beyond unfair. She doubted that Tenshi even realised that she was doing it. The ex-celestial came over and sat down next to Marisa. "She's never really gotten sick like this before. I mean, there were a few times where she was ill, but one was just a curse god attacking the village, so she was fine once she sealed it, and the other was a trapped snake’s regrets, and I freed that." Marisa rested her chin on her hand. "I'm with you when you say that she's acting differently with him, sure, but I don't think it's in the way you think it is."

The pair had gotten to discussing their respective people of interest after working their way through topics such as food, fishing, the best reagents to find on the ground, and even how to become a hermit. For Marisa, this meant Reimu, and for Tenshi, this meant the man she had willingly given a Heavenly Peach. "So, she gets all different around this one particular guy, and not around any other guys, and yet, you think it's not in that way?" Tenshi poked Marisa in the head. "I know you live in the forest, but surely you have more social experience than that."

"Oh, fuck off. I've got more social experience in the last week than you get in a year." A statistic that Marisa suspected to be true, because unlike the divine luck of Tenshi, Marisa had to do whatever she could to make ends meet, from brewing odd potions for weird youkai who lived out in the sticks, to random youkai extermination requests that she got when she was in the village for supplies. If Marisa couldn't be friendly enough to get jobs, she couldn't eat. She suspected that those rules did not apply to Tenshi Hinanawi. "And, anyway, I know what Reimu looks like when she's in different moods." Which was...charitably true, because despite knowing her for more of her life than not, Reimu was one of the only people in Gensokyo that Marisa couldn't truly read. She could make educated guesses, but the girl just existed in a different reality to her and it was impossible to say how she was feeling at certain times. Recently, though she wouldn't say it to Tenshi, had been one of those times. "She's definitely not interested in him like that. There's something deeper going on there."