/jp/ - Otaku Culture

"Um, thank you, Mum..." Nai mumbled in reply. She didn't seem to have much trouble with Mum's compliments like the rest of them did. Yamame inched over to Reiko and slapped her hand down before she could pull her hair back down in front of her face again.

"Well, it's been lovely to see you all, as short as it was...Yamame, I'll see you very soon." And with that, Mum turned and disappeared in the opposite direction, leaving five daughters behind her.

"Ugh." Reiko mumbled, ruffling up her hair so that it fell down again before Yamame could stop her. Once it was back in front of her eyes, she got on with her habit of sweeping it back. "She's always so unnerving, even when she's not doing anything." Reiko looked over at Yamame. "Good luck, Yams."

"Thanks." Yamame replied weakly. "I'd - I'd best get going so I can start warning my human." She mumbled, stepping forward to quickly hug everyone goodbye. "I'll slap Ki a few times for sending us all here, too. If she hadn't, I might have at least gotten to meet her on my own terms."
"I'd better go and...Uh, something. Drink." Yura mumbled, taking slightly to the air and beginning to float down the street. Ruka followed a moment later, after confirming that she wouldn't let Yura drink herself stupid.

"Is - Is it always so intense?" Nai asked. "She's not that bad when it's just me..." Yamame decided to just leave that one to the imagination, and waved goodbye instead.

Once she'd gotten home, she was surprised to see that Kisami and her human were barrelling down the tunnel already. "I didn't think it was a youkai!" Ki was yelling. "What, am I supposed to just assume every purple umbrella is a youkai!?" Her human was clinging onto Ki's back and trying to shout something back, but as Ki saw Yamame, she changed course enough to throw her human off balance and send him toppling into the ground at speed, which led to him almost crashing straight into Yamame. Ki managed to stop in time, which was probably worse for her, overall. "Yams!" She cried. "We saw a scary thing in a tunnel!"

"Really?" Yamame asked icily. "That's funny. So did I." She leaned in closer. "I saw our mother, Ki. Now she's coming here, in two days."

At that, the last bit of blood drained from Kisami's face, and she already looked like she was at her wits’ end, so that was really something. "Okay, I know what you're thinking, and the answer may sur-" Yamame smacked Ki on the arm. "Ouch!" She cried. "I really didn't think she'd be there!" Once more.

Hopefully, she thought to herself, she'd get through most of the annoyance in the next few smacks, because she was curious about the scary think they'd seen. Meanwhile, her human groaned and pushed himself to his feet, then stumbled over to Yamame.

"Okay, so...You know how you've just seen a scary thing?" He nodded, rubbing his head. Yamame bit her lower lip, thinking about how to phrase it. "You're about to see something worse. My mother's coming here."

"Should we get started?" Nai asked me. I stopped staring at the door and nodded, rolling up my sleeves and hefting a log onto my shoulder. they weren't hugely long, so as long as I was careful not to knock Nai out while turning around, things would be fine. "Do you need - Oh." Nai frowned. "Usually Big Sister and I have to carry those together." I shrugged, saying that I'd been doing a lot of training. I carried the log over to the pit, then dropped it on the frame. Nai followed me over, looking like she didn't really know what to do. "So, we were cutting them with about...this thickness." she had made a mark on the wood with one of her sharp nails. I nodded, then asked her how we could mark the whole length of the wood. "Oh, we usually just do it by eye...I guess that seems a little sloppy, huh?" After a moment, she used her nail to score the length of the wood, which looked like it would hurt, but Nai shrugged it off like it was nothing. "Ready?" Nai asked me once she had dropped into the pit. I took hold of the large saw, the bottom half of which I could feel Nai take hold of. I called down to her that I was ready to go. "Okay...start!" She called back.

We began slowly, but soon got into a rhythm. It took a lot of strength, but I was very thankful that I wasn't on the bottom. I could make out the line across the wood, and after some time, we were through the first run, which came out looking, to my eye, perfectly fine. "It's okay. The oni won't care." Nai told me. I frowned and asked if we'd been that far off. "A little." Nai picked up the long plank we had just cut off and showed me the edge. "Not too bad for our first go, though."

The rest of the cutting went smoothly enough. My vague memories of my time spent doing this in the village were mostly memories of my arms threatening to fall apart from the strain, but now I only felt a little winded by the end. All in all, we'd cut through four logs and produced more than enough planks to cover the needs of the tsuchigumo down in the Hot Springs. I sighed heavily and fell against the pile of logs to rest for a moment, and Nai soon joined me, looking exhausted and covered in sawdust. After a moment of watching her try and brush sawdust from her hair, I felt like I needed to help, so I asked her if she'd mind, then helped her brush the worst of the sawdust from her hair and face. After, we sat back against the logs. "Can I, um, ask you something?" Nai finally mumbled to me. She looked like she didn't want to ask whatever it was she was about to ask, but I shrugged and told her to go ahead. "You and Big Sister...What, um..." I raised an eyebrow as I watched her. "I don't get it." She finally whined.

Getting it seemed like something that would come with time, I said. "But why do you care so much? You're a human and she's a youkai!" I was silent for a moment. She had been gone well out of her way to help me, even though she hadn't needed to. "But every other human hated her." I had no reason to hate her, and plenty of reasons to like her. I suspected that most of the hatred came from people who didn't know anything about her, and if they took the time to learn, they would realise that their fears were unfounded in the first place. I wanted to be with her, and I wasn't sure that there really needed to be more to it than that. "But I..." I cut her off this time. I wanted to get along with Nai properly, so I didn't want her to be second-guessing my every action. "...I know..." Nai mumbled. "I just...don't want anyone to hurt my Big Sister." I didn't want that either, and if I ever did, I wanted to know that I could count on Nai to make sure I knew it. I didn't plan to hurt Yamame at all, and I'd be first in line to beat myself up if I did. "...Promise?" Nai asked me quietly. Promise, I replied.