Everything under the moonlight appeared made of shimmering satin. A wind blew that I knew could chill to the bone, yet I felt strangely warm, removed from the temperature around me. Hardly anything around me lay in shadow in spite of the deep night. The whole world stood underneath the moon as if cast under an enormous spotlight.

I stood looking out beyond the lake from a distance off. I supposed I couldn’t sleep. My shoes were in my hand, rocks scraping at the soles of my feet. Why on earth had I worn my leather shoes out here? For that matter, my school uniform served little better for comfort in this wilderness. I sloughed off my overly warm jacket, aghast that I was wearing long sleeves underneath in spite of the summer. Still, the night air failed to relieve my feeling of being stifled. In turn, I removed all I could remove. There was no gaze falling on me but the moon, so I felt no shame standing in my boxers. I was blissfully alone.

I blinked. Yes, I realised, I did seem to be alone. In fact, I looked about to catch sight of no cabins, no lodge, nor anything else familiar. The rocky shore and the shimmering water of the lake told me I was still where I expected to be. There, too, were the mountains, though unclear and painted in sharp relief with the moonlight, a black so deep as to suggest absence. The woods loomed as ever. I somehow had the feeling I had walked out of them, though I couldn’t recall ever doing so. This place felt as if it might be on a different shore, from a different angle.

The day spent helping Reimu had battered me from all sides. No matter how I shuffled away with my arms crossed, someone had to seize me and drag me back into the fray. I’d had hardly a moment to stand and look at the skies or the lake. Life only served to be more relentless out here. Responsibility and the sense that I had to be an adult — whatever that truly meant — hounded me like monsters arisen from the shadows, come to find me wherever I was to drag me into the murky deep. Every smiling, cheerful face asking for me seemed leering. Every sullen demand for my attention was a creature’s growl. Yet, I felt no more relief standing alone than I did in all that time.

A soft crash on the water broke the silence. Tension buzzed stronger in my body all at once. Before I even looked, I knew I wasn’t truly alone.

Standing closer to the water, I saw a figure lit up in full view in the moonlight yet still unclear to me. They were washed out, like an old faded photograph. I saw drawn lips. I saw hair that cascaded down their back. I saw overwhelming force in how they stood. This was someone always prepared to take on the world. I felt no hostility, but I did sense something within them tightly-coiled, ready to spring out with little prompting. The air around them seemed heavier somehow.

“Suika?” I found myself calling out. I had no idea why she had come to mind, though I had no feeling that I was in any way mistaken. In fact, my voice betrayed no confusion, only seeking acknowledgement. She was supposed to be here.

She picked up another rock and hurled it into the water, causing a ripple that distorted the moon on its surface. Though I could see her face in profile, she wasn’t looking my way. “Nice of you to notice me for once, asshole.”

“Look, I’m sorry. I’m well and truly knackered. It’s been a long day, Big Sis keeping me on my feet and all. Told me I needed to step up and be a good little Arc for Reimu’s sake. Be a team player. You know how all that is.”

“Yeah, I do know how all that is, Arc. I’ve only been putting up with it for the past however long.” Suika turned away. Even though I couldn’t see her face, I knew from her tone that she was rolling her eyes at me. Every word fell heavy from her lips, as if they too might distort the moon on the lake.

“Hey,” I said, feeling myself tremble despite the warmth around me, “don’t forget I kept Reimu and company out of your hair. Maybe we couldn’t sit up there and drink beer together, but you could damn well enjoy it yourself. Wouldn’t have happened without me.”

“How could I forget? My wonderful saviour Arc, sacrificing himself for my happiness.” Suika ran her fingers through her hair. Not even the moonlight could erase the firiness of it. She twisted it around in her hand, a gesture I couldn’t ever recall her making. Suddenly, she turned to me, face awash in white light. “Not that I ever asked you to do that,” she pronounced with an uncanny softness.

I moved closer to Suika, and my breath caught. I hadn’t noticed for the moonlight, but she wasn’t wearing her usual school uniform, nor was she in her customary streetwear. The sight of her in a flowing blue gown — bluer than the skies we shared — barely registered to my eyes; I couldn’t recall ever having even seen her in a skirt. The soft fabric swallowed her and yet also sketched in sharp relief the lines of her small frame, a rare sight given her usual dress. She didn’t shrink away from my peering eyes, but she did wear a slight frown, not wholly pleased at being looked over so closely.

My pulse quickened. I was feeling too warm, sweat beading on my skin. “And what would you have me do? You think I ever wanted to have to make these choices? We knew it couldn’t go on, Suika. Not forever. Someday, we were going to have to climb down from the roof, stop staring at the sky, and…”

Words turned to concrete in my throat. Every breath was laboured and shallow. I was suffocating under the weight of what I couldn’t say — what I shouldn’t say. Between me and Suika, words presented nothing but an intrusion, something that menaced the emotion we held aloft.

“Be adults?” Suika concluded for me, her lips quirking into the sort of tiny, fragile smile I never saw on her face. Sorrow beaded at the corners of her eyes, and she turned away sharply.

I thought she might run away from me, though where to I could scarcely imagine. All I knew was that I felt the strongest urge to seize Suika. She would disappear forever if I didn’t stop her. I grasped for her wrist and found it easily, prepared to wrestle with her. However, she wasn’t the least bit resistant as I took hold of her arm. I was caught off guard. She shook her arm from my grip, taking my hand in hers firmly.

Maybe it was because we weren’t the hand-holding types, but the smallness of the hand gripping mine surprised me, especially in its strength, but also in its softness. The Suika I knew was someone who did rough work, and I would have suspected the hands performing that labour would be equally hardened. She hardly seemed proud or conscious of anything like that. Meticulously shortening and filing her nails constituted the most maintenance I’d ever seen her put in.

“You think that’s really all that matters? That that’s the only choice?” A queer chill radiated from her expression. Though her hand trembled, there was a clarity in her voice that matched the firmness of her grip.

“Suika—” I choked through the tightness in my throat, only for her to squeeze my hand tighter.

Suika jerked my hand sharply, pulling me with her as she walked closer to the shore, where the lake lapped insistently upon the stones and sand. Every step brought the both of us closer to the water. I wanted to ask her what she was doing, but no words could escape me. All I could do was follow as she reached the water’s edge, continuing on, heedless of the water as she walked on. The lake had swallowed her up to her hips when she looked back at me, a look in her eyes that begged for my trust. We had trusted each other through so much else. I was already up to my thighs in the water.

I allowed myself to plunge further forward. Suika held onto my hand even as she sunk out of view below the surface, the warmth never leaving. The water itself warmed my skin in a strange way, almost inviting me under. No thoughts of air entered my mind as my face touched the water’s surface. I sunk in totally, eyes wide open under the clear water. The world became a watery expanse of blue illuminated by stark beams of white.

Far enough out into the water, the dirt floor shrank out from underneath us. We rapidly sank towards the centre of the water as if weighted down by something. Everything in the distance was dark and unclear, yet I could still make out Suika in front me with total clarity. She loosed her grip on my hand for a moment, only to seize me by the shoulders, dragging me even closer to her. Her small but strong arms wrapped around my back, pressing us together, cocooning me in the freely flowing folds of her gown. Her face hovered close to mine. I thought, in spite of the water, that I felt warm breath against my cheek. Stars twinkled in the abyss of her eyes. A deep darkness waited below us, coming closer and closer with every passing moment.

I still felt hot all over. Only then did I think of the breath I couldn’t draw. The warmth of the deep water had infiltrated me, my head having become filled with it. Thought was becoming more and more difficult as I struggled in vain for air wholly absent. Suika’s hands caressed my back with a gentleness alien to her. She was telling me not to be afraid. My fears, she seemed to say, were unfounded. There wasn’t any reason for me to even breathe down here.

“Arc,” echoed Suika’s voice to me through the water.

The edges of my vision faded into indistinct blurs. My strength was fleeing me. I opened my mouth to speak only for warmth to rush in and fill my throat. My eyelids struggled to remain open. I was awash in a heat that wouldn’t abate, consciousness losing its distinctness against the darkness, against the water, against Suika.

She leaned up against my ear. Our cheeks seemed to merge together as they pressed against each other. “Ribbon. Arc, the ribbon…” she rasped into my ear, her voice fast being swallowed by the hazy darkness.

When my eyes slowly opened, I felt warm all over. The brilliant sun of the early morning was still beaming down on me, though it had diminished with the coming of the afternoon. My body felt slightly sore from napping on top of a rock. Muted birdsong and the sound of lapping water tickled my ear.

A shadow lingered; Komeiji was standing over me. Her expression remained inscrutible as ever as she stood looking down at me.

It was an ordinary country inn among other ordinary country inns. If I were being extra flippant, I might have called it the countriest of inns. Not to imply that the place was particularly bad, but it did have that air of sleepiness and time having stood still that seems so endemic to businesses in the middle of nowhere. The car park being sparsely populated as our cab pulled in didn’t help things. Suika shot me a dubious look that said, “You friggin’ cheapskate,” and asked the driver if this was really the place.

The driver laughed as he shifted down gears. We rolled to a slow stop right at the front entryway. “Get that question about this place a lot. Think their pamphlets are a bit out of date.”

I thought about mentioning how young and broke we were just to head off any ‘recommendations’ from the driver, but he thankfully put the car in park without further word. After depositing our luggage on the curb, I reluctantly parted with the fare, every spent yen a keen absence from my wallet now, and awkwardly returned a slightly embarrassing goodbye salutation from the driver as he no doubt sped back towards the station.

None of the inn’s adjacent scenery made you gasp for breath. Auntie told me our relatives had assured her of some ‘splendid autumn views from the baths’, but I couldn’t help a latent scepticism itching at my neck. The place looked as if it had by chance been washed down a craggy mountain road and deposited up against the woods. Some of the wood that held up the building certainly looked waterlogged.

I scratched at my neck, drawing yet another look from Suika. “Hey, you liked camping, didn’t you?” I attempted to joke, but the force of her glowering took any pep out of me. I groaned and picked up my suitcase. “Yeah, yeah, I know what you’re going to say. I wanted better too, just so you know.”

“Oh, get off it,” Suika scoffed, grabbing her suitcase with far more ease than I had mine, “I was just going to tell you not to bitch the whole time. I know you, Arc.”

“I would hope you do by now.”

I gave a little laugh that was just a little tightly wound. Suika answered with an equally curt chuckle. We both stood in the front entranceway, neither of us having taken a step past the front gate. We might have remained there in our invisible tug-of-war until the end of the day had it not been for a passing maid noticing us from the veranda. The two of us nodded in a mutual truce and hurried inside.

The middle-aged proprietress cooed her assurances that all of the arrangements were in order, hardly bothering about check-in and escorting us hastily down the halls to behold our dinky four-and-a-half tatami mat room. The same maid who’d noticed us, probably the only one working there, made a show of hauling our whopping two suitcases in as if to say, “And it comes with such service!” I could feel a subtle pressure radiating from the proprietress’s droopy-lidded gaze. She was expecting praise to high heaven, no matter how mediocre the experience. I could only imagine how forceful Auntie had been in getting the reservations. She tended to show even distant relatives little mercy.

Suika stood tapping her foot. I looked at her to find her staring daggers at me again. She threw her shoulders back before heaving a deep, well-worn ‘Arc, you dumbass’ sigh. “Well? Are you going to hand it over, or…”

I avoided clicking my tongue at Suika and her mouth and found the decorative envelope Auntie pressed on me before we left, the indispensable pre-gratuity to make up for her strong-arming. With a solemn bow, I passed it over to the maid with both hands. “We hope we won’t be too much trouble for our stay.”

When I looked up, I noticed the proprietress’s gaze lingering on my left hand, a smile crawling its way slowly across her face. All at once, I felt my face getting hot. I’d forgotten all about that one thing. I quickly hid my hands behind my back, prompting a loud snicker from Suika. The proprietress tittered in that husky way all middle-aged women of her type did, the only slightly younger maid acting as a chorus.

“Don’t worry at all, dear,” said the proprietress sweetly. She looked to the maid. “We’ll not intrude too much, will we?”

The maid shook her head and looked between me and Suika, hiding a blooming smile behind her hand. “No disturbances from us.”

I groaned, regretting ever letting Auntie make that call. She’d probably blabbed about everything and got them all wound up, too. Not that it wouldn’t have eventually come up, but…

The proprietress insistently pushing me into the room broke me from my thoughts. She sat the two of us down, gave a concise overview of the facilities, and then promptly excused herself. Both she and maid flashed us a wink and a hearty thumbs-up before disappearing down the hall. I fell back on my elbows with my legs sprawled as soon as they were gone, already exhausted. Suika rolled her eyes at me and started to unpack her suitcase.

“Well, Arc, is it everything you wanted?” she needled me without even looking in my direction. She’d packed lightly for a three-night trip. Then again, I wasn’t sure she owned that much to start with. Last I saw, her apartment had been tipping towards spartan. She might well have been living out of a suitcase with how many possessions she’d sold off. Some of the proceeds had no doubt covered part of this little trip, a fact I winced to think about.

I rolled upright with another groan. “I didn’t think that far ahead.”

“Yeah, that much is obvious.” Without even consulting me, she had already opened my hastily packed suitcase. She rifled around in it and came up with a girlie magazine, smirking. “Really, Arc? Of all things. What were you gonna do? Lock yourself in the can?”

“You know my tastes. You think I’d put that one in on purpose? I was in such a hurry that I was grabbing all kinds of things. My place is a real mess right now.”

“Auntie’s place,” Suika corrected me, pausing in re-folding my haphazardly folded clothes to frown at me. Shaking her head, she huffed through her nose to signify how much of a lout she considered me. “That woman really is a saint, and all you ever do is take advantage of her. One of the few women who puts up with you, I swear.”

I made a face of mock-horror. “And now there’s three of them under the same roof! What is the world coming to? What depths of madness will he go to in getting them all together? Will he complete his collection?”

“A certain someone is right: You have no shame at all. Not to mention little brain.” Her eyes fell downward for a second, and she gave a nasty smirk. “And an even littler brain, I bet.”

“Last time you ever saw that ‘brain’, you came busting in the men’s side of the public bath! In the middle of winter, when it was cold as balls coming out!” I felt a rush of blood to my head remembering that incident. Suika said I was impulsive, and yet she was only just lucky no one else was around. I was prepared to have to play lawyer to keep her from getting arrested.

“However you wanna cope. I’m sure there’s support groups for you to cry about it in, too.”

I stood up sharply, resting my hands on the hem of my trousers as if poised to yank them down. “Tough words for someone who’s gonna see it again soon enough.”

Suika’s smirk faded into a far more complicated expression, her cheeks colouring faintly. She stopped putting my clothes away to scratch at her cheek with her left hand. Sunlight through the shouji glittered off of the band on her third finger, one that matched the cheap thing I could afford. “Yeah, I guess you’re probably right. Would be pretty weird for it not to happen, wouldn’t it?”

The two of us went silent at that. For a long while, sounds carried from different parts of the inn of someone rushing around, probably the maid. Sounds of water and clinking dishes rang out from the cafeteria’s kitchen. The front desk phone chirped at intervals and the proprietress answered with equal pleasantness. From a ways off, water rushed in a continual torrent; something had been said about a nearby natural stream. I could swear I heard the sound of leaves falling over the quiet rustling of Suika finishing the unpacking. Even after that was out of the way, we both sat quietly at the low table, not really looking at one another.

“You know,” I spoke up, fed up with the silence that seemed to be pressing down on us, “it’s not like it’s the law or anything. I mean, I think it’d be cool. Just, well, it doesn’t necessarily happen when some people… you know.”

“It’s what you want, though, isn’t it? I mean, why else?” Suika muttered back. Her eyes were fixed on the band on her finger, as if the sight were so surreal that it barely registered. In many ways, I felt the same way seeing it, though I couldn’t deny feeling a slight jump in my heartbeat, too.

“Why else? Well, because I l—” I clamped my mouth shut before I could go any further. I could already see a bit more red creeping into Suika’s face, and my own face felt apt to glow. The last time I said it, she’d given me such a thrashing. It was a shame that I couldn’t say it, though. It’s not like I was lying. “What about you? Are you hoping for that? Because, I mean, I don’t want to pressure you if you aren’t.”

Looking at me once more, Suika’s eyes radiated a calmness that I had rarely seen, and yet somehow that same calmness sprang out more fiercely than her anger. “If I can be real honest, Arc, how much time have I even had to think about it? Probably less time than you’ve thought about this whole marriage thing. And that ain’t a lot of time at all. Seriously, how long had you thought about it before grabbing me at work? Two minutes?”

It had been about two weeks of serious thought, which came after a couple of months of daydreaming. After a few years of being best buds. The weight of those years made my frown all the heavier. “I might not have thought much about the rest of our lives, but it wasn’t like you couldn’t have said no, was it? Hell, I kind of expected you would do. You’d be all, ‘What are you talking about, dumbass!’ and knock me one good. And then I’d be a little disappointed, and then we’d meet up later and have a beer. Just like always. So, you know, it takes two to tango there.”

Suika opened her mouth to say something but decided against it. Resting her elbows on the table, she propped up her chin in her hands, staring across at me wordlessly. A faint smile played across her bud-like lips, far calmer than the customary nasty little smirk. Even without the sunlight, I felt her deep brown eyes would have glistered, jewel-like.

I silently put a hand on the table. Suika reached over to lay her hand over mine, warming my fingers and rubbing over them with the rough callouses of her labour. We had been doing this for the past week. I wondered if it was something Marisa had taught her, given how un-Suika-like it was. Either way, it was hard for us to sit alone without touching hands like this. Sometimes, after Auntie had cleared the table, we’d sit there after dinner, hand-in-hand, pretending our hardest that Auntie and Marisa weren’t both starry-eyed at the sight of the young couple.

Her hand suddenly retreated to point at the clock on the wall. “Check it out, we checked in at a good time. Baths should be just opening. Might as well have a pre-dinner soak, yeah? There’ll be plenty of time for us to fight.”

“I don’t want us to fight,” I murmured, my tone more boyish than intended. My true feelings were leaking out despite my best efforts.

“We will. It’s just how married couples are. It’s just how we are, too.” She laughed softly. I’d been used to that rough, grating chuckle of hers for so long that it almost seemed to come from another person. I felt her hand roughly grope at my thigh under the table for a brief second. “Who knows? Maybe we’ll have a new way of making up.”

I sat mystified by Suika’s words for a few moments after she’d already walked out of the room. As friends, we’d fought so much already. If what she was saying was true… My pulse quickened a little and I swallowed a lump in my throat.

“Come on, slowpoke! Get that stank off already!”

For all my reservations, the baths were fine enough, albeit as lacking in view as the rest of the inn. They were mostly indoors aside from a fenced-in outdoor portion. The fence stretched tall enough to block out everything around for some distance. At the very least, I could see a number of tall trees and their autumn foliage from the bath, the odd red or orange leaf floating in the water underneath.

A good scrub, a long soak, a re-wash, and another soak had done good to get a lot of things off of my mind for a while. Just as Auntie said, there would be plenty of time to worry about everything else. I found myself silently thanking Auntie and marvelling at her patience. How did she put up with such a troublesome — but handsome — boy as Arc? More than that, she now had another young woman in the house, a new relative. I was amazed she hadn’t told me we needed to clear out as soon as possible. In fact, she didn’t seem in any hurry to get us out, all but saying we could stay as long as we liked.

More amazing than all of that was when I told her my intentions one night at dinner. I’d been ruminating for so long and being such a sulky Arc that she’d noticed, of course, but she hadn’t bothered me about it even then. Only when Marisa had started doing the washing up did she remark about me having something on my mind. At that point, I had a feeling in my gut that I’d either nut up or lay off. My heart had been absolutely thudding in my throat as I told her everything in a hushed voice, and she didn’t respond at all, only nodding and asking me to go on. When I was finished, she rose from her seat, asking me to get up. When I didn’t get up, she jerked me from my seat and pushed me to the front door.

“Go to her, Arc,” were her only words before slamming the door behind me.

Those words had been echoing in my mind all as I sat in the lounge, playing on the coin-op games console. Even though I was playing a game I’d played a million times before, I could hardly see it playing out in front of me, my hands moving more mechanically than by conditioned reflex. Every time I inevitably lost or ran out of time, I’d pop in another hundred-yen coin and start over without really thinking about it.

In many ways, it felt like I was running down the timer. For what, though? Life? Thinking of things in those terms was ridiculous. Life counted for, presumably, a long time. At least, I hoped it amounted to a long time, years and decades from now. I hoped it was a long, long time, long enough for Suika and I to get comfortable with each other again. No, more than that, I wanted us to end up better friends than we’d ever been. That was what I’d said when I showed up at her job at the bento factory: I just wanted my bro with me forever.

Still, even if Auntie and Marisa had been so supportive, Suika was right. Impulse had driven me to this point. I’d caused a lot of trouble for Suika by showing up to her job, not to mention telling her I wanted to get married that week. The torrent of life had rushed in so swiftly that I’d hardly had time to consider anything afterward. I just had my irregular part-time jobs outside of helping Auntie for room and board, and Suika barely made enough to keep her apartment and still have enough left over for booze. We’d have to live as man-and-wife in Auntie’s house, under the watchful eyes of two romantic voyeurs and the occasional childhood friend. Suika needed to sell whatever she could and get out of her lease, and the both of us still needed to do all of the right paperwork. There was also the tricky notion of my parents never having given permission, a barrier that could only be got around by having Auntie officially adopt me.

All of that had fallen on top of me as soon as I’d had a moment to think, and the sheer overwhelming weight of it had pinned me in place. I could hardly know where to start with everything. Pretty soon, it was all I could do to think at all. For doing something that required me to be strong enough for two, I remained a weak, pitiful Arc. Suika had every right to be mad at me if she was mad deep down.

My ship blew up once again. Another game over. I automatically dug out my coin purse, slapping in another coin, but I quickly heard a second coin being put in. I whipped around to see Suika sitting next to me, draped in a matching yukata, second controller in her hand. She raised a challenging eyebrow and shrugged her shoulder, showing me her teeth.

“Aw, what’s the matter? Someone a bit sulky ‘cos their period started early?” Suika taunted me. She took the opportunity to choose a different game, one we’d both played countless times at her place, a co-op game. Not that she wouldn’t turn it into a competition anyway.

“Don’t kid yourself. I’ve had to deal with you on the rag, and don’t you deny it like you always do.” I took a harder grip on my controller. With Suika in the game, I suddenly felt more like paying attention, if only not to completely suck.

“Yeah, sorry about that,” she said completely unexpectedly. I turned to look at her, but her eyes were completely fixed on the game. Her eyes slid my way as she grumbled. “Wanna focus on the screen, partner? Or did the idea of my normal body functions break your brain? Honestly, that’s why I hate talking about this stuff with you. You always make it creepy.”

I went back to the game. Everything was already a mess, and I was now a couple of lives down, only kept alive by Suika’s sheer carrying power. “Now you know how I feel.”

“This and that are not even close. Now, quit fucking around and get that power-up. I’ve cleared the path. Come on.”

I lingered back a bit without moving towards the power-up. Even as I was being assholish, Suika continued to hammer all of the enclosing enemies, though I clearly only had a few seconds before that wouldn’t be the case. “There’s a lot you don’t know about men, Suika.”

“Good thing I have such a mature, understanding husband to help me learn,” she said in a honeyed voice absolutely dripping with venom. She used a bomb to rid the screen of enemies. Her score was at the point that I’d never reasonably catch up. “Go, go, go! Get the lead out!”

“Ah, such a useful wife. I’m so proud; I could just show you off to everyone.” The power-up gave me a slight boost, able to blast a further path through the enemies and increase my score in one go. More importantly, I was able to shred the enemies closing in on Suika. Without her, I was screwed; without me, she was just as screwed.

“Okay, husband,” she snarled, elbowing me in the side sharply, “how about we turn this into a match? Winner gets to give the loser one order when we get back to the room.”

I rubbed my side and quickly scrambled to regain my momentum, hammering the buttons as hard as I could. “Really? Next you’ll be telling me I owe you a juice. So childish.”

“Which is why you’re on, right? Gotta straighten out your childish little wife.” I saw Suika sneering out of the corner of my eye. Compared to my flailing, she pressed the buttons at a far more leisurely pace, as if showing off how unbothered she was.

“Yeah,” I quietly admitted.

I did try to go at the game as seriously as I could. Unfortunately, there were few opportunities for the gap in our scores to close, as Suika well knew, and those chances would have involved throwing her to the wolves. One slip-up and she’d lose her last life, and that’d be it. Feeling the futility in trying to overtake her, I stopped worrying about it after a while and just played back-up. Suika occasionally threw herself into dangerous spots tauntingly, trying to tempt me into taking advantage, but I always intervened.

Even if I didn’t have time to look over at her, I could feel the overbearing smugness radiating from her. I also felt a couple of fellow patrons’ stares, probably thinking we looked like such an attractive young couple. Little did they know.

We came to a late stage boss that we’d only had minimal trouble with in the past. On occasion, RNG would throw us a curve ball, but it was otherwise pretty predictable. That’s probably why Suika decided to start screwing around again, getting right in the trajectory of all the attacks only to pull back at the last second. The small-fry enemies rushed to intercept her, calling for my swift defence. Even as I managed to keep up, she would just get more and more erratic with her movements, rushing far off course from where I’d expect her to be. No matter how much I complained, she just told me to keep up. The game quickly went from trying to beat the boss to racing with Suika.

“Fuck! Go left! Left!” I shouted, spotting an enemy coming in hot. I was all out of bombs, and this one would outrun my reactive volley of shots.

Heedless of my command, Suika stood still, continuing to shoot the boss. It was hopeless. She had all of a split second before she was dead. I didn’t want it to end like that. Whatever my chances of winning our little contest, I couldn’t fail as back-up. What kind of husband would I be, otherwise?

I threw myself in the path of the enemy. There was a blip and I was dead — Game Over. The name entry screen beeped its taunting melody at us.

I looked to Suika, expecting to see her upset that we hadn’t made it to the end, but her expression was one of relative contentment. She set the controller aside in a suprisingly civilised gesture and vacated the seat, pointing at the patrons who’d been watching. They crowded in, ready to take a turn, so I followed suit and gave up my seat. Suika met my bemused look with a fang-studded grin.

“Welp, I win. Look forward to it when we get back,” she gloated.

I groaned, cradling my forehead. That game had really taken it out of me. “Here I almost thought you came off a little more mature.”

“That’s life, innit? Don’t be so sour just ‘cos you lost.” She pointed towards the cafeteria, where some of the few other patrons were already either lined up or chowing down. “Pretty sure they’ve got drinks, so you can drown your sorrows. I wonder what sort of local stuff they’ve got, anyway. Bound to be something interesting.”

I had no chance to voice my lack of an appetite before she had linked her arm with mine, dragging me off toward the cafeteria. To all the world, we probably looked like a normal couple — not a couple of bros who just happened to get married.

“Shit, Arc, don’t shake me around so much. You’ll make me hurl,” Suika drunkenly groaned as I hauled her into the room.

I gingerly set her down upright at the low table. To keep her stable, I had to sit hip-to-hip and hold onto her shoulder, bearing the smell of sake and sweat all the while. I wrinkled my nose. “What a time for the baths to be closed. How on earth did you manage to sweat this much in so short a time? You’re lucky your loving husband has a strong stomach.”

Scoffing, Suika lifted her arm, pushing her armpit at me. The fabric of her yukata had been stained dark with the sweat soaking in. All over, similar patches showed, from her neck all the way down to her thighs. “If you love your darling wife—” she drew the syllables out beyond their reasonable length, turning them into almost a cat’s yowling, “—you should love everything about her. From her sweat to her tears to her blood to—” She interrupted herself with a sudden wet burp. Having been there for worse, I wasn’t yet worried, though I still caressed her sweat-soaked back regardless.

“Yes, yes, you need not go further with that list.” Looking around, I spotted the bath towel she’d used earlier. I propped Suika up against the table and got up to fetch it. “Excuse me just a second.”

“Ah! I’m gonna fall! I’m gonna fall!” I heard her childishly calling as I ran to washroom to wet the towel.

When I got back, Suika was sitting up on her own, looking a bit glum for my absence. She met me with a frown and accusatory eyes despite remaining sitting up. I sighed at her continuing childishness, sitting back down right beside her.

She wiggled around in her seat and tried to scoot away from me. I grabbed her by the shoulder, pulling her back close.

“I thought I smelled so bad you had to leave,” groused Suika, looking away pointedly.

“You mind opening your front? I’d like to wipe you down, if you don’t mind,” I said without any regard to her pouting. “Wouldn’t want you catching a cold on our honeymoon, would we?”

The word ‘honeymoon’ brought a change over her expression, softening it into something almost vulnerable looking. Her brown eyes took on a sparkling, jewel-like look. Her alcohol-flushed cheeks bloomed a further red. “Oh, right. That’s what this is, isn’t it? I’d almost kinda forgotten. I mean, we did get married and all, but it still sorta… just doesn’t feel quite like we’re…”

“Technically, we’re not properly married yet.” I tugged on the collar of her yukata. “And you didn’t answer me. Come on.”

Suika’s eyebrows furrowed momentarily, as if she was going to protest and ask to wipe herself down, but she only slightly hesitated in undoing her belt. Her yukata spilled into a pile of cotton cloth falling from her shoulders. There was little I hadn’t seen that time at the bath, but I had to admit being intimidated by the sight of her body — my wife’s body. Sweat glistened all over her skin, drawing out the faint flush of life underneath the otherwise pale flesh. I had been bold, yet I found myself swallowing hard again.

“Don’t just stare, dummy,” Suika entreated in a soft, breathy voice.

“Sorry.”

She took me by the sleeve, guiding my hand to the pit of her bared chest. I followed her direction mechanically, daubing her skin softly with the dampened towel. She gave a soft but sharp inhalation at the cool touch of the towel, followed by a warm, relieved-sounding exhalation. “If you’re going to offer, at least follow through. Nothing to it if you just get started, right?”

“Sure you’re not sober enough to do it yourself?” I challenged, moving carefully around her chest to her collar and shoulders.

“And rob my darling husband of this little pleasure? Nah.”

“I told you; we only had the ceremony. All that business with Auntie has to happen before it’s all official, remember? And should I take all of this as your order?”

I was trying my hardest to keep my hand moving and not simply admire how pretty her skin was. I’d hardly seen her show much of it beyond her arms, so my eyes drank it all in as a fresh sight. Much as I’d never admit it aloud, I was a little embarrassed to be looking at Suika like this. Peeking up at her face, I got the impression the feeling was mutual.

Her lips curled into a mischievous smile at odds with her blushing face. She was as stubborn as I was in the face of our newfound awkwardness. “Remembered our little wager, did you? No, I’m saving that for something better. And I don’t care about formalities. I’m your wife now, regardless. In olden days, people never had to worry about that sort of stuff. They just tied the knot and were done with it. Lot of ‘em didn’t even wait before…”

I slipped around to swab her shoulderblades and the pit of her back. Everything felt more defined than I somehow expected. Through her clothes, Suika often looked skinny to me, and there was no denying that she was pretty slender. That didn’t make her bony, though, much less easy to pick up. I kind of wanted to see her back and its definition, feeling strangely excited by the taut muscle conditioned by the no doubt gruelling jobs she’d done. On one hand, I’d known about her wiry shape long before, but it was only now that I really found myself appreciating it — my wife’s body.

“Before…” I prompted her to distract myself. Finished with her back, I moved back around front to just under her breast, careful not to put too much force in wiping around her stomach.

“Christ, Arc, are you really gonna make me say it?” She turned her face towards the shouji. There was a long pause before she worked up the nerve to continue, biting her lip and growling in frustration. The damp towel hadn’t quenched the fire roaring in her cheeks. Her eyes screwed shut. “You know! Fucking! Screwing! Pointy bit in squishy bit!” she shouted in my face.

“All right, all right, don’t have to inform the whole inn,” I nagged, forcing my voice flat. My pulse had quickened a little at the sudden torrent of very blunt words; I felt ridiculous feeling a flutter at something so childish, and yet I couldn’t deny that hearing those words from Suika did it to me. The shallow dip of her navel brought my hand to a stop. “Ah.”

“Yeah?”

I cleared my throat rather stiffly. For all my boldness, I found formulating the question difficult for a moment. Well, the question itself wasn’t so difficult; the matter of getting it out was the trouble. “You, erm…” I momentarily fumbled, feeling an uncharacteristic break in my voice, “fine with me doing, well, everything? Or would you rather— Are you feeling well enough…”

The attempt at a question hardly registered on Suika’s face. Only when she looked down towards the crevices I’d yet to cover and where my hand hovered, just above her lap, did some recognition dawn. Her mouth hung open stupidly, and her eyes flicked between me and her thighs. She looked almost delirious, liable to pass out if left to stew any longer.

As much as a desperately boyish Arc wanted to tease his longtime tormentor until she broke, a slightly more mature Arc prevailed, granting his wife a bit more mercy. I pressed the towel into Suika’s hand and tugged at her yukata. “Here, I’ll get a new one from the front. The rest is all yours.”

With a whimpered affirmation and a shy nod, Suika sat up to let me take the yukata out from under her. Her expression resembled a small frightened animal as she was left sitting stark naked, the shadows of the room and the muted glow of the dying sun falling across her faintly reddened skin. The surface of her skin glistened with a faint layer of moisture like a washed piece of fruit. My eyes could hardly draw themselves away.

I finally shook my head and nodded to Suika, striding to the fusuma before I could become to absorbed in appreciating her form. It was only when I mumbled some words about being back quickly that I looked back for a split second, feeling my heart jump a little as I saw her wide eyes trained on me, something in her gaze having changed from just seconds before.

I hurtled through the halls back to the front to ask for another yukata. The proprietress took my breathless request with a fair degree of humour, probably due to my sputtering attempts at apologising and explaining the situation. Assuring me it was no trouble, she fetched a fresh robe in the correct size, patting me on the shoulder as she handed it over along with a new towel. She winked and wished me luck with a good-natured shove. The privilege of youth, she added right before I dashed away. I could already feel the rest of this stay being supremely awkward.

Back at the room, I stood outside the fusuma, suddenly unsure of myself. Some much older Arc tugged at my shoulder, urging me to stay back, desperate to keep me out of the room. He seemed to say to me that everything would change if I went in there, and there was always the chance that change would be something I never wanted. The fluttering, almost roiling feeling in the pit of my gut agreed. At the same time, I thought of her in there — my wife — waiting for me. Those eyes had followed me all down the hall and back. She was waiting for me. Whatever fears nipped at her, she had stayed put and was anticipating my return. I owed it to her as her husband — no, her old friend — to not leave her alone. I gripped the handle and firmly slid the fusuma open.

A futon was laid out in the rear of the room near the shouji. Suika knelt next to it, her naked back to me as I walked in. Instead of looking over her shoulder at me, her head sank down into her shoulders. My breath caught seeing the firm lines of her shoulderblades and the various back muscles pulling taut in places and loose in others, all through the curtain of her firy hair. That fear assailed me even more persistently, yet I held fast to the spot.

“You gonna close the door, or are we giving the whole inn a show?” Suika mewled.

Remembering what I was doing, I hastily apologised and pulled the fusuma shut behind me, hurrying to Suika’s side to drape her in the new yukata. She said a quiet word of thanks as she threw her hair back and pulled the robe over her shoulders.

I eyed the futon. “I see you’ve been busy. Feeling any better?”

“Still got a buzz going, I think.” She paused in tying her belt before coming to some conclusion. “Nah, I guess I’m pretty sober now. That little cold bath helped that.”

“Pretty sure it doesn’t work like that, but okay. I was more worried about having to clean up a mess. Can’t leave too much of a burden for these people. They are relatives, even if they’re distant,” I said with a slight chuckle.

Suika slowly turned to face me, her head turned to regard the futon as well. “Come on, Arc, you know me better than that. How much booze have we smashed for me to get that bad? I’m not some lightweight like you. Yeah, sometimes it goes to my head, but I snap out of it pretty quick. I’m feeling pretty good, all things considered.” She waved at the damp towel that she’d folded neatly and set aside, still not shifting her gaze. Her lips twisted into an awkward smile. “Getting the sweat off did help. Felt pretty gross with those nooks and crannies getting all sticky.”

An older Arc was silently screaming at me to make some stupid joke and play the whole thing off as another one of those moments. I didn’t have to acknowledge Suika as more than just ‘my bro’, he insisted. I felt my expression harden. I gripped the hem of my yukata. All of this letting fear getting the better of me was getting stupid. I was growing more and more frustrated with myself.

“That’s good, then,” I intoned. I grasped Suika by her shoulder, which suddenly felt tiny in my palm. There was the slightest quiver in it at my touch. I took a deep breath and let it out. “You probably ought to lie down, in any case, don’t you think? It’s been a long day.”

Looking at me for once, albeit only at my chest, Suika gave a little laugh. She shifted around to lie back on the futon, the yukata draping loosely around her small frame. “Long day? Are you getting old already, Arc? You’ve spent one whole day with your adorable new wife, and you’re saying it was a long one. Some husband you make. I was right; you’ve got no staying power. This whole thing’s hopeless.”

“We’re not—” I kept myself from raising my voice too much. This was her way of dealing with being flustered, I was sure. I seated myself right next to Suika, taking her hand. “I mean, it’s not too late, considering. If I’m so bad, you can always just walk away.”

“You first.” A less stiff smile threatened to break out on her lips. She bit down on her lip, but it couldn’t be stopped. “Asshole,” she added quietly as an afterthought.

“Yeah,” I conceded, “I guess you’re right. I am a right tosser, aren’t I? Getting us into all this, no plan, no thought about the future. I mean, what are we going to do from here? Even if everything falls through and we can’t get married on paper, it’s not like we can really go back to just… what we did before. And if we can do, well, there’s too much we haven’t decided. Like if we want kids or not. Have you thought about that one at all? Yeah, I do feel like an asshole, and I’m sorry.”

Still smiling, Suika gave a long sigh. She let go of my hand, reaching up to caress my cheek, which I only just noticed was stubbly after a couple of days without shaving. “No, dumbass, that’s not what I’m talking about. You know what makes you an asshole here? The fact that you’ve married such a cute girl and won’t man up enough to do the deed with her. She’s practically been throwing herself at you this whole goddamned time!”

“Got a real mouth on her. She ought to learn a thing or two about mood and timing,” I retorted. I traced a finger around her soft little lips, almost laughing considering she would have absolutely bitten me for it years ago.

“I’m talking a lot longer than you’re thinking. Years and years.” Her voice lost much of its gruffness all of a sudden. There was a dewey shimmering in her eyes. Her little chest heaved with sharp, ragged breaths, her soft, peachy skin peeking out from between the folds of her yukata. “You’re such an idiot, Arc. Can’t take a single hint, can you? I just wanna… just…”

I saw the muscles in her arm tense and her hand ball into a tight fist. My eyes clamped tight and my teeth clenched in anticipation of a blow. It was such a familiar exchange between us that it was almost instinctual. Especially when I deserved it, which was most of the time.

Instead of a knock to the face, I felt two strong arms loop around me and pull me down. My eyes popped open to see Suika looking down at me, our bodies pressed together in a tight embrace, her expression relaxed into a smile uncanny in its gentleness. There were traces of tears that she had been fighting running down her cheeks, small but pearl-like. I could feel her heart pounding through the fabric of her yukata, her breathing thrown into a chaotic rhythm along with it.

“That’s the thing about the two of us. We’re both idiots,” Suika said with immense clarity despite her tears. Her hands moved to caress me around my neck and face, her callouses describing every bit of them as if her eyes could barely contain everything. “So, so stupid, the both of us. Here I was, waiting all that time, hoping against hope. I should have given up a long time ago. What was I even hoping for? That a blockhead like you would take me? For what? And yet here we are.”

“Real romantic, Suika.” I buried my face into her chest, taking in her warmth and drawing in a sweet breath of her fresh, warm but slightly sour scent, only just detectable through the smell of fabric detergent. “Just so I can say my piece: If I can’t catch a hint, it’s because you really suck at expressing your feelings.”

“Fuck you. Asshole.”

“Is that an offer?” Despite my glibness, I couldn’t help a bit of a hopeful note creeping into my voice. Slowly, hesitantly, I pushed myself up so that I was hanging above Suika, caging her underneath me.

She looked down at me appraisingly, some emotion rippling through her face. Even now, she was fighting with herself. A more perverse Arc hoped she wouldn’t ever stop; that dishonest part of her was what made her my adorable wife.

Turning her face away, Suika reached up to grasp my shoulders, bidding me to come closer — conflicting messages. My breath on her cheek made her shiver slightly, and her eyes squeezed shut for a brief instant. Her mouth hung open in hesitation. “Hey, Arc?” she asked with difficulty.

“Yeah?”

“I’m going to give you an order now. You have to listen, all right? No back-talk, no excuses. No pansy shit. I say it; you do it. That was our wager, after all.” She willed herself to look me in the face, her expression stern, locked in battle with the warmth of her still-wet eyes.

“Just spit it out, already,” I said, smiling at how precious she could be. That old Arc was fading into the void with every instant spent beholding my wife — yes, my bro, but definitely my wife.

Gritting her teeth, she unhanded me for a split second to throw open the front of her yukata, confronting me with the totality of her body. She was glaring at me, challenging me. The gesture was clearly meant to shake me, but all I could do was feel an even more intense warmth for her. We would always be like this, I felt. We would always be engaged in this awkward fight, neither of us wanting to give an inch to the other, hoping all the same that we would take from each other what we wanted, that claim that had always been marked for each other. I welcomed it.

She tugged at my neck, drawing my ear close to her lips. “Say that you love me first,” she begged in almost a dying gasp.

When I came to myself, I lying on a wooden floor, staring up at a dim ceiling lit only by a pair of hanging bulbs. I felt absolutely nauseous and not in the same way as when I’d been drinking or fighting. The very sensation itself was sickening, every slight churn of my gut and constriction in my throat worsening things. I groaned loudly as I tried to shift myself around on the floor.

I had been lying next to a bunk in one of the cabins, by all appearances. Slowly looking around, I saw most of the beds in this cabin unoccupied. Just the one right next to me was occupied. A curtain of blonde hair hung over the side. A noise like the squealing of some dying animal sounded from the bedtop. I crawled away almost by instinct and smacked into a pair of legs.

Also lying on the floor near the table was none other than the student pres herself. Reimu’s eyes were open, yet her expression spoke of nothing but absence. She uttered a guttural groan, far more disturbing than any noise I’d made. A death-like shadow hung over her face. She clearly no longer occupied this world, no matter how her body lingered. Next to her lay a few lumps of what looked like anything from mud to animal dung. A closer look showed that they were mushrooms, dried until they hardly resembled their native shape. All of Marisa’s ‘magical’ experiments flooded back to me in one nightmarish stream of trauma.

Working up the ability to sit up, I slapped at Marisa’s dangling hand. She stirred with a whine like a kicked dog. “Hey, Marisa?” I called in a dry voice, afraid that leaving my mouth open too long might invite the contents of my stomach to leap out.

“Arc?” Marisa squeaked.

“Let’s never experiment with mushrooms we find in the forest again, okay?”

“Agreed.”