Oku turned around and gave a very sweet response. Something about the dynamic of their conversation had turned as soon as they started talking about the Winter. Oku going back and everything. Why was that? Was it because he didn’t want to stop seeing Youkai? Well, that may be some of it, but there was something else. He didn’t really want her to leave. It had been so… at least a lot livelier since she’d come into his life. Giving that up so quickly wasn’t something he looked forward to. Even if he wasn’t a zombie walking around anymore, Youkai had made his life interesting lately. So much different from the bore that everyday life brought before he met her. Plus, with Hato joining them, things would even get better around. Even his mood had improved since all this had started...

For now.

Once a few days had passed, Oku began to get a lot friendlier with Hato, and they’d become what you could call dysfunctional friends. He was happy to see that they got along. His stock of energy drinks was full, and he was just thankful he could afford them. At least they were pretty cheap in the twelve pack.

“Alright I’m going to class.”

“There isn’t anything I want to go to today, I think I’ll just sleep.”

Oku just waved goodbye from his bed and turned over.

“Hey can I come?”

“Hato? You want to go to classes with me?”

“Nobody can see me right? Seeing what you do every day sounds fun!”

“Well if you really want to, just don’t cause any trouble. Oh and try not to talk to me when we’re on campus, sorry, I don’t want them to think I’m talking to nobody since they can’t see you.”

Once they arrived on campus, she did just what he asked of her. Much better behaved than Oku at least. He crossed the river on the road in campus and heard something from underneath the bridge. It sounded like a low moaning noise. Was someone down there? He craned his neck over the side to see if there was anything, but he saw nothing. Maybe just his imagination, and missing classes looking for something that might be there was a bad idea. Classes passed in a normal, boring fashion as per usual. Somehow Hato thought they were the most amazing thing she had seen in decades, but they were just classes… Afterwards, he talked to her a bit on the way home. Once they were about to cross the bridge Lawrence once again heard a noise and looked over the edge of the bridge.

“You!”

A loud bellow from behind him almost caused him to jump over the side of the bridge.

“Ah! What the!”

Standing in front of him was a bearded man-made entirely out of water.

He was stunning, but not exactly imposing. The Youkai was only about four feet tall after all…

“You! Boy! You can see me!”

“I can.”

“Then I! The great Totsunyu! Give thee a quest!”

“What?”

“If thou can find my great whip in a matter of five days! I shall grant thee a wish! Any wish!”

“A whip? Is it made of water?”

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“It has the appearance of a turbulent wave, yet is solid! If you are able to acquire my whip and return it to my hands by nightfall on the fifth day, I shall grant your deepest wish!”

“My deepest wish…"

“Master, is it wise to trust river spirits? A lot of them just trick humans into running errands for them… he probably won’t even grant your wish. That takes a lot of power you know, he doesn’t seem very strong to me.”

“Hey! I’m powerful! I just need my whip back and I can grant a wish alright? It was stolen from me and I can’t find it no matter how hard I look! Please help me out alright? Without the whip I can’t irrigate the fields down South! If I stop doing that the farmers will never pray to me again…”

“You really can grant a wish?”

“I can. Any price.”

“Then I accept your quest noble river spirit.”

“Most noble of you! I hope to see you again in five days with my treasured whip!”

With that the river spirit faded back into the water, and Lawrence stepped away from the side of the bridge. Hato was still skeptical of the river spirit however.

“Why did you accept his “quest”? He could totally just be leading you on a wild goose chase!”

“If what he said is true, a lot of farmers could lose their harvests while I sit here and do nothing. I feel like I probably would have helped him out even if there was no wish attached to it. Although the wish isn’t a bad bonus…”

“I don't understand your motives, but if you want to help him I will aid you any way I can.”

“Thanks Hato.”

A whip would be pretty damn hard to find, especially since only Youkai could see it and the spirit said that it looked like water. Which meant that it was translucent…

“Well then where do we start the search?”

Hato’s voice was able to snap him out of his thoughts. Maybe it really was that easy…

“I’m guessing the river guy would have kept a pretty close eye on the whip right?”

“Well you’d think so.”

“So how could he lose something that precious to him?”

“It would be pretty careless of him.”

“Unless it was stolen from him!”

“Well that’s definitely possible… there are a lot of trickster Youkai out there you know.”

“So maybe all we need to do is ask other Youkai around?”

“It can’t hurt as a jumping off point.”

So they began to ask every Youkai that didn’t look dangerous that they could find. It wasn’t going very well though. A lot of the Youkai they found simply didn’t know who the spirit was that they were asking around for, much less an item that he owned. They were about to give up when they found a small beetle Youkai that knew of the river spirit they spoke of.

“Him? With the whip? Yeah I know him. Always feeding those farmer’s fields year after year. What do you wanna know?”

“Well actually it’s about the whip. It was stolen, and he asked us to help him find it.”

“Really, someone stole that thing? Seemed worthless to me… Well, now that ya mention it I saw a Youkai cutting grass with a water whip the other day. Looked like he was just doing it for fun. I thought it was his though… he was just a spirit too.”

“Another spirit stole it?”

“Well if that was the river guys whip ya. I’ll show ya the grassy area he was messin’ around in, but why you decide to help out a river spirit?”

“That wasn’t really my choice you know…”

“Yeah Ms. dove, he could have been trickin’ ya.”

“He needed the whip to help the humans. As a human I like it when Youkai are nice, so I’m nice to them. Anyways, look at you, helping one out.”

“W-well, this just seemed interesting. I don’t actually care either way.”

Lawrence just chuckled and followed the beetle to the grassy area. Once they arrived he was able to see what it was talking about. The grass was cut almost to the ground. After that it was stacked up in piles, like the Youkai was farming the grass.

“Well, this is it. He was right around here.”

“We’ll try to find him, thanks.”

With that, the beetle Youkai flew away.

It didn’t seem that there was anything else here besides them. Since the Youkai was gone for now, Lawrence inspected the cut grass. It was almost perfectly sliced down to the ground. He was actually impressed that someone could do this so effectively with a whip to be honest. The only question left was who stole it. If cutting this grass was the why, then as long as they stayed here the grass cutter would come back to collect it soon enough.

“Lawrence look.”

Hato pointed over into the trees, and he could barely make out a shape walking through them. He was holding something in his hand that could only be the whip.

“We’ll just wait and see what he does with it ok?”

Hato nodded her agreement, and they waited behind a few trees next to the grassy field. Just as the Youkai was about to step out of the trees into the field, a dark shape showed up behind it and knocked it out with a branch. Then it knelt down and appeared to take the whip. By this point Lawrence and Hato had already run out from behind the trees and towards the Youkai. As soon as it saw them the dark shape jumped away into the trees.