/jp/ - Otaku Culture

It was hard to remember the kind of people I was interacting with regularly were youkai and usually had rather sordid pasts. I asked Suika what had been happening in Former Hell since I was last here. "Well...We sorted out the whole keystone issue, but you saw the start of that. There was some weird stuff with a vengeful spirit, but that's a usual sort of thing around here. Satori Komeiji's pet nuclear raven accidentally blow a hole in the ceiling..." She scratched her head. "So, honestly? Nothing much." Suika was still watching me with something like a restrained curiosity, so I finally broke and asked her if there was something she wanted to say. "Are you really planning to marry that Kurodani?" She asked me, her voice slightly more serious. I asked her how she had known that, and she shrugged. "I know everything."

After a few silent moments as we made it further down toward the centre of the town, I confessed that I really did love Yamame, and I really did want to marry her. "Can't say I rightly remember what it's usually like with you humans, but is that not a bit fast?" I frowned. How long had it been? A lot had happened in that time, and I felt like I'd bonded a lot faster with Yamame as a result. But still, maybe it was a bit fast? "Well, no business of mine, I guess. If you want to marry her, go right ahead." I told her that I was still thinking hard about it, but I hoped to ask her soon enough. At least, once I'd had a chance to actually confirm that she wanted to marry me. "Never seen someone quite so taken by a youkai. If you weren't - Well, you, Reimu would probably have come to check if you were possessed by now." I shrugged and said that things had just worked out that way.

"Kasen's thinking about asking Raki to merge again." Suika said quietly. I looked down at her and saw that she had crossed her arms as we walked, and she looked conflicted. "I was - So certain...That I wanted them to merge again, because that's my Ibaraki. But now...I think I like them both, as themselves. They're all different aspects of her wrapped together. I don't think I want them to merge forever." She looked over at me. "Sorry, I know it's not your concern. You're just easy to talk to." I'd probably been called worse, so I nodded and said that I understood. "I mean, the two of them merged could still be everything that they are separately, but it's not quite the same, right?" I didn't exactly know the original Ibaraki, so I couldn't really say, but hadn't Reimu cut her arm off to seal her again? "Huh? Er, yeah." So, didn't that mean that if they did merge again, it might be possibly to separate again. "Well, er...Maybe? My Ibaraki might have some opinions about that." Still, it was a possibility.

Finally, we were down in the busier parts of town again. "Down there," Suika said, point at another winding path. "Then take the first right, third left, up the stairs and past the tofu store, and then you'll be at the hall that Yuugi was talking about." I wasn't surprised that she had known what we were talking about already. "Your Yamame is...Oh, there she is." I turned back and saw that Suika was pointing down the street. There, at the bottom with the crowd splitting around her, was Yamame, and I sighed in relief.