Saturday was both a blessing and a curse. I didn’t have a phone or computer to distract me, and I was too exhausted from all the laboring to do much more than walk around. The others didn’t wake as early as I did. I ended up just lying in bed.

Boredom set in almost immediately. And as it turns out, boredom is more painful than exhaustion. I got out of bed.

“Hey,” said Sasha, yawning. “What’s your plan?”

“Walk around until a good plan presents itself,” I said.

“Want to work at the coop?”

“You know what, sure.” Working would hurt, but it would give me something to show for it.

“I’ll be back in, I don’t know, twenty or thirty minutes,” she said. She was putting on her shoes.

“I’ll get clean too,” I said when I realized Sasha had already set up a habit. Bathing every morning was not a bad idea.

We walked to the bathhouse in silence. The air had a night chill that was slightly warmer than our companionship. I thought of half a dozen ways to start the conversation, and all of them irritated her in my mind, so I didn’t say any of them. Fortunately for me, she didn’t hesitate.

“I fucking miss coffee,” said Sasha, and I laughed.

“I’ll ask Yukari about it next time I see her,” I said.

“Good idea. You drink coffee?”

“No, too expensive.”

“What, were you homeless?”

I grimaced. “Not… not quite.”

“Too proud to be assigned a job?”

I was a bit gratified that she asked, rather than assumed. There had been a government program to assign you work if you requested it. I’d found the line was extremely long and the tasks were all meaningless and contemptible, anyway. Things like double-checking the math of automated systems. More than once I’d wondered if the algorithm was punishing me in its assignments. I’d been an alignment researcher, after all.

Contemplating it too deeply kept me up late at night. I tried explaining some of that to Sasha, but she interrupted me.

“So why do you want coffee?” she asked.

“Eh?”

“Asking Yukari for coffee. I can ask her myself, dumbass.”

“Oh. Well, you’re more likely to get it if multiple people ask for it.” I shrugged. “I’m not opposed to coffee in principle, or anything…” It was common tenet among net cults that any stimulant, traditional or newfangled, was to be avoided. Since I’d spent some weirdness points on being poor, I wondered what other things she assumed of me–like I might have been in a cult.

“I don’t need your help,” she said, and I sighed.

“I know. If you really don’t want it, I’ll just tell Yukari that my only request is that she forbid coffee in Gensokyo, and in our dorm in particular.” She raised her eyebrow. “I’m making a joke.”

“Ah. I’d have laughed if I had coffee.” I doubted it.

“Well I guess I have yet another reason to ask Yukari for it.” I noticed Sasha grin a little bit, so I tried a bit harder. “‘Please, Miss Yakumo, without caffeine Sasha will end our lives!’” She laughed, perhaps just to be nice. Then she sighed.

“I smoke, too. Used to. Sorry if I’ve been a bitch.” It explained a lot, actually.

“Should I… ask Yukari for a vape?” It took me a moment to decide that protecting Sasha’s health wasn’t as important as protecting her autonomy. Maybe I also wanted her to be nicer.

“Nah, I decided to quit,” she said.

“The pharmacist that Reisen knows–Keine–she could probably help you overcome it? Did you put it on the medical intake form?” A magical pharmacist might have magical solutions.

“Yeah, I did, and that bitch sent me nicotine patches, so I sent ‘em back.” We continued in silence for a bit.

“Smoking is an odd habit.”

“I’m old fashioned,” she said, touching her spiked collar. “Do you know what goths were?”

“That’s a thing from the turn of the century, right?” People who wore only black, and had a lot of piercings, if I remembered correctly. Or Germans that destroyed the Roman Empire, or something. History wasn’t my strong suit.

“Yeah. I thought they were the shit, growing up. My father hated the new stuff, so we only watched broadcast TV shows.” She sighed, looking at her elbow. “I got rid of my tattoos the tenth time a mental health AI tried to sell me some services.”

“You could have told them–”

“Whatever preference settings you’re imagining, I tried it. It didn’t dissuade the bastards. They were running out of customers, and tattoos got rarer and rarer. I still had a two percent chance of using the service, one said.” She laughed.

“Er…”

“I used to always ask them, and try to make the number go down. It made it so seeing them wouldn’t drive me insane.” We all had ways of coping.

“I hate mental health AI,” I offered, and she nodded.

“Me too. Me fucking too. Always trying to sand down your spikes. Make you quit smoking.”

“Make you stop doing alignment research.” I tried to speak in a soothing, superhumanly-suave voice. “A healthy work-life balance is essential for ‘mental well-being.’ Have you considered therapy? Free massage included, any part!”

She laughed a bit harder. “Thank God they made it illegal to put tits on ‘em, eh?”

I let my face go neutral. “We were visited by different drones, I suspect.”

When we got to the bathhouse Reika was there–no day off for her, which was tragic–and she helpfully reminded me not to follow Sasha into the ladies’ side like a lost puppy.

The place was deserted. There weren’t a lot of early risers in Gensokyo, so I bathed alone and the solitude rejuvenated me. Sasha was waiting for me outside.

“Took you long enough,” she said. We chatted a bit as we continued to walk to the coop. Sasha told me about a shit job she’d quit when she’d come to Gensokyo, then another she’d had before that. I could read between the lines; she’d kept working shitty jobs, instead of languishing, like so many others had.

Like I had.

As we approached the coop I saw that Komeiji Satori was there and surrounded by chickens. She saw us approaching and waved.

Satori was tossing some sort of seeds onto the ground as she went around. Every once-and-a-while she’d set the basket of seeds down and quickly scoop up one of the chickens. It was striking; she’d walk up behind the bird and lift it into the air, and the chicken put up essentially no resistance. Some even went limp.

I’d seen an ancient Youtube video of a chicken doing that when confronted by a line in the sand, but I’d assumed it was AI generated. I wondered what Satori saw in their minds, that she could make them perceive a line or something and fail to fight back. I noticed she was looking at their feet and under their wings. She was checking the chickens for injuries, perhaps, or maybe looking for parasites.

I wondered if she could read the minds of mites. It might be a rude question to ask, I thought, but then I realized she’d be able to read it from my mind when I approached anyway. Thinking of rude questions was like asking them. I couldn’t hide anything from her.

I couldn’t hide anything from her.

“Fuck,” I said, stopping short.

“What?” asked Sasha.

Lying doesn’t come naturally to me. If it did, I might have said something like “my stomach hurts, gotta run!” or perhaps “I forgot, I promised another person I’d help them today.” I’d have thought of a cover of some sort, or even better, said something that was both true and misleading, although that really is also lying if you think about it too much. I thought about it too much.

If I were a good liar in the first place, I might have been able to play it off and avoid thinking about my only meaningful secret in Satori’s presence. I tried to think of a pink elephant. In my mind’s eye the pink elephant’s head disconnected from its body and offered to teach me danmaku, then told me that the other elephants would be mad at it for the suggestion.

“Earth to Jake?” asked Sasha. “What the fuck’s wrong with you?”

“We’re, uh… in Gensokyo. Not Earth.”

“It’s on the same planet,” she said.

“Probably.”

“Are you okay?”

“Sorry… just, remembered something.”

Sasha looked between me and Satori. “Did you wack it in the shower or something?”

“What? No!” I was a real bad liar, in multiple ways, because that would have been the perfect cover and I hadn’t even had to come up with it myself. I hadn’t wacked it in the shower, though–not on Saturday, anyway.

“You and four-fifths of everybody else, so get over yourself.” Sasha laughed. “Satori points it out every time. She seems to enjoy embarrassing people, you’ll make her fucking day.”

“Uh…”

“Look, I’m still proud of you for getting up early enough to bathe.” She slapped her forehead. “Ugh, phrasing, forget I said anything about getting up. Let’s just go?”

“I’m actually going to look elsewhere. We should cover more ground.”

Sasha gave me a raised eyebrow. “I’m sure it’s fine, really. Satori’s not judgemental at all. I’m super judgemental, though, and you’re acting like a little bitch.”

“I guess I’m shy,” I said, which was just barely true about this situation. If you didn’t count that I was hiding reasons. Hiding things was fine, right? Not lying? “Sorry.”

“Whatever, loser. See ya.”

I turned and left. As I walked my spirits sank further and further, until I was trudging through town aimlessly.

Satori could read minds–I could have used her abilities to help figure out my danmaku. I hadn’t realized that Sasha was that close with Satori, or that such an opportunity would present itself.

Also, a few days ago the youkai had called me by my first name. She might have been a real ally!

Also, also, her kind faced persecution and fear (as all mind readers do) and now I was part of the problem! I hadn’t really understood it until then–I’d thought that most secrets were mundane, and if everyone had similar secrets, who cared? It was like government surveillance–taken for granted.

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

Now that I had an important secret, it wasn’t the same for me anymore. Was everyone else just going around with deadly secrets, or something? And how did Sekibanki herself handle this? Did she just avoid going out during the day? I’d have to ask her.

I agonized a bit more, but that was as painful as boredom. I wandered around the village. I ended up at a tailor, oddly.

The shop proprietor was a middle-aged Japanese woman with a mountain of work in front of her. I went in and asked if I could be put to use; she reluctantly agreed. There were many fine kimonos in her shop window, displayed alongside a sewing machine from a different century.

Clothing repair was in high demand, and although I didn’t know jack about sewing with bone needles, the lady humored me and taught me the basics. After about an hour, and like three shirts, I was getting quite bored.

“You have a sewing machine,” I said to the owner. She squinted at me. “Why don’t we use it?”

“I bought it from Rinnosuke to ensure that our stitches would be straight and consistent. It doesn’t work.”

“It’s not magic, you know. Not like a talisman.”

“I know that,” she spat. “We tried to turn it, but it was slow and painful. I found out later that the black pronged tail means it runs from electricity.”

“Nevermind, it is magic.” I looked at the machine. “This thing’s like ninety years old. It's literally just a motor attached to the wheel. A crank might be enough to make it work.”

“We have enough cranks,” she said.

“I’m sure Kawashiro Nitori could figure out a solution for you.”

“The kappa?” asked the woman. “She could, I reckon. She’s not at my beck-and-call, though.”

“I’ll bring it up if I ever meet her,” I said. The lady shrugged.

“Thanks, laddie. Stranger things have happened.”

We continued to stitch in silence. I tried to meditate while doing it, but didn’t get far because I had to concentrate to avoid making mistakes. I stabbed myself like eight times, and had to redo a few stitches.

I was paid eight hundred rin for about four hours of work. It wasn’t much, but there were no property or income taxes, so at least I got to keep all of it. We didn’t own our dorms. I had learned from the proprietor that nobody owned the land they lived and worked on; Yukari gave it to them, and if you wanted more for whatever reason, you had to ask her.

As I worked my stomach had untied itself. I had no idea what Satori’s range was, or whether she’d read my thoughts earlier anyway. I might have made one or more youkai enemies in one fell swoop, over something stupid like not thinking about the powers of youkai–but I’d just deal with it as it came.

–

When I opened the door Wiki fell down and splayed out on the dorm room’s floor. Arnold fell on top of him. Arnold pushed himself away quickly.

“What are you two up to?” I asked. They were both clothed, so I threw out my first theory, but they were sweating. Arnold moved to sit cross-legged. A lotus position, as though meditating.

“This!” he said, before lifting himself off the floor with his arms. He took a faltering ‘step’ forward on his hands and landed heavily on his butt. Wiki had been doing something similar when I opened the door, I realized, but I’d made him fall down.

“And what… is that?”

“Meditating,” they said.

“I think you’re doing it wrong. Probably?” I was trying to challenge my assumptions. “Did Reika suggest this?”

“Well,” said Wiki, “We were simply sitting and introspecting–”

“–Wiki kept thinking aloud so it was hard–”

“–then Arnold started doing calisthenics–”

“–there are no gyms here at all, major oversight–”

“–I suggested he try a compromise–”

“–a real good forearm workout–”

“–but he challenged me–”

“–after you said it was easy–”

“–when I lost, we decided to time ourselves and look for improvement.” Wiki finished. “You know, completely rational.”

“I was helping his form,” added Arnold. “In a chaste and brotherly way!”

“You need to get out of the house more,” said Sasha, who had walked up behind me. I thought she was talking to them, but then she pushed me. “You don’t seem to know how doors work.”

“That’s what I said!” said Arnold. “Not the door thing, but the getting out of the house. We’re going stir crazy.”

“Sage advice,” she said. “Also, if you are gay, spit it out now so we can skip that song and dance, and we can start putting socks on the door.” Arnold and Wiki both turned bright red.

“Straight as an arrow,” said Arnold. We turned to Wiki.

“I don’t… I don’t have a preference,” he admitted. I felt a compulsion to ask whether that meant he was asexual, or bi, then I decided he’d been through enough. Also, he might misinterpret my question.

“Lucky you,” said Sasha. “I have a preference for none of that, at all, especially not from men, but not from women either. Now that we’ve established that, check this out.” She held a basket with a dozen or so eggs in it, her reward for working at the coop.

I was mildly hurt that nobody asked me about my sexuality, and decided to assume my overwhelming masculinity was the reason.

“Way to go!” said Arnold. “Gonna make omelets!” He took the basket and went straight to the stove. He started to whistle. Sasha sat down with a smile.

“I do this for you,” she said.

“Aww,” said Arnold.

“I was fucking lying, I do it for the protein and the cash.” She sighed. “Anything interesting happen while I was gone? Actually interesting, not your dumb exercise.” Wiki said something about seeing a fairy fly over the town a few times, while I tried to think of a way to word the question that had been eating at me all day.

Had Satori discovered my secret? I needed to somehow ask Sasha that question, without emphasizing there was a secret. I tried to think of a way I could bring it up, some sort of statement with ambiguous meaning, but it was impossible. Sasha would see right through me.

Honestly, If she thought I was touching myself in the shower that’d be mortifying but not mortal danger–I wouldn’t even have to lie about anything–it might even be preferential. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, my face turned red and betrayed some of my thoughts.

“Jake, are you alright?” asked Wiki. “What’s your sexuality, by the way?”

“Straight, uh, as an arrow,” I said. Sasha gave me a cool look. “By the way, did Satori… did she mention anything?”

“Into lolis,” noted Wiki, and I facepalmed.

“No, no! It’s just–well, earlier today I was thinking thoughts I’d rather not say–”

“Such as?”

“–it doesn’t matter! Well, technically it does in some sense, but you shouldn’t worry about it, and I may have gotten in Satori’s range, and–” and Sasha interrupted me, which was good, because I was doing an awful job at explaining.

“Oh yeah, I asked Satori what you do in the shower that is so damn embarrassing. She told me all about it, in graphic detail, then we insulted you behind your back to everyone who came by.”

“W-What?” I was confused; I did normal things in the shower. Probably. The AI therapists told me it was normal.

“No tricking you, I guess.” Sasha glanced at the cubby that held four wooden plates, but it was still too early to take them out. “She just shrugged, and told me to tell you that whatever it is, you shouldn’t be ashamed. She’s seen it all.”

“That’s a relief.” ‘Whatever it is’ implied she didn’t know what it was.

“She did seem a bit hurt, though.”

Damnit. “Well, I’ll try not to sweat it, next time.” There would never be a next time, I realized, not if I could help it.

I’d lied. Hooray.

We talked about other things as Arnold cooked up the eggs. At some point Sasha lamented our lack of spices. Arnold responded with a cheerful comment that at least a cast-iron pan had been provided.

“Your food was critically panned,” said Wiki, getting some groans. I thought it was funny, I just wasn’t in a laughing mood. “Maybe we can work up to spices.”

“Put some spice in your jokes,” said Sasha.

“You’re lucky I’m cooking these instead of just drinking them,” said Arnold, gesturing at the extra eggs. “Also we’re all lucky. Thank you, Sasha!”

Arnold was relentlessly grateful; I had a feeling that if Sasha had come with only one egg, he’d have cooked it for us and cut it into four pieces. I smiled to imagine it, and I realized the others were smiling as well.

I tried to avoid thinking about how much it sucked to avoid Satori, and how I’d have to avoid her from then on. Koishi too, I supposed, which would be much harder since I couldn’t perceive her. That led me down the rabbit hole of thinking about whether Koishi could even divulge secrets, or learn of them in the first place. She wasn’t conscious, after all. I was kind of jealous of it.

—

Sunday was the day of the festival. It was a day we waited for with baited breath. We had expected a hunt for humans, a creepy ritual glorifying human fear, or perhaps some literal human sacrifice. The only thing we were right about was the torturing of humans.

“Miss Yakumo said a parade,” offered Wiki, “And it is a literal parade!”

“Not even a good one,” said Arnold. “No floats, no cars…”

“Are you kidding? This is the best day ever!”

Just then, Moriya Suwako and Yasaka Kanako walked by, to scattered applause. Wiki hastened to explain that they were the gods of the Moriya Shrine, which had been transported to Gensokyo in the events that set off the game Mountain of Faith. He was telling us about the various roadside shrines that existed throughout Gensokyo, and a bunch of other lore that I was having a hard time absorbing. They were the fourth group to walk by, after all; Wiki’s voice was going hoarse.

To hear him tell it, Yasaka Kanako was responsible for half of the events in Gensokyo.

Kochiya Sanae, the would-be tutor that hadn’t shown up because she hadn’t been dressed (I never forgot things like that), was right behind her two gods. She was the miko of their shrine. Sanae had her standard outfit on, which was a little like Reimu’s, in that it exposed her armpits, but it was also a bit different in that it was white, blue, and quite a bit tighter in certain places.

I blinked. I wanted to be above base things. Just because Wiki was making me bored didn’t mean I could ogle the parade participants! Sanae continued, practically dancing behind her regal gods, and made a kissing face and a peace sign at us as she leaned toward our side of the street.

Wiki fell silent. “Is she… doing that on purpose?” he finally asked.

“Okay, the parade’s not so bad,” said Arnold.

“This is awful,” said Sasha. “I hate it.”

“It’s for gathering faith,” said Wiki, shaking his head. “That’s what the parade is for, it has to be. It’s what the events are for too. It’s so obvious when you think about it; the gods and goddesses of Gensokyo run on faith!”

Wiki then continued his excited description of the events of a game I’d skipped as two more goddesses, the Minoriko sisters, walked by. They were orange gods of the autumn, and at least one of them was more conservatively dressed.

We had found out that there would be several events going on throughout the day. There was a market with the goddess of marketplaces, Tenkyuu Chimata, overseeing it. There would be a stall for the Moriya Shrine and the Myouren Temple, presided over by Suwako Moriya and Toramaru Shou, respectively, where would-be converts and employees could go speak with them. There were even various games, although I wasn’t clear on the details. Popguns were a real possibility.

I’d seen an oni carrying a punching bag, and I’d spotted a masked cat (probably one of Satori’s pets) setting up a tent. There were tons of youkai around town partaking in the festivities. Feeding, if Wiki was right.

The Scarlet Devil mansion had teamed up with the goddess of harvest, Minoriko Aki, to provide the catering. That was the scariest part of the festival so far: that the vampires might help cook the sweet potatoes. I wouldn’t be accepting any ketchup, but the prospect of free food did have some appeal.

Minoriko Aki walked in front of us, and Arnold called out some gratitude. She smiled at him and waved, before continuing down the path. The goddess of the harvest was getting a lot of praise. I was an atheist–I smacked myself, I needed to do some updating–but even I could appreciate food.

“Thank you for the autumn leaves!” Sasha shouted out toward Aki’s sister, Shizua. “You’re my favorite!” Her smile was quite a lot bigger, even though it was summer and there were no autumn leaves to be had. Sasha’s voice was a lot quieter when she continued. “I can’t believe we are expected to do this shit every week.”

“This is only the first festival!” said Wiki. “How can you be bored already?”

“Disneyland was a let down for me,” said Arnold, nodding. “I think I get it.”

“Wasn’t Disneyland recycled a few years ago?” asked Wiki. In point of fact, it had been, and in point of fact, I had decided not to care.

“I went when I was twelve,” added Arnold. “I don’t think it ever got any better, but it’s still kind of sad…”

“Look, it’s Chimata,” I said, trying to change the subject. The capitalistic goddess was wearing a rainbow outfit of polygons joined by zippers. Wiki told us about her game, Unconnected Marketeers, which had come out only fifteen years ago.

“Isn’t it odd that we aren’t seeing any characters introduced after 2022?” Wiki suddenly asked. “Son Biten isn’t here, for example. You’d think that the monkey king wouldn’t miss this.”

“Wait…” said Arnold. “Like, Goku? That monkey king?” Of course Arnold got a Dragonball reference. He was so basic.

“Actually, yes!” Wiki started talking about reincarnation. Son Biten and Son Wukong were the same soul, he said. I tuned him out again.

I was wondering if Sekibanki was in the crowd, somewhere, and whether this parade was doing anything for her. She might be wearing a disguise. I didn’t think she’d get anything out of it, though. The crowd was happy, sometimes cheering; they had completely forgotten their fear.

I wondered if Sekibanki had been forgotten, here, and what it would mean for a youkai to be forgotten. I almost brought it up to ask Wiki, but I managed to hold back. He might have been able to infer something if I said anything. I’d just have to ask Sekibanki herself.

“C’mon,” said Arnold as the parade drew to a close. “Let’s go to the Q and A.”

“Where’s that?” asked Sasha.

“What’s that?” asked Wiki.

“Can’t you guys read?” He was waving a schedule of events around and I had no idea where he’d gotten it from. “It’s on the path to the forest of magic. Miko and Byakuren are soliciting feedback, so ‘imma ask for a fridge!”

“Wait, that’s outside the human village?” asked Wiki.

“Sure is! Convenient, right?”