Warning: Google Translate up ahead!
Chapter 2
Something soft touched my lips, that sensation was now gone, and it was followed by what feels like two hands pressing on my chest, "Must be CPR, well shit" I thought.
I instantly rose up from the ground, "GAH!", my head met up with my savoir's head, and we both fell down.
"Ugh" I touched my face to check for any wounds and felt my glasses, "Good, I can still see." I thought.
A feminine Japanese voice was heard, "Owww, that hurts."
I ignored the pain, looked up, and saw a woman with dark blue hair and eyes, her ears either look like fins or are fins, she wore a green kimono, but what stood out the most was her legs; she didn't have any legs, it was a fish tail?
"A Japanese Disney princess? Man, I don't think I'm in Kansas anymore." I muttered as I realized that the mermaid I saw before passing out was real.
The woman stopped rubbing her head and looked at me, "Human, are you okay?"
"English?" I asked.
"Ehh? You don't speak Japanese? But you look Japanese."
I did not understand anything she just said, I felt my pockets and found my smartphone, it was a good thing it's waterproof, but there's no signal. Strangely enough, battery life is still at 100%. I held out the phone in front of her and prepared to take a photo, but then I noticed my reflection; big brown eyes filled with life thanks to glasses, it'll probably look like yandere eyes if I take them off, a pointy chin, and typical short black spiky hair that goes well with glasses.
"GOOD GOD, I LOOK LIKE AN ANIME CHARACTER, ANIME IS REAL!" I yelled in shocked and the mermaid covered her fins or ears or whatever. I smiled, this can only mean one thing; selfie! The photo popped up and showed my anime self. I took another selfie, but with a flash this time and my glasses shined just like in the animes; I smiled, knowing that somewhere in the real world someone over 30 is complaining about my generation and I don't give a damn.
Next I pointed my phone at the woman, "Umm, I'm sorry that we can't understand each other," I held out my hand like a stop sign, "Can you wait?"
Click, Beep!
The sound of my smartphone was heard and I have taken her photo in glorious 20 mega pixels. I looked at the photo, "Beautiful" I thought.
I looked at the mermaid, she looked confused at what I did, so I showed her the photo and said, "Sorry, I thought you look pretty, so I took a photo."
The mermaid had this shocked look, "W-w-wait, a picture?!" she covered her face, "Hauu~ this is embarrassing."
A shovel appeared out of nowhere and dropped on the mermaid's hands and she yelled, "I'm going to dig a hole and bury myself!"
Now I have the same shocked look, "Wait, I'm sorry, I'll just delete the photo!" I motioned my pointer finger towards the trashcan icon.
The mermaid noticed the trashcan icon and yelled, "Wait!"
I stopped and looked at her; she's held out her hand like she's stopping me and said, "I like this photo, don't throw it out!"
I chuckled, "Okay, okay, I get it." I moved my finger off and turned off the phone. The mermaid let a yelp, I looked at her and she had a disappointed face,
I waved both of my hands, "Oh no no no"
I turned on my phone again and showed it to her, "See? It's still there."
I looked around, everything just felt very unreal; the way the trees looked, the way the water in the lake sways, the way the setting sun looked, and that European mansion... everything looks like an anime, including myself. "Oh hey, a mansion." I said while pointing at it, "It's European, maybe someone there can speak my language."
I waved at the mermaid, "Thank you again, I think I can manage from here."
The mermaid looked to her side and saw the mansion, immediately she grabbed my arm; no matter what I did, she wouldn't budge. Her grip is really strong; kinda like a gorilla. She shook her head, "Don't go there, that's the Scarlet Devil Mansion, it's dangerous!"
"That's the mansion's name? I'm glad I can at least understand that!" I thought and then said, "Scarlet Devil Mansion? Okay that sounds dangerous." I knew that she didn't understand that, so I had to exaggerate and pretend I was scared, it was way over the top, but at least she'll get the message.
The mermaid awkwardly nodded her head, "I'll fly you to the human village because it's getting dark. You can stay there and by the following morning, you should be able to understand Japanese by then."
I felt myself being lifted off the ground, I saw my SUV, and panicked, "Wait, wait, stop, stop!"
The mermaid stopped and landed back on the ground with a confused look. I pointed at my SUV, "I can't lose that, it's very important to me."
I ran to my beloved Honda CR-V, the doors were unlocked, and the key was in the ignition. I started her up, everything was running smoothly except all the warning lights were on. "Wait, how is there no electricity and gas? The lights and car is running just fine."
I popped open the hood and stood there in silence. The battery is gone, the engine, and everything else is running normally, but the tank with the cooling fluid is empty, the tank with oil is empty, every single tank with liquid is empty except for the water used for the wipers. I took a deep breath and thought, "Well can't look at a gift horse in the mouth."
I went back into my car, rolled down the front windows to let the hot air out, placed my phone in there, and did a face-palm, "I'm an idiot, my phone has an app for translations."
The mermaid popped her head into the window on the passenger side, "Amazing, so this is a car from the outside world, I heard of them, but I never seen one in person."
"Moment of truth." I muttered, I turn on the phone app and spoke, "Hi, my name is Nelson Tristan Ryugu, just call me Nelson. What's your name?"
Ding!
A monotone robotic voice came out of my phone, "Hello, my name is Nelson Tristan Ryugu, just Nelson call me. What is your name?"
The mermaid jumped a bit, she looked at me, I pointed at myself and said, "Nelson Tristan Ryugu."
The mermaid pointed at me, "Ryugu-kun?"
I smiled and nodded my head, "Yes, that's right. I have no idea what the kun at the end means."
Ding!
"Yes, it is. I do not know what is meant by you to the end." said the phone.
She looked confused for a second and said, "That camera can help you understand me right?"
Ding!
The phone replied back, "The camera, you do you can help to right understand me?"
I nodded my head, "Even technology has its limits." I thought to myself.
The mermaid said, "Wakasagihime."
Ding!
"Smelt princess." The phone answered and my face paled.
The mermaid pointed at herself, "My name is Wakasagihime."
Ding!
"My name is Smelt Princess." The phone answered.
"pfft... wahahaha!" I burst out into laughter.
The Smelt Princess looked confused and said, "What's wrong? Why are you laughing?"
Ding!
The phone actually translated that one correctly, I took a deep breath, pointed to my phone, and said, "My phone got your name completely wrong. Can you just say your name one more time?"
Ding!
The monotonic voice spoke, "My cell phone your name is completely wrong. Can you say a lot of time than 1 your name?" and then I shut off the app.
There was a really long pause before the Smelt Princess said, "Is that machine trying to say that it said my name wrong and wants me to repeat it again?"
I gave her a blank look and she realized that the phone was off. She pointed to herself and said, "Wakasagihime."
I pointed at her and said, "Wakasagihime?"
Wakasagihime smiled and pointed at me, "Ryugu-kun!"
I happily pointed at her again, "Wakasagihime!"
We both laughed because it took quite a while to finally get our names right. I turned on my phone and said, "So where were you about to take me earlier?"
Ding!
The phone spoke, "So where did you trying to previously take me?"
Wakasagihime replied, "The human village, you'll meet up with other humans who will help you."
Ding!
"Man of the village, you will meet with other human beings to help you."
"So there's a village with other people that can probably help me." I thought.
I got out of my CR-V, walked towards Wakasagihime, she stepped back from the CR-V, and I opened the front passenger door. I looked at her and said, "I do not want to leave this car behind. Can you sit with me and show me the way?"
Ding!
"I do not want to leave the car behind. You are sitting with me, Can you show me the way?"
She nodded, "Yes"
She was about to hop into the CR-V, but she stopped and said, "Can you wait a bit, I need to dry up to get some legs"
Ding!
The phone stated, "You can wait a little, I must be exhausted in order to get some of the foot"
I tilted my head in total confusion, "huh?" I noticed that she is still slightly wet from saving me, "Oh, so you don't want to get my car wet, how thoughtful."
Ding!
The phone spoke in Japanese, "Oh, you is my car, you do not need to any thoughtful get wet."
I can see question marks rising out of her head, the phone said something retard. I grabbed a bath towel from the back and said, "Here, use this to dry up."
Ding!
More mess up Japanese was heard, "Here, we use this to exhaustion."
Wakasagihime was completely speechless because of the language barrier, she studied the bath towel, and understood what I wanted to do.
I got into the CV-R and looked away to give her privacy. She used the bath towel on her tail, suddenly the tail glowed and once the glowing stopped, the tail was replaced by a pair of legs and bloomers. Her kimono magically grew longer to cover up the bloomer.
She walked into the SUV and sat next to me on the right side.
"So her tail becomes legs whenever it dries, that must mean that her legs will become a tail when she's wet." I thought to myself.
I turned on my fog lights and hi-beams; outside is getting dark and there are no street lights, it was necessary to do that. I turned on the interior lighting, pulled out lens wipes and started wiping my glasses because it was dirty. I caught a glimpse of my eyes in the rear mirror, my vision was completely blurry, but even I can make out the completely dull lifeless brown colors of my irises thanks to the fact that I look like an anime character now. Seriously, big anime eyes are easier to see.
Wakasagihime stared into my lifeless eyes, she let out a gasp, "What happened?"
Ding!
The phone translated that correctly. I put on my glasses and my eyes came back to life. I frowned and said, "My eyes are very bad."
Ding!
The phone also translated that correctly. The mermaid slowly nodded, she pointed towards the European mansion, I drove closer to it, and spotted a dirt road.
Wakasagihime pointed towards the east along the dirt road. I turned in towards the road, rolled up the windows, and drove off at 30 mph. Suddenly the road started to get darker and darker, then it was so dark that not even the fog lights and hi-beams can penetrate it.
"What is going on? Should I stop?" I said.
Ding!
The phone translated that correctly. Wakasagihime shook her head, "Keep going, there is a youkai."
Ding!
"There is a monster, it will continue." stated the phone.
"Huh? I don't know what you mean by monster, but I do know what continue means." I said as I floored the CR-V.
Bump, Bump.
I felt two small bumps under the tires and the darkness disappeared. My heart is pounding, I think I just killed something. I looked at the rear mirror and couldn't see anything because the dirt that was being kicked up from my car was blocking the back.
"Don't stop, keep going." said Wakasagihime.
Ding!
"Please do not stop, will continue." the phone stated.
"Well if you say so..." I muttered softly so that only me and Wakasagihime could hear.
Knock Knock
Instinctively I lowered the window next to me and saw a girl flying side-by-side with my CR-V. The girl looked like 10 year old, she has red eyes, blond hair, a tattered black and white dress with tire treads on it.
The girl licked her lips, "Human, did you ran over me?"
I looked at her with a confused look because she was speaking Japanese, then her face met up with a magic ball energy thing, and she tumbled down the dirt road. I rolled up the window and looked Wakasagihime who had one of her hands pointing at the window.
"That's a youkai, they eat people." She pointed at herself, "I'm a youkai too, but I don't eat people."
Ding!
The phone spoke again, "It's a monster, they will eat the people. I also a monster, but I do not eat the people."
I muttered, "They look very human, but" and then pointed at her while keeping my eyes on the road, "you are not a monster. A monster would not save me from drowning."
Ding!
The phone stated, "They look very human, however, you are not a monster. Monster will not save me from drowning."
Wakasagihime looked at me in confusion, my speech was lost in translation. Moments later, she understood the message, and said, "Thank you."
Ding!
I shut off the app because I knew what "thank you" in Japanese is. The rest of the one hour drive is uneventful and very quiet because it appears that the both of us were not talkers. Every single monster we saw avoided us because the fog lights and hi-beams were very blinding. When we arrived at the outskirts of the Human Village, it disappeared and in it's place was a woman.
The woman walked closer and closer, Wakasagihime tapped my shoulder, and nodded to let me know she is friendly. I had to turn off my fog lights and hi-beams so I won't blind her in front of me, then I opened the door, walked over to where Wakasagihime was and got the seat belt off of her.
The woman approaching us has brown eyes, long silver hair, wore a strange hat, and a blue dress. I turned on my phone app in preparation for translations. She looked at me and said in English, "Are you an outsider?"
I shut off my app and breath a sigh of relief, "Oh thank goodness, I've finally met someone that could speak English!"
She smiled, "It's something I had to pick up because most outsiders speak that language." she held out her hand, "I'm Keine Kamishirasawa, the village's history teacher and guardian."
I shook her hand, "Nelson Tristan Ryugu, just call me Nelson."
Keien exclaimed, "I will say that's very strange, we do get Japanese outsiders, but never before we got a Japanese outsider that can't speak Japanese!"
I sweat-dropped, "It's rather complicated."
"I see..." Keine looked at Wakasagihime and spoke in Japanese, "Well this is a rare sight."
The mermaid let out a yelp and backed up a bit, "He was drowning and I saved him. I was only going to drop him off at the village. I have to go now bye!" she then jumped into the nearby river, she popped her head out and screamed "Ryugu-kun!" I turned around and saw her waving, I waved back, and she swam off.
Keine sighed, "I wasn't going to hurt her, mermaids are actually some of the weakest and shyest youkai in Gensokyo, they really benefited from Danmaku because it gave them an equal footing."
I tilted my head, "Huh?"
"Oh, I'm just talking to myself, don't worry." Instantly, the village reappeared. I looked at the walls and noticed guards were leaving after Keine deemed that I wasn't a threat. The history teacher looked at me and said, "Now, shall we go in?"
I got in my CR-V, rolled down the windows and said, "Sure." I followed Keine into the village, I didn't press the gas pedal, I just simply removed my foot from the breaks to let the SUV inch forward. The village itself was pretty big, most people who were heading off to dinner, stopped and stared at me and my CR-V because the SUV is something completely foreign to them. Some of the people looked strange though, some had tails and such, must be youkai.
"An outsider!" One said.
"Is that one of those horseless wagons that Sanae was always talking about?" said another person.
"Heh I wonder if I can borrow it ze~"
"Marisa, don't sloop that low!"
"Yare yare daze~"
Keine stopped at a schoolhouse, I parked the CR-V next to it, and lock the doors. I walked up to Keine, "I couldn't help but noticed that there were people with strange appearances."
"Oh? Even though it's called the Human Village, there are some youkai living here, but they're mostly peaceful." she pointed to herself, "I am also a youkai, a were-hakutaku to be exact. Just know that there are good and bad youkai just like there are good and bad humans."
"So youkai is another word for monster right?" I asked.
Keine pondered for a bit, "Hmm, yes, I think you can think it that way for now." She stopped at the entrance, "Normally I would make a big deal about having outside shoes inside, but you're an outsider, I guess I can make an exception for now."
We navigated into the building and sat in the office. Keine started first and said, "I know you have a lot of questions on why you ended up in Gensokyo, but it'll have to wait til tomorrow." She leaned back on her chair, "Gensokyo is a magical place, don't worry about the language, by the next morning, you should be able to understand Japanese."
"Wait how? That's like imposs-"
She covered my mouth and smiled, "It's best if you not think about it." She got up from her seat, "You must be hungry, I can take you out to eat."
I waved my hands, "Oh no, I have food in my car. I just need a place to shower and do my business."
Keine sat back down, "Well the schoolhouse is always open, the outhouse is in the back, and there's a public bath two house from the left of the schoolhouse. if you need anything else, let me know."
"I'll let you know by the morning, thank you for taking me in!" I said as I shut the door and went for my CR-V.
I stepped outside and stared at the sky, "Wow, the skies feel so much cleaner than back in California." I whispered to myself.
I ate a couple of granilla bars and made my way to the outhouse. The building was outside of the schoolhouse, "Ugh, am I stuck in the 19th century or something? Bet it smells like shit." I thought to myself.
I opened the door to the outhouse and it didn't smell like it was used for a long time aka it smelled very clean. I peeked into the toilet; it's a hole in the ground, it doesn't smell, and it looked like someone just took two shovel loads of dirt out and called it a day.
Instantly the toilet was filled with water, as if it was waiting for someone to use. I backed out of the outhouse and the water in the toilet was gone, I came back in and it reappeared. "Dafuq?" I whispered, "How convenient, I guess you can never judge a book by it's cover here."
I did my business and much to my horror, there was no toilet paper! I screwed up badly, so do I have to-
A stream of warm water shot up into my behind and I felt incredibly violated. After that was over, a stream of hot air was blowing into my rear end, and then I was clean. I walked out of the outhouse, my legs were shaking, and I thought, "What was that? We need this in America!"
After that, I went to the public bathhouse, no one was there since it was night time, but it's still a unique experience because nearly everyone has their own bathrooms in the outside world.
After that, I walk on the empty dirt street towards the schoolhouse and made my way back. I climbed into my sleeping bag in the back of the CR-V and went to sleep for the next morning.
To Be Continued
Notes:
Thank you Google Translate for making such hilarious and awful translations.
To be honest I don't really know if Wakasagihime and her kind eats people or not, I read in the wikipedia, that it's actually people that tried to eat them (and I meant the Japanese kind of mermaids). I also know that according to the touhou wiki, Wakasagihime is suppose to be a quiet, peaceful, and shy character (She was aggressive because of the incident in the games) and Kagerou also claimed that she's so timid that she wouldn't kill a bug. So she might seem WAY out of character in this chapter, however, let's think of it as this way; most shy people (like myself) try to avoid people, but we also do unexpected things that'll surprise a lot of people. In Wakasagihime's case, that's saving the OC from drowning and guiding him to the village. In my case, it was pulling a kid off the railroad tracks before he got a bad ending (Okay, that was too personal, I actually hurried up and left for school before anyone can catch me or thanked me). If you look at it from that way, then yes, Wakasagihime is still slightly in character (Well most Touhou characters lack a lot of characteristics anyway, so fanfic writers can get creative).
Wakasagihime has legs? LOLWUT?
I based that off of one of my favorite movies called Splash; it's a romance between a mermaid and Tom Hanks (Life is like a box of chocolates). Also based off of an anime called Seto no Hanayome aka My Bride is a Mermaid. Both of these works depict mermaids having have legs when they're dry on land, but once their legs got hit by water, it automatically becomes a tail. Yes I know the fandom did silly things like having Wakasagihime on a wheelchair because of her tail and such, but this made the most amount of sense, in fact I was very confused and perplexed when the fandom didn't do this to Wakasagihime in the first place (Maybe they did do this idea, but either I didn't know or it didn't get caught on).
OC x random touhou character?
I don't know, as I stated in the previous chapter, this story is done without an outline, so I don't know if anything like that will happen. I will say that my top three touhou characters are Renko Usami, Wakasagihime, and Mamizou Futatsuiwa (in that order). I barely have any experience in dating or writing romance, but... maybe this a good time to experiment? I mean my first romance fanfic is yuri and I'm not even a fan of yaoi and yuri (I actually hate it unless it's either done right or if it's a good anime/tv show, but that didn't stopped me from enjoying my time writing out Renko?), so why not? At this point, I'll just go wherever my imagination and fingers take me.