Incident 1

"Mushrooms"

(Or, two magicians escalate an argument over fungi to ludicrous levels)

"Ciao!" I heard a familiar voice as I sat outside on Hakurei Shrine's house's porch, and soon Marisa Kirisame drifted into view on her broom. "Erika! What're you doing?"

"Reimu's being lazy again," I said, gesturing inside. "So am I."

"So you're free then?" Marisa said. "Great! I need your help with a little something, ze. It's mushroom season, you see, and I wanna grab as many as possible today. And, well, two's better than one, so I decided if I had your help I'd be able to grab twice as many. You coming?"

I turned around to look at Reimu sleeping for a moment, then shrugged. "Sure. Did you invite Alice?"

"Her? Nah, I don't wanna squabble with her over our haul. She always thinks I'm keeping too many for myself."

I quietly smiled to myself. "Good call. Marisa's really greedy, there's no way there won't be a fight."

"There's a lot in the Forest today, though, so if we get enough I might let you keep some," Marisa winked. "You could cook something for Reimu. You're good at that, right?"

"If you say so. Reimu's gonna love it…"

After making sure Reimu was still fast asleep, I rode with Marisa towards her house in the Forest of Magic. "Come to think of it, this is the first time I've been to your house, Marisa," I said.

"Oh yeah…" Marisa said.

"Do you mind if I come inside?"

I felt Marisa flinch. (I had wrapped my arms around her to keep myself from falling off of her broom.) "Uh...no, but I'll just be inside for a minute and then we can go. You really should wait outside."

Now that I think about it, I remember Alice saying that Marisa's house is really messy, I thought. Suddenly, I felt some switch being flicked on inside me. "I'd like to see your house. Just for a minute is fine."

At that point, we landed in front of Marisa's cobblestone hut. "U-uh, you can't!" Marisa laughed nervously. "J-just give me a minute! That's all I need!" She ran inside and closed the door.

It took me all of 5 seconds to decide to open the door...and then I found it locked. "...Marisa?"

I heard lots of scuffling inside, so it was hard to tell what was going on. Unfortunately, since I had no magic, I couldn't exactly blast the door down, but the neat freak within me was sounding off a lot of alarms. Mental note: Come back here with Reimu or Alice later. Sakuya would probably agree as well.

After Marisa came out clutching a couple of baskets, we finally set off. "Look for the mushrooms that are brown and wide, or white and thin." Marisa explained. "Watch out for any flashy colors, ze. They're usually close to the ground, under trees. We'll split up, but if you run into any trouble, just shout and I'll come, ze!"

"Got it." I replied, though I doubted the last part. Sure, Marisa was fast, but would she even hear me?

So we parted, and I started searching through the Forest. Marisa was right about there being lots of mushrooms - soon my basket was already full of the stuff that the witch had asked for. I started thinking about what I could make for Reimu when I got back. The thing with living with Reimu Hakurei is that you have a shoestring budget, because no one ever donates to the Hakurei Shrine. (I think it has to do with the fact that Reimu is friends with a lot of youkai.) I have no idea how she managed to keep herself well fed before I was transported here, especially considering how much she likes to slack off. In any case, Reimu now pretty much relies on me to cook for the two of us.

At least it gave me an excuse to use the cooking skills I learned back home. That was one of the few things I was good at.

As I was walking along, however, something caught my eye. Behind a bush, there was a mushroom with a large, golden-colored cap. I narrowed my eyes. Marisa had said to watch out for flashy colors, but I recalled both Alice and Patchouli saying that this particular type of fungi was a good source of spirit, the resource that Gensokyo's residents used for their magic, alongside some typical health benefits. It also happened to be extraordinarily rare. "Marisa would probably like this."

Just as I reached down to pick it, however… "Oh, hello, Erika."

"Kyaa!" I jumped and turned around to see a girl with blonde hair, light blue dress and a doll floating next to her - Alice Margatroid, whose timing probably could not have been any better. "Oh, um, hello, Alice."

Alice looked down at the basket I was carrying. "Oh, you're going mushroom hunting as well?" I noticed that she was also carrying a basket filled with mushrooms.

"Uh, yeah, with Marisa." I nodded. "We split up."

Alice cocked her head to the side. "I see…"

"Oh yeah," I motioned for Alice to come over. " I remember you told me about a golden-capped mushroom, right? I think I found one..."

In hindsight, I probably shouldn't have done that.

Alice, curious, walked over and knelt down where I was, and her eyes widened at the sight of the golden-capped mushroom. "That's…!" She quickly picked it off the ground and stared at it for a while, her eyes twinkling. She eventually snapped out, and, looking between me and the mushroom in consideration, eventually offered the fungus to me. "You found it. It should be yours…"

However, I could notice the intense desire in Alice's eyes. I felt like Alice needed it more than Marisa did, so I refused. "No, no, you can have it. I really don't need it that much."

Alice's eyes traveled back and forth between me and the mushroom. She seemed utterly surprised by my offer. "A-are you sure? You don't want it?"

"No, I don't, just take it!" I hurriedly pressed the mushroom into Alice's hands, trying to end this before Marisa arrived.

"But this is so rare!" Alice cried. "You're the one who found it, you should keep it! I don't-"

"Just take it! You need it, right? I can tell!"

Alice sighed in resignation. "If you insist...thank-"

"Erikaaa!" I heard a familiar voice from afar. "How much have you found, ze?"

Oh no.

Marisa appeared behind a line of trees. "Erika! Oh, Alice too? What are you doing here?"

"Same as you, doofus," Alice said. "Gathering mushrooms."

I noticed Marisa's eye twitch. It's kind of hard to believe that the two can trade snipes at each other like this and still be good friends, but that's the nature of their relationship. Marisa cleared her throat. "Ahem. Well, then I got a leg up, because I have the always reliable and responsible Erika here with me. So that's two against one, ze!"

"More like one and a half against one." Alice scoffed. "I fail to see how you can match even a single regular human."

"Guys…" I spoke up. "Let's not start here."

Marisa shrugged. "So, anyways, what have you dug up so far, Erika?" She walked over and noticed the golden-capped mushroom in my hand, which I'd forgotten to hide or give to Alice. "Ooooh! Is that-?" Her eyes shone in delight.

"It's mine," Alice interjected. "Erika gave it to me."

"Whaaaat? Erika, how could you? We were supposed to be friends!" Marisa pouted.

"I, uh…" I have a bad feeling about this.

Marisa straightened herself up. "In any case, Erika is my mushroom-hunting buddy, so anything she finds is also mine. In other words, that golden baby belongs to me!" She extended a hand, as if gesturing, "gimme, gimme".

Alice frowned. "Dream on. Erika said she'd give it to me, so it's mine."

"But she hasn't given it to you yet, so it's still mine-I mean, ours!"

I started to sweat. I have to come up with a way to resolve this peacefully, and fast! "Uh, you know what? Marisa, Alice, I have an idea! Just rock-paper-scissors! We don't have to fight over that thing so hard!"

I saw the sparks fly between the two magicians' eyes. "If Erika says so, then so be it." Alice said.

"Jan, Ken, Hoi!"

Alice won.

I sighed in relief, but unfortunately for me, that wasn't the end of it. Far from it - I'd underestimated Marisa's will.

"You got lucky!" She complained. "Rock-paper-scissors is a game of luck, isn't it?!"

"That is true," Alice said, "but-"

"OK, OK, let's try something else then!" I quickly said. "Uhhh, staring contest! Go!"

The two magicians stared at each other so intently that I barely managed to keep myself from laughing. I stopped, however, when I saw the result. They blinked - at the exact same time.

"You blinked first!" Marisa exclaimed.

"What are you talking about? You blinked!" Alice protested. They both looked at me as if I was the judge.

As much as I wanted to end this, I couldn't risk losing either of them as my friend, and besides, my sense of fairness wouldn't allow me to picked one - they'd tied, after all. "I-it was a tie!" I quickly began racking my brain, trying to think of something else.

Both stared at me, then at each other in disbelief. Then Alice sighed, as if in resignation. "You know what? I suppose we save ourselves the trouble and-"

"Yo mama so ugly, she threw a boomerang and it never came back!"

"Excuse me!?"

I stared at Marisa in utter disbelief. "Really? It's come down to this?"

However, I saw Alice's eye twitch, then, defying all my expectations of her, cleared her throat, and said, "If you insist...Yo mama so ugly, when she looked in a mirror one day, it said, "Viewer discretion advised"."

Marisa visibly flinched.

"Guys..." I cried, fighting down a bizarre urge to laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. "Let's not stoop so low...there has to be another way to settle this..." I still couldn't believe what I was hearing. This conflict started over a rare mushroom, and now we are come to this? A "Yo Mama" smackdown? Kill me now...

Then I heard another voice - a childish one. "Hold it!" The three of us all watched as the familiar figure of, quote-unquote, "the strongest" ice fairy Cirno floated into view, with Daiyousei trailing behind her. Oh, that's right, this spot is pretty close to the Misty Lake, I thought.

I didn't hear what Cirno said - she was probably boasting about her nonexistent strength again - because I noticed Marisa and Alice glance at each other, then at me. "Danmaku battle," Marisa said, pulling out her Mini-Hakkero. "Me and Alice against that fairy. Three hits. First person to deal the finishing blow wins."

"Wait-" I tried to protest, knowing that the combined might of these two magicians would quite literally blow Cirno away, but before I could say anything, Marisa and Alice had already taken off.

"And I...uh..." Cirno seemed to falter when she saw the two magicians start flying towards her. I was pretty sure she could feel their murderous intent. "Wait...what are you..."

"Cirno," I called out. "Run."

"T-the strong don't flee...!" Cirno said uncertainly. "But my instincts are telling me to get out...!"

Cirno had barely moved an inch when Marisa and Alice flew to both sides of her. I watched as both of them pulled out their spellcards, as Marisa pointed her Mini-Hakkero at the ice fairy and Alice formed her dolls into a circle in front of her. Internally, I said, Cirno, you might have been delusional, but you were also funny. Rest in peace."

"Love Sign, "Master Spark"!"

"Scarlet Sign, "Holland Doll"!"

Two different lasers, both huge, both powerful, blasted out of Marisa and Alice's respective catalysts and barreled towards the poor, clueless ice fairy in their path. I shielded my eyes from the light, and when I looked back, I barely noticed Cirno flying off into the distance, Daiyousei fluttering after her. "Cirno-samaaaa!"

Now that I think about it, I thought, that technically counts as two hits. So...no winner?

Unfortunately, Marisa and Alice both seemed to think the same. "So that didn't work out..." Alice mused aloud.

"Umm...uhh...hang on!" I panicked, trying to think of another idea for a competition before things went south. "I, uh, I have an idea-"

Too late. "Let's settle this the old-fashioned, fair way!" Marisa said, pointing towards Alice. "You and me, danmaku battle, right here, right now, ze!"

Nooo! Anything but that! I screamed internally. That's what I've been trying to avoid! There's no need to go that far!

"You're so persistent," Alice said. "Have it your way."

"Wait, wait, wait!" I yelled as the two floated upwards. "There's no need to hurt each other over a mushroom!"

"It's not just a mushroom!" I heard both Marisa and Alice shout at me from the sky.

"E-even so, it's just a small addition to your spirit!" I tried again. "Is that tiny bit of extra spirit really that important to you guys?!"

"Yes!"

"Whyyyy!?" I remembered something Reimu said: "Everyone here's kinda starved for battle, so watch out." Do they really like danmaku that much?

I think Alice also said something similar, which I thought was ironic.

Suddenly, I saw a flash of light - someone had flown really fast from elsewhere, right towards our position. I ducked, not knowing what was going to happen. Then I heard a very familiar voice shouting, "What the hell do you two think you're doing?!"

I looked up. "Reimu!"

The shrine maiden was holding Marisa and Alice by the collar when she looked down and saw me. "Erika! What are you doing here?"

"I, uh…" I could tell Reimu was angry about something, and I was pretty sure it had something to do with Marisa and Alice fighting. "I tried to stop them!"

Reimu sighed. "I guessed as much."

"Wait, wait, wait!" Marisa cried. "Why'd you just barge in, ze? This is between me and Alice!"

Reimu's eye twitched. "Are you sure about that?"

Reimu took us to the Hakurei Shrine, and there I saw the unintentional damage - a streak of burnt, wiped out forestland, dangerously close to the shrine. I recalled the combined spellcards that Marisa and Alice had thrown out against Cirno.. Wow, those things sure are powerful…Good thing Reimu stopped them before anything happened...

"Care to explain?" Reimu hissed at Marisa and Alice, who were kneeling in front of her.

"I-I didn't even realize!" Marisa said quickly, shaking." I was just fighting with Alice over something!"

"Over what?" Reimu cocked her head to the side.

Neither of them answered. Then I remembered the basket I was carrying, and the mushrooms in it. I dug inside and found the golden-capped mushroom safely stowed inside. "Er...they were fighting over this."

Reimu took the mushroom, examined it. "My shrine was almost destroyed...because of this?" She muttered in utter disbelief.

I have a bad feeling about this.

Reimu took a deep breath. She stared at the mushroom for a long while, as if she was thinking about what to do with it. She's not going to give it to Marisa or Alice, that's for sure… But she can't just take it, either, that would just be theft, and I don't think Reimu wants to become a second Marisa.

Then, to my surprise, and the horror of the magicians behind her, Reimu threw the mushroom on the ground and stomped on it. "My shrine almost got wrecked over this," she growled.

"Noooooo!" Marisa and Alice both cried, but the fungus was already gone. Without a shred of emotion, Reimu turned and went inside the house, leaving the witch and the puppeteer crying over their lost treasure.

Ah, well. At least, I was glad to have my friends back and not feuding with each other over some tiny mushroom.

I couldn't even use magic in the first place, so that thing had no value for me.

That evening, Reimu, still seething a bit, walked out of her room to a meal grander than usual. Among the dishes - a large bowl of stew in the center of the table. "Ooh, what's this?" She said, lightening up.

"Mushroom stew," I said. "I got the ingredients this morning, when I went mushroom gathering with Marisa. We didn't just find that golden-capped thing, you know."

Fortunately, the stew was able to cheer Reimu up, and I was glad to be able to make up for nearly destroying her shrine.

Extra Stage 1

"Uniform"

"What's with the clothes you're wearing, anyway?" Reimu asked me one day. "They're Outside World clothes, right?"

On most days I wore my old high school uniform: a gray skirt and white blazer, or during summer, a white shirt. I had six sets, one for each day of the week that I went to school in the Outside World. They became my regular uniform after I came to Gensokyo. "I'm just used to wearing this, I guess. I think it looks good, and now I feel obliged to keep wearing it because that's the image that everyone has of me."

"Don't you ever get tired of that outfit?" Reimu said.

I shook my head. "It's comfortable. Besides," I wagged my finger at her, "don't you ever get tired of wearing that miko outfit every day? Everyone I see in Gensokyo always seems to wear the same thing, day after day. Even Sanae, the other Outside World girl, is always in that blue-and-white shrine maiden outfit."

Which is true. I've seen some people wear scarves on top of their normal outfits during winter, but that's about it. I wondered if any of them even bothered to wash their clothes. I once heard that Albert Einstein had multiple sets of the same outfit that he wore every day, to save brainpower. I wonder if everyone is like that?...Actually, I remember Reimu's ribbon sometimes having a different color. On most days it's yellow, but sometimes I see it's blue. Hmm...it's probably just a personal thing.

Reimu sighed and slumped on the floor. "True," she said. "I guess it'd feel weird if, for example, you suddenly started wearing something else."

"Like I said, everyone sees Erika Mineba in a high school uniform, and I don't see a need to change that," I said, shrugging.

It's kind of like in anime or manga - if a major character wore something different than they usually do, it would make the audience feel as if something important is about to happen, or that said character just underwent a big change. Although...

"Can you actually imagine the others wearing different clothing?" I said.

"Hmm..."

First we tried to imagine me in a shrine maiden outfit, similar to Reimu's old one. It actually fits!...Sort of. I guess that outfit is versatile.

Then, Reimu, Marisa, and some of the other people in school uniforms like the one I was wearing. It was shockingly difficult. Why can I only imagine Sanae as a schoolgirl? Maybe it's because she's from the Outside World...Is this just like, an experience thing?

Me as a maid. "Sakuya would be jealous," Reimu commented.

Then, somehow, we drifted to-

"I know, I know!" I exclaimed. "Reisen in a bunny suit! She's a bunny, right?"

...

Oh God.

"Uhh..." I mentally apologized to Reisen for thinking of her in such a way. "I think we should stop there, before this spreads to anyone else."

"Agreed," said Reimu, her face slightly red.

Incident 2

"Witch's House"

(Or, 3 of Marisa Kirisame's friends come together to forcefully clean house)

"Reimu."

"Mmm?"

"Have you ever wondered what the inside of Marisa's house is like?" I asked.

Reimu put a hand to her chin in thought. "Now that I think about it, I've never actually been inside...yes, I do wonder about that sometimes. Why do you ask?"

"I've been thinking about it, too," I said. "A few days ago, when Marisa and Alice fought each other over a mushroom, before that I went over to Marisa's house. Oh, but I didn't actually go in. When I asked to do so, she seemed...concerned? In any case, she wouldn't let me in."

"Oh, that place is going to be a mess for sure," Reimu said, sipping her tea. "Marisa's a kleptomaniac, she'll never throw away things she has, but she steals a lotta stuff."

I raised an eyebrow. "How does she even live like that?"

"I dunno," Reimu shrugged.

The thought of a pile of random objects filling Marisa's house to the brim made me shudder. You see, I liked order and organized places. "Reimu, I need you to go with me for a bit," I said.

"Hmm? Where?" Reimu said, standing up.

"We're going to Marisa's house to do a little cleaning," I said, making my resolve clear. "But first, we might need some help."

So we went over to the Scarlet Devil Mansion to enlist the master of cleaning: a certain time-stopping maid.

"Meiling's sleeping again," I said when we arrived at the gates, pointing at the SDM's Chinese gatekeeper snoozing while standing.

"She's never not asleep," said Reimu. "I'm kind of envious of her, actually."

We were able to get in without waking Meiling up (which wasn't that hard), and found Sakuya sweeping the foyer. "Oh, if it isn't Reimu...and Erika, too," Sakuya said when she noticed us. "What brings you here?"

"Actually, Reimu and I wanted to ask a small favor of you," I said. "We need you to help us do a bit of cleaning and sorting out stuff. You see, one of my friends may or may not have a really messy house, and-"

"Let me guess," Sakuya interrupted, leaning her broom against the wall. "Marisa?"

I glanced at Reimu, who shrugged. "How did you know?" I asked, surprised.

Sakuya sighed. "Well, every now and then Marisa barges in and, quote-unquote "borrows" a few books from Lady Patchouli's library."

I shook my head in disbelief. "And you just let her?"

"There's no point in trying to catch her in the act," Sakuya replied. "She'll just come back, again and again. She's that persistent. Believe me, I tried." She paused for a bit. "Though...you say you're coming to clean up her house?"

I nodded.

"Then I'm in."

Reimu and I stared at each other in disbelief. "Just like that?" Reimu said. "No qualms? No argument? Nothing?"

"For as much as I enjoy having Marisa as a guest, I've always disliked her tendency towards burglary," Sakuya replied coolly. "I've always wanted to show her that I do care for Lady Patchouli's possessions. She is, after all, my mistress' friend."

"Well..." I trailed off. I hadn't been expecting to be able to persuade Sakuya to help us so easily. "Then I guess we won't complain."

We flew a while into the Forest of Magic until we arrived at Marisa's stone cottage. It was about the size of a colonial house, only a bit smaller. That's a lot of space...

I knocked on the door to Marisa's house. "Hello?"

"Comin' right out!" We heard Marisa's voice. Moments later, the door opened. "Oh, mind the-"

I didn't hear the rest of what she said, as before I could even blink, I found myself up in the air, with Sakuya carrying me by the arms, and Reimu floating next to us. We heard a crash, and then watched in disbelief as a mountain of things collapsed from within Marisa' house and flooded out of the door over where we were standing seconds ago. The wave of junk flowed so fast, I felt like I would have been washed away if I was still there. Then, Marisa poked her blonde head out of the door. "Sorry about that! My house is a bit full today, so-" She paused, confused as to why there was no one there, then looked around and saw us floating in the air.

What has she been stockpiling!? I thought, but then I felt a murderous aura radiating behind me. Sakuya was glaring knives at the witch. "...Unacceptable," she hissed.

I wasn't the only neat freak in Gensokyo.

After tying Marisa up outside, we waded into the sea of objects inside Marisa's house. To call it a mess was an understatement.

"Just how many books did she steal from Lady Patchouli's library?" I heard Sakuya mutter. "I don't even recognize some of these...Wait, I think I saw this one at Suzunaan. Don't tell me she just took it from Kosuzu?"

"These are all the clothes Marisa wore during past incidents," Reimu said, crouching over a pile of witch clothing that I swore looked identical to her current one. "Doesn't she wash them?"

"Can't she just-" I dragged my foot out of a mound of...stuff. "-throw some of this away?"

"She'll never, she's a kleptomaniac," Reimu said.

"Kleptomaniac...?" I turned around and glanced at Marisa, tied up and lying outside of the house. "Huh." I remembered Alice saying something of the sort, but I didn't believe until I saw her house with my own eyes. Speaking of...

I noticed a small figure amidst the mess and picked it up. "Hey, isn't this-"

Then the world was black for somewhere around ten seconds. Something - no, a lot of somethings had fallen on top of me right after I picked up that figure. I heard Reimu and Sakuya call out my name, and they took a while to dig me out of the pile.

"Erika, don't do that again!" Reimu said, distressed. "You scared me!"

"Sorry, I wasn't watching," I said. I held up the object I'd picked up before my near-death. "Hey, isn't this one of Alice's dolls? Where did she even get this?"

"Who knows?" Sakuya sighed. "In any case, this unholy collection of items has to go."

"How do you propose we do that?" Reimu asked. "Some of this stuff might be dangerous. Hell, just the quantity of this junk is potentially lethal. You saw what happened to Erika."

"Then we'll need your talismans and charms," Sakuya said. "You can lift them off the ground without laying a finger on them, and disperse any unwanted magic. That's your specialty, isn't it?"

"Well," I spoke up, shooting a glance at the tied-up Marisa outside. "This is technically Marisa's stuff, so we'll have to ask her permission before we throw any of this away."

None of us said anything for a while. Then all of us burst out laughing. Even Marisa - for a few seconds. "Wait...why am I laughing?"

"Ask for permission!" Reimu said as if it was the stupidest thing that could possibly be done at that moment. "You think she knows what permission means? She doesn't ask for permission when she "borrows" stuff, does she?"

"The very definition of theft is, "taking others' property without their consent"," Sakuya said, struggling to contain her laughter, trying to prevent the image of Sakuya Izayoi, the elegant and dignified maid from melting away. "In any case..."

"How are we going to go about this?" I asked once we'd settled down.

Sakuya held up three fingers. "We'll sort this mess into 3 piles outside. One contains the items that need to be disposed of, another consisting of things that we'll return to their original owners if we can, and the third will be the things that Marisa will be allowed to keep."

"That's good," Reimu remarked. "Let's start with...Marisa Kirisame, in the disposal pile."

"Noooo!"

"Reimu and I will take care of sorting the items and handling the harder-to-move objects," Sakuya explained, paying no attention to Marisa. "Erika, you take care of the smaller things and clean up afterwards."

The three of us ignored Marisa's cries and went to work. Mind you, we didn't actually put Marisa up for "disposal", though the thought was funny.

"Uhhh..."

We were just about done when Alice showed up. "Erika? What are you doing?" She looked at me and the tall piles of stuff that I was standing next to, confused.

"Cleaning house," I said. "Reimu and Sakuya are inside."

"Reimu and..." Alice trailed off, frowning slightly. I suddenly remembered that Alice and Sakuya didn't exactly have the most positive of relationships. The dollmaker looked at Marisa lying helplessly on the ground, then back to me. "I suppose it's high time someone dealt with that claustrophobic mess of a home. I have no clue how Marisa is able to live like that."

I shrugged. "Me neither." Then I remembered one of the things I'd found - I dug into the "return to sender" pile and found the doll I picked up earlier. "I believe this is yours."

Alice's bewilderment visibly intensified. "What? When? Where? How?"

"Gapped if I know," I said.

Alice reluctantly took the doll. "I...I remember giving one to Marisa for her "experiments", but I never thought it'd end up like this." She sighed. "Thanks."

Alice walked away and disappeared from view just as Reimu and Sakuya went outside, carrying the last of Marisa's mess. "Did someone just drop by?" Sakuya asked.

"A friend of ours," I said evasively.

Reimu and Sakuya exchanged looks. "Probably best to not push further," Reimu said. She too was aware of Sakuya and Alice's contempt for each other.

After we sorted everything out, I went inside. Although the junk was all cleaned out, one look at the inside of Marisa's cottage and I still wasn't satisfied. "Sakuya, can you get me Marisa's broom?"

"Hmm? Why?"

"There's dust everywhere and I hate it."

While Reimu laughed, and Sakuya struggled to stifle chuckles of her own, Marisa squirmed. "My broom is not for cleaning!" She protested. "It's for flying!"

"Brooms are made for cleaning," I told her nonchalantly. "It's your fault you decided to become so attracted to it by making it your method of flight." Why do witches fly on brooms, anyway?

"Erika, do you like cleaning that much?!" Reimu asked more intensely then she probably meant to after we'd went home. "You were singing as you swept the house!"

"Uh...was I?" I couldn't remember that.

Reimu sighed. "Well, nevermind. If you do like it, then you'll get another chance eventually. I think for a long while Marisa's house should have some semblance of cleanliness, but give it some time and it'll be just like before."

I almost dropped the cup of tea I was drinking. "You mean our cleanup was just a colossal waste of time!?"

"Yep."

"And you didn't tell me?!"

"Well, you were having fun, so I didn't want to interrupt," Reimu said, casually sipping her tea. "Besides, it's worth it to see Marisa cry."

I slumped on the floor. "You're cruel..."

"It's part of the job."

There was one thing we kept from the cleanup: an electric fan. I don't know when or where or how Marisa go her hands on such a thing, but after I asked Nitori for help, it worked. It was the middle of summer, so both Reimu and I appreciated having it.

Though I probably won't visit Marisa's house ever again.

Hello! Hello! Welcome!

This is a fun little slice-of-life Touhou fanfic following Erika Mineba, an Outside Girl living with Reimu. That's it. Just daily life stuff. My hope is for this to be relaxing and funny at the same time.

Now, I know what you're thinking - "who would want to read a story about everyday happenings?" All I can say is, you'd be surprised.

Obviously, since this is my first story, I'd really appreciate it if you left a review. After all, I have zero confidence that this will actually be funny or relaxing to anyone who reads it - I'm not the best at writing humor, but I'm trying. Anyways, thanks for reading, and see you next Incident!