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Reimu couldn’t pinpoint exactly when Marisa’s visits had evolved from a pleasant diversion to the thing she planned her day around. She had thought about it often, trying to identify the exact moment, but of course, there wasn’t one. It wasn’t the type of thing that had a clear “before” and “after”, like thrashing whoever had perpetrated the latest incident. No, Marisa had wormed her way into Reimu’s life both gradually and thoroughly, with a sort of inescapable persistence, to the point that Reimu could barely remember how she’d passed the time before Marisa started hanging around the shrine.
Reimu brushed the sleep out of her eyes, and the idle thoughts out of her brain along with them. It was still early, and she had work to do around the shrine before Marisa arrived. It wasn’t a guarantee that Marisa would show up, of course. She visited most days, but not every day, and while last night she had departed with her customary jaunty “see ya tomorrow!”, that was never an ironclad promise that she would. There was always the possibility that she’d get involved with some incident or other nonsense, and she would often neglect to tell Reimu when she did, which Reimu found surprisingly frustrating. It was quite literally Reimu’s job to investigate and resolve incidents, after all, and yet Marisa often insisted on haring off on her own, for no good reason other than wanting to show she could do it herself. Reimu struggled to understand that point of view, since it certainly wasn’t as if she enjoyed incidents, and she’d derived very little personal benefit from resolving any number of them, to say nothing of donations or faith for the shrine, but Marisa insisted.
Reimu stretched and yawned. There she was, getting distracted again. Marisa probably would show up, and if she didn’t, so what? She’d be back the next day, or the day after that. It wasn’t like Reimu needed to see her every day.
Well.
Best not to pull on that thread too much. Reimu set the thought aside.
She slowly wriggled out from her futon, and stood. Throwing her blankets aside all at once in the morning would just be too painful, especially on a cool morning like this.
Reimu slid back her bedroom door, and padded across the tatami mats to the shrine’s main room. She slid open one of the doors facing the side of the shrine, and blinked as sunlight and a crisp spring morning breeze swirled in to greet her.
“Good morning, Miss Reimu!” Aunn chirped with her usual unquenchable good cheer. The komainu beat Reimu outside pretty much every morning, even when you didn’t count the days when Aunn decided to sleep outside in the first place. Getting up before Reimu wasn’t exceptionally difficult to do, admittedly, but Reimu suspected that Aunn could give even Sakuya a run for her money when it came to being an early riser. She was an absolutely irrepressible font of positive energy.
“Morning, Aunn,” Reimu said, bleary-eyed. Aunn, by contrast, had a gleam in her eye, a broom in her hand, and had already set about industriously sweeping the grounds of the shrine. Aunn had taken Reimu aback at first, but she’d been surprised by how quickly she’d gotten used to having the komainu around. It certainly didn’t hurt that Aunn, unlike the useless fairies infesting the place, literally thrived on making herself useful around the shrine.
Marisa liked to tease Reimu that she should consider making Aunn the shrine maiden instead, since the shrine had never been more immaculate than with Aunn looking after it. Those comments never particularly got to Reimu, because she’d been inside Marisa’s house, and to call it a pigsty would offend perfectly good pigs. In fact, just thinking about the state of absolute disarray contained within those walls made Reimu feel better about her own cleaning habits. Marisa was one to talk, wasn’t she. How could somebody who worked so hard still have such a messy home?
Reimu sometimes wondered whether she ought to visit Marisa’s house more often. Admittedly, the lamentable state of its terribly cluttered interior compared very unfavorably to the reasonably spacious shrine, and the shrine’s grounds, and view, were far more pleasant than the dark, depressing, and overall repellent Forest of Magic, but was it really fair for Marisa to always have to be the one to make the trip? Plus, the forest could be dangerous at night, even for as accomplished an incident-resolver as Marisa. Reimu worried sometimes, when Marisa left particularly late (and particularly drunk). It’d be better for Marisa to stay over more often, wouldn’t it?
Reimu shook her head. She’d found herself thinking that increasingly often, as of late.
“I’ll be out in a bit,” she told Aunn. “Thanks for cleaning.” As far as Reimu could tell, Aunn would happily do the work whether Reimu thanked her or not, since it was ultimately for the sake of the shrine, not Reimu, but it didn’t hurt to be polite, considering that Aunn was one of the few youkai in Gensokyo who removed stress from her life, rather than adding it. Come to think of it, Aunn might be the only youkai doing that.
“It’s my pleasure to look after the shrine, Miss Reimu!” Aunn said, beaming. “Will Miss Marisa be by later?”
“I think so.”
“How lovely!” Aunn said. She set back about sweeping, humming an old folk tune to herself.
Reimu slid the door closed, and rubbed her arms. Now that she had emerged from her futon, the damp spring chill had started to set in. Time to eat something and warm up.
First, though, she padded back to her bedroom, and got dressed. Marisa always gave her a hard time if she arrived before Reimu had changed. She particularly enjoyed bringing up one rather embarrassing story about how Reimu had once inadvertently met several rare early-morning petitioners while wearing her pajamas. That delightful anecdote had made its way around the flower-viewing parties, then eventually into Aya’s stupid paper, and now she’d never hear the end of it. Marisa just had to pick that day to come extra early and witness it, hadn’t she? But, well, it hadn’t been that bad. Reimu could still remember how hard they’d laughed about it over a couple bottles of sake that night.
Reimu set about preparing a simple tea and breakfast. She usually made a bit more than she needed when cooking alone, these days. Reimu didn’t trust Marisa to feed herself anything that wasn’t a toxic mushroom, so she liked to have some extra food prepared, just in case Marisa showed up. Marisa was pretty good about chipping in when they went on shopping trips in the village together, so she wasn’t a drain on the shrine’s resources, though it’s not as if Reimu would have minded, really. The shrine didn’t provide a great income, true, but she wasn’t in any danger of starvation, and what’s more, she enjoyed the company. Her days tended to be a lot more interesting with Marisa around.
Saying that out loud to Marisa had gotten more difficult, lately. It was supposed to be the opposite the more time you spent with someone, wasn’t it? Especially for someone like Reimu, who supposedly prided herself on being laid-back and freewheeling.
Reimu finished preparing her simple breakfast, and set it out on the kotatsu, along with the tea. She set a portion aside for Marisa, like usual. If Marisa didn’t appear, Reimu would just finish it herself later, and have a smaller lunch.
Breakfast came and went with no sign of Marisa. That was fine, of course. Even if Marisa did plan to visit the shrine today, it was perfectly normal for her to come by later in the afternoon. Fortified by food, and particularly by warm tea, Reimu wrapped on a coat and ventured out into the cool spring air.
Aunn had disappeared, off on some business or other, but had managed to sweep most of the area. She’d left the broom against the side of the shrine. With some reluctance, Reimu picked it up. If it was just her, she’d have left the sweeping for tomorrow, or maybe the day after tomorrow, to be honest, but Aunn had done most of the work already, so she might as well finish.
Reimu started sweeping the remainder. Maybe Marisa would show up, and she could make her sweep too. Whenever Reimu tried to sweet-talk or bully her into doing chores, which was often, really almost daily, Marisa usually flashed an eager grin, and said something along the lines of “Let me show you how it’s done!” Which was kind of funny, when Reimu thought about it, because she had seen Marisa’s house, and it wasn’t done.
Well, that was probably just another one of Marisa’s competitive streaks, like with incident-resolving. Everybody had their quirks, and Reimu knew she was no exception. She was grateful for the help. Marisa certainly swept much more energetically than she did, but then again, Marisa did most things much more energetically than Reimu. That was part of why Reimu enjoyed having her around, of course. Reimu had once hoped that she might be able to absorb some of Marisa’s discipline and drive via simple prolonged exposure, but she’d long since been forced to abandon that dream. She settled for making Marisa do the work directly, instead.
Reimu finished sweeping with nary a sign of Marisa. Overhead, the sun had passed its zenith and begun its long drop towards the horizon. She returned the broom to its usual spot with the shrine’s other tools, and walked up to the donation box, peering inside. To no one’s surprise, least of all Reimu’s, the box proved empty. That was okay, though. The shrine still had plenty of money, thanks to a very successful Setsubun, and there wouldn’t be any trouble at all making it through until the cherry blossoms gave her the next chance to pull in a bunch of visitors (and take a cut of Nitori’s profits).
Reimu sat on the steps in front of the donation box, and looked up at the sky. By any standard, it was a beautiful day. The sky was a deep, rich blue, the few clouds scudding along puffy and white, and shoots of green had begun to push their way out from bare branches around the shrine. Gensokyo unrolled before the shrine like a wondrous carpet, shimmering green and blue in the crystal-clear spring air, with puffs of smoke drifting up lazily from the village. Marisa would be happy. She loved the view from the shrine, and often waxed poetic over it once they were a cup or two in. They could both fly, of course, but that was cold and windy, and Gensokyo being what it was, you always ran the risk of some brainless youkai zooming up alongside you to waste your time with a fight that they were bound to lose.
No, you couldn’t beat sitting at the shrine when it came to appreciating Gensokyo’s scenery. They’d spent countless mornings, afternoons, and evenings out on the veranda taking in the view (and some sake), and would no doubt spend countless more doing the same thing. It certainly had to be better than that dank, dark forest.
Reimu slipped back inside, and prepared some rice to have alongside breakfast’s leftovers. She sorted through the sake bottles, and retrieved a couple which she set aside for later. She and Marisa hadn’t drunk that much the past few nights, as Marisa had been preoccupied with trying to perfect a potion recipe, and had enlisted Reimu to help sort and test ingredients, so they had some catching up to do.
And if Marisa didn’t show up, well, drinking alone had started to feel a little depressing now that she was so used to drinking with company, but she could always rope in Suika, who never seemed to be very far away when somebody needed a drinking partner. Reimu had once briefly considered trying to find out what Aunn would be like drunk, but that just felt wrong.
Reimu finished her meal, stacked her bowls with the ones from breakfast in the hopes of leaving them for Marisa to clean later as recompense for dinner, and ventured back outside to perform some prayers. She felt foolish sometimes performing rituals to a god whose name she didn’t even know, and whose voice she’d never heard, but there wasn’t much choice but to do it, in case the god truly was listening.
Reimu had long since accepted the reality that the Hakurei god would forever remain an enigma to her, but Marisa still found the puzzle fascinating. Every now and then she’d come tearing up to the shrine with some old scroll or artifact she’d dug up, convinced that it might be the key to unlocking the mysteries of Reimu’s shrine. Reimu found her refusal to give up despite her complete lack of a stake in the outcome deeply endearing. That was another thing which Reimu had started feeling oddly reluctant to say out loud.
Given the lack of activity around the shrine, Reimu spent some extra time on her devotions. By the time she finished, the early spring sunset wasn’t far off. It didn’t seem like Marisa would come by today, after all. She’d probably gotten pulled into some harebrained mess of one kind or another, and would zoom up excitedly tomorrow to tell Reimu all about it.
The sun set, and Reimu returned inside. While cooking dinner, she still made some extra, like usual. It was silly, she knew, but if she had to, she’d eat it, so it wasn’t like it would go to waste. Maybe Marisa was making dinner right then, too, or, more likely, researching some nonsensically complex piece of arcane lore. It was much easier for Reimu to imagine Marisa buried under a stack of books and arcane tools while scarfing down a dubiously colorful mushroom than to imagine Marisa working in her kitchen to make herself a proper meal.
As Reimu set the table for dinner, she glanced back at the stack of dirty bowls in the kitchen, and sighed. Looked like she’d be the one cleaning them after all. She put the bottles of sake on the table, and poured herself a cup before settling under the warmth of the kotatsu. Maybe she’d try to get Suika’s attention after dinner. That way, the oni couldn’t pilfer all of her food.
Reimu raised the cup to her lips, and scrabbled backwards, nearly sloshing sake all over her face, as the door to her side slammed open with a bang. She fumbled frantically with the cup to keep it from spilling.
“Evenin’!” Marisa said, leaving her broom on the veranda as she slid the door shut behind her. A cold gust swirled through the doorway before the door closed, and flung itself in vain against the warmth of the kotatsu. “Sorry, I was gonna come by way earlier, but Kosuzu roped me into helping her look at this new youma book at Suzunaan while I was running an errand in the village, and it turned out to be a pretty tough one.” The wafting aroma of dinner tugged Marisa’s attention to the contents of the table. “Hey, I’m just in time to eat! Perfect.” She doffed her charmingly large witch hat, tossed it in its usual spot, and shook out her long, blonde hair, which shone like burnished gold in the warmth of the candlelight.
Reimu beamed, and patted the other side of the kotatsu. “Come, come, Marisa, get warm,” she said. “We’ve got a lot of sake to get through tonight, so we’d better get started.”
Marisa slid under the kotatsu opposite Reimu, and started piling food in the bowl Reimu had left out across from her. “Ahhh, this sure beats eating what I have at home,” she said. “This smells great. Is there enough to go around, though? Don’t wanna eat all your food.”
“I happened to make a little extra tonight, so eat as much as you want,” Reimu said, taking a drink from her cup.
“Guess I’m in luck!” Marisa laughed. “I’ll clean up afterwards like usual, so I’m not freeloadin’ or anything.” Her eyes sparkled with excitement, and she eagerly leaned forward, thwacking both hands on the table. “Hey, you’ll never guess, but I think I found something in that book at Suzunaan that might help us figure out who the heck this shrine’s god is!”
Reimu smiled, taking another drink, as her cheeks tinged with the warmth of the kotatsu, the sake, and something else, which she wasn’t quite ready to fully admit to herself, let alone to Marisa.
“That’s the most interesting thing I’ve heard all day,” she said, as she poured Marisa a drink. “Tell me all about it.”