Ryusei is an OC character made by myself. Touhou project is owned by ZUN and his team Shanghai Alice.

It was another boring day at the Hakurei Shrine. There was nothing inside the donation box and the residential shrine maiden was cleaning the grounds as her duties dictated.

The lack of donations meant all the tools she had were either really old, or unsuitable for the task at hand. Currently, Reimu was cleaning up whatever mess was left behind by the party from the previous night.

Normally, that involved picking up dishes and bottles but since said party was held by fairies and various youkai of childlike stature, there were various plants, pictures, and graffities all over her shrine.

Thankfully, she wasn't doing it alone. Due to a series of rather interesting events, an outsider that was neither from Gensokyo or the outside world managed to make it into Gensokyo in her shrine.

The outside in question was a male human that was about the same height and age as her. His main occupation was supposed to be a samurai but after a dispute between him and the samurai traditions, he took his armor and weapons and joined a group called the "Adventurer's Guild" where he took on various commissions and activities for rewards.

It was also because of said guild, that he ended up in Gensokyo in the first place. He had meant to take a portal to Kiyoto to retrieve a gold medallion that granted its possessor the ability to transform into a chinese zodiac animal.

However, the person creating the portal misheard and mistyped his destination resulting in him ending up at the entrance of the Hakurei Shrine. Thankfully, Reimu managed to help him reach his desired location though only after he promised to let her join his current adventure and split the reward.

This led to them going on a very long journey in the outside world where they ended up becoming close friends while getting tangled with cursed golden statues, a group of ninjas, and an undead dragon. In the end, they barely managed to succeed and with luck, she managed to get back to Gensokyo with a large sum of gold and a very good story for her to remember on her most boring days.

That being said, the most interesting feature about him was not his adventures or origin but rather his ability to enter and exit Gensokyo without being detected by any of Gensokyo's sages.

Due to this, he often visited the shrine to help Reimu out with either her finances or duties. It also helped that he timed his visits to prevent visitors from discovering his existence or presence. As a precautionary measure though, he had to hide his armor and weapons so in the case he was discovered, everyone would believe him to be a normal human villager.

"Ryusei, do we have any soap left?"

"Nope," answered the samurai.

"What about paint?"

"All dried up. You're gonna have to go buy more. I'm out of cleaning materials too."

Ryusei returned holding an empty bucket and rag. Reimu sighed and put away her cleaning materials.

Even though she knew the box was empty, she knew it wouldn't hurt to check again.

"Still empty."

"Not that anyone other than me planned on coming here right now," commented Ryusei. "Aside from that, considering the current state of the shrine, I don't think you'd want any guests coming over right now. It looks a lot like if some delinquents decided to turn the place into their hideout."

"You're right," added Reimu. "By the way, what's a delinquent?"

"Misbehaving kid that breaks laws," answered Ryusei. "Cleaning aside, are you completely out of money right now?"

Reimu nodded. "I still had some gold leftover from our adventure together but then-"

"Marisa took it," finished Ryusei.

"Yeah and knowing her, I'm not getting it back."

"Guess that's karma for Tokiko's books right?"

Ryusei pulled out a red paintbrush and drew the Japanese symbol for water. Almost instantly, the symbol flew towards the empty bucket and refilled it with water.

"Can you do that with soap?" asked Reimu.

"I've tried and it doesn't work. The symbolizer's symbols can only create specific objects and replicate certain actions," responded Ryusei.

"For one, I can tell it to clone an object but I can't tell it to mix two objects together. I can also tell it to make a block of steel but not a coin of gold. If I told it to make some soap, the symbol would fail since there are just too many different types of soap."

"Huh. I guess even that has limits."

Reimu dipped a rag into the bucket and began wiping some paint. After making a few more symbols, Ryusei followed suit.

"I really wish I could make some more money."

"Have you tried starting a business or working a part time job?" asked her helper.

"I've tried but they were all very unsuccessful or shut down," answered Reimu. "Let's see, there was the fortune telling stint, the selling of charms, the various food stalls…"

"And none of them lasted?"

"Yeah. Kasen shut down my fortune telling booth, my charms used to sell until the youkai started spreading rumors while the Moriya Shrine started making more at a cheaper price, and the food stalls only worked during festivals. Come to think of it, any other time I've been called to do an extermination, no one ever pays me and every time an incident is resolved, no one even notices."

"Hmm."

Ryusei looked up and stopped cleaning.

"What is it?" asked Reimu.

"Is it just me or are those three fairies heading towards your shrine?"

Reimu looked up and quickly pushed her helper into the shrine.

"Hide!"

"Just give me a moment. Where did you put my armor?"

"It's inside! Just stay out of sight!"

Ryusei quickly drew the Japanese symbols for invisible and quickly vanished from her sight.

"Reimu!"

The three fairies of light landed in front of the Hakurei shrine maiden and started performing various activities that disrupted her current task. At first, Reimu tried to stop them but eventually she gave up and began playing with them. Once the fairies were tired out, Reimu moved them to her shrine's porch before she continued to clean again. This time, she was interrupted by several other fairies that wanted to play a game of hide and seek with her. Though she was against it at first, she eventually relented and joined their game.

All the while, Ryusei watched while doing his best to keep quiet and clean the shrine without being noticed. Something that was proving to be very difficult with the invisibility only applying to himself, not to any of the objects that he was interacting with.

In the end, he gave up and just watched Reimu play with the fairies until they tired themselves out or left to play elsewhere.

"You kids should really head home. It's getting late out and you don't want to get lost at night."

Upon hearing this, the three fairies of light got up and left with all but one of the remaining fairies.

"Oh not again Daiyousei."

The green-haired greater fairy had fallen asleep and would not get up despite Reimu's attempts. Sighing, Reimu picked her up and let her sleep inside her shrine while she worked.

Once the greater fairy was covered up, Reimu gave Ryusei the all-clear signal so the samurai could rematerialize and help her clean again.

"You're pretty good with kids," commented Ryusei once they were outside again.

"Huh? What makes you say that?" asked Reimu.

"All those fairies really didn't mind playing with you and from what I've observed, are very comfortable around you."

"Eh. They're like that," commented Reimu. "So got any idea on how to clean up this mess?"

Ryusei got out his symbolizer and created a few symbols that allowed him to temporarily stop time and finish cleaning the shrine. Once he finished, he drew several symbols that allowed time to flow again.

"Reimu, have you ever thought about babysitting?"

"Nope," answered the shrine maiden. "Usually, Keine's the one who takes care of all the children."

"But that's only at school, right?" asked Ryusei.

"Yeah… What are you planning to do?"

Ryusei paused for a moment before answering.

"I think you should start a babysitting business."