/jp/ - Otaku Culture

She really was just so good to me. "Oh, but I'll need to go and meet Miss Kagerou tomorrow..." Ah, that was right. The work that Kagerou wanted Yamame to do for her. Perhaps I could go for a shopping trip while I was there. I'd caught a glance in Reimu's pantry when I'd been tidying myself up after I woke up, and it hadn't looked particularly stocked. "I think ours could do with restocking, too...But I'll pay for that, if you and Reimu pay for hers." I was starting to get a little worried about both my financial situation and my freeloading, and Lady Hecatia was coming to mind again. I'd probably need to figure out a decision on that front soon.

Regardless, I agreed with Yamame and got to my feet before Reimu could come back and yell at me for nothing doing anything. "So, what exactly is she having you do?" Yamame asked me, and I shrugged. The last time I'd been here, there had been a bit of an issue with the sliding doors. They got caught on things, and even when they didn't, they rattled awfully and let in a chilly breeze, so I'd go and see if I couldn't fix that up. "Should I help?" I went to shake my head, but Yamame had already hopped to her feet and finished off her tea. "Don't forget, I've got plenty of experience with hands-on stuff. Who do you think makes plenty of the wooden planks that my sisters are using in the Hot Spring Town?" That was an excellent point, and something I'd forgotten about. "Well, come on, let's go and see what the problem is." I struggled to push the grin off my face and led her back to the sliding door outside Reimu's room.

Experimentally, I tried sliding it fully in both directions, and as I'd expected, it got caught on something. Most likely, there was just some sort of debris stuck on the track that the door slid across, so I decided to simply pull the whole door free and have a look behind it. "It might just be the wheel." Yamame commented. I looked over at her. "Look." She crouched down and pointed at the wheel that allowed the door to slide. "It might just be damaged. I mean, pull it out anyway, because there probably is debris back there, but it really might just need a replaced wheel." That, I said, would cost money that Reimu probably didn't have. "Oh. Er, yeah." Yamame frowned. "Okay, pull the door out. Hopefully it's just debris." Stepping forward, I slid the door off of the track it sat on and laid it down, before looking through the gap that the door slid in. It was dark, so I asked Yamame if she could see anything. "Er..." She squinted down the small gap. "Maybe? I think that's something." She looked around for something long and thin, settling on a long branch from the ground, then shoved it into the gap and scraped out some mouldy-looking leaves. "Ew." She commented, and I definitely agreed. "I guess it's hard to see that sort of thing."

Leaves disposed of, we refitted the door and were pleased to find that it now slid properly. "Well, that was an easy fix, at least. What about the others?" I shook my head and told her that I could handle the others myself. "Are you trying to get rid of me?" She asked me with a grin. I shook my head and said that I could handle this, but it was supposed to be a punishment and I didn't want Reimu to be getting free labour out of Yamame as well. She'd get a big head. "You sure?" She asked me, and I nodded, telling her to go and relax in the sunshine while I arduously pulled out all the doors and checked behind them all for debris keeping them from closing properly. "Hmm..." She hummed, and I seriously told her that I wanted her to relax. Call it repayment for all the work she'd done for me. Finally, I promised to repay her properly once we were home from the Shrine. "Oh, alright. If you insist." She backed off toward the door, though she kept shooting me suspicious looks, until she finally stepped outside and disappeared, only to poke her head back around the side a moment later and shoot me one last look.