/jp/ - Otaku Culture

"Um, well - Er..." Yamame trailed off, sparing a glance at me. "Okay, I suppose there's no point hiding it. D'you remember when Ki wanted to speak to me recently? And I wouldn't tell you what she was talking about?" Ah, that had been when Reimu and I had gone to see Marisa and Tenshi. They had all seemed to know what was going on, but I had just figured that it was something about the rings. "We were doing designs for a wedding dress." Yamame admitted, looking a little embarrassed about it. "And - Um, we did a few designs for you, too." She said that part to me, and I felt a smile tugging at my lips. "It's just - We weren't sure what to do with it at first, so I didn't want to say anything until we had some solid ideas." That was fine by me, I replied. I was just happy that she'd told me now, and I knew that whatever she did come up with would be excellent. "Charmer." She murmured, though she did look pleased about it.

"Ah, so - Well, I guess you've got that under control, right? Er, hang on, I just had a thought. Yamame, you're, uh...Not letting Hecatia Lapislazuli help, right?" Oh, that might be a problem. I mean, I liked Lady Hecatia, and I'd even grown to like her fashion sense, but even so...for a wedding? "Er..." Yamame began, her eyes flicking from side to side. "She - Uh, she might have offered. Ki told me to say no." Oh. At least someone had some- "But she did a really good job on that dress I wore at the beginning of the year, so...I may have let her look the ideas over..." I'd barely even heard the last section, so small was her voice by the end.

Reimu let out a long-suffering sigh. "Okay, well...If she has to help, try and keep her influence to a minimum, okay? Last thing I want to see at a wedding is a bunch of people in T-shirts with weird writing on them." I thought that she could actually do a fairly good job with someone tempering her worst design flaws, given Yamame's collaborative dress. Even Komachi's T-shirt was quite nice, in my opinion, not to mention the one that Yamame had given to Kisami. "Oh, and - Uh, maybe...Keep Sanae away from her. That's a large-scale incident waiting to happen."

Ah. She was the 'indolent Shrine Maiden' that Lady Hecatia had referred to, the first time that I'd met her. Well, that did make a surprising amount of sense. She'd even called me a freaky T-shirt buyer, and that was before she'd started calling me Dante, whoever that was. "Oh, er...Right, I asked her about that." Did her explanation make any sense? The one she'd given me at the time certainly hadn't. "Have a guess." Reimu replied dryly, which seemed about as clear an answer as I was going to get. "Something about video games, and - Whatever a truly retro console is - And how she was mad because whatever the new game is didn't come out until after she came to Gensokyo." She stopped speaking then, and after a few seconds, I asked her if she was finished. "Er, she said more about some other game she'd been playing before leaving, but that was about where I stopped understanding any of it, yeah. She kept talking about, uh...'Bell-kah.'" Had Reimu not asked her? "No. The headache really didn't seem worth the effort." I thought about it for a moment, then decided that she was probably right. "Anyway, uh...I didn't tell Sanae about the wedding, or at least, I didn't tell her the specifics. She gets a bit weird about the youkai extermination part of the job." Was that really going to be fine? "Well, she'll definitely find out - I mean, she can see everything from all the way up on the mountain, but I don't think it'll be a problem, no. Or rather, if it is a problem, we'll sort it." I smiled and thanked her.

Yamame drained the rest of her tea cup. "What, uh - What's happening with the actual ceremony, by the way?"

"Oh, well, you know how I spoke to Yuuka?" We nodded. "She agreed to let me do my bit and she'd do the other bit." Reimu paused. "I mean, I have no idea what she's going to say, and it might turn out horribly, but..." But trying to convince her otherwise might be a bit of a lost cause at this point. "Yeah..." Reimu rubbed her head. "Well, she does seem to like you two, so maybe she'll take it seriously. And - Hey, if she does do something weird, we could always just start a big danmaku duel. That's very Gensokyo, anyway." That was true, but I still hoped it wouldn't come to that.

Yamame coughed, then moaned in discomfort and rubbed at her throat. I'd not met anyone who could deal with that sort of thing, though. "I'm fine...Sore throat. Laughed at Ki too much." She grumbled to Reimu, who raised an eyebrow. A thoughtful look suddenly came over her face, and she began tapping her finger against the side of her chair in thought.

"...What is it?" Yamame Kurodani asked, gingerly poking the brown things on her desk. They resolutely showed no reaction, which Yamame found slightly concerning. They looked evil.

"The Moriya called it...coffee granules." Reiko told her. Her sister had finally given into her begging and tied her dark, almost pitch black hair back instead of letting it all hang down into her face, and it was proving to be a marked improvement, regardless of what she said about it. Behind her, Yura leant against the wall of Yamame's bedroom and played with a lock of her dirty-blonde hair.

"What do you...do with it?" They didn't look entirely appetizing. As a matter of fact, they didn't look edible at all. It sort of looked like mud. "Why'd you even take this as payment? We have deals with the Moriya, and if they think we'll take any old payment, they might start to get some strange ideas."

"Because, dear sister, they're flat broke. Some sort of attraction down in the human village drawing their attention, and we took what we could get. Did you really want to spend the next week chasing them up for money?" Yura pushed away from the wall and wrapped her arms around Yamame's neck. She always took great pleasure in treating Yamame like a child, even though they were the same age. "Now, I reckon you use them as building materials."

"No, you really do not." Reiko said, grabbing the back of Yura's collar and dragged her off of Yamame. "And if you weren't trying to put weird ideas in poor Yams' head, I would be able to explain." Yura grumbled in dissent but allowed Reiko to continue. "Now, Yams, the tengu told me that they're for some sort of drink." She rummaged in the pockets of her dress and pulled out a note written in the flowing calligraphy of Kanako Yasaka. Fortunately, much as Yamame had taken up the seamstress profession, Reiko had taken up the business side, and part of that had included a hobby - though Yamame was just as like to call it an obsession - with written language, and could read just about anything. "They wouldn't tell me where they got them from, and I suppose that means that we wouldn't want to know anyhow." Which almost definitely meant that they came from the Outside. Not just anyone could get through the barrier that separated Gensokyo from the rest of the world, but Kanako Yasaka had certainly alluded to the ability once or twice. "You put them in boiling water, she says." Reiko indicated her note. "You don't," This was accompanied by a sharp glare at Yura, "Use them as building materials."

"Still think you could..." Yura muttered under her breath, repositioning Yamame to act as a shield against Reiko.

"Okay, so - Where'd you even get them?" Yamame pinched a small pile of the coffee granules and took an experimental sniff, which wasn't the worst thing she'd ever smelt, but it could hardly be called the best. "Why were the Moriya in the Hot Springs?" Yamame's sisters had been underground for weeks working on the restoration of the Old City's Hot Springs, but this was the first time she'd heard of the Moriya lot appearing.

"Let's see..." Yamame Kurodani was not the most experienced when it came to dealing with humans. "This is...ginger, uh, tea? Really?" She was stood at the bookshelf in her living room, rummaging through what looked to be an ancient book on treating illness. I wasn't sure how old, but from the pristine condition it was in, I assumed that it had not been touched since she had acquired it. "How does that...?" I'd awoken after some time, still feeling awful in about every way it was possible to feel awful. Yamame had dragged me into her bed and thrown the covers over me, which had helped, though I still felt cold. Once enough of my faculties had returned, I staggered to my feet and managed to make my way out of her room, though the way every single muscle in my body ached was making it difficult. For some reason, my waist and torso were the worst, and even breathing in fully sent waves of pain across my body. Looking down, I realised that I was shirtless. That probably wouldn't help with the cold.

Once I'd made enough noise, I could her as she hopped off from her workshop on the upper level and caught the edge of the floor by one hand, hanging down in front of me. "Shouldn't you be in bed?" She'd asked me. "Isn't that how you humans get when you're sick?" I shrugged and mumbled something about the peach probably doing something weird to me. "Right..." She looked like she was at a loss for words. "Well, er, lie down?" She indicated the couch, the one that had come from the Vampire's mansion. "I've probably got a book here somewhere..." Thus, the present situation.

My voice felt strained, and my throat was sore, but I managed to tell her that ginger was supposed to be good for treating this sort of thing. "...Huh. Okay, I guess?" And off she went into the kitchen, where I could hear various chopping sounds, and after a while, the sound of water being poured, and then she emerged with a mug. "Another gift from the vampire." She told me when I looked at the mug with interest. I managed to sit up enough to take the drink, and I took a sip, but found myself coughing from the strong taste. Yamame startled slightly, almost rushing over. "What's wrong? Did I make it wrong?" I waited for the coughing to subside - and I hated the way it send pain wracking through my whole body - then told her that it was just very strong. "Doesn't that mean it's working?" I shrugged, but asked her if she had any honey. "Honey? Er, maybe?" She was soon back in the kitchen, and I could hear things being moved around as I stared up at the ceiling and tried to rub some warmth into my arms. "Oh - Here it is!" She emerged with a jar, then mixed some of it into the tea. I tried another sip and found it much more palatable this time. "Better?" I nodded, wrapping both of my hands around the mug to try and keep them warm.

I didn't know what to expect when I had arrived here. Initially, I had just planned to ask Yamame to take me to the Shrine, but now that she was trying, I felt like I couldn't say no to letting her try and take care of me herself. It felt...nice. I'd enjoyed taking care of Reimu despite the occasions that she had gotten difficult. Yamame patted me on the shoulder and stood, moving off behind me so I couldn't see her. After a moment, she returned, holding a large blanket. "Made it myself!" She told me cheerfully. "It should be nice and soft, not to mention warm enough to make a hell raven hot and sweaty." I was still feeling very cold, so I supposed that could be good. Yamame plucked the mug from my hand, took a sip and made a face at the taste, then dropped the blanket on my lap. Folded up, it was surprisingly heavy, and I felt the breath get forced out of me. Despite the aches I was suffering, I managed to unfurl it and was just about to throw it over myself when Yamame stopped me. "Hang on." She said, dragged a small table about as tall as me knee over and placing the mug on top of it. Then, before I could do anything, she hopped up onto the couch and dropped herself almost on top of me, but just enough to the side that she was comfortably wedged between the back cushions and my own body. "There." She whispered, resting her head against my back and reaching out her hand to pull the blanket over both of us. Her once-injured hand, I noticed. I tried to breathe in deeply, just in case the sight triggered another attack in me, but luckily, I seemed to be okay.

The blanket was, like she had said, very soft and very warm. I could feel it against my body, but it didn't feel at all coarse or rough like I'd been worried. It felt like something very fine and comfortable, and not at all itchy.

>>43079052
Yamame, no! Spiders can't drink coffee!

>>42234439
The question is: will you join her?