Chapter Text
When Marisa had learned to enchant her broom to carry her through the air like a proper witch, she wasted no time in showing off to her new friend.
Reimu the shrine maiden was unimpressed. What was so special about flying seated on a shabby broomstick? She could do it without even thinking. ‘You're gonna get calluses on your butt’, she told Marisa, so Marisa challenged her to a race to prove her method was better.
As Reimu accepted and rose into the air, Marisa grabbed her hand without thinking.
They both stared for a second.
"What's wrong? Not so confident about flying on a broom after all? Need a lift?"
Marisa let go like she'd been caught trying to nick something. "Fuck you! It's just a reflex, 'cause you moved so suddenly or something!"
"Hey! You're not supposed to say that!"
"I'm a witch now, I can say whatever I want!"
"Well, you don't get to talk to me like that if you can't even fly like you say you can." Reimu hopped backwards and drifted into the air again. This time, Marisa didn't stop her.
"Wait until I catch you, dork!"
"Try it if you can!"
Reimu's final in-depth interview with Hieda no Akyuu for the ninth Gensokyo Chronicle ran longer than the others had. Akyuu wanted to double-check details, wouldn't let her dodge questions as easily, and even sketched a portrait. Reimu indulged her because the tea and sweets were good, the cushion comfortable, and the chronicler's dedication hard to say no to.
When Reimu tried to push off the mansion's veranda to fly home, a gentle tug at her sleeve stopped her.
Akyuu didn't become conscious of her own hand holding that sleeve until Reimu turned to look at her. She forced herself to not startle or let go too abruptly, and to offer some excuse.
"Oh! Actually, it's getting late, isn't it? Why not join us for dinner since you're here?" She'd been thinking about it anyway, so it wasn't even strictly a deception. Her grandfather would grumble, but he wasn't the head of the household.
"Well, if you're offering, I'll take you up on that."
"I'm sorry, Priestess. That was a very rude way to—"
Reimu waved her off. "I don't mind. Just… don't call me that if you're going to invite me for dinner."
"Okay, Reimu."
That was the first time Reimu visited Akyuu as Reimu, not as the Hakurei priestess.
When it was finally time to let the shrine maiden go back to Earth, Yorihime couldn't stop sighing in relief. The girl was by no means a bad guest, but the way she treated being held hostage no different from staying over at a friend's house was strangely exhausting in the long term. Plus, it rankled her pride that the highest praise Reimu seemed to have for delicacies beyond the dreams of emperors was "Oh, this is really good!"
One of those sighs caught in her throat. For just an instant, she saw not Reimu gently rising into the air to float home, but a wisp of cloud escaping a little lacquered box to disperse in the wind.
Her hand caught Reimu's, though, and the cloud was Reimu again, whole and still there and giving her a half-annoyed 'what is it this time?' look. So, for lack of anything better for it to be, Yorihime bored her with another admonition to not cause trouble, and to eat properly, and to give her regards to the apothecary.
Reimu actually blew a raspberry at her before leaving for real. That response helped her not to think about old nonsense again.
Sanae knew exactly what the sight of Reimu from behind, pushing off her shrine's roof to fly home, reminded her of. Strange enough, because back then, just a few weeks ago, she'd been in the opposite role. Was this what it felt like?
She understood this the moment her hand caught Reimu's wrist. In the time after Reimu must have felt the pull but before Sanae could stop her own momentum, she decided to jump instead.
The wind answered so much more easily, here. It lifted her up to fly shoulder and shoulder with the other girl (same age? A year or two younger? Hard to say), who shot her a look.
"What? Looking for a rematch already?"
"No! Please, no. Um, I actually don't have anything to do right now." That was a lie: she was going to prepare dinner, but she was the only one who needed food here, anyway. "So since you're here, could you show me around the village, maybe? I can treat you to dinner as thanks."
"I'm not really the best person for that, but sure, I guess."
Alice had barely seen Reimu to the door and turned around to go back to work when a disturbance among the dolls called her attention. It was something like a muscle twitch, in something that is not a muscle.
Then, a shout. "ALICE!"
She rushed to the front door to find Reimu, hovering a finger's breadth above the ground, covered in dolls. Several Russian and Londoner ones hanging onto her sleeves, two French dolls on the hem of her skirt, a Shanghai hugging her shin.
Reimu spread her arms and the dolls dangled almost comically from them, like decorations on a party banner. "What the hell, Alice?"
That's what Alice would've loved to know, too. She wanted to sketch or photograph the scene, but Reimu refused and made her remove the dolls right away.
Reimu got up and gathered the cups to refill the tea. Yukari did not stop her.
The water was set boiling, but she didn't have to bother fetching the tea leaves: a gloved hand held the can ready for her when she turned around. And a short distance away, next to the shelf, was the face it went with, smiling at her out of a hole in the air with the chin resting on Yukari's other hand as if leaning on a windowsill.
Reimu took the tea—not actually the one she had intended to get, but oh well—and gave Yukari the side-eye. "What?"
"Nothing in particular. I'm just trying to help."
"Really?"
"Would I lie to you?"
"Yes."
Yukari laughed and brushed a speck of dirt off of Reimu's collar. "True."