Disclaimer: I own nothing, but if I could get my hands on this treasure, Yuuko and Watanuki would have SUCH a touching reunion SO FAST!
Watanuki Kimihiro was baffled by this woman, utterly baffled.
Said woman, Yuuko Ichihara, was a layabout slob. She didn't clean, she didn't cook, she didn't shop for her own food, she didn't seem to do anything except lounge around on her couch, drink sake, smoke her pipe and run a shop that she didn't even get money for. And here he was, a perfectly diligent hard working highschool student, slaving away for her!
He hadn't been her personal servant for more than two days, so he was still quite unfamiliar with her. Who was she? Yah, you could that she goes by Yuuko Ichihara and that she runs a shop that grants wishes but that doesn't tell you anything. How does she grant whishes? What's her real name? What exactly IS Mokana?!
Since he had repeated those and many other questions several times over, he just about gave up caring.
In his hands, he held a pot of steaming noodles. It was a dish Yuuko saw in an advertisement and immediately demanded that he make. Of course, it was a professional restaurant dish so dang her.
"Ah, Watanuki!" Yuuko greeted him with her usual drunken smile while sitting at her porch table "Just in time."
"Here they are," Watanuki sighed heavily as he set the pot in front of her "Your... Noodles..."
Yuuko slurped some up with a pair of elegant chop sticks and cried in delight "Delicious!".
"Yah!" The black pork bun chimed in as he, much to Watanuki's displeasure, ate the rest of the dish he spent the last six hours of his life on "That tasted great!". After belching once, he turned around and declared "Make more, Watanuki!".
And just like that, he exploded with rage.
"I AM NOT YOUR SLAVE!" Watanuki roared, waving his arms in the most peculiar manner "IF YOU LIKE IT SO MUCH, YOU WAIST SIX HOURS OF YOUR LIFE YOU LITTLE-!".
"Now now," Yuuko waved him off nonchalant "He was merely complimenting you, Watanuki. Don't get so worked up."
Yuuko picked up a box that, unbeknownst to Watanuki, was resting on her lap. It was a small wooden box shaped like a cube with a white crane on it's lid and Yuuko handled it with extreme care when picking it up and handing it to the currently raging boy.
"For you, Watanuki."
Said boy stopped in a rather akward position. He then took the box from her hand and eyed it suspiciously like a rather living fox spirit would come out of it.
"Huh?" He said "What's this, Yuuko?".
She used her knowing smile to render him speechless "Ten crane items, counting the box. Think of them as rewards if you want."
Watanuki, well he was twice as baffled as he was at the beginning of the day.
"Why are you giving me-"
"It's not that I give to you. They gave themselves, more like."
"Wh-What?".
"Don't worry, Watanuki. Now, its been a long day of hardships. Why don't you be a dear and bring me some more sake~!".
"Sake?! And what do you mean, "Hardships"?! You didn't do anything but lay on your couch, smoke, drink sake and eat my food!".
"What? I did so much? Well, am I busy."
"Argggghhh!".
In all honesty, she was being completely honest. In her storehouse, she discovered ten crane items, all crying out, begging for her to give them to Watanuki. They said it was to save him. Well, it isn't everyday you have a conversation with your own inanimate belongings.
The time witch had her theories, as she always did but she knew that this was going to the beginning of something beautiful.
"I don't get it! What am I supposed to do with these crane items?!".
"Hmmm... Start a collection like that man at the manor."
Watanuki shivered when recalling him and his hideous obsession with collecting.
"Keep it up." Yuuko winked seductively "Just nine hundred and ninety more and you could be granted a wish, free if charge~!".
Watanuki just scoffed. "Why do I need that when you're here?".
She didn't reply and that shocked him.
She was an immortal time witch. She's would always be around, right?
It was that day that Watanuki Kimihiro made the decision to collect unique crane items that called his name and came in tens...