/jp/ - Otaku Culture

"He's fine, Hakurei." Yamame said, coming over to the chair. "I'm taking good care of him." Considering the things she had been doing to me, I wasn't sure those were the words I would use. "Why are you here?"

"Got a feeling." Reimu muttered, unsheathing her gohei and poking me with it. I half-heartedly slapped it away after a moment. Yamame made the decision to stay well out of it's way. "He said he was going to the caves, and Kasen said he hadn't come back." That made me feel a little bad. I hoped that Lady Kasen hadn't been worrying. She seemed to have a lot on her mind at the moment. "Figured he'd be here."

"Well, he's here. What now?" Yamame spread her arms. "I do hope you're not planning to take him back when he's still sick." I felt better on account of...several things, but I imagined that it was only because I was staying indoors and being kept - very - warm. "Do you not trust me to look after him?"

"No." Reimu bluntly replied, and I felt my hopes for the two of them getting along sink even more. "It's nothing personal. You're a youkai. He's not." Which was true enough, but Yamame had been doing a good enough job already. "I should be taking care of him. I'd be returning the favour."

"I'll try to pretend that I didn't take it at least slightly personally." Yamame muttered out of the corner of her mouth. I mouthed that she shouldn't let it get to her, but I'm not sure if she agreed. "Either way, I don't think he's in a state to travel, so I'm going to recommend you don't try and drag him through the rain."

Now that I looked at her, Reimu did look a little wet. I guessed that the rain hadn't gotten any better. The rainy season would be kicking into full swing around now. She shifted so that she was blocking Yamame's line of sight, then looked at me closer. After a moment, she raised an eyebrow. I mumbled that I was probably fine where I was. She closed her eyes for a moment, then nodded. "Fine. He can stay here. But I'm coming back to check on him. Starting today." Already, she looked ready to march into the kitchen and start cooking up a storm, but Yamame stopped her.

"You're just going to barge into my house and try to steal my kitchen? No, if you want to see how he's doing, fine, but- Hey, don't just..." Reimu had already moved forward, and was now at the door. Yamame looked at me in clear consternation. "Is she always like this?" She asked me helplessly. I nodded, and said that Reimu was the kind of person to get her mind on something and refuse to budge until she'd tried. Let her make tea, I said, because no one could make tea like Reimu Hakurei. "Fine, but I'm keeping an eye on her." And please don't make her ill again, I begged. Yamame huffed and followed Reimu into the kitchen, where I began to hear their indistinct voices.

I really hoped that they would work out their differences. Well, as much as the Hakurei Shrine Maiden could work out her differences with a youkai, anyway. It wasn't like Reimu didn't already hang out with youkai. Of course, they typically weren't the kind who had made her almost deathly ill. Unless they were. I wasn't really sure. What I did know was that the two of them together seemed like a recipe for disaster. I could only hope that whatever was going on inside the kitchen didn't involve sharp knives or threats.

Happily, it seemed, knives had not been involved, because Reimu emerged from the kitchen first, holding a tray with three cups of tea, and Yamame followed behind her with her arms folded an a frown on her face. "-You make tea." She was saying.

"No, you just make it wrong. That's not my fault." Reimu replied, sounding just a little less frosty toward Yamame, but not enough to make me think any real progress had been made. "Maybe if you spent more time on that and less on making dangerous routes to the surface, you'd-"

"Oh, please. We sealed that hole up. And I know how to make tea." Yamame insisted as Reimu passed me a cup, and I pulled my hands out of the blanket to hold it. Yamame plucked her own cup from the tray and sat next to me, close enough that I wondered if it would be a problem. "I don't know where you picked up your methods, but-"