I felt dirty for lusting after Sekibanki, then also lusting after Patchouli, whose library I’d be visiting that evening. Some part of me knew it was unreasonable to blame myself for these feelings. That part thought it would be better to just accept that I found a few youkai attractive, even if they had no interest in me or if it wasn’t safe to pursue relationships with them. Acknowledging the feelings might make them easier to bear. It might even allow them to resolve themselves and go away.

Instead I remained focused on my mission and let my feelings stew.

“The koakuma seem unusually friendly today, don’t they?” said Arnold as one refilled his tea. I held out my cup for her, and she bent over unnecessarily far to pour it. I looked at Patchouli, who was looking at me.

“Believe it or not, demons do become familiarized with people,” said the librarian. “Just like a pet dog or cat, they will be less reserved with regular visitors.”

“I’m not going to scratch one behind the ears,” said Arnold. They had bat wings coming out of their heads, and for the first time I wondered if that ever got itchy.

“Or perhaps it’s simply rare for two men to be in the library at once,” continued Patchouli. She sipped her own tea. “That would explain why the lustful ones are so much more motivated, recently.”

“Wait, were they the ones who polished my dowsing rods?” asked Nazrin. “Not that I’m ungrateful.”

“Demons!” said Patchouli.

“Yes?” asked one. I wouldn’t be able to tell it was one of the lustful kind, except she fluttered her eyelashes.

“Let your wrathful sisters take your place.”

The demons left. They were rigid and formal in their motions, as always, but to me it looked like they were pouting. A new, exactly-identical-but-somehow-less-friendly demon took their place.

“Only one?” asked Arnold.

“The other demons are otherwise engaged,” said the koakuma with as genuine a look of contrition as I’d ever seen.

“Ah,” said Patchouli. “Remilia must have asked them for something.”

“So it’s not because I’m so ridiculously built that they can’t help themselves?” asked Arnold. Nazrin snorted.

“If men are so rare in the great library, even mediocre men would be a sight to behold,” I said. I knew Marisa came to visit. I found myself wondering if she wasn’t the only secret visitor.

“Well, you’ve been coming here for months,” said Patchouli. She was reading once more. “You are so unselfconscious, Mister Thorne. And yet… also not enough to move them on your own.”

Not usually. I’d had better control of my thoughts, I thought.

“I forget he’s a man all the time,” said Sasha over the crystal communication.

“Me too,” said Nazrin, who was balancing playing cards on the table. “Both of ‘em. All three of you.”

“I’m no man,” Sasha noted.

“I meant that you lot are more like youkai than humans, in my opinion,” said Nazrin. I frowned.

“Thank you!” said Arnold. “Also, what makes you say that?”

“You care way too much about danmaku, for one thing,” said the mouse youkai.

“And for another?” I asked. I remembered scaring her senseless, once.

Nazrin stared at the wall, not meeting any of our eyes. “Humans are afraid of youkai. They drive youkai away.”

“Most humans are cowards,” said Arnold.

“They’re also afraid of rats,” continued Nazrin. “As far as driving things away… well, being a rat youkai is probably worse than being a rat or a youkai, right?” She thought we were like youkai just because we wanted to be her friends.

“Our mission literally depends upon you,” I said. “You’ve been helping us every day.”

“I suppose you have a reason to tolerate me,” she said.

“We like you, Nazrin,” said Sasha. “Jake’s trying to tell you that we care.”

“I just see a cute rat girl,” said Arnold. “You don’t even eat fear. Why should we be afraid?”

“Nevermind, you’re dumb humans after all,” said Nazrin. She stuck her face in her book.

“Anyway,” said Arnold as he turned to Patchouli. “If lustful demons are drawn to men, I’m surprised they don’t bother the martial artists more.”

“They cannot go outside,” replied Patchouli. “That is by design. Otherwise they’d be bothering all sorts of people–if I hadn’t forbid them from bothering people as well, that is.”

I tried not to let this conversation bother me. I’d be back in this library that very evening, but Nazrin, Sasha, Arnold, and hopefully the koakuma would all be absent. With any luck it would be just me and Patchouli.

“More tea?” asked the koakuma without a smile. My cup was full already.

—

Before my sleepover at the library, I attended yet another Council Meeting, this time to beg them to build an amphitheatre.

All of the humans looked tired. There were sallow cheeks, lots of shivering, and dark circles around eyes. The Gensokyo natives seemed to be handling reduced rations better than the rest, but they too look stressed. Perhaps they were used to deprivations.

The Council rubber stamped my request for a scrydome with scarcely a thought. It was anticlimactic, but it made sense since Rick was already building it. I swore that next time I wouldn’t sit through the entire damn meeting.

“I do have one question,” said Reika. “Miss Knowledge never comes to the bathhouse. I didn’t know she left the library at all. How did you convince her to agree to help?”

“Is this relevant, or a matter of personal curiosity?” asked another Council member. Reika asked him if compelling youkai to help us without danmaku was relevant, and he shrugged.

“I actually didn’t convince her,” I said. “It was Lady Scarlet who insisted.”

“Then we must consider how the vampire benefits from this arrangement,” said Reika.

“Must we?” asked Rick, the construction manager. “Her fate manipulation means that we can’t outsmart her.”

“We should probably go through the motions,” said Wiki, “even if we expect to lose. The fact that we oppose or at least question her probably curtails all sorts of abuses. Or else she’d just walk in here and do whatever she wants.”

We turned to the door, but no vampires were forthcoming.

“You know, someone would have to let her over the threshold,” said Wiki. For whatever reason, nobody got up.

Reika rubbed her chin. “I suppose the scrydome might lead to a reputation increase for the Scarlet Devil Mansion, and more donors, and perhaps more information about the human village.” Some half-hearted speculation followed.

I suggested the obvious. The amphitheatre would help me complete my mission, and Remilia was on board for that. The others didn’t seem convinced, but neither did they have any explanation of their own.

—

This time, after the meeting, Raghav was the one who sought me out.

“Hey,” he said, softly and slowly. “Would you like to get a drink?”

“Eh?” I did not have Raghav asking me out on a date on my bingo card.

“A drink. Alcohol. Water. Possibly a mixture, Mister Thorne.” Raghav looked at his fancy watch, his reward for tagging Toyosatomimi no Miko with danmaku. “So we can have a conversation comfortably, instead of awkwardly in the middle of the street?”

“Oh. Sure.”

“Excellent. Let’s go to Heidontei.”

I winced. The last time I’d been to the renamed pub, I’d been stabbed and had my kidney stolen, and after that the hostess had accidentally let a vampire in who was there to see me. I had a drinking problem, and the problem was called ‘the existence of youkai’. Heidontei was the only pub that served them.

“Oh, apologies,” said Raghav as he looked at my face. “I know they can be… selective with their clientele.”

“Eh?” I asked again, further cementing my social and conversational abilities. He sighed.

“Did they ban you at the establishment because of the disruption you caused on your first visit?”

“Oh, no. I don’t think so.” I supposed they might not warn me if they had.

“Someone recently told me about the ‘no first-time customers’ policy that was so popular in Japan, and I can see why izakaya might enforce it.” Raghav glanced at the hole in the sky. “Distractions and trivialities are a plague.”

“I’m a repeat customer at this point, so we should be good.” I wanted to punch him, but instead I accepted his dinner invitation. He led the way. “That’s a terrible policy for business, by the way.”

“It’s only a terrible policy if your business is doing poorly,” he responded. “Addiction to growth is another curse. Perhaps we could avoid it, here in Gensokyo.”

“I doubt it,” I said. Four thousand humans was unsustainable. We’d either have to go back down to two or three hundred, with extraordinary pain, or go much higher, with different but equally extraordinary pains.

“One can always hope for a change in policy,” he said, still talking about the pub, “but so far Heidontei remains open to the general public. I’ll warn you that prices have increased during the shortage. There are no more free appetizers.”

I recalled an ‘all you could drink’ option that was too intense even for heavyweights like Arnold. I was taken aback by the realization that I’d already had oni sake–that was what they served at the bar.

This time I committed myself to just having water.

—

“I’m so glad to see you again,” said Miyoi, but she was lying and I could tell. I tried to give her a smile with the sentiment of apology. She didn’t even look at Raghav. He was a known quantity to her, I guessed. “Table for… three?”

“Just so,” said Raghav. Miyoi led us to a corner.

“Three,” I said. “I’m beginning to feel like a third wheel.”

“An impressively accurate impression, considering that the second wheel hasn’t arrived. By now you’ve guessed that there is someone you should meet.”

“Someone you were planning on meeting anyway,” I said. “Care to tell me about them?”

“She prefers to make her own introduction,” he said. I narrowed my eyes, not sure what I was suspicious of in the first place.

Miyoi came to take our orders, and when she looked so incredibly hurt at my order of just water, I also ordered a boiled egg that cost about a hundred times more than it should have. Then I was faced with an impossible challenge: making small talk with Raghav.

“How is work?” I asked him.

“I just gave a presentation to the Council on that,” he said. “Were you asleep?”

“I’m not asking for a report,” I told him. “I am asking how you are doing. Something you might not present, but might want to talk about anyway, like your feelings, thoughts, that sort of thing?” His expression was flat. “You know, like a human being?”

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“If you insist,” he said. “There have been three attempted thefts at the coops so far, and one successful, if you include my subordinate.” I nodded.

Raghav was tightly aggravated that an officer of his would dare to break the law. The guy had been removed from the law enforcement team and had his rations reduced for four days instead of three. The extra day was an extra punishment for abusing a position of public trust.

“We are undecided about making an announcement asking people to stop,” continued Raghav. “If they think the chickens are already targeted, it might give them ideas.”

“If your announcement comes with an outline for the punishment, it should be effective,” I said.

“A ration reduction is meaningless when rations run out,” he said. He took a sip of beer. “Coming up with other punishments feels distasteful. I hate this topic. Instead… what do you think of the prayer initiative?”

“Seems as prudent as anything,” I said. “I wouldn’t do it myself.”

A few Council members were organizing a prayer group, to pray in the hopes that Yukari would send food through the barrier like she had sent electric lights and copper wire. I didn’t think it would help much–Yukari was paying attention or she wasn’t–but it wouldn’t hurt anything either.

“Odd. I thought you’d jump on the chance. You often talk to shadows.”

“She’d often make jokes from the shadows!” I said. “Look, it’s one thing to say out loud ‘I know you’re watching’ to an empty room, but it’s another to wave to the cameras you already found!”

He gave me a look of pity. I turned back toward the door. Our conversation about policies and their effectiveness continued, both polite and effective.

I noticed when Renko and Maribel entered. Maribel waved to me. The blonde student simply seemed happy to notice a recognizable face. Renko covered her mouth and looked between Raghav and myself, her eyes making accusations. I felt my eyebrows knit. She tipped her fedora at me as they were seated across the izakaya from us, at the bar.

“God damn it,” I said.

“Pardon?” asked Raghav. He glanced at the door. “Did she make a face at you?”

“Yes, but I also just realized that people probably write fanfiction about you,” I said. “And possibly me.”

“Why would they do that?” he asked. A local with a plain black bob cut walked in. Miyoi waved her through. She was unusually pretty.

“If they heard about you in the news,” I said. Raghav tilted his head. “You don’t know?” At that point we were both looking at the woman who had just entered. She had a boxy old-fashioned camera hanging from a strap slung around her neck.

The stranger was walking straight toward us with a clattering sound. She was wearing weird shoes. Geta: like sandals with a vertical wooden plank built in. The black-haired woman sat down next to Raghav and gave me a smile that instantly made my heart beat a bit faster. Her brown eyes were bright, and intense in a way that few could match.

“You must be Jake Thorne,” she said. “I am Susan Denim, author and independent researcher.” She stuck out her hand and I shook it.

“My girlfriend,” added Raghav. My brain refused to believe it. When I realized the name had to be fake, I promised my brain a cookie just as soon as they were available in Gensokyo.

“Uh-huh,” I said. “Sue Denim?” Pseudonym. “Who are you really?”

Her wide, admittedly beautiful eyes looked straight into mine. “He’s quick! If you don’t like Western names, you can call me Kari Namae.” She grabbed Raghav’s shoulder. “I am his girlfriend, though.”

“I’m glad to meet you,” I said. I almost asked ‘you mean you’re his friend that happens to be a girl, right?’ but not only would that have been tragically impolite, but it would have been comically stupid.

Raghav had already implied that they met often. He was holding her around the shoulder. He had a beautiful girlfriend. I would just have to accept it, and not tell Arnold, because he’d probably start hating Raghav unreasonably.

“Can I ask you a few questions for a book I’m writing?” she asked.

“Sure,” I said as I pulled out my notebook to write down Kari Namae. It was undoubtedly another fake name. I tried not to care whether Raghav had a girlfriend, but of course he fucking did, because whether I was stomping down my emotions about youkai or practicing danmaku, he’d get to the finish line first. Miss Kari pulled out her own notebook at the same time as I did.

“Oh, you have questions for me?” she said, putting her hand on her chest.

“Maybe,” I said. I blinked down at my notebook. Had my subconscious realized something about her before I had? “I’ll tell you what, you don’t have to answer all of mine, and I don’t have to answer all of yours.”

“I like your friend,” said Miss Kari. “He’s got the spirit of a reporter.”

“I’m glad someone likes him,” said Raghav coolly and quietly. “That was a joke, Jake. I appreciate your influence on the human village and ability to possibly prevent a catastrophe.”

“I’ll take it,” I said.

His girlfriend lifted her camera, pointed it at him, and pressed the button. There wasn’t even a click. The batteries were dead.

“A serious discussion in a tavern between the police chief and an adventurer,” she said. “A notable event. Why don’t you whip out your detective’s notebook? So we’ll all be on equal footing?”

“I don’t think either of us can approach your level,” he said as he pulled out his own notebook.

“You are a reporter,” I said. “I suspect I know which paper.”

“Oh good,” she replied, turning her high beams back on me. “Then I don’t have to tell you.”

“I’d love to read your articles sometime,” I said.

“Oh bad,” she said with a frown that didn’t reach her eyes. “I’m afraid you can’t.” Raghav’s face became carefully neutral at this turn in the conversation.

“I suppose he can’t either,” I said, tilting my head. “You haven’t been letting him, or else he’d know that people would write fanfiction.”

“I didn’t say that. You expect fanfiction?” The idea seemed to tickle her. “How many writers do you think there are in Gensokyo?” That was a question for Wiki. “Also, have you practiced asking questions without a question mark?”

“I guess I have practice from dealing with demons,” I said. She nodded.

“Every weekday, I imagine. What’s that like?”

“I–I’d rather not talk about it,” I said. Patchouli would probably be upset if I leaked details about her demons. It would compromise security at the mansion, at the very least.

“Very interesting,” she said, making a note. “Most people love talking about their work. I know Raghav does.”

“Depends on who I’m having the conversation with,” he said.

“Do you like your job?” she asked me.

“Is this an interview for the paper?” I asked.

“Oh,” she said. She showed me her mostly-blank pad of paper. “I thought it was obvious.”

“You said you were writing a book!”

“I can write more than one thing at once,” she said. “Can’t you?” I reflexively reached for my backup notebook.

“There are some things I don’t want to publicize right now,” I said. She laughed at me.

“Honestly, it’s wiser to assume anything you tell a stranger is something you are publicizing.”

“Maybe… but an interview and a conversation at a bar are very different.” As we spoke, Miyoi set an egg in a cup in front of me. I thanked her. The egg was ostrich-sized, so I felt ten times better about its price, which was still ten times worse than I’d like. I used my fork to start stabbing a square section that would fit in my mouth.

Miss Kari wrinkled her nose as I took a bite. It was delicious.

“If it makes you feel more comfortable,” she said, “this isn’t investigative reporting, it’s more of a human interest feature. A discussion of human work.” She flipped back through her notebook. “Not that you aren’t worth investigating!”

“See, if you were asking me questions just to take answers back to your employer, so that they could be put at ease, I’d be on board for that.”

I knew that she had to work for the tengu, and I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t becoming enemies with them. If I could somehow get her to convey my goodwill back to them it would help protect my position in Gensokyo. It was hard, considering I didn’t know anything about them or what would anger them, but that was life in the land of fantasy.

Raghav probably knew things. And I knew he wouldn’t tell me. We both couldn’t very well use Miss Kari as a direct line to the tengu. Could I safely leave that problem to him?

Miss Kari was chuckling. “I could do a little bit of that. I don’t even know where to start with you, Mister Thorne! You’ve been involved in secret expeditions to the depths. You climb mountains and provoke sleeping gods. You’ve initiated the construction of a strange structure in the human village. You spend days in Former Hell, tempted by ogres.” Her eyes twinkled. “Youkai are smitten with you, whether you pull them from temples or shrines or caverns or the darkness itself.”

Raghav frowned at this, but I didn’t really care what he thought. Something about what she said resonated with me.

It was true: I’d done important things in Gensokyo. Long past were the days when I was just another human. I had become something of a major player–a main character, even. I wasn’t the strongest, or even the one in the spotlight… but I was important none-the-less.

Her words were sweet honey, and I was hungrier than I’d realized. I felt a strange desire to share my life story with her, or at least the story of my doings in Gensokyo. I’d shared enough about my AI work with Sekibanki. I took another bite of my egg. It wasn’t even salted, but I was struggling not to grab it and stuff it in my face, because I was starving.

“Asking you about work was the least-intrusive thing I could start with,” she said, tapping her pencil against her notebook. “You are a very interesting man.” Raghav’s hand tightened around his beer glass.

“There’s no need to butter me up,” I said. I tried to think about what would benefit me most to reveal publically. “We can talk about the scrydome, if you’d like.”

“It’s called what?” she asked. “Details, please!”

“Sure,” I said. “But let’s make it a trade.”

“Oh,” she said. “I guess you do work for vampires.”

“Just tell me why we are not allowed to read… your newspaper?”

“It’s not mine,” she said, waving a hand. “I don’t make the decisions. On the other hand, I wouldn’t recommend you ask my boss. He’s liable to chew you out, or rather, chew you and spit you out.”

I sighed. “I don’t mean to pry. I don’t want to upset your boss, or step on anyone’s toes.”

“That’s a good attitude to have,” said Miyoi as she set a glass of some thick orange juice in front of Miss Kari. It was orange colored, at least. There were no fruit trees in Gensokyo that I’d ever heard of.

“I’m sorry about last time,” I said to Miyoi, taking the opportunity to apologize before it fled forever.

“You weren’t stabbed on purpose, then?” she asked. “Don’t worry about it. Worse things have happened here.” She smiled, and I was taken aback by how little work I’d done to earn her forgiveness. Miss Kari took a sip of her drink as the server walked away.

“Well,” I said to the reporter. “I just want to know whether the newspaper is yet another moving part we need to track. If I had some idea why it was kept secret, and the reason didn’t have any bearing on human survival in Gensokyo, that might help me feel comfortable dropping the topic.” I used a fork to take another bite of my steaming egg. The edge of my hunger had gone away, but I wouldn’t let it go to waste.

She frowned down at my egg. “I can’t believe you eat that. Do you know what part of the bird they come out of?” She was trying to dodge the question again.

“If you don’t want to tell me, that’s fine,” I said. “Maybe you aren’t even allowed to say a word. I understand. It’s not your fault.” I ate a bit faster to indicate my intent to leave. She frowned deeply, and because of her beauty, it made me sad. However, it did not make me change my mind.

“I have a question for you first,” she said.

“Shoot,” I said, and she pointed the camera at me and pushed its non-functioning button.

“Did you save Wakasagihime?” asked the reporter.

“P-pardon?” I asked. I hadn’t expected someone to figure that out!

“Wakasagihime is a freshwater mermaid,” she said. “She was on the brink of starvation. It got so bad that she begged the God of the Mountain to live in the Divine Lake. Although she was turned away, humans started coming by her domain and she recovered.”

Miss Kari was looking into my eyes. Her irises didn’t look brown anymore. They looked red–and as I suspected, this was no human.

“That was a noteworthy event. Misty Lake is nice enough, but it is not known for its views or its appeal to human nature. And yet, a few dozen humans stop by there constantly, and have been doing so from almost the moment they could leave the village.”

“I see.”

“Did you convince them to stop there?”

“Technically, yes,” I said. Raghav’s head tilted.

“Technically,” she said. “So you don’t claim credit for that?”

“It’s just that I didn’t mention the mermaid at the time,” I admitted. “Perhaps I should have. I think that most of the martial artists would be on board, if they knew they were saving a pretty mermaid. Or anyone at all.” What I hadn’t known is whether they’d listen to me on anything less arbitrary than where to take a rest, especially back then.

“Why did you do that?” asked the youkai in disguise. I swallowed. I got the sense we were talking about something else, so I felt a desire to hesitate, but that was foolish. If the truth somehow painted me in a bad light then so be it.

“I heard that she was starving, and I wanted to help,” I said. I hoped that she would believe me. Youkai didn’t work that way, but they knew how humans worked, and maybe they could appreciate it on some level.

“Most human men aren’t interested in mermaids…” said Miss Kari with a glance and smile toward her boyfriend that made me feel physically ill with jealousy.

“Is it because fish want you and women fear you?” asked Raghav. He saw my expression. “I saw it on a hat once.”

“That’s not it at all,” I said. “I just heard about her circumstance and wanted to help.”

Miss Kari nodded. “Good. Then know that the paper isn’t written for your people, and if you want to help, you’ll leave it at that.”

I sat up straight. The Bunbunmaru, which was delivered to any youkai who asked, free of charge, had some things in common with a group of humans visiting a lake to feed a mermaid. That explained everything. And poor Wakasagihime couldn’t read the newspaper, because it would disintegrate underwater.

“Understood,” I said.

“I’m so glad!” she said, her smile returning. “So tell me, what’s the scrydome for?”

“It’s for broadcasting our expeditions into the underground,” I said.

“I could have told you about this,” said Raghav, shaking his head.

“Perhaps,” said his girlfriend. “But I like hearing it from the horse’s mouth.”

“Before we continue,” I said, “I’ve got one other thing to ask. It’s no obligation, just a favor–no, just a suggestion, even.” Anger had flashed across her face.

“Well,” she said, her brow furrowed. “I make no promises. But we are building up a relationship of trust here, aren’t we? So sure.”

“Can you get my allies, Sasha Conti and Arnold Thatcher, permission to visit the Moriya Shrine whenever they want?” I finished my egg, and I was somewhat overfull as I sat back. “The tengu turned them away last time they tried to climb the mountain. It’s actually a matter of life or death for the human village… and if you want to help, you’ll let them pass.”

She laughed. “Piece of cake! I don’t have to do anything!”

“Eh?”

“Tell them that the next time they go there, they should tell the guard that they want to pray to the God of the Mountain.” She sipped her juice. “Anybody is allowed to go there for that. Oh, but they’d better not forget to pray, because people are watching!”