/jp/ - Otaku Culture

"In!" She told me, unlocking her door and pushing it open, followed by pushing me through. I stumbled into her entrance hall and kicked my boots off. Miss Kamishirasawa stepped in after me and slammed the door shut. She stomped past me, in the direction of her kitchen. "Sit down and don't talk!" She shouted back at me. I rubbed my sore head and stumbled my way into her living room, where I sat down cross-legged by the table. Miss Kamishirasawa's home was richly decorated. There were plants, there were little keepsakes, and there were a large number of cards that had been gifts from the children she taught. It was tradition for the kids who were about to graduate to buy some sort of gift for their teachers. I let my eyes travel over the collection, and eventually...Yes, there it was. A handmade card, her name spelt correctly, but with charitably poor handwriting. I'd improved since then.

I was about to go over and look at it when she stomped into the room with a tray laden with two cups of tea, a plate of rice crackers, and a bag filled with ice. She set it down on the table, then stared at me with her arms folded. After a moment, I opened my mouth to ask if I could have something, and that was when she started slapping me. "You - Stupid - Boy!" She cried over my yelps and pleas for her to stop. Each hit was on my arm, and while she wasn't overwhelmingly strong, she did seem to have a knack for making it sting. "Months! It's been months and months! How could you just disappear like that!? They were saying that you'd gone off and died somewhere! Then, they started saying that you were a ghost haunting the village! And - You - Didn't - Even - See - Me!" She shouted, towering over me and slapping me some more. I ended up falling onto my back and trying to cover myself with my arms so she'd stop. It wasn't exactly painful, but it was definitely unpleasant. She finally stopped, breathing heavily and balling her fists up. For a moment, I was scared she was moving onto punching. "Just once! Just one visit so I knew you were still alive! Do you know how much I worried? Was that too much to ask?" Thankfully, she just groaned and sat down, rubbing her head. I slowly returned to my seated position, keeping an eye on her in case of sudden further attacks or potential headbutts. "And stop calling me 'Miss Kamishirasawa!' You're not a student anymore - And even when you were, I told you that you didn't need to call me that outside of lessons."

I lowered my arms slowly and asked her if she was feeling better. "No." She replied immediately. "Yes." She continued. "Shut up." She looked over at me and I was surprised by how upset she looked. "Can't you imagine? I thought you were dead and rotting in some hole in the ground - O-Or, some youkai had dragged you off into the mountains to do who knows what to you!" I didn't say it, but technically, that last one had happened and it had been fairly uncomfortable. "I know!” Keine whined. “You’re young and independent. I understand, but – Just once?” I nodded sombrely, apologizing again. I really hadn’t meant to worry her so much.

Once it was clear that Keine wasn't planning to hit me anymore, I tentatively reached out for the ice pack she'd provided and pressed it against my head, sighing in relief. I'd half-forgotten how bad her headbutts could be. I started by apologizing. I'd really not meant to let things slide for so long, but everything had gotten out of control and I'd not had a chance to even think about it. Plus, while the whole Eientei Investigation was ongoing, I'd been mostly forbidden from going to the village, so... "The...Eientei Investigation?" I took a sip of my tea and said that a lot had happened. "No, I think I heard something about that...Eirin Yagokoro was acting strangely?" I frowned at her and asked her how she'd known about that. "Well, um, I know someone who knew about it." I thought for a moment, and then it came to me. Fujiwara no Mokou had mentioned Keine's name at one point. And...Thinking about it, I was sure that she'd come to the village before. I couldn't remember ever directly meeting her, though. Maybe I'd lost that memory too. Or maybe she simply didn’t come to the village as often as I thought.

"Are you safe?" She immediately asked me. I nodded. Safe enough, anyway. I just wasn't really living in the village anymore. "Your house - It-" My parent's house, I replied quietly. Keine froze, then looked over at me silently for a minute. "...You - You remember them? Your parents?" I nodded. It hadn't been pleasant. "You - We think you probably fell on your head at some point, and that's when you started to really forget what had happened to them." We? "Um, Akyuu and I. She babysat for you on enough occasions." That was true, I remembered. She used to use it as a break from working on the Gensokyo Chronicle. I nodded again, taking one of the rice crackers that she'd laid out.