Section 4. Vixen in white Kimono.
Note: I only keep Japanese onomatopoeia that may seem to be cute and reasonable to English-speakers, leaving out the rest.
I’m also trying to write it in a way that reader do not actually need to read through the footnotes to understand the meaning, and may, or may not, read over them after the section. Continue reading
Fuyuka’s mind stopped thinking. Apparently, the amount of intelligence which she could process as a human was past tolerable.
“So then, erm—…?”
The maiden who bowed politely a moment ago, witnessing motionless lady, murmured to her in a bashful voice. However, as no reaction befallen her all the same, she grew anxious, and, chon,1 pinched the clothes of the miko beside.
“Per-perchance we are invisible to her?”
A gorgeous tone of priestess came from under the mask to answer to this voice of unrest:
“No, I fear this might not be the case, for we are on this side. I believe her mind cannot process so unexpected a turn of events.”
“In-indeed… Then, what shall I do?”
“Let’s see. For now, I suppose the quickest is to touch and see?”
“Understood!”
Nodding to miko’s answer, tote-tote,2 maiden in white kimono approached Fuyuka in a childish trot. Miko had to flusteredly re-adjust an umbrella at a little unforeseen manœuver.
“Now, how should I—… Hmm.”
What maiden performed was an elementary action of gripping one of Fuyuka’s downcast hands in both of hers. Perhaps for difference between an adult and a child, but even both palms of a petite maiden failed to altogether envelop Fuyuka’s hand. However, fruitfulness of the action proved to be exceptional:
“Hyaaah!?!??”
An immature shriek. And albeit maiden also started at so sudden, so strange a voice, she did not withdraw her hands.
“Pray tell me, can you see me?”
“Eh? Eh? Wh-what? You—in pure white?”
“Yes! Dear me, I’m so delighted—, I thought perhaps you couldn’t perceive us.”
Phew, peeking from silk floss headdress, the countenance was one of relief, with visibly suitable to the age smile directed towards Fuyuka.
“I introduced myself earlier: I am Ohana. May I ask for your name?”
“I-I am, Fuyuka… Fuyuka Hiiragi, but…”
“Hiiragi-sama, are you! I truly look forward being of service from today on! Now then, now then, if only you would be so good as to remove this headdress——”
“W-wait a moment, wait!?”
Fuyuka muddled her way through to interrupt the dialogue somehow, which, don-don,3 was wilfully about to proceed on its own. Instantly, the expression of the young maiden in front of her eyes have clouded anxiety, and though not without a strange feeling of guilt, Fuyuka threw doubt.
“So… Eh, what? Wife? Whose???”
“Whose, you say. It was settled, was it not—yours, Hiiragi-sama? Oh! C-could it be that a nuance of wedding varies here!?”
“No, here it also should hold an equal meaning.”
Maintaining an umbrella priestess was to answer to maiden’s uncertainty. Once approached closer, her stature was clearly much taller than Fuyuka’s, and the fox mask only served to complete her intimidating air.
“Is that right… Then—, Hiiragi-sama, I have come here as your wife-sama. So much so. Is there any part difficult to understand?”
“Th-there it is—right there! The ‘wife’… Do you understand what it means!?”
“Ah, ahuh—… It is, is it not, the connection where we should live supporting each other for a lifetime as spouses?”
“So it is! Eh? Am I the odd one here??? Huh—?”
Fuyuka, who had a question mark in boisterous dance over her head, zui,4 once again lay under the pressure of the young maiden.
“May I kindly ask you to take off and receive the headdress, for now? Otherwise, nothing would commence!”
“Y-yes? The headdress that covers you, this?”
“Why, that’s it! Come now, come now, kindly!”
Momentum of the maiden Ohana was so exceptionally masterful that Fuyuka moved her hands before she even could duly think it over.
By design, to wear bridal headdress is to keep a visage of the bride from being seen by anyone apart from her partner. In other words, taking it off certainly betoken… Exactly.
Unable to dwell on such thought, however, Fuyuka makes no pause and unhurriedly removes the silk floss headdress.
“Ears!? Why!?”
Since a while ago, Fuyuka issued but daze and confusion. It was inevitable, however, for, bounce, from the head of the maiden in front of her eyes had popped up a pair of ears of the fox. “Some sort of accessory?” she thought to herself; but they were moving naturally, and did not appear to be an artificial pair whatsoever.
Nevertheless, amazement of Fuyuka did not cease there.
“Tail!? Why!?”
Until just now, she failed to notice it due to agitation. Or rather, was quite conscious of its presence on her approach. Anyhow, from about coccyx, passed through the white kimono, was swaying a single bushy tail.
Ohana replied quizzically to revealing pure wonder Fuyuka.
“Who could have thought you would be this surprised? It is commonplace, for I am part of a Youko tribe…”
“Yo-Yo-Yo-Youko…???”
Yet again, an overwhelming revelation exceeded Fuyuka’s mental capacity, and vertigo seized her, when at last, she was about to collapse to the ground.
“Oh be careful!”
The support came from maiden in front of her eyes. In spite of difference between an adult and a child, Fuyuka was surprised to find herself being unexpectedly firmly supported, and simultaneously enfolded in mild warmth of a female which she had not experienced in a long time.
“Are-are you all right?”
“I am sorry… Everything is happening so fast, I can’t seem to keep up… Huh?”
Hardly had Fuyuka mustered herself up to somewhat raise her bearing from supported position as the countenance overcome a fresh surprise.
That was for the bizarre landscape from a moment ago have restored its former shape: Neither row of numerous small torii gates, nor an august Shinto shrine, along with female wearing a fox mask and miko outfit, had remained.
However, singular vixen in front of her eyes—Ohana—stayed intact.
“It appears I was able to transfer safely…”
As she blinked at Ohana, who, “Phew,” grew a sigh of relief, Fuyuka reached her hands to soft cheeks of the maiden.
“… Um? What is it?”
Whereupon, with no hesitation…
“Fuwhai—, whaiaayoudwooin~~.”
Mochi-mochi5–were stretched cheeks of the other. So soft as mochi6 cheeks were not an apparition of any sort, and protests left Ohana’s lips.
Then, not sooner than she took her hands off of them, Fuyuka pinched her own cheeks next. Stretching them not so gently as earlier, it was rather painful.
“It hurts.”
“Are you sure you are all right…?”
Ohana was puzzled by the abrupt conducts. Fuyuka, however, on the other hand, has been baffled far beyond that.
“A-anyway, I am looking forward being of service from now on!”
Fuyuka had to pinch her cheeks again at the words which appeared to proclaim the beginning anew.
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