It’s embarrassing, but I woke late that morning. My head hurt, my perfected body whined at every move. I snuggled tight into my wife’s welcoming, curvaceous body to shield my poor, defenseless eyes from the burning sunlight. My legs entwined with her own full, healthy thighs and strong shins.

The legs she lost. Years ago. Centuries ago.

Still groggy, I groaned. Too tender to dare look, I listened.

She conveyed the same old fears of abandonment and isolation. Frustrations at trust betrayed. The same unwavering determination to see her ideals realized. That unflinching spirit that first drew me in. Then something else slipped through.

A sense of protectiveness. Not for her descendants or allies. For youkai. Not some youkai. All of them. Or most of them, at least. All underlaid with a broad distrust of humanity.

…And a wish to repent for severe misdeeds.

I groaned again, louder. She stirred, conveying similar physical discomforts and a distinct yearning for a good cup of sake. That one puzzled me.

Straining, I peeked one eye open.

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“Platonic love is love from the neck up.”
—Thyra Samter Winslow

Rice and Rain >>/shorts/2209

Inspired by, or shamelessly stolen from. Take your pick. Mibya wrote that (>>/gensokyo/15535).

Don't expect this to be long!

A request courtesy of Mibya >>/gensokyo/15696

++++++++

Tok.

I bounce the ball in my hand, and a dirt-circle spreads from the hit, dust dancing kind of pretty.

Tok...

I’m surprised I can hear it. It’s loud out here.

Tmp—sh shh...

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“Despite how it looks, it’ll be easy to fix.” The young man takes a few steps back from the broken door. “Though I’ll recommend we get you a new one entirely.”

“I’m not sure we can afford it.” The teacher shakes her head. “Our budget is tight as it is, and we have to save up for winter too.”

“Forget about it.” He dismissively waves her concern away. “Regardless of what I do, I charge a standard service fee, which you’ve already agreed to pay.” Reaching into his vest, he pulls out a vial with a thick brown liquid in it. “If I take this broken door as compensation, I’ll be able to replace all other costs for making you a new door.”

“I know you run your business in an unusual way,” the teacher folds her arms, “but what exactly can you use a broken door for?”

The young artisan looks at her for a second, puzzled by her words. “Oh right, you’ve never actually seen me work.” Placing the vial on the table, he frees up his hands to cracks his knuckles. “How many years have you been my customer now, Keine? Doesn’t matter, you’re going to be in for a treat.”

Holding his hand over the vial, it starts to float. As he drags it through the air into the more open space, the cork sealing the liquid inside is popped off. Drawing his other hand away, a few drops of the brown liquid follows the motion out of the glass container.

With the vial now suspended in the air he claps his hands around the droplets. As he draws them apart again, hardwood fills the space.

Using careful movements, he guides the growth of the tree granting it the rough shape of a door. As a final touch, he flattens it before it solidifies.

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Thread 1: >>38346
Thread 2: >>38909

[x] Kokoro is learning about this sort of thing too, right? Maybe talking to her might help!

Before I can come up with an answer to that, Medicine surprises me. She slowly and awkwardly puts her arms around me and hugs me back.

...umm, what's that smell? It's kind of... sweet? And it's coming from Medicine's hair...

"You smell like flowers," I say.

"It's su-san's smell," Medicine mumbles.

"Er... aren't suzuraan poisonous?" I'm not going to get sick from hugging her am I?

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First off, hi yes it's still me. Don't worry about the change in magical signature up on top - I accidentally the magical equivalent of burning off my fingertips, and it still smarts a bit. With any luck I'll get it fixed soon, but until then let's just keep on going.

Thanks for waiting!

------------------------------

Reimu's kitchen is the largest room in the shrine; even with all of her money troubles, she does her best to eat well. Her pantry is always... stocked. Not fully by any means, but it is stocked, with dried vegetables and meats, fruits here and there - stuff that's easy to cook and easier to store.

I've been invading Reimu's personal space for years, so it's pretty simple to disable the warning charms slapped all over her tea cabinet; no need to wake my shrine maiden up. It's simpler still to dole out the right amount of leaves to suit her tastes, and to magic away just enough water from Reimu's buckets to steep the tea in. A snap of my fingers creates a quick spark, and then it's just a matter of leaving the pot on the stove until the steam wakes Reimu up.

I don't particularly want to sit on my laurels, but there's not much to do in the first place. The master of the house is off dreaming, and helping myself to Reimu's food just feels a bit too wrong right now. Hell, she's even starting a garden just to bolster her diet. It's - kinda depressing. Girl does so much to keep the peace, but it's a struggle to get enough to eat.

It takes a little while for the idea to actually worm its way into my head, but once it does I start scrambling. I find the small collection of seeds Reimu begged off the Village's farmers easily enough, and I even take the time to glance over them. I mean, they were all sorts of shapes and sizes, and it's not like I can identify them on sight... but I'm sure Reimu has some idea of what she's planting. The villagers should have given her the more hardy varieties anyway, if they have any sense at all.

Planting them without her permission will either piss her off or make

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Pic unrelated.

-o-o-o-

Front Matter. Skip this section if you wanna go straight into the story.

This story will probably be centered around the Human Village, with some adventurous moments. MC will most likely be close-to-earth and interacts more with the humans. There shouldn't be any fights more dangerous than… say, against Rumia in the dark with bare hands.

I deleted my previous CYOA: Endless Flight since I started to get spams from my exposed email address. Also, that setting was so complicated that I decide to scratch it all together (I suppose Anons don’t like massive original setting crossover. I will keep those at bare minimum this time). One idea, however, is stuck in my mind: a low-profile low-power white mage who can teleport. What can he/she do?

Important: I am not a native English speaker, but I am a professional English user. If you spot a grammatical error, it does not imply I suck at English. I fix many problems in each pass of proof-reading, and I always proof-read three times or more, but I always miss one or two places. Unless you spot consistent mistakes, most will be one-time only. Remember, for every grammatical mistake you spot, I have fixed at least ten. It is frustrating to spend hours to polish a wall of 3000 words and the only comments are about how I messed up plural forms (though I had that one coming because I did make the same mistake quite a few times). If you really want to comment on my grammar, try to mix it with comments about the plot. I do not have a problem with grammar-picking, but please remember that commenting on grammar is trivial, especially for native English speakers, but the action gives an impression that I did not put work on polishing: an impression which is completely wrong and misleading. Honestly, I think criticizing the plot is much more helpful than picking errors in my grammar.

TL;DR: I appreciate criticism on my plot, pace, settings, character development and interaction, and recurring grammatical mistakes. Skip one-time grammatical errors, please. Names follow Asian conventions: Last Name then First Name

-o-o-o-

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[x] An assistant librarian.

"Heeeey!" I call, waving, "Koakuma!"

Koakuma's head jerks up from scanning the rest of the village. She puts on a burst of speed, swoops slightly, and does an acrobatic flip to land quickly without flipping her skirt. She touches down almost silently a few paces in front of us, straightens, and mutters a spell as she approaches. With a flick of her fingers and a few glowing runes, all four of her wings seem to just melt away.

Of course, most of the village just saw all of that, so it feels a little pointless to put on a disguise now.

"Miss Marisa," Koakuma says, bowing very slightly. She wears the tired half-smile of someone whose day isn't going well at all.

"Heya Koa," Marisa says, "yer a rare sight outside the Mansion. Ol' Patches send ya out book-huntin' or somethin'?"

"If only," Koakuma groans. "It's all hands on deck at the moment. Lady Remilia sent me to find you, among other people." She glances at me and Sekibanki. "I guess it might interest you too."

"Eh? Whassat ol' bat want with little ol' me?"

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I apologize for the delay, school is already kicking my ass.
Anyway, Previous Threads:
Thread One >>35593
Thread Two >>35921
Thread Three >>36313

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“Perhaps part of it was getting caught up in the moment, but I really do like Youmu and so at the very least I need to try and make things work between us. I would never forgive myself if I broke her heart,” you mumble to yourself as you let the water wash over you. You’ve been thinking for a while and you’ve used up all the hot water at this point. Serious internal debates should probably be done out of the shower when you have someone waiting to use it after you. You shake your head and wash your hair.

Again.

After turning the water off and wrapping a towel around your waist you step out of the shower and over to the sink. On the very edge of the sink is a small package wrapped in brown, now moist, paper with a small note written on it.

“Dear Aaron,

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