Somehow, The Countryside Is Different. (Oreigaru x Tohou)

Somehow, The Countryside Is Different. (Oreigaru x Tohou)

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Commissioned by Shaderic

Wordcount: 2500

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I figured my annual trip to the countryside was going to be far more awkward than all my other ones combined. Komachi was attending a Summer Camp. My parents were wage slaves and if they had to choose between going to the country or taking a hot springs vacation, they were going to send their son alone to the countryside. 

Thank you, wage slave progenitors, for teaching me how to properly treat my children.

Rest assured that I will take these lessons to heart and treat you accordingly in your old age.

That was a joke, by the way.

No way I’m letting my parents just friggin’ DIE.

However, the fact that I’m riding a train and several buses to the country, bearing gifts to the sound of noises of chirping cicadas, and was doing so without my family was not the source of my awkwardness in the slightest.

Why?

Because somehow, someway I’ve acquired a pretty childhood friend.

What is this devastating patch update to Hachiman GO? Since when did Hachiman’s mobile, P2W, but F2P enforced life involve a female in his childhood that could be described as cute, besides his totally-off-limits-don’t-even-THINK-about-it little sister? 

The long story is that the Hikigaya family came from the country after the war where Japan decided one nuclear bomb wasn’t enough when it totally was. There was loads of economic shittiness, alleviated by westerners wanting an unsinkable aircraft carrier, and the fact that cities needed wage-slaves to fill in companies that were rising out of the ashes. Enter a fifth-son’s third son’s family going to the city to become wage-slaves to rising corporations and secure a future that didn’t involve backbreaking labor… on land that the family will own forever.

My father courses his lineage to this day. 

The Hikigaya family is literally a branch family of a branch family that had no prospects. Anyway, that long-winded explanation doesn’t matter much, because the ancestral lands were sold off, the main/branch family nonsense dead and buried, and all our relations just invite us city-dwellers over for a break every summer.

We exchange regional produce for things more easily acquired in the city, as well as pretend to live a life that’s simpler in the countryside for a few weeks. 

Anyway, somewhere along the lines of all my summer visits to the countryside, I became involved in maintaining a Shrine. Like the proper, Japanese male individual, I strove to only go to Shrines for festivals, customary, traditional offerings, and to see if my luck is good enough for the Gacha. I could only hope that a Kami-sama would bless me and grant me my flashy pixels with different rarities and stats. If not, I was going to complain to his manager for false advertising, but that’s beside the point.

However, I’m no ordinary, Japanese man and found myself helping at the same Shrine every summer for a myriad of years. 

Forgive me ancestors, because I waste time believing in superstitution instead of breaking my back over a keyboard. 

Please forgive me for not dying at the ripe, old age of forty, too.

After a long trip back to the country, I dropped by my relatives’ home before being sent straight to shrine with my luggage in tow, which was a traditional shrine for the summer. My purpose was to spend a month or two helping out the shrine, fixing up what I could with my limited knowledge, and otherwise just do homework, help cook, and clean.  My reputation with the Shrine was good enough that I was allowed to stay on premises with free board and lodging, as well as avoid the arduous uphill, mountain walk to achieve my daily objectives.

So, I came to do so with gifts in hand, which were received with teary gratefulness, while I could only blink and question how Reimu Hakurei somehow became cute over the course of a single year. 

Seriously, who are the devs managing my shitty, P2W life?

Point me at them this instant!

I’ll decide on my way there whether to shake their hand, kneel at the feet in gratitude, or wring their necks!

Actually, I might do all three.

…

Reimu let out a sigh of glee, stretching out for a moment, before falling back-first onto the porch. She was wearing the shirt my mother sent her way, which was some old meme involving a dog saying wow. Normally, like any hot-blooded Nihon man who denies his country has done any wrong whatsoever, I hate western culture. However, if a Miko wears it, I have no choice to accept Western superiority. 

Especially when western sizes are so large girls can use male shirts as dresses.

Leggy, one-shouldered dresses. 

Thank you, America. Please, continue to stuff yourselves silly and continue to do this world a great, amazing service. 

I set the barley tea and one of the many pastries packed by my mother beside her, while I sat down on the porch myself. Naturally, since I was feeling my teenage hormones rage out of control, I put the plate and the drinks between us and sat far away and kept my eyes on the clean surroundings of the Shrine. 

It was a nearly half an afternoon’s worth of work for two in the blistering heat, so I understood her relief.

Her relief.

Not her legs.

Not those things swinging idly in the shade in the corner of my vision, while I valiantly kept my neck pointed forward and at the horizon. 

Not at all. 

“Haah, I finally have free time.” Reimu sighed in a way that she really shouldn’t sigh around me. What do you mean it’s just a regular, normal sound of relief? Well, consider the following: I’m a high-school boy who’s never had a girlfriend. Case closed. “Aaahn”s and “Haahs”s should be kept out of earshot of any highschool males of my shitty, lesser caliber. “Thanks for your help, Hachiman.”

“It’s nothing, just making up for everyone else who didn’t come.” Thankfully, despite the critical attacks being sent my way, I had technique and skill to fall back on. Disparaging others and undercutting my contributions to sneak through society are two things that I have mastery in. My parents would understand that I was trying to get myself killed, but Komachi will never forgive me if she knew that I spoke to Reimu in such a a manner. So, I’ll just never mention that I did it to my little sister, even if my parents would praise me,  like any decent human being who wants to have a stable family life. “Is there anything else I can get done while you rest? I’m still not tired.”

While my words weren’t totally a lie, since I really wasn’t that tired, it would be a lie if I was doing it out of either obligation or kindness. I just need time to think about my situation more. Away from Reimu and her changes. Stupid thoughts need to die. However, they’re not, so I needed to take them out back and behind the shed. I hoped that I could do so while keeping up appearances of being a decent human being who isn’t swayed by sudden, physical developments.

Sudden, physical developments such as Reimu somehow sneakily getting up, pushing aside the tray of food, and laying her head on my lap. 

“So, you’re going to run away? I thought that you weren’t scared of anything, Hachiman?”  Oi. I’m not even going to go with three of those this time. Dangerous. This game is dangerous. To go from being smiled as my most extreme gesture from a girl to having one’s head on my lap is too much. My self-control is nothing to laugh about, but this is way too much to be considered within acceptable norms. Reimu, in my silence, held up a finger and winked. “Or, am I wrong about you, and you’re going to ask to leave me alone even after I do this?”

At such words, there were only three options:

1. Confess to the girl who I had a crush on since I was a child.

2. Confess to my only friend after my failure of a confession in middle school.

3. Confess to only person who visited me when my leg was broken.

Jeez, what the heck, what a shitty game developer came up this?

It’s freaking rigged.

…

My first date was to a dagarashi shop. Max Coffee wasn’t available, so I settled with some other thing that was sweetened milk with coffee flavor. To be honest, it was pretty terrible, but that wasn’t the point of the visit. 

It was payback for Reimu’s underhanded, tricksy nature. 

“Why do I only get five hundred yen!? Aren’t boyfriends from the city supposed to be loaded and treat their girlfriends to fancy restaurants?” Behold, Reimu Hakurei in her true form. She is clad in an entirely unflattering tracksuit, her hair is down a bereft of her usual ribbons, and she is hoarding dagashi candies like a madwoman in her arms. “You know, you need to be more considerate of my feelings! I kept getting letters from Komachi telling me that you were becoming a womanizer, you know!”

“Okay, you get 100 more yen.”

“CHEAPSKATE!”

“0 Yen, then.”

“THANK YOU FOR YOUR DONATION, KIND SIR!”

I kept to myself, while Reimu busied herself with gathering the most treats. It was almost like we were children again, even though we were obviously different. We spent our summers together since we were children. I could go as far as to call her my childhood friend, but since that title was cursed to forever lose, I never wanted to jinx her chances… even though she was the only sole contender after middle school. 

I needed to have words with my dear little sister when I got back home, but for now I contented myself with standing at the entrance of the dagashi store and watching Reimu struggle over the old issue of quantity or quality. Shall she get mountains of candies or a select number of high-quality goods that even foreigners salivate over and pay exorbitant prices over? 

It was probably a shitty way to have a first date, but what were we going to do in the middle of nowhere? The countryside wasn’t exactly filled with hotspots for newly minted couples… let alone ones cheap enough for Reimu. As far as money went, she’d rather have a restaurant bill’s worth of money in her pocket. So, in the end, it had to be something a cheapskate considered a luxury. Therefore, we were where we were because it made Reimu happy.

And, as corny as it all sounded, that was enough for me.

Then, the door to the small, shop filled with nothing more than candies and simple, wooden shelves and counters opened and admitted a woman clad in a purple dress, with a tuffet on her head, and a parasol of whose insides were filled with eyes framed by the abyss. She was a tall woman, blonde, and buxom, however I didn’t care for that. What mattered to me was that the old woman tending to shop didn’t notice her at all.

And, Reimu had gone from happy to being utterly, completely devoid of emotion.

“My, my, what a strange moment I’ve stumbled upon.” The woman walked past me. Somehow, someway, I managed to act as though I didn’t notice her. No. It was more like my body had frozen up and decided to simply keep doing what it did. A few eyes beneath the parasol looked my way, but the one who held it didn’t look at me at all. “The guardian of Hakurei shrine indulging herself. May I ask what’s the occasion? You’d suddenly disappeared from you haunt, so I just had to check on you.”

Reimu’s eyes drifted over to me.

For some reason, upon seeing my utterly frozen state of unreaction, she somewhat calmed down.

Then, she pulled a talisman out of her pantsuit pocket and aimed it the woman’s way, while words I’d never thought I’d hear from her leave her lips.

“Fuck off, Yukari. I’m on vacation. A good one. I don’t need you or anyone else making a scene out of this.” I didn’t know exactly how, but my jumpsuit-clad girlfriend was somehow able to make the eldritch abomination pretending to be a person step back. Did Japanese talismans really have the power to turn aside monsters from beyond comprehension? If so… were all the ones I’d kept in my wallet doing something to calm my nerves and keep me normal when I wanted to freak out? I didn’t know. And, I probably wasn’t going to find out. “There’s no exception for the rules. Not even for you. My summer is for me.”

“Goodness, I’d thought I’d find you in a good mood after spending a day alone with your beau, but it seems that was just a silly thought.” Though “Yukari” took a step back with a smile on her face, I noticed that the eyes in her parasol had narrowed and all their gazes were firmly on Reimu. My not-so-normal-Shrine-Maiden, childhood friend didn’t flinch at the sight. No. She took a step back and all the eyes suddenly closed when she took another and another. The blonde woman actual swallowed and raised her hands in acquiesce. I probably missed some epic manga moment where two auras warred before the other broke. “W-wow, what a sight! You should wear that face more often, instead of your usual one, Reimu-chan. All of Gensokyo would be proper, if you did.”

“You wouldn’t want that. There wouldn’t be much of Gensokyo left, especially if I’m always this angry all the time.” Okay, never mind. Reimu is scarier than the eldritch thing that was retreating through an abyss filled with closed eyes, instead of the street. Her approach was steady, her face split by a wide, empty smile, and her eyes were utterly devoid of pity or empathy for life whatsoever. The rest of her sharp face was bereft of tenseness, too. It was simple, calm, and focused intent. No, Hachiman Jr. Please, stop doing what you’re doing. “Actually, I think it’s great that you’re here, Yukari. I want everyone to know in Gensokyo that if you touch Hachiman, I’ll be touching you until there’s nothing left to touch. Understood?”

Uwa, my girlfriend can’t possibly be this cool, but she is! 

An impish smile nearly started forming on the blonde, eldritch thing’s face, but Reimu’s hand flashed out and suddenly the woman was stepping back and disappearing into an opening on reality itself. 

Reimu kept up her guard for a few moments, until she sighed and walked towards the grandmother at the counter, then pressed her finger against her head and uttered a prayer. There was a flash of light, the grandmother greeted her, and then she purchased all her things properly, before turning towards me. Her walk was slow, as though she was debating on what to do, until she stood before me and staring at me between untied bangs. 

“I hope that they don’t pay attention to you, but I know they will. As nice as a few of them are, they’re all curious and stupid in their own way.” Reimu grumbled while looking at me without a hint of concern. She supposed that I was like the grandmother behind the counter, who had been frozen still and learned nothing. I had frozen still, but I had witnessed the whole affair. I could only suppose that some leftover juice was in all the keepsakes I had in my wallet. Now, my girlfriend was confessing something important to me that she didn’t think I should know that I wouldn’t remember. Wow, I didn’t think we were that far in in our relationship. “Please, if anyone half-decent is listening, at least give me this summer with Hachiman, so he doesn’t leave me for people who have normal, regular lives. If I can have just an ounce of good fortune, please let me have that, okay?”

I honestly had no clue what Reimu was talking about, but given how worried she was, I figured it would be better to not tell her that I was aware of what just happened. Try as I might, I couldn’t help but think that she was the type of person who’d let go of people if she thought it was for the best, even if it hurt her in the process.

And, if she wasn’t and I was just being paranoid?

Then, well, it’s better that I make that mistake than risk making her worry.