Chapter 45 – Could be Better; Could be Worse
The following morning didn't start off too well for Ishimaru Kyouichi. He drank a lot with Naota and others yesterday and his head reminded him that with strong throbbing pain.
"Oh, man… If only I could skip school today…" he wishfully thought.
But no matter how much he despised getting up early in the morning, he had a responsibility on his shoulders. As the elected president of a club that he had founded nearly a month ago, it was his task to make a list of necessary items which the whole club, or whatever was left of it, needed in order to survive in the mountains as they'd make their way to any nearby human settlement in the outside world. With great surprise he just found out that as he got distracted by the conversation with his friends and Naota yesterday, he didn't even finish that list. What's worse, the club's meeting was soon to start and he just barely got out of his futon. As he was eating toasts with his one hand, he was hastily scribbling down additional items to the list, including clothes, food and water supplies and medicine. Of course, he didn't have enough time to calculate how much of each commodity would the club need, so he was at least content with the fact that he even made the list.
"Are you going to look for work today, Kyou-kun?" Minako curiously asked as she watched him folding up a piece of paper and putting it inside his leather backpack.
"M-mf? Wyea…" mumbled the youth incomprehensibly with his mouth full.
"Then good luck. And don't pick anything too hard or too dangerous, okay?"
"I'll try." he reassuringly nodded as he was standing up from the table and thanking her for the meal.
"Damn…" he cursed quietly as he trotted down the street. "Why am I always late for the club meeting?"
As soon as he saw the clock on the school building, however, he exhaled with relief and slowed his pace down, because he still had over 15 minutes left.
"Heeey, Kyouichi~!" a girl's voice called from somewhere behind him. "Wait for me~!"
"Ah, good morning, Midori. I was in a bit of a hurry, since I thought I was going to be late."
"Which you usually are…" she teasingly pointed out.
"I know, that's why I wanted to break my streak of late arrivals today."
"Have you brought that list with you?"
"Yeah… But I'll leave the calculations to somebody else. I've just named what I thought we'd need the most."
"A small, but very important step towards any kind of positive progress for our club…"
As the two of them finally made it inside and headed up the stairs to the library, they could already see a bunch of their fellow club members waiting in front of the locked door.
"Okay, everyone, make way~!" Midori called out with her arm stretched up, holding a key to the library.
Kyouichi followed her and greeted everyone with silent nodding. As soon as Midori opened the door and the group began pouring into the library, Kyouichi noticed that there were several papers stuck to the door. One of them was a notice about the opening hours of the library, the other was some kind of child's drawing with two girls standing on a meadow and the last one was a newspaper cutout…
"Oh… Don't tell me… Not again…" he stopped in front of the door with a frowning face. It was the front page of an old issue of Bunbunmaru where Aya took a shot of him in Reimu's outfit. "What the hell is this doing here?!" he asked loudly so that everyone could hear, but the only response he got was a unanimous laughter.
It seemed that Midori was the only one who was considerate enough not to laugh. "Sheesh… I mean come on, people!" she gave the other club members a disdainful look. "This was funny perhaps two weeks ago, but it's really starting to get old!"
She unstuck the newspaper cutout from the door and waved it over her head. "Whoever keeps doing this should seriously reflect upon their actions."
Another wave of laughter ensued. Kyouichi just resignedly waved his hand and entered the library, pretending that he didn't care anymore.
"This… really… needs to stop…" spoke Midori abruptly as she was sticking the paper back to the door as soon as Kyouichi shifted his attention elsewhere. Everyone who could see her was trying their best not to give her away by another outburst of laughter. As soon as she was done and closed the door, the laughter subsided and was replaced by a quiet chattering among the seated members of the club.
Kyouichi was expecting a much tenser atmosphere, but it seemed that everyone was quite open to the idea of his list. He also added that anyone was free to add more items to the list, should they think they would prove necessary for the journey.
"…And now that we've cleared up what things we are saving our money for, I believe it would be a good time to plan on HOW we are going to undertake our journey. Namely, how we are going to move our supplies and ourselves to the Hakurei Shrine without drawing any suspicion from the militia. As you all well know, the elder has decisively stated his disagreement with the notion that any outsiders should be allowed to leave Gensokyo via the shrine's gateway due to possible dangers, which he didn't specify. And while you all know what I think of his "safety precaution", it would be in our best interest to make our departure from Gensokyo in secrecy."
"That's easy to say, but how are we going to transport all our supplies to the shrine without being noticed by the Ryuuken?" asked Sayuri with a raised hand.
"At first I thought we could use the caravan wagons to smuggle the supplies to the shrine, but as all caravans are always escorted by an armed patrol, this idea is out of question. There's always a stationary patrol set up at each of the roads leading from the village, usually consisting of two sentries. Their job is to keep an eye on everyone and everything that comes in and out of the village. However, outside the village is a different story…"
"Where are you getting at?" sounded the voice of Yuujin, who was surprisingly quiet today.
"Has anyone of you heard of a shop called Kourindou?" answered Kyouichi with a question.
A mixture of whispers echoed over the room, but nobody apparently heard of that place.
"It started originally as an antique shop at the edge of the Forest of Magic, but nowadays it offers a variety of items that have found their way to Gensokyo from the outside world. This includes clothing, food and snacks, electronics, power tools and even literature."
"Wow…" uttered Midori admiringly. "I wonder if they also have the latest volume of One Piece manga."
The club members chuckled at her remark.
"Jokes aside, this mixed goods shop is the perfect place to start looking for our traveling supplies. It's quite a way from the village and the Ryuuken patrol that road only scarcely. It's also easy to get to the Hakurei Shrine from there. And as the summer festival is going to take place at the shrine very soon, I'm going to take it as an opportunity to try and convince Reimu-san if she'd let us use her storage shed to temporarily house our supplies."
"And what if this Kourindou place won't have all the necessary things?" Daniel raised a good question.
"Mmm… Yes, it's a very likely outcome."
"Then we'll just buy the rest here in the village." Midori answered his question, but Dan already had a counter-argument.
"And how are we going to smuggle those things past the Ryuuken?"
Kyouichi didn't dare to answer that question, since there were several factors in play, the development of which he could not yet predict. "I did say once that we could simply attempt to sneak out of the village from anywhere where there are no roads, but if we'll be forced to carry a large amount or a particularly heavy burden, we might get suspicious in the eyes of common villagers who could subsequently inform the militia and that's not what we want."
"I also recall you said something about possibly bribing some of the guards." the blonde-haired foreigner reminded him his own words.
"That was merely a suggestion…" replied Kyouichi. "A sort of last resort kind of solution… And quite risky at that, because we have no idea of knowing how the guards will react to a bribe offer."
"I've heard that the Ryuuken are among the most well-paid professions to be had in the village." Hikaru contributed his bit of wisdom to the discussion. "They say that the only more lucrative positions are those of the village council and the elder… This means that we're either going to have to dig pretty deep in our wallets if we are to make them interested, or not even attempt such a thing at all."
"Then how about we ask Reimu-san to buy those things for us?" Sayuri thought up an interesting solution. "The Ryuuken wouldn't be suspicious of anything if Reimu-san simply bought the supplies and had them delivered to her shrine…"
"That… is a very clever idea, Hayashi-san." Kyouichi gave her an approving smile. "But it has a bit of a flaw…"
"A flaw?" Sayuri questioningly tilted her head to the side.
"I know Reimu-san a little better than any of you and… Well… let's just say I'm not sure what would happen if we suddenly gave her all of our club's funds."
"You're worried about her embezzling our money?"
Kyouichi let out a weak chuckle while denyingly waving his palms and shaking his head. "No, no, Sayuri-san… It was more of an inappropriate joke on my part. Reimu would most likely slap me if she heard me right now… I think it's an idea worth trying out. I'll have a word with her and see if I can convince her to assist us. Guess that means that coming to the shrine for the festival has turned out to be a personal obligation rather than just a pleasurable waste of time."
"This time I'll be there with you as well." said Midori with a light smile, indicating that she was looking forward to the mentioned festival.
"The festival is such a big event, that most of the people in the village don't even go to work." stated Yuujin in a by-the-way manner, "Which means that most of us hard-workers will have a day off as well… I might as well take a look at that shrine too."
Of course, since the festival was going to be a much grander event than the little hanami session which Kyouichi experienced a few weeks ago, all visitors were welcome and didn't need any invitation. It turned out that each of the remaining club members was going to join the villagers on the 7th of Fuzuki to be a part of the Tanabata festival and at least enjoy their otherwise not too bright time in Gensokyo.
As the club's meeting was drawing to its end, Kyouichi bowed to the other members, thanking them for their attention and loyalty to the club and let everyone do whatever they wished until the school bell rang, announcing the beginning of their classes. It seemed that everyone decided to take this little amount of time to go over their notes from previous lessons, because they were going to write a test today. Only the club's president and one certain Soudai Asakura could sit calmly in their chairs with their hands behind their heads and their legs rested on top of a reading desk, as they were both excused for being absent due to their hospitalization in Eientei. If Keine-sensei saw them now, however, things would most likely turn out much worse for these two…
As the final lesson was over, the students were slowly leaving the premises of the school by smaller groups. One of those groups consisted mostly of outsiders. As they were leaving the corridors, their faces were an abundant mixture of emotions, like mirrors of the feelings that each single one of them had from writing the test. Some were more than pleased with themselves and expected to get a high score. Others were donning faces of indifference, taking things easy no matter what the outcome. However, there were a few among those students whose disappointed frowns and angry scowls foreshadowed their failure.
Kyouichi only hoped that he wouldn't be copying the same face in a week when it would be his time to write the same test. As he curiously wheedled the information out of Midori about what questions the test consisted of, she elegantly brushed him off by telling him that it's for his own good that he should take his time and study for the test properly, just like everyone else.
Since the school was over for today, Kyouichi didn't waste any time and together with his friend, Soudai, he decided to check out the selection of available jobs in the village hall.
"I swear its eyes were different when I passed around it yesterday…" Soudai commented the color of the eyes on the bronze dragon statue standing just several meters in front of the village hall. It appeared that they were now glowing in a cold bluish light. Kyouichi, who knew what purpose those two gemstones had, wasn't very happy to see their current color.
"I just hope this impending rain isn't meant to fall on the day of the festival…"
"Huh?" Soudai gave both the statue and Kyouichi a confused look. "I didn't know that the dragon statue was actually a barometer."
"More than that, it is also a worshipping idol and an indicator of unusual incidents, or so I heard… But if all those crazy things that are going on in Gensokyo right now still aren't enough to affect the dragon's eyes, then I don't even want to know what sort of things had to be happening here when they turned red."
"It probably rained fire." Soudai joked as he was opening the main gate of the hall. "Or maybe blood…"
"Aaah, long time no see, Ishimaru-san." the friendly voice of the village elder, Toshimi Fukukane greeted him as he entered his luxuriously furnished office. Kyouichi was really surprised that the elder still remembered his name.
"And you must be Asakura-san, am I right?" he glanced over at Soudai who entered just after Kyouichi.
"Why yes, I haven't changed my name yet." Soudai jested even when confronted with such an authority as the village elder.
"Hehe, I see…" the bearded man chuckled lightly. "So, how can this humble old man be of service to you today?" he asked while bowing down.
"Two words, Fukukane-san. New job…" said Kyouichi very tersely.
"Got tired of working at the bookstore, eh?"
"No comment."
"That bad, huh? And what about you, Asakura-san?" the elder measured Soudai up. "Are you also looking to try a different career? Or is it something else?"
"The same as my friend here."
"Then let me take a look at what sort of part-time jobs are available for you…" said the elder with a smile as he turned his back to the two outsiders, searching the shelves on his wall.
"Actually, I'd like to get a full-time job." Kyouichi specified his request.
"Oh? Are you serious about that, Ishimaru-san? Don't you still have a school to attend?"
"Ugh… well…" Kyouichi was in a bit of a loss for words. The elder was right. There most likely weren't any full-time jobs that offered a flexible work time like he had at the bookstore. He was now seriously considering the thought of quitting school.
"And if you're thinking about quitting school, than I regretfully inform you that elementary education is compulsory and governed by the law ever since year 92." added the elder, as if he heard Kyouichi's thoughts. "However, there are some jobs that wouldn't conflict with your current timetable. Although, with your level of qualification and education, I'm afraid the selection will be extremely poor…"
"If there is such a job, I'll take it… I'll take anything… Unless it's something dangerous, that is."
"Hmmm…" the elder only let out a low humming sound as he was browsing through the papers. "I have one... oh, here's another one… aaaand… it would seem that's all that fits the bill…"
"So what are our two only options?" Soudai beat Kyouichi in asking that question first.
"Oh, so you're interested in working full-time as well, Asakura-san?"
"If it wasn't obvious from the early part of our conversation, then now I'll make it clear: Yes!" replied the older of the outsiders with resolve in his voice.
"In that case, gentlemen, your two options are: A – a position of a dishwasher in the tavern Uzume, or B – a position of a supplementary labor force at the village farm. I know that they don't sound very appealing, but this is all I can offer, given the circumstances." The elder frowned with compassion, although his polite manners seemed to be a little forced. Whether his compassion was sincere, or if he was merely faking it, was of no importance to either Soudai, or Kyouichi. The two young outsiders now stood before yet another important decision in their life. To pick the lesser of the two evils.
"I think the choice is quite obvious." stated Soudai with a bitter smile on his face. "Who would want to slave away on the fields? Thank the gods that there aren't any automatic dishwashers in Gensokyo."
Kyouichi, however, wasn't as absolutely certain about this decision as his older acquaintance was. "And… what sort of work would I be doing if I took the position at the farm?" he asked the elder.
His question apparently came as a great surprise to Soudai. "Eh? You're seriously considering the farms? Do you know how hard it is to be working there?"
"The offer doesn't specify the tasks or the exact working conditions, I'm afraid." replied Elder Fukukane negatively. "It only states the payment of 400 yen per hour and that it has a flexible work time…"
"That's not bad at all." said Kyouichi. "It's a 100 yen per hour more than I earned at the bookstore."
"Ha, I bet the position at Uzume pays at least as well as the one at the farm." Soudai opposed him.
The elder, however, wiped his self-confident smirk off his face. "Unfortunately, Asakura-san, it appears that Uzume tavern is only offering 350 yen per hour for this position."
"Look, Ishimaru…" Soudai placed a hand on Kyouichi's shoulder and seriously gazed into his eyes. "Those numbers may look more attractive to you now, but think of it in the long run. While I'll have a nice and easy job at the tavern, you'll probably be on the verge of exhaustion, cursing the day you were born after the first week at the farms. And besides, Midori-san works at the tavern too. We'll have someone to talk to when we won't have much work to do…"
Kyouichi knew that his friend only meant him well, but he was thinking about things from a completely different point of view.
"You may have a point, Soudai, but please hear me out as well… This job… the farms…" he stole a quick glance at the elder, who was now a bit preoccupied with his myriad documents. "This is perfect for our… interests…" he said with a hushed voice.
Soudai wasn't in a mood to interpret his friend's subtle hint. "What the hell are you even tal…" he stopped himself suddenly before finishing the sentence. It seemed that he got the idea now, although with a bit of a delay. "I… I guess so… Never thought of it that way… But even so… the work is going to be hard."
"Do you want to go home or not?" Kyouichi whispered just loud enough for Soudai to hear his question.
"Ugh… I do, but…"
"Then I believe you know what to choose."
Soudai inhaled and took a longer moment of deep thinking before he exhaled again. "I hope we're not going to regret this, Ishimaru." Turning at the village elder, he nodded and cleared his throat to get his attention. "We'll take the work at the farms, Fukukane-san."
"Will you?" the elder finally shifted his gaze from his papers to his two visitors. "Then you know the drill… Your signatures here, here aaaand here…"