/jp/ - Otaku Culture

"I'm so sorry." She said quietly. "It must have felt like losing them again." I simply nodded, but I relaxed a little when Keine shuffled over and pulled me into a hug. It had been incredibly painful, but I'd pulled through with help.

"Help from who?" Keine asked me. I told her that it was a long story. "I've got time." She said. "You could stay here tonight. Um, if you want. As an apology for hitting you." I thought about the idea of trying to travel all the way back to the Shrine now, and decided that it was never going to happen. Instead, I thanked Keine gratefully. "W-Well, it's not like you didn't stay here plenty of times when you were growing up." She laughed, scratched her head. "So...What's the story?" I told her that I'd get to it, but I wanted to tell her something else first. "What?" She looked a little concerned. "Are you okay? You're looking very...Um, actually, you look quite strong, but…You’re very pale." I told her that I'd explain that part too, but it wasn't the news I was trying to tell her. Also, I probably had a cold or something. I took a deep breath and then said that I was thinking of marrying someone. Keine's face changed to one of shock, but not necessarily in a bad way. There was a little bit of excitement there. "You - Um, marry? Who?" And here was the part I was worried about. For after everything was said and done, I was about to tell a villager that I was planning to marry a youkai. So, I mumbled it, like a child revealing who they had a crush on. "S-Sorry, who?" I tried again, a little louder. "Yamame Kurod-" She stopped, mouthing the name to herself silently. I unconsciously shuffled slightly further away. "The - The youkai? The spider?" Slowly, I nodded. "A-Are you sure?" I was very certain, I replied.

She did hit me, but only once, and not too hard. "And you're really not joking?" I shook my head. "Or...possibly possessed...?" No, I replied. I was serious. "How - How'd you even meet someone like that?" I had fallen down a really big hole. She whacked me on the arm again. "Don't joke about that! That's what the rumours were saying about you dying!" I raised my hands and said that I really had fallen down a hole like that. "But - She - She's the one that spreads disease? How - Why-" She was starting to do that funny gesturing thing that so many people did when they were confused. I'd seen several people do it in just the last week. "A-And you want to marry her...?" She didn't look upset or anything. Rather, she looked worried about me. It was a nice feeling, I supposed. Raising my hands again, I said that I should probably tell her the whole story, or she'd still have questions. "Oh, er, okay..." She furrowed her brow. "But - What about-" I raised an eyebrow. "Okay, yes, er, sorry." I waited for her to take a drink and then added on that Reimu and I now considered ourselves brother and sister.

That, predictably, made her choke, and then I had to quickly rush around the table to pat her on the back before she ended up repeated exactly what Reimu had done at the café. "You - And Reimu - S-Sister...?" I was going to explain, I stressed. "What have you been up to!?" She cried. "You can't just spring all of this on me!" She buried her head in her hands. "I've spent the last several months thinking you were dead, and then you show up and tell me you want to marry a youkai and you're now siblings with the Hakurei Shrine Maiden?" I'd also eaten a peach from Heaven, I supplied. Keine just stared at me wordlessly. It had been a very busy few months, I told her. "And...You're definitely not...Mad? This all actually happened...Right? It's not just in your head?" I frowned. No, I replied. I didn't think I was mad, at least. I'd been living with a hermit for a while, though, which might have driven me mad with all of the running up and down mountains.

She stared for a few seconds longer, than shook her head and sighed. "I-If you say so...?" I realised that I was probably making things worse by saying all these random parts of the story out of sequence, so I decided that I should get into the story properly before I said something worse. I'd thought about trying to gloss over it, but I felt like it would be the wrong thing to do. Keine deserved the truth. But even so, I asked her first if she thought I was making a mistake. “If you really do love her, then I wouldn’t try to change your mind, anyway. Just…Make sure it’s not a mistake.” I decided that she’d have a better idea once I’d explained everything.

So, I began, it all started when I overheard a conversation between Reimu Hakurei and Marisa Kirisame about a potential Romantic Fulfilment Service...

>>45290946 (11/-)
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I'm speechless, pain coursing through my arm ignored, holding the two tiniest babies I've ever seen in my life, minuscule quivering wings folded and hair sparse, their bodies together barely weighing 10 pounds… And they cry. Loudly—their shrill sounds somewhat melodic, traveling through the forest like a gong. Wide-eyed, confused, hungry, tired, and in pain, I look around, searching for any trace of the woman who guided me, but as I feared, she's gone…

Did she know these babies would fall from the sky? It can’t be a coincidence… But for what—

"Wow, maybe they're more resilient than I—oh, a human…? Not just any human~" A voice, one familiar to me, comes from above. Fluttering wings framed by moonlight reveal Mystia Lorelei, one of the worst youkai I've ever had the displeasure to meet. She looked amused, albeit surprised and smug. "Keine Kamishirasawa." the babies kept crying out loud and… I looked at them, then at Mystia. Pinkish hair; wings of the same pattern…

… A volcanic rage fills my skull. "Mystia, you dumbass birdbrain! Did you FUCKING drop these two from the sky?!"

She cocked her head, then shrugged. "It wasn't from the sky, baka! I dropped them from my nest."

"That doesn't help anything!" I kept going, their little kicks and struggles numbing my arms. "You still dropped them and—"

Her words suddenly clicked.

My eyes grew from rage to utter shock, mouth agape, brows furrowed, fully processing those words. I heard them wrong, right? I'm so on edge, I probably did. There's no way she’d actually—

"Bah, humans… Always the same reaction—half, in your case, but anyway," she huffs, as if tired of having to explain an obvious thing. I simply stared at her, feeling rooted. "These two," she points at the newborns, and I hold them closer as if protecting from… something. "Are tiny and frail. The rest of my clutch came in much better shape—Yukari sells a great product~—and I’m sure they'll survive the winter… But I doubt those two would, so they're nothing but dead weight in my nest."

… Is she for real? "A-And… because of that, you threw them away?"

"What else should I do?"

The sheer apathy of those words boiled me alive, tiny arms grasping my tattered clothes, struggling, stressed; "Put them to adoption?! Maybe give them a chance?! Anything but drop them to their deaths, you psycho retard! How can you even do such a thing—"

"You talk too much about things you don't understand…" She shrugs and yawns. "This is just how nature works. I'm a mother with limited resources and time; I have to think about my other kids… Not like you would understand, didn't you abort yours?" I wince with the lie, heartbeat on top of my throat, deeply wounded by her words but ready to give her a big and very mean piece of my mind—

Her ears perked with an unrelated, distant sound, a devilish smile growing on her face as her eyes lit up.

"… Fuck you, Reimu Hakurei!" I frown, confused. Why is Mystia singing… "FUCK YOU, REIMU HAKUREI!" before I can shield my ears from 'we don't need no Shrine Maiden', her voice takes on a terrible intonation, shaking my inner core and melting my brain. Subconsciously, I press the babies onto my chest tighter, but my strength wanes quickly. "YEAH, SHE RALLIES 'ROUND THAT FAMILY—" She flies up, wings fluttering and casting a shadow over my contorting body, voice grinding my brain like sandpaper. "WITH A POCKET FULL OF OFUDAS~!"

With a haunting note, her voice fades into the thick canopy, covered by night, and I fall to my knees, gladly not letting go of the babies, their shrieking not as deafening anymore—as if the moon had been swallowed whole, my surroundings are pitch black, grayish cold fog at feet height… I get up, laboriously breathing. My arm’s dormant and legs tremble, body feeling weak all over, not having eaten anything in 30 hours.

Yet, the emotion that prevails is an immense rage towards that sparrow. Throwing her babies away just because they're not up to par?! And blaming it on ‘nature’? Her species isn't as evolved as Tengu, but she still has a thinking brain! She shouldn't follow all of her instincts… That smile, her carefree attitude…

I look into these babies' eyes, holding onto me and lowly weeping, weak… Poor things, so soon in their lives and already going through such stress, treated like things instead of living beings…

… 'No one deserves to be treated like an object'.

With a pained smile, I touch their faces; their weeping soothed, and I do my best to juggle their weight. "Hey… name's Keine. Sorry for all that. That mother of yours is a dumbass… I'll leave you at Eientei tomorrow, kay? It's already late, so let's go to my home—I'll get your bellies full, bathe you, and you can sleep in my bed tonig—"

Low growls, clawed footsteps. I stop, shivers running up my spine, pressing the babies on my chest as I tense up—right arms hurt; famished; body fatigued; mind drained; vision impaired…

… Surrounding me, a thousand pairs of predatory, shining eyes.