#i'm really burnt out at this point so apologies for the inevitable typos

[mimicteruyo]

The Little Teahouse Around the Corner

[Touhou Ship Week Day 7: Free day. KomaEiki + AkyuSuzu, 2.7k, crack/fluff]

---

If described very charitably, the construction before Eiki and Komachi could have been called a teahouse, exactly as the bamboo plank above the entrance claimed it was. More accurately, it was simply a large tent lit with red lanterns, standing conspicuously close to the Human Village.

"At least it's open?" Komachi eyed the obviously wet paint on the sign, then peered within. "I figured that at this hour, we'd have a choice between grilled lamprey and nothing this close to the village."

"Indeed." Eiki followed Komachi's example. There were certainly plenty of people within, each with a beverage in front of them, but the overall mood in the tent was quietly puzzled. Besides chairs and tables, there was also what looked bafflingly like an oden cart. "Something about this seems wrong."

"No worries, Sis! It ain't anything weird! We're runnin' a perfectly nice temp teahouse!"

They straightened up in unison. The speaker was a calico cat perched on a stool just barely to the side of the tent's entrance, grinning at them. "Lookin' for a cosy place to chat? We've got ya covered!"

Komachi grinned back. "Mike Goutokuji, right? Don't tell me this is your shop."

"It ain't. I'm just workin' here for a bit." Mike's tail swayed gently from side to side as she talked, its many-coloured fur catching the light of the lanterns. "I'm a barker! Which I know sounds really weird since I'm a cat an' all, but I can do the job. For a few days, anyway. Steady work doin' the same thing over an' over again ain't really my thing."

Komachi chuckled. "I know that feel— er."

Eiki chose to ignore the aborted remark. In any case, Mike's plans made it sound as though she was doing precisely what she supposed to do. Losing interest in things and loafing around were some of the chief goals in a cat's life, after all.

"Anyway," Mike curled up her palm. She beckoned three times. "Welcome to the Juniper Teahouse."

The next moment, Eiki found herself within the tent with no memory of stepping inside.

She halted, blinking in the sudden light. There were half a dozen customers within, humans and youkai alike, nursing teacups and expressions ranging from vexed to serene. Although there were multiple chairs for each table, every single customer was solitary. What had looked like an oden cart from the outside was precisely that; no-one appeared to man it, although the occasional bang and tuneful whistle from within it told her that someone was indeed there, just beyond sight.

"Komachi," she began, more puzzled than troubled even as she clutched the Rod of Remorse closer to her chest. "We should keep our eyes—"

It was at that moment that she became aware of a distinct lack of Komachi by her side. Only Mike was there, waving her legs in the air and looking very pleased with herself.

Eiki spun around. "Komachi?"

No answer. No sight of Komachi, either.

Standing by the entrance feeling foolish wasn't going to do anyone much good. Ignoring the slow blink Mike was giving her, Eiki stepped back outside.

And collided with an invisible barrier with enough force to momentarily bounce her off her feet. She staggered back in surprise.

Mike gave her an apologetic wince. "Sorry, Sis." Her tail swished low as Eiki studied her forehead for bumps. "After I've invited ya in, ya've gotta stay a while."

"Is this your ability?" Eiki prodded at the barrier with the Rod of Remorse. It proved as solid and unyielding as a ten-foot block of ice. "What happened to Komachi?"

"She'll be fine," said a familiar voice behind Eiki. "At least, she will be according to what Mike told me. You'll be a better judge of whether it's true or not."

Eiki turned to see a slightly less familiar face smiling at her close to the back of the tent and responded in kind. "I didn't notice you before. May I join you?"

Hieda no Akyuu assented with a nod. She waited for Eiki to take the seat opposite of her before continuing. "I hope you've been well. This present situation expected, of course."

Eiki crossed her hands on the table. "I would say so. The situation in Hell remains both confusing and volatile, but that's to be expected. Has your work progressed well?"

Akyuu took a careful sip from her cup. "It has, thank you. I've kept comfortably busy. And Kosuzu..." Akyuu's smile, which bore a distinct resemblance to that of her previous incarnation, brightened and then immediately dimmed. "I hope you don't mind my saying this, but I expected her to sit where you sit now." Her smile grew more rueful still. "Especially since she's the one who wished to come here."

"Has this establishment..." Eiki gestured at their surroundings and discovered that she couldn't call them that without correcting herself. "...Tent been here for long?"

"It appeared yesterday. As for me, I have been here for ten minutes. Mike informed me that it takes at least an hour for her invitations to be considered fulfilled."

"That's longer than I had hoped." Eiki frowned at the innocuous-looking exit and Mike, who was currently occupied with a moth circling the lantern nearest to the entrance before turning her attention back to Akyuu. "Can you tell me precisely what's going on in this place?"

"I can explain that!" a muddled but cheery voice called from the bottom of the oden cart.

---

Komachi had walked merrily along for several minutes, taking in the twilight air and seeing if she could get her breath to fog up in the lingering cold from the past winter, when she realised she had at no point decided to take an evening stroll. Moreover, she was now alone, something which was the exact opposite of her plans for the night.

She halted in the middle of the path and turned to look over her shoulder. The greenness of the teahouse tent blended into the evening behind her, but she could still see it when she squinted. Distance of course meant little to her: she could be back there nearly as soon as she decided upon it.

But first, it was best to figure what had happened. It was likely nothing serious: the situation had the feel of a fairy prank to it. Still, the fact that she couldn't actually remember what had passed rubbed her the wrong way.

"Alright..." She adjusted her scythe to rest more comfortably on her shoulder. "What happened here?"

So, there was the weird teahouse, and Mike, who did strike Komachi as bit of a prankster, but who had seemed earnest enough inviting them in. Had Mike addressed her invitation to Lady Eiki alone? No, Komachi was sure it had been extended to them both.

She recalled her only previous encounter with Mike, on a lazy afternoon not that long ago when she had wandered into Gensokyo and struck up a conversation with the cat upon meeting her on the road. Mike had mentioned arriving in Gensokyo not that long ago, having only recently left behind the temple she had been born at, and that due to circumstances she had done so before she had completed her training as a maneki—

"Damn."

At the moment of realisation, Komachi became aware of of running footsteps rapidly approaching her, just in time not to be entirely surprised by someone small but fast-moving crashing into her.

"Ow!" The person who had collided with her tottered back, holding a hand to her nose. Even in the dying light and with half her face covered, she was obviously Kosuzu Motoori. "I'm sorry! I just..."

Kosuzu trailed off. Her eyes travelled first up to Komachi's face, then to the blade of her scythe. She took a startled step back.

Komachi grinned. "No need to fret. You're not dying tonight."

Kosuzu relaxed quickly in that quietly alarming way of humans who made of habit of traipsing too close to the border of the mundane and the supernatural. As her shock drained away, it was replaced by an almost mournful expression, so out of place it was almost comical.

"What's the matter?" Komachi almost began walking to see if Kosuzu would follow, but she had a funny feeling it would only result in Kosuzu crashing into her again. "It's not wise for you to run alone on a dark night like this. Did someone refuse to return your favourite book?"

Kosuzu fidgeted with her sleeves. "No, nothing like that." For a moment, she looked hesitant to speak, but once she did, the words spilled out of her in a tumble. "Actually, it's our anniversary today."

"Whose?"

Kosuzu's cheeks flushed pink. "Mine and Akyuu's."

"Really?" Komachi couldn't help but chuckle. "That's a funny coincidence."

"What is?"

"Never mind." Komachi relaxed her stance. "Let's see if I can guess what happened. Since it was your anniversary, you decided to go out to celebrate."

"That's right."

"And you happened upon a new, strange teahouse."

"Exactly!" Kosuzu halted her eager nodding to blink. "How did you know?"

"Because it sounds like we're in the same figurative boat."

"Oh." Kosuzu smiled weakly. "I suppose that's better than a literal boat. Um, I mean..."

Komachi laughed. "That'll be another day." Before Kosuzu could become too unsettled, she nudged her head towards the road behind them. "Come on. Let's go find our dates."

---

"Here you go." Suika Ibuki slammed the teacup onto the table with enough force to make half the liquid within leap into the air. Miraculously, not only were both the table and cup undamaged, but the drink returned into the cup without so much as a single drop spilling. She winked. "I'd say it's on the house, but I'm guessing you'd take that for a bribe."

Eiki took the cup gingerly. Seeing its contents in the air had already made it obvious it was filled with anything but tea, but the scent confirmed it. "Is this sake?"

"Well, yeah."

"The sign outside said you're running a teahouse."

"Yeah, yeah. Is there a law saying you can't serve sake in a teahouse?"

Eiki had to concede the point. "Not in Gensokyo, no."

"See? Try it. It's good." Suika turned towards Akyuu. "Care for a refill?"

As Akyuu murmured a demurral, Eiki took a sip from her drink. It was indeed rather good, but that was beside the real matter at hand. She looked up. "Suika—"

Suika had already left the table. Eiki watched her stalk around the tent, grinning as she went, gathering empty cups and refilling others with seemingly no input from the patrons.

"So where was I?" She returned and cheerfully pulled out the remaining seat for herself. If she was discomfited by any lingering memories of the less than auspicious circumstances during which she had last encountered Eiki, she showed no signs of it, instead beaming with the brightness shared by the very innocent and inveterate liars. "A story of some kind?"

"You were about to explain why we can't leave."

"Yeah, that's right. So this teahouse is just a bit of fun. I'll get going as soon as Reimu finds out I've set up shop this close to the village." Suika grinned. "Actually, I think I'll wait for her to show up. It's more fun that way."

Akyuu offered her a polite smile. Eiki pushed her cup aside. "And then you hired Mike?"

"That's right." Suika took Eiki's cup and downed it in a single long swig before continuing. "Of course, I don't really need her to gather customers. I can use my foregathering ability to bring people over just fine. But it feels more like a proper teahouse with an employee, doesn't it?"

"A floor might have a similar effect," commented Akyuu dryly.

"Anyway, since Mike can only invite one person in at a time, I decided to gather people into the area so that even if only half of them got in we'd still have plenty of customers. It worked really well, too. Until people tried to leave. I tried making the people disperse once they got stuck, obviously, but for some reason it only worked on those who hadn't been invited in at all. I'm guessing our abilities got entangled in some mysterious way."

Eiki nodded. "I see."

"Anyway, you don't have to worry. Everyone gets to leave eventually. Even the person stuck for the longest managed to walk out after two hours."

Akyuu set her cup down. "At least one of us may not have to wait for that long." She raised her voice. "Mike?"

Mike, who was no longer paying attention to the moth and was instead swinging her leg back and forth, jerked her head upwards. "What's up, Sis?"

"Can you step out for a moment?"

"Sure." Mike dove out. "Now what?"

Akyuu stood up and nodded at Suika. "Thank you for your hospitality." She gestured at Eiki to join her at the tent's entrance and waited until they were both there before speaking again. "Mike, can you attempt to invite us outside?"

"Oh, I see." Eiki smiled as she grasped Akyuu's intent. "Even if the invitation can only work on one of us, it still means one of us will be free to go."

"I hope you're the one invited out." Akyuu's smile was thin but sincere. "Unnerving as it is being this close to multiple youkai, I have made my peace with waiting here. After all, by remaining in one place I have better odds of re-uniting with—"

"Akyuu!"

They turned to look outside. Kosuzu hovered right behind Mike, bopping her head around in an effort to see past her. Behind her, calm but still curious, stood Komachi. Upon noticing Eiki, she gave her a cheery little wave.

Akyuu's smile immediately warmed to the point where its brightness was a match to the lanterns. "Everything is fine, Kosuzu. It's only a small supernatural obstacle."

Kosuzu gave a distracted nod, then turned towards Mike, looking almost ready to put hands on the cat. "Please invite us in!"

Mike's eyes darted from Komachi and Kosuzu to Akyuu and Eiki and then back. She frowned. "Kay, how about we try somethin' like this?"

She positioned herself in the tent's entrance, one foot in, one foot out. Before anyone could do anything to stop her, she beckoned with both hands. "Welcome!"

The next thing Eiki knew, she had collided with something unyielding but relatively soft.

"Oof." Komachi staggered back, then reached out to steady Eiki. She grinned. "At this rate I'm going to be qualified to work as a roadblock."

Back on her feet, Eiki looked around. She was outside again, with Komachi's hands on her arms and the tent securely behind. "Who knows how far I would have walked if you hadn't stopped me. Thank you for catching me."

"Did you ever doubt I wouldn't?"

Eiki smiled back at her. "No. I didn't."

They looked back. Within the tent, Kosuzu was clinging to Akyuu's arm, speaking rapidly but too quietly for any discernible words to make it outside the tent. Mike was watching them from her perch, smiling with self-satisfaction.

"Well, that worked out great." Suika came to the entrance, beaming as though Mike's success was hers as well. "Must be fate." She winked. "And don't worry about paying. The drink was on the house after all."

Given that most of the drink remained in the house, Eiki found little cause to complain. "Thank you." She frowned. "Don't invite more people in until you have understood what causes this. Consider—"

"Yeah, sure." Suika made a sweeping wave. "Have a good night!"

She retreated back into the tent. Only Mike remained near the entrance, still pleased with herself.

"That didn't exactly work out, huh?" said Komachi, smiling all the while.

"Yes, I suppose it didn't." Eiki watched Akyuu and Kosuzu retake the table Akyuu had previously occupied, smiling at each other all as though they were the only two people in the world. "But it doesn't seem to have done any harm, either. Should we consider the grilled lamprey stand?"

"Funny. I was just thinking I was in the mood for some fried fish." Komachi let go to adjust her scythe, which had nearly fallen from her shoulder in the collision, then held out her hand. "How about we go see what else fate has in store for us tonight?"

And so they did, continuing down the road together, filled with newfound appreciation for the beauty of spring nights.

#thshipweek #komaeiki #akyusuzu #mimic fics #i'm really burnt out at this point so apologies for the inevitable typos #and any other issues lol #i hope you enjoy the story all the same!