Sasha and I walked toward that bathhouse. She wore a concerned expression, and I could only imagine I looked the same. If Arnold was becoming a youkai we had a problem. Perhaps not a major problem, or an urgent problem, but one that we should try to take steps to solve immediately in any case.

Another problem was that it was happening to my friend, and I hadn’t even noticed. I didn’t want to believe that I knew so little of what was going on in his life.

“What makes you say Arnold’s becoming a youkai?” I asked Sasha.

“His muscles, his skill at flight, and that he’s catching up to us so fast on expeditions,” she said. She listed the reasons fast, like she’d gone over them several times before bringing it up.

It was true that Arnold was the least-haggard of all the humans, but there was an explanation for that. One that he’d want me to keep secret, so I responded with a whisper.

“He’s strong because he gets free food at Hakugyokurou,” I told her. I looked around to make sure no one was listening. Free food was hard to come by.

“Extra food won’t make you get ‘gud at danmaku on its own,” countered Sasha.

“What about training from Youmu?” He hadn’t said that, but I’d sort of assumed it. Arnold still worked out with the martial artists and Hong Meiling as well. He was dedicated to getting stronger, as much as Sasha and I were, or more.

“The Sword of Enlightenment actually didn’t change him,” said Sasha.

“I find that hard to believe,” I said.

“Well, that’s what he said, anyway,” Sasha said with a shrug.

Youmu’s blade, Hakurouken, could ‘dispel confusion’ and had led me to many insights when it had cut me. Even if Arnold was very in tune with his emotions, I’d expect him to have some insight from fighting with Youmu. And while Youmu had learned not to cause major organ damage, she’d also said that even danmaku from the blade could cause the enlightenment effect with enough strikes.

“The point is that he’s getting better at danmaku just as fast as we did,” continued Sasha, “and we did it by nearly turning into youkai, so.”

“Lots of humans are getting better at danmaku,” I said. More and more people were learning how to use the signature magic of Gensokyo now that we’d paved the way. Raghav employed most of them as police officers, and Keine put the rest to work as teacher’s assistants.

Few were as good as Sasha or myself, admittedly. I didn’t think any other human could take the Three Fairies of Light in a fair fight, like I had, except for perhaps Sasha. She was close to knowing Suika and Yuugi’s spell cards; she might actually beat stage two before I did, but even so, I wasn’t far behind. Neither was Arnold… it was kind of suspicious.

With the exception of Wiki, three of the most capable danmaku users had ended up as roommates. Was it because we’d been sorted that way? Or perhaps because we’d all happened to fixate on the same goal, a matter of chance? Or were we manipulated by Yukari, or Remilia… or some other youkai like Okina?

I realized that we’d all made friends with youkai who could train us to be stronger. One, or actually several. The more I thought about it the more I started to wonder if we’d been somehow manipulated.

“I mean, it’s a little bit unfair to assume his increase in skill is from outside forces rather than his own efforts,” I finally said.

She raised her eyebrow. “Do you really think I’m trying to insult Arnold, here?”

“Of course not.”

“Good, because saying he’s trying so hard that he’s turning into a monster is a compliment.”

“But is it that difficult to imagine getting personal training from Konpaku Youmu and Hong Meiling would lead to–” Huge gainz. “–rapid improvement all on its own?”

“That’s not all he gets there,” she replied. “He’s sleeping with one of the youkai, by the way.”

“What!” I said before I could stop myself. “Which one?”

Sasha shrugged. “He didn’t tell me. Just that he was surprised at how much better he felt about his ability to concentrate, and that he wasn’t sure if he should go around telling anybody.”

“That’s, uh…” That changed things in a hurry. Exposure to youkai bodily fluids (or flesh) was known to have that effect.

Saigyouji Yuyuko was supremely flirtatious, so the thought that she might make a move on him had crossed my mind. I hadn’t asked Arnold about it, out of politeness. On the other hand, she was an incorporeal ghost!

But the possibility that he had instead gone after Youmu, the player character that had cut up my kidney like sashimi…

I was supposed to hate gossiping.

“I sure hope they’re using protection,” I said. If not, he’d definitely turn into a youkai.

“I haven’t asked,” she said. “I was hoping you would bring it up.”

“Me? Arnold never talks to me about sex!”

“And that’s fucking tragic,” she said, shaking her head. “You guys are hopeless. Like, no locker-room-talk, but also no common sense.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re roommates and friends and you hardly say a word to each other!” said Sasha. “Like, c’mon, talk about something other than Touhou for once!”

“We’re in freaking Gensokyo!” I objected. “And–I don’t think he’d appreciate you telling people his secrets!”

“It’s not a secret, it’s just something Arnold’s not advertising right now,” said Sasha, like she was explaining something to a child. “He wanted to shout it from the rooftops, but didn’t, because of your dumb lack of communication.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Ugh,” sighed Sasha, shaking her head. I wondered if she hadn’t intended to tell me this secret herself. “Arnold didn’t want you and Wiki to feel jealous, especially since Wiki broke up with Reika–so he kept his relationship on the down low. And after a while, you know it’d be too awkward for him to bring up.”

“Arnold can tell me anything!” I said. It meant something about my state of mind, but really, the ‘ability to tell someone anything’ depended on his state of mind quite a lot as well–and it might not have been true. “I’ll ask him about it.”

Sasha crossed her arms, putting one hand near her neck. “Good thing I’m here, to help you guys overcome your social awkwardness.” She was idly pulling at one of the spikes on her choker.

“I guess so,” I said.

She raised her eyebrow at me. “I am surprised he hasn’t mentioned it to you yet, though.” I remembered how put out Arnold seemed when I went off to fume on my own earlier that day.

“Maybe he was about to, earlier,” I said. “We’ve all been so busy that it’s hard to find time to socialize.” I could empathize with him for not telling everyone right away. I wasn’t telling anyone about Patchouli. “It’s odd that he bragged to you and nobody else, though.”

“Yeah, as though I couldn’t be jealous!” she said.

“I thought you weren’t into sex,” I replied, entirely without stuttering.

Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

“Yeah but free food!”

“Ahhhh,” I said. I looked around; nobody was out and about. Anybody who overheard would be likely to be starving. “Isn’t that… prostitution?”

“I’m not sure,” she said. “Even I might lay with someone for some good home cooking.” Sasha raised her eyebrows. “Or some donuts?”

“W-well, good thing you can get them for free!” I started to blush.

I tried to figure out how Patchouli giving donuts to the entire expedition team could possibly imply that I’d been sleeping with her, and I failed. This interaction with Sasha reminded me of nothing so much as Wiki–he sometimes made inferences from limited information like that.

Sasha and I continued to walk toward the bathhouse. There was an awkward silence in which I couldn’t meet her eyes. As it went on, I became increasingly certain that I was as easy to read as a coloring book for fairies. No words: just lots of obvious red.

“I fucking knew it,” said Sasha, her voice low. “Congratulations.”

“Thanks,” I said. “It, well. Thanks.”

“I think Patchouli is smart enough not to infect you,” she continued. “So I assume you’re being safe?”

“We are.”

“Good,” she said. “Is it good?”

“Pardon?”

“Is it good to have sex with a non-human entity? Arnold said it was good.”

I rubbed the back of my head. “Way better than I expected, to be honest. Patchouli… Well, you wouldn’t expect someone to get worse at sex in an unaging body over the course of a hundred years.”

“Depends on whether they practiced or not,” she said. I tried not to think about that, failed, and wondered how much skill would transfer between genders or whether Patchouli had male partners before me despite Gensokyo’s gender imbalance before the first wave of immigration.

I knew I could just ask her if I was curious, but I had no plans to. If Patchouli was a hundred years old her most recent suitor could be one of the old men in Gensokyo who complained about us not knowing how deeply to bow. That would be awkward as hell.

“I’m pretty sure she’d read a manual or something,” I said. My roommate gave me a look out of the side of her eye. “She certainly seemed to know what she was doing.”

“I did not expect that!” said Sasha. “You, being the passive one!”

“Hey! I took a pretty active role after the initial surprise.” We were entering the bathhouse by then. Our conversation was almost over, which was a shame because I was just starting to get over my embarrassment enough to be happy about events, again. Sasha seemed to be taking my new relationship in stride. I had no idea why I’d been worried in the first place, or indeed, that I’d been worried at all.

Sasha might have had a point about locker room talk being a good thing. Perhaps Wiki, Arnold, and I were beset by a prudishness that made us unable to discuss a very important aspect of our lives. Namely, which youkai we had the hots for and how far we’d gotten with them.

“I also wouldn’t have thought that she was strong enough for that,” said Sasha. “Doesn’t she have asthma, and anemia, and… I don’t know, allergies?”

“Allergies to what?”

“Latex,” said Sasha, deadpan.

“I don’t think so. As for strength, we’d just had a danmaku battle, so she was good to go.”

“Your foreplay was danmaku?” said Sasha before she started laughing. Reika arrived at the counter at that moment, which was unfortunate timing.

“Telling tall tales, Mister Thorne?” The bath attendant smiled and looked at my hat. “Not too tall, though, or else your audience won’t believe them. And will laugh at you.”

“Is this something you wanted to keep secret?” Sasha asked me suddenly. A belated clarification, but better late than never. Reika looked between us.

“I don’t know…” I said. Was my desire to shout it from the rooftops a matter of sharing good news with my friends, or bragging? Did it matter? “Let me think about it.”

“Secret for now, then,” said Sasha with an apologetic look toward Reika. “I hope you understand.”

“Sure,” said Reika with a frown. “I thought it was a… hypothetical, or something? You do realize you could die if you try to seduce a youkai?”

“I think you may have a misunderstanding,” I said. “But trust me when I say that you don’t have to worry about it.”

“Okay,” said Reika.

I recalled a conversation in which Reika said that danmaku couldn’t ever convince a youkai to have sex with you in lieu of eating you, or something like that. It kind of sucked not being able to tell her how wrong she was. I couldn’t blame her for ignorance: taboos made it hard to know the truth. Those thoughts led my mind down a familiar rabbit hole about the nature of secrets and danger, so I skipped to the part where I emerged from the other side without having come to any conclusions.

“Anyway, we’re here to try to take baths,” I said.

“I wish you luck,” said Reika. “Sasha’s our only customer who is regular enough to know how they work.”

That was the most perfunctory of insults. The bath attendant peered at me, but didn’t ask any more questions. Sasha put some money on the counter and bought our tickets.

“See you in like thirty minutes,” said my roommate. She went off to the left toward the women’s side of the bath. I went to the right, feeling calm again.

I wanted to talk more about my love life. It was an odd feeling. Why would I want to talk about what I was doing with Patchouli in private? I thought about it as I undressed in the empty changing room.

I wasn’t really sure. It might have just been that I wanted to tell someone that, for the first time since I’d come to Gensokyo, I was happy.

–

Sasha and I walked back to the dorm together, and prepared to ask Arnold to get checked over by Sanae for youkai-ness that weekend. It shouldn’t be hard, she said, but part of her worried he’d refuse. If turning into a youkai was granting him power, it would be hard to stop.

I knew that all too well.

“There’s also the fact that he knows that they tried to kill you last time,” she said.

“I got better,” I said.

“Doesn’t matter. It would make anyone hesitate, and it’s only effective if you think they mean it, right?”

“Shoot. We shouldn’t have told Wiki and Arnold about that, huh.”

“Probably not.”

—

Later that evening I spent some time trying to think of the best way to bring it up. ‘Hey, I heard you are fucking a ghost (or a half-ghost), might want to get checked’ didn’t seem like the most appropriate way to say it. But before I could decide how to ask Arnold if he was worried about remaining human, there was a banging sound on our door.

“Mister Thorne,” said Cerulean, a blue-haired and bespectacled fairy maid that liked to pretend to be refined. “Miss Knowledge has requested your help on a semi-urgent matter.”

“We can’t keep having an emergency every day,” said Wiki from somewhere behind me. “It is unsustainable.”

“I’ll come right away,” I said as I pulled on my coat. Cerulean snorted the tiniest amount. “Wait, semi-urgent?”

“She wanted to emphasize that the invitation was optional, and that it could wait one more day, or at most two,” said Cerulean. Patchouli wanted to see me that weekend, it seemed. “However, she also said it cannot wait forever, so it sounded somewhat more urgent than that would imply, Mister Thorne!”

There was an awkward silence.

“I’d better see what’s going on,” I said. I felt the eyes of my three roommates on my back. I jumped when a hand settled on my shoulder. It was Arnold.

“Godspeed, my man,” he said.

“Thanks,” I replied. I left then, and hoped that Sasha would tell him to get checked by a holy woman in my absence.

I flew to the Scarlet Devil Mansion more or less as fast as I could. The sun was setting, making the snow covering the ground turn faint and grey. I was in danger and it was cold, I told myself. I wasn’t running toward anything, of course.

When I got to the gate I saw Meiling, who (like most youkai) didn’t care about the outside temperature in the slightest. She was sleeping with a smattering of snowflakes on her head and shoulders. When I got near she waved me through without even looking. Meiling could recognize my chi. She could recognize everyone who came to the mansion regularly.

It was warmer inside the mansion, but only because there was no wind. Freaking vampires, I thought. Cerulean was nice enough to lead me all the way to the library, perhaps to see what would happen when I got there. Patchouli was waiting for me.

“Lady Knowledge,” I said when I arrived.

“Mister Thorne,” she responded, not meeting my gaze. “I’m glad to see you.”

“I’m glad that you’re glad, and I am also glad to see you as well,” I said. “I heard you needed me, semi-urgently?”

“Yes,” she said. “I’m surprised you didn’t call ahead with the crystal, though.”

“That would have been wise,” I said. I tried to think of something impressive to say after that, but I didn’t think fast enough. “I’d be glad to do that next time.”

“Indeed,” she said, turning a page. “I appreciate how seriously you take my summons, even for frivolous matters.”

“It’s not frivolous to me,” I said honestly.

“An admirable outlook,” said the librarian. It made me think I’d misunderstood her intentions. “Let’s get started on event planning. In particular, I want your input on ticket pricing.”

“Ticket pricing?” I asked. The koakuma next to her was giving me the demon-equivalent of a shit-eating grin, that is, the subtlest deniable smirk possible.

“The Scrydome opens Monday,” said Patchouli. “And I don’t think we’ll have enough seating, so we’ll have to rely on the market to decide who attends.”

My mood plummeted. I was there for plotting and furthering the mission, of course. No cellphones; no booty calls. I supposed she could send a booty letter.

“Is something wrong Mister Thorne?”

“Oh, it’s nothing,” I said. Patchouli’s expression changed as she spent a few seconds of her considerable intellect contemplating my perspective.

“We can have a danmaku battle later, Jake,” she said with a soft laugh. “You can ask for that, you know? You don’t have to be coy with me.”

Just like that, my good cheer returned.