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Ch. 7: Bad Alcohol
"Suika?" Reimu searched the house, a gourd of unlimited plum liqueur in her hand. "Suika? Where are you? What were you doing?" she called out a little crossly. Suika had left her gourd hanging upside down by a rope in the backyard. Alcohol was gushing all over the place to the point where even the grass looked drunk.
Reimu found Suika seated on the front porch of the Hakurei Shrine house, kicking her legs aimlessly. Upon sight of Reimu approaching her with her gourd in hand, she perked up and asked hopefully, "Has it drained itself empty?"
"Drained what?"
"The gourd, Reimu! Is it empty?"
"Far from it," Reimu sat down next to Suika. "Isn't this gourd unlimited? Why are you even trying to drain it?"
Suika sighed and took to gazing at the ground and kicking her legs instead. "Stupid me…" she quietly berated herself. "If I knew it was as simple as just putting some liquid into it as a starter… Argh! I should have just poured more sake into it rather than go through all the trouble of squeezing into it plum juice!" Suika pulled at her hair out of frustration.
"What's wrong?" Reimu asked, puzzled.
"What's wrong?" Suika repeated after Reimu dejectedly. "Drink from the gourd and you'll know what's wrong."
Reimu did as instructed, and found pleasant, intoxicating liquid merrily skip down her throat. "Mmm…" Reimu smacked her lips in delight. "It's not sake is it? But it tastes really good! What is it?"
"Umeshu…" Suika grumbled. Damn it! Was she forever to be stuck with this… this… Ah! Where did her precious sake go?
"What are you grumbling about? It's really delicious!" Reimu risked another swig. This was really addictive…
"I wanted something clear, something clean. I wanted sake," Suika complained. "Not some… fruit flavoured wine!"
"Then maybe you shouldn't have added fruit…" Reimu pointed out the obvious, and took another swig. Plum liqueur was really, really good…
"Sigh… Stupid stupid stupid!" Suika berated herself, as Reimu continued to take swigs of the sweet and sour happiness.
"Well that's a rare and pleasant sight!" came a strong but feminine voice. "Suika calling herself stupid. Never thought I'll see the day!"
The Oni and happy miko looked up to see another taller, more handsome Oni coming their way.
"Hoshiguma Yuugi, what a rare sight!" Reimu greeted cheerfully. "What brings you here?"
"Oh, just came to check on the status of my buddy and her gourd here," Yuugi answered. "So…" she turned to Suika. "You've finally come to realize the obvious, huh?"
"Shut up…" Suika let her head sink down to her knees, her long brown hair veiling her pissed face.
"What? What's wrong" Yuugi sat down next to Suika and put an arm around her. "Why were you calling yourself stupid? You looked like you're having a terrible day."
"Sigh… Yuugi," Suika looked up. "Never mind… Reimu, pass me the gourd. You'll see," she said to Yuugi.
"What? Hic!" Reimu smiled cheerily, her front a little soaked with Umeshu.
Suika and Yuugi blinked at Reimu. Was Reimu drunk?
"Give me that," Yuugi snatched the gourd from Reimu, sniffed at the opening, and sampled some of the plum wine within. Rolling the alcohol around in her tongue for a bit to properly savour the flavour, Yuugi then swallowed it down with slight disbelief, stared at the gourd, drank a bit more which enforced her disbelief, than took to staring at Suika with eyes wide open, lips pressed together into a thin line.
"I… I don't want to hear it," Suika muttered.
"Pffft… Okay, you won't… Haha…. You won't hear it," Yuugi kept a straight face for approximately two thirds of a second. Then… "HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA !"
Suika went back to slumping her head onto her drawn up knees. Yuugi was rolling around, clutching her midsection and laughing, and Reimu, who can now be confirmed to be not sobre, found Yuugi's antics funny, and joined in the laughter.
"Stupid Yuugi…" Suika, cheeks red with embarrassment, muttered into her knees.
"Haha… Oh, what a predicament you've gotten yourself into!" Yuugi rubbed her nose, her face displaying a jovial grin, Reimu doing her best to imitate her. "Let me ask you something… No, wait, I've got an even better idea! Reimu, you're drunk, right?" Yuugi called out to Reimu, who was putting her fingers to her forehead in an impersonation of Yuugi.
"No I'm not!" Reimu slurred and pouted. "I'm just… Hic! I'm just really, really sexy!"
"Hahaha!" Yuugi burst out laughing, and even the sulking Suika managed a smile. "Alright then, sexy miko, c'mon here!" Yuugi patted her thigh. Reimu then jumped onto Yuugi's thigh, leaned into her large frame, and smiled sloppily at her.
"T'ch, you look like a pimp…" Suika grumbled. "And if Reimu remembers any of this after she sobers up, you're dead."
"She won't remember any of this, not in her current drunk state," Yuugi said. "Alright then Reimu," she turned to Reimu, and patted her head, which earned her a happy little grin, "What I'm going to do is play danmaku with you!"
"Ooh… Danma-hic-ku!" Reimu giggled. "I'm really, really good at that!"
"Is that so? Alright then, what I'm going to do is this," Yuugi uncorked the gourd. "I'm going to shoot using this, the Umeshu. You do your best to dodge, okay?" Yuugi lifted Reimu up and set her down on the ground beyond the veranda.
"Okay!" Reimu ran some distance, crookedly, away from Yuugi and Suika, before turning around and declaring in a jolly voice, "Ready!"
"Alright… dodge!" Yuugi worked a little magic on the gourd, and forced the liquid to blast out in front of her in a smooth, unbroken greenish yellow stream. Reimu saw the wine laser come in from the left, and moved to graze it by jumping to the left.
"Ah! Hahahaha…!" Reimu was hit full on in the face by the fruity liqueur, which tickled her greatly as some of the liquid made it through her giggling mouth.
"Haha… Wow! It really is an unending stream of Umeshu!" Yuugi exclaimed, thoroughly amused by both the gourd and the drunken miko out in the front yard, doing her best to dodge by dancing into every stream of alcohol.
"Yah…" Suika said monotonously.
"Guess you're kind of done in, huh?" Yuugi laughed, blasting alcohol left right and centre, each blast catching the darting miko in the face. "How are you going to get rid of it? The unlimited plum wine right here, I mean."
"I don't know…" Suika said sadly.
"Well, I don't know about you but," Yuugi continued to laugh heartily, "I'm having a lot of fun here!" She continued to spray the Umeshu all over the front yard. By now, the miko was on her knees, dazed, drunk, disorientated, laughing.
Sputtering.
Suika's upset face turned to one of concern. "Hey… Hey Yuugi," she pulled at Yuugi's outstretched arm, "You're spraying too much alcohol onto her."
"No I'm not!" Yuugi was still laughing, not paying attention to the status of the giggling and gasping miko. "Reimu's having a ball too!"
"No, I'm serious, she's literally drowning in alcohol!" Suika pulled the gushing gourd out of Yuugi's hand.
"H-Hey! What do you think you're doing-" Yuugi begun, before being interrupted as Suika tossed the gourd to the side and ran to Reimu's aid. "H-Hey! Suika!"
Suika knelt by Reimu's side and pulled her up by the shoulders. "Reimu… Reimu!" Suika tried to shake Reimu out of her drunkenly weak state. Reimu was still giggling, but her eyes were close, her body was limp, and she was coughing up alcohol through her nose and mouth.
"Oh… Oh no," Yuugi was by now standing by Reimu's side as well. "Oh dear, I-I didn't mean to do that…" she said as she now clearly saw the state Reimu was in.
"Hah… she's swallowed too much alcohol. And she did it while laughing, some of it must have made it to her lungs or something," Suika observed with great urgency, and forcefully patted Reimu's back to make her cough up as much of the alcohol as possible.
"I-It wasn't that much…" Yuugi defended with heavy guilt.
"She's not one of us Yuugi!" Suika looked at Yuugi crossly. "She can't handle this amount of alcohol! But never mind that, help me carry her!"
"R-Right! Immediately," Yuugi cradled Reimu into her arms, and the two Oni made went into the house with the delicate package.
Can't believe I actually managed to portray Suika as such a nice person. Problem is that often times, in order to make someone appear good you got to provide them with a nastier contrast… Gratitude goes out to Yuugi for taking the fall in my story.