It is by chance we met . . . By choice we became friends.

[magus_knight]

Who: Marisa Kirisame and Reimu Hakurei
What: How does one go about resolving the worst fight ever with one's best friend?
When: 10/2
Where: New Gensokyo, Hakurei Shrine
Warnings: teenage angst

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[whatishardwork]

Reimu, for one, was passing her day like she did any other day. Shunning active social contact was something she did normally so aside for the fact that she was curled up on a mat, still sunk in her depression, everything was almost normal.

She mostly filled her thoughts with things that were anything but Marisa. Reminding herself just made things worse. When she heard someone step into the door, she turned to look and immediately turned back. Her body curled up in a tighter ball, as if she was wishing Marisa wasn't there but she was. Reimu knew from the beginning that Marisa would probably stop by at some point. It was the inevitable.

[magus_knight]

That just made the witch's heart hurt. How was she going to fix this? She was pretty sure her standard gift+apology+grin tactic wasn't going to work here. She set her broom against the wall and hung her hat on it.

For a moment, she just watched the shrine maiden, mulling over what to say. In the end, she decided she could only really do one thing. Carefully, she lowered herself down to the floor and then wrapped her good arm about Reimu. Resting her head on the back of the other girl's shoulder, her hair fell down Reimu's front as Marisa let the miko bear her weight.

Nope. No words.

[whatishardwork]

That was enough to make her lower lip start to wibble. She bit down on it but the only thing that did was cause her body to start shaking underneath Marisa. There wasn't a point in her history where she could remember being like this other than times as a child.

Her hand grabbed onto Marisa's arm and squeezed it. No, as much as she really wanted to hate the witch right now, she could bring herself to actually do it. Instead, she wanted to keep her close.

"Why?"

[magus_knight]

Damnit. Reimu trying not to cry was making Marisa want to cry. Her grip on her friend increased as much as she could, though it was pretty clear she didn't have much strength right then.

...but she didn't understand the question.

"I don't know what all I did, ze. But I'm sorry."

[whatishardwork]

She was fighting it and it was working well so far. But as time passed, the walls she built up to keep herself from crying were slowly being eroded away. It was resisting the inevitable and she knew it.

"You...you said it yourself. You didn't want to do the one thing we've always done. If you don't want to do that then...then what's the point of us?"

Her voice cracked on the last few words and she had to force them out. She never imagined having to say them to Marisa. Despite her ease in being able to do almost anything, her rudimentary grasp of social matters still left her hanging in many areas. She just didn't understand.

[magus_knight]

"Didn't want to do...?"

Marisa was really confused. What did she say she didn't want to do? The one thing her and Reimu have always done - other than drink - was beat up youkai. She didn't remember that being something they'd talked about before, much less would she ever say she didn't want to do it. All she'd said was that she'd promised Flandre she wouldn't go looking for troub--

Oh.

"Reimu... I never said I didn't want to. I said I might not be able to. And there's more to us than beating people up. If that's all there was, I never would have sacrificed myself to save you when the Sigrun blew."

[whatishardwork]

And that's the first time Reimu has even heard about that. On top of that, she has no idea what that even means. She just shakes her head in reply, her own black hair intermingling with Marisa's golden strands. Reimu really had no idea what Marisa meant by that.

[magus_knight]

It was that motion that made Marisa remember Reimu didn't remember that incident. She didn't remember a lot of the things her and the witch had done. It... It kind made Marisa feel like crap. Here she'd been treating Reimu like she remembered all that, remembered them going out and suckering aliens into buying them drinks, busting everyone out of the Holosseum and stealing booze from that one planet.

Reimu didn't remember all that. From her perspective, the witch had probably been a pretty piss-poor friend.

"...I forgot you don't remember being here before. I totally suck, ze. I probably should've told you about the Sigrun before," Marisa replied. "There was a month when we docked with this derelict ship that was part of the same fleet as this one. It was abandoned and infested with monsters. A bunch of us ended up trapped on it - me on it but you were back on the Thor. Couldn't teleport back then..."

Marisa squeezed Reimu a bit. "Was trapped on it for a week before finding a way back before the Sigrun blew because of it

[whatishardwork]

"Damn it, Marisa."

Her grip on the witch tightened and her body wouldn't stop shaking. It finally erupted out of her body in a soft sob. Marisa probably couldn't see it from her point of view but she probably felt the warm, salty drops fall on her arm.

"Damn it." The last one was directed at her own self for letting herself fall apart like this in front of Marisa.

[magus_knight]

"It's okay, ze... I didn't die. Just got trapped in another dimension for five days. I came back to you. Just like you came back to me."

Marisa wanted to hug Reimu more, hold her, but her shoulder restricted her from doing so. This was the best she could do, holding her with one arm as she leaned heavily against Reimu.

"I'm here, ze. I'm here." She was supposed to be in bed, but she was there with her best friend.

[whatishardwork]

Nothing was holding back Reimu, however. She slowly forced herself around and latched onto Marisa, being careful with her one arm. There was no urge to show her face to Marisa because it was something she didn't want the witch to see. Instead, she buried her face in Marisa's shoulder and sobbed again.

She really did think that Marisa had wanted to get rid of her and...now that she knew the with didn't, she appreciated her friend all that much more.

[magus_knight]

Marisa squeaked a little as Reimu suddenly rolled and held onto her. She hadn't been expecting it, but once her friend started crying in earnest, she calmed down and rest her head against Reimu's.

"Careful with the shoulder, ze. Just had surgery the other day..."

[whatishardwork]

"I'm being careful, idiot!"

She sobbed that out a little too loudly but at least it was typical Reimu. It took her a few minutes to quiet down and another few minutes after that to dry her eyes.

[magus_knight]

Marisa couldn't help the little chuckle at that. There was her best friend...

The witch just smiled and waited for Reimu to regain herself. When the miko finally did, Marisa's eyes were closed, but she still had that smile on her face. She wasn't asleep... just resting as the meds made her tire easily.

If prompted, she'd respond.

[whatishardwork]

There wasn't much to prompt but she at least pulled her face out of the crook of Marisa's neck. Right now was probably the most open Reimu would ever be in a while since every emotional barrier was destroyed by her actions for the past few minutes. Either way, she had something to say.

"I love you Marisa so...don't do that to me again."

Of course, the type of love was obvious but Reimu wasn't ever keen to admit that kind of thing in the first place.

[magus_knight]

Gold eyes opened to look into Reimu's. She knew what kind of love the other meant, but it did feel nice to hear it for once. She smiled softly.

"Alright, ze. I didn't mean to." And she kissed the shrine maiden's forehead. "I love you too, ze. My life isn't complete without you. No matter what it seems like."