/jp/ - Otaku Culture

There was little doubt in my mind that a large number of people had been waiting for this moment to really get the party going. The first half had been mostly comprised of eating and drinking their fill, and the second half was the part where they started having fun. Once Yamame, frowning mightily and with a tear or two dripping from her eyes, had let me get off of the cold and wet ground, she'd began interrogating me. "Really, why were you up there?" She asked as she rubbed her mouth like that would make her tooth stop hurting. I shrugged and explained, saying that Komachi had brought me up there to get away from a very drunken Youmu Konpaku. "That's the...Half-phantom girl, right? I saw her over there." She pointed in the direction of the courtyard. I couldn't see anything, but after a moment, I saw Reimu in the middle of an attack on Youmu, who was still brandishing her two banners like they were weapons. Clearly, I thought, some things never changed.

I asked Yamame if she was going to be okay. I couldn't imagine a chipped tooth was all that fun, but she'd had two of them before and they'd regenerated eventually, so I assumed it was a youkai thing. "Yeah...It'll take a bit of time, though. Massive shame. Honestly, it was an instinct kicking in. Something landing on me like that." I raised my hands and told her that it was okay, and I understood. I was just as sorry for falling on her as she was for trying to bite me. "And - Um, are you okay? I...Know that you probably don't like being bitten very much any more." I shook my head. I was fine, and I'd mostly made peace with it as long as it was someone I trusted to take care of me. Yamame was very high on that list. So was Reimu - Who I didn't expect to bite me - and Lady Kasen - Who might not bite me, but a certain other version of her very well might, though she'd feel awful about it afterward. Keine was high as well, but she'd already raised me, so I knew I could trust her in just about any situation...As long as it didn't involve topics such as The Talk.

Speaking of Keine, I asked Yamame what they'd been talking about. "Oh, er, nothing much." She said innocently, so I just stared at her. "Really!" My eyes narrowed slightly. "Oh, fine...She was telling me stories from when you were growing up." I slammed my fist into my hand and exclaimed that I'd known all along that she was going to do that. "Well, you know quite a lot of things about my family!" Yamame replied hotly, her hands on her hips. "I just wanted to have something similar." I shook my head and told her that I was okay with it, and I hadn't thought of it that way. "Did you really-?" I changed my mind very quickly and suddenly found that I was not okay with it, and unlike Yamame, my big sister didn't know every minute detail of my life to embarrass me with by revealing it to others. Not that I didn't think that Reimu probably knew a lot more about me than she'd ever really mentioned, though.

Where was Keine, anyway? "Oh, she said that she, er...Hang on, she's over there." My spider pointed over to the courtyard, past where the stalls were being set up. Over by the torii gate, I could see Keine talking excitedly to Fujiwara no Mokou. I hadn't expected her to actually show up tonight, to be honest. From my brief time meeting her in Eientei, as well as what I'd heard about her from various people and especially from Eirin's story, I wouldn't have thought her the type to leave the Bamboo Forest of the Lost. But there she was, her hands shoved deep in the pockets of her trousers and a wry smile on her face as she spoke to Keine. The schoolteacher looked happier, too, if the relaxation in her posture was any indication. I hadn't really noticed it, but she'd been just a little bit tense when I'd been speaking to her earlier. I wondered if she'd been worrying about the reticent immortal of the Bamboo Forest of the Lost, since she seemed to have quite a close relationship with her.

To that end, I wondered if Mokou had mentioned anything to Keine regarding her renewed desire to shuffle off this mortal coil, as she'd confessed to Eirin. Perhaps not, I thought as I watched Keine pass a bottle of some kind to Mokou, who thanked her and took a sip. And it was definitely not my place to ask. That story was supposed to be private anyway, and I thought that Eirin had probably only told me as a result of her half-addled mind due to not sleeping for months on end. So...In the end, it wasn't really my place.

Suddenly, I spotted rabbit ears, but not the ears of the frazzled dango seller who'd only just barely managed to secure a place to set up her stall again with the help of that villager who's name completely escaped me. No, these were ears I recognized. It seemed that Eientei would indeed have a presence at the Hakurei Shrine tonight, because I could see Reisen standing at a stall, her face completely expressionless.

Once I'd mentally recovered and put away the futon, then pulled my coat and boots on, I stepped outside of Reimu's room and closed the door behind me. I blinked in the sunlight, then managed to find Reimu, leaning on the broom she used to sweep the courtyard and chatting to Yamame. "What, like a pinkish-red?" She was saying. The courtyard was far from the nightmare it had been the previous day, but there were still plenty of leaves scattered about and I could tell that it would take some time to sweep them up all.

"I thought something more...Uh, like velvet. Soft to the touch." Yamame replied. "It kind of looks like black until the sun catches it, then the red shows up. I think it'd look good because it’d go with your hair when it’s black, but your eyes when the light catches it." She spotted me coming and beckoned me over. "We were just talking about what Reimu would look good in." She told me. I looked Reimu up and down, then shrugged. Black would go against her normal colour scheme, I thought. The red and white was too important, I thought. "Hmm...Maybe. I'll keep thinking about it." She told Reimu, who shrugged and agreed. "Are we ready?" Yamame asked me, and I nodded, leading her to the torii gate.

"Yeah, I'll probably be in the village later for shopping, so...I guess I might see you there." Reimu nodded, waving at me with her broom. "I'll have to wait for those lot to show up so I can tell them what to do to the Shrine, though. Unless Marisa's somehow gone from a prisoner of war to a convict on the front lines, I guess..." That'd probably be bad. "Yeah, well, she can take care of herself, and if she can't, Tenshi can. Go, already! You'll be standing here all day otherwise." I nodded as Yamame pulled me down the first few steps and shouted a goodbye to Reimu.

The trip back to Yamame's house went by uneventfully, though we opted to avoid going through the village and instead skirted around the outside to reach the caves. The sun was climbing, but it was still some time before mid-day, which meant that we had plenty of time for Yamame to agonize over her outfit. I sat in one of her chairs from the Vampire's mansion and listened to her throw about various articles of clothing in her room. "Do people wear shorts in the village!?" She yelled at me. I frowned, then said that it was probably a little too cold for anything like that, not that people did tend to do that. "Oh, er...Do they, though?" No, not really. Maybe if Lady Hecatia's plans for her fashion brand to pick up in the village panned out, they'd be doing that. "Ooh!" Yamame exclaimed, and I heard the noise of something falling on her bed. "I hope she comes back soon! I really like working with her!" Considering some of the designs I had seen in Yamame’s sketchbook which Lady Hecatia had made some additions to, I wasn’t sure I wanted Yamame to be working with her quite so soon. I wasn’t sure the village could withstand the ensuing fashion disaster. Sighing, I let my eyes slide shut and just listened to Yamame throwing more and more articles of clothing around.

Finally, she stepped back out. "So, um, how is it?" She asked me as I got out of the seat to see her properly. She'd settled on a long skirt, down to about her calves, with her signature patterns relegated to only one set of criss-crossing gold running along the very bottom of the skirt. The skirt itself was the usual warm shade of brown, and she'd paired it with a crisp, long-sleeved white shirt which tucked into the dress. Over the shirt went a blazer that was a slightly darker brown than the skirt, and she wore smaller, less boot-like shoes to complete the image. On her head went the same beret she'd worn when we had previously gone to the human village, and I hoped that this trip would go better than the last one had. I nodded seriously, saying that she looked amazing.

"Shut up!" She said, but her smile indicated otherwise. "You think so?" I did, and I let her know with a kiss. The outfit was fairly similar to what she had worn previously, but I thought it would pass as just being eccentric, rather than obviously a youkai. Even so, as long as she didn't do anything weird, she'd probably be fine. "Well, I wasn't planning to go out and destroy half the village, if that's what you're worried about." She said with a frown. I was just repeating what Reimu had said, so after a few moments, we were ready to leave. "Did you change your shirt?" Yamame asked me. I had. I'd taken the sweater off and switched it with the black shirt that I'd used before, since I had decided that even though it was cold, considering the sunshine, I'd be a little too hot otherwise. "I think the black's not bad, actually..." She mused as we stepped back out of her house.

The next two places on Reiko's list were simple enough, just some rowdy oni getting out of hand, but they straightened up as soon as Yamame told them off. I couldn't deny how impressed I was by the way her presence seem to inspire so much respect amongst the oni, even if I hardly understood what exactly she had done to garner said respect. We were just climbing the steps to the last location on the list when we started to hear more shouting than normal.

"-Not my bloody fault some idiot dropped a fucking rock in the springs! So don't you go blaming me for trying to fix your house!" The shouting was intensifying as we rounded the corner, and Yamame groaned in resignation when she saw who was involved. "What, you want to have it come crashing down around your ears? Oh, it'll look cool to your friends if you survived it, huh? You're a fucking idiot!" Yura stood in the middle of the street with a pair of Kurodani workers behind her, and she was shouting at an oni woman almost twice her size. One of the workers, a tall one with wavy hair in dark brown, was clutching at her arm. "Look, our job is to help rebuild all your shops and homes, you ungrateful-!"

"Yura!" Yamame shouted, storming forward. "What the hell are you doing!?" She stomped between the oni and the spider, gazing crossly at Yura while I followed up behind, slightly slower. I took a position next to Yura, with Yamame in front of us. "We're meant to be working peacefully, not insulting them!"

"Oh, glad you're here, Yams!" Yura said back, sounding very indignant. "This bitch," She pointed at the oni in front of us, who scoffed and looked away. "She attacked us!" Yura brought one of the Kurodani workers forward, showing off an arm and hand that was rather bloody from a long gash running down her arm. "Like the fucking savage she is!"

"Yura!" Yamame shouted over her sister, forcing her hand down. "We don't deal with the problem like this." Yamame turned to the oni, crossing her arms. "You attacked them?" Her voice had dropped again, but this time it didn't sound like it was emulating the tone of an oni. It sounded deadly, dangerous, and slightly scary. "You attacked my sisters?"

The oni, to either her credit or her stupidity, didn't sound scared. "Your little spiders were trying to throw away my belongings! Can't you keep yourselves under control? Who are you, then? Queen spider?"

"Yamame Kurodani."

"That supposed to mean something?" The oni asked dryly. "All you lot look the same to me. A bunch of small, detestable spiders." Now, I felt like taking a swing at her too, but Yura subtly slapped my arm and shook her head. "Now tell your little sisters to bring my stuff back, and apologize."

"Your 'stuff' was half-rotted and what wasn't was half-destroyed!" Yura shouted. "And that wasn't our fault! Like I said, we didn't drop the fucking rock!"

"Our contract comes from Yuugi Hoshiguma." Yamame said, her voice now shifting into something I'd describe as a calm so perfect that it promised certain death. "Any actions I or my sisters perform are in line with that contract." She stepped forward, closer to the oni, who was still almost double her size. She was taller than I was, even. "And most importantly, stipulated in that contract is my ability to remove those who attack us." And she placed her hand on the oni's stomach, which was about her height. Already, I suspected what she was doing.

"She's not pleased." Yura muttered to me. The oni looked down at Yamame with slight confusion and smugness, like she didn't know what Yamame was doing, but knew that it couldn't possibly be affecting her. "Insult her and she'll shrug it off like nothing. Attack her and she'll forgive you before long. But attack one of her sisters?" The oni was starting to look slightly hazy, and more than a little unsteady. "Now you're in trouble." The oni tried to strike out at Yamame but dropped to one knee instead.

"Wh-What the hell have you done!?" The oni growled, losing the colour in her face. "I'll - I'll kill you!"

"No, I don't think so." Yamame muttered, grasping the oni by her jaw. "I'd suggest you go back inside, find a hole to curl up in, and stay there. You won't be moving for the next few days. This strain isn't contagious, but it'll leave you feeling like death." The oni stared at her in confusion and - I was pleased to note - a little bit of fear, and suddenly all the rage showed on Yamame's face. "Well!? Get out of here!" That was enough, and the oni staggered to her feet and began to stumble away without another word. Yamame sighed, breathing out deeply, then turned to us, her expression falling back into the gentler look I knew. "Sorry about that..." She mumbled, looking a little tired. "Transferring disease always tires me out." I shook my head and told her that it was no problem of mine.