Dearest Akyuu,

Weather's still rotten. I'm sure the roof's all moldy and one day it'll come crashing down on me and that'll be the end of that.

Truth be told, I'm pretty sad that your help didn't allow you to come to my place. Are they allowed to dictate what their master does, now? I could just as easily rescue you from them, you know, with my Kampo poisons and magics; you only need to say the word. My place is only a little outside the village, after all, no dens of youkai here. I'm enclosing the Buddhist rice crackers, so I hope you're dirtying this letter with the crumbs right now. They really are good, and it really was a shame to eat them without company.

This sodden rain's really put a damper on my mood, and I've had to rewrite this letter several times now, because I kept putting in sentimental blather about my father or Reisen. You don't need to read that: you need good solid teaching instructions. First though, your question.

No, I don't believe that there's a 'Hourai Pharmacy Conspiracy' to take over the medicine business in Gensokyo. I do believe, however, that Ms. Yagokoro wants to become the 'face' of medicine, the first among equals. That she's demanding deference from all the others - starting from the youngest and most exposed, I suppose. She's certainly marshalling all of her resources: in our more open moments, Reisen told me about devices from the outside, devices able to peer into your brain and see through your body. What, exactly, do I have against that? Should I complain about them curing people too well? It's a smothering niceness, is all.

I've felt the effectiveness of their medicine, too: who hasn't taken a Butterfly Dream pill, if only out of curiosity? You probably know this already, but Ms. Yagokoro took the idea of that pill from the Chuang-tzu. She actually made medicine out of a story. I guess most people take it to do away with nightmares, but when I took it, I really felt that I was a butterfly who dreamed about being a Kampo practitioner in Gensokyo. If Ms. Yagokoro can make medicine like that, well.

I'm not grousing, honest. The previous section, for example, was originally two pages long. You probably want the rest of the Reisen story for your Chronicles, and I need to get on with the lessons. And so, we are agreed.

I really hope you didn't skim through the letter. I understand that the previous one took a little while to get going, but I did have a lot to set up, and it was all heartfelt. Just in case, here's the maxim to catch your eye: Partition.

A teacher must set up a border between his role and the rest of his life. Teaching is a taxing job that requires the extent of your wits and the fullest exercise of your dignity, so be clear when you are stepping out of the role.

Did you catch that? It basically means that you shouldn't live as a teacher, You have your front-door, teacher face, and you have your side-door, non-teacher face. So no, I don't go about the village testing out my dignity or kicking people out of chairs.

See, the best thing about dignity is that it reveals itself; once you've shown it, it becomes inherent. When my father went about the village, people would address him as 'teacher' and bow respectfully, even when his hands and face were soiled from root-digging. At the same time, he could get his students to open up, like flowers: lots of nights, my father would entertain several of them in the tea room, and I'd fall asleep to the burbling of their talk.

Sometimes though—and this is how I know he had a good partition—sometimes, you'd hear soft weeping. His students would spill their hearts out to him. He wasn't some scary teacher; he was their friend, and he was mine, too.

The gist of a partition, as told by my father, was this: You can't teach a person before you know the person, and to know a person means stepping out of the teacher role. So the way I figured, it went like this: Reisen is a fake-polite, slippery sort of character, so I haven't gotten to know the actual her, the youkai-her. I had seen glimpses of it, yes - when she felt sure of herself, her voice would lilt higher, prouder - but she would just as quickly scurry back, meeting my dignity with more fakery. I had to set up a place where she could show her youkai self, and then I had to befriend and teach to that self.

Setting a partition is simple enough, especially for you, Akyuu. My rule: change the setting. Me and Reisen spent the first month in the teaching room, and it's an intimidating space. Coming in, a picture of my father (one of those fancy daguerreotypes) would stare at you, silently judging; as you moved towards the desks, you had to avoid these dusty-smelling lacquer boxes full of preserved herbs and roots; the kneeling student desks are bland-looking and were a little too small for Reisen, so often she'd be stuck in this squashed seiza position. Anyway, sitting in her place you could only look at the teacher, the blackboard, or my father's face. The whole room hollered 'learning!'—a little too loudly.

Instead, after the month of Uzuki passed, I began moving her to the tea room once the lessons were over. It's a sparse and cold affair: altar, table, shelf, record table, pillows in the corner. You didn't feel too stuffy in there, though. So I'd declare "The lesson's over, Reisen. Be at ease." Then I'd stretch my arms out, move to the tea room where I had snacks prepared, and begin eating.

So, the partition is simple enough, but getting a stiff like Reisen to ease up was more difficult. Oh, she was deeply confused at first, must've thought this was some kind of trick. She'd follow to the tea room but then sit stock-still, still in her seiza position, waiting for further instructions. I'd just munch my snacks in silence, watching her, until the afternoon was over and she excused herself. Yes, I tried making conversation, but they all went stale, whether about her hair (me: very gorgeous, her: thank you), about the weather (me: beastly, her: yes), or about the snacks (me: aren't they tasty, take one of them, her: yes, no I could never impose). Not a great way to know a person at all. Until a certain afternoon in the month of Satsuki, that is.

It was one of those dun afternoons, you know: rain but also wan orange sunshine, slipping slowly below the hills. It was after an especially hard lesson on Ki ingredients, and Reisen had several times been on the verge of blurting something out, but kept thinking better of it. She had looked frankly sloppy then: the first clue had been her hair, normally done up in a bun or high ponytail; that day it had been done in a frizzy, 'couldn't care less' style. The second clue had been her clothes: she usually changed into something decent after shedding her disguise, but that day her blazer had been scuffed and sweat-stained.

After our lesson, I noticed that she wobbled in her sitting position, and her ears were held at a questioning angle. That had sealed it, something big was on her mind. I was feeling a little amused, so I poked her leg with a manju bun. Her legs had immediately stiffened.

"Loosen up, Reisen, what is it?"

Reisen blinked several times and I thought, goodness, she's the roundabout type. I pushed a plate of manju towards her (very nice milk-flavored ones) and to my surprise, she took one of them.

"Lady Miyake, I don't think Ki exists," she hesitated, squeezing the bun, "I can accept the other two. I've seen fluids and blood. Ki's not there."

I gave her my patient, indulgent look. It was her habit: she would casually let drop that she just didn't believe in this or that, often days after the lessons were over. Sometimes she did even worse, so this was unusually prompt of her. I tried to explain.

"Ki's the vital energy making your mind and body function. You can't see it like the others, but you can tell when a person's low on it. Like I've said, that's called kikyo."

Just like that her mask of politeness fell away and I saw her. Reisen snapped at me, her tone high and impatient, imperious.

"I understand that. But what if - what if I said that chakra exists, and that a lack of chakra causes disease. But then I said that you can't see chakra, you can't touch, you can't feel it. Then what if I started giving you pills to add chakra. Do you see where I'm going?"

The next moment she had visibly deflated, shoulders and ears falling. She looked at her manju with a curious intensity before placing it back on the plate. My first thought: we're fighting! Of course, I let things slide because the lesson had ended, so she was merely being a rude guest in my home.

I was beginning to work out an answer in my mind when Reisen continued, her voice still snappish.

"I can see things, Lady Miyake. And I haven't seen Ki."

I was delighted. Not so much about her Ki-skepticism (I knew it existed, after all), but about her revealing her youkai-ness. I thought I had her worked out: she thought herself far more perceptive than mere humans. By insisting that I saw something that she didn't, I was offending her, calling her supremacy into question. I could deal with pride, had dealt with it.

Staring directly into her eyes, I had asked: "What else can you see, Reisen?"

It all sounds very flippant now, Akyuu, but nothing had happened. Her eyes then were a chestnut brown and swimming with weariness. The pride had drained from them, and I saw something in them that I couldn't deal with. I felt a wave of—it seems ridiculous now—pity.

"I can see a lot, Lady Miyake. Even you. I still haven't seen Ki."

It was another one of her patent evasions, but her earlier edge was gone. She had just sounded lost. Truth: even after she had shown a glimpse of her youkai self, I had wanted to comfort her somehow. And so I did. She was someone small and withdrawing, rigidly doing her best, and the thought of that just washed over me. I have never been able to deal with pity.

"Alright, Reisen. I'll demonstrate Ki. Get that pillow in the corner, push the table, then lie down."

She did so, resignedly, eyes fixed to the ceiling. Whatever was troubling her had made her even more pliant than usual. Her earlier question had been an outburst, a childish tantrum, and letting it out had seemed to shame her. Laid down, I could see her body bracing, curling away from me. I wondered what she expected me to do.

So I said: "Legs outstretched. I'm going to diagnose you, alright? I'll touch your stomach and feel your pulse, too. I'm also going to ask a few questions, alright?"

She nodded.

One of the basic tools of Kampo is the abdominal check. I'd never done this to a youkai before, but she seemed to have the general bits of a human. I opened her blazer, put my ears close to her stomach, then tapped the upper part of it through her clothes. As I suspected, her stomach had made soft sloshing sounds in response. When I pressed my fingers on her stomach, I felt a hard knot running down its middle. Her whole abdomen was a tight ball of clammy stress; I usually only felt that in patients being hounded by the Salt Mansion's debt collectors.

I moved onto her left wrist, then her right, checking her pulse. She had pretty fingers, slender and graceful, but they were callused and her nails had been chewed on. Her palms were coarse, greasy with dried sweat; cold. When I found it, her pulse was fluttery and shallow and shy. I squeezed her hand then, gently: not strictly part of the procedure, but sometimes necessary.

"Alright, any fullness in your stomach lately?" Reisen nodded, eyes still fixed on the ceiling. "Nausea?" Nod. "Feeling tired quickly, lately?" Nod. "No appetite?" Nod. I placed my hand on her neck and felt a blaze of warmth, a swallow: again, necessary. I moved to her forehead, feeling for a fever. That one had earned me a brief, placid glance from her.

She was showing all the typical symptoms of Rikkunshito-sho. She had a lot on her mind and it was draining her spleen and stomach Ki, stagnating her liver, making her constitution fragile and playing havoc with her mood. I told her as much.

"Ridiculous. Stop touching me." Reisen's answer had been terse and weary. I withdrew my hands.

She sat up and adjusted her blazer, studiously avoiding my gaze. A heavy silence descended between us, as if some boundary had been crossed. Each one of us waited on the other.

"What's been going on, Reisen? Something at the pharmacy?"

I felt the spring afternoon deepening around us. The wind rose.

"Yes. No, not only that. Just, old guests, and they're not doing anything. And you." Reisen trailed off but had continued to sit there, rubbing her outstretched legs, her figure silhouetted against the fading light. Suddenly she gave a peppy shout, a "hah!" Cheering herself on, I figured.

"How long have they been there?"

"They won't stay long."

Reisen slowly clasped and unclasped her hands. In the dusky glow, her gesture cast strange shadows.

"They've even brought their new pet. It's just, marathons and fights in the morning. Then I'm to sell medicine, in this rain. Then I have you in the afternoons. Then guests again at night." She squeezed her toes, still avoiding eye contact. Her ears bobbed once, twice. Suddenly, the Hourai Pharmacy made a lot less sense to me (fights?), and I didn't have a reply for her.

Finally, rubbing her face, she had turned to me, her eyes strangely glassy.

"Let's pretend we never talked about this, Lady Miyake. I'll return us to the way things were. I'm sorry. Thank you for the diagnosis."

She rushed to excuse herself, but I had insisted on giving her the Rikkunshito preparation and the manju. I was thrilled: I had gotten through to her, spoken to her actually - not the fake-polite, assistant-to-Eirin-Yagokoro Reisen, but the roiling, haughty youkai underneath. I was so sure that the pity I felt was an oddity of the moment - she wasn't some piteous creature, after all. I was finally ready to teach.

The lesson here, Akyuu, is that once you set up a proper partition, it is only a matter of patience. As long as you have demonstrated an ounce of dignity, your students will eventually realize that, yes, there is no contradiction: you can be their strict teacher by day, and be their understanding friend after that. As long as the proper dues are paid, that is.

Sorry to be formal again, but I have a request to make. If it's not possible for you to come to my place, would it be possible for me to be a guest at yours? The next part is rather difficult to put in writing, and I feel it would be best to tell it over some mochi and red tea. Please, consider looking into my request.

Your candid friend,
Chiyoko Miyake