"Ready?"
"I told you that you didn't need to bother."
"You did. A dozen times." Keine pushed the bundle on the grass closer to Mokou. "You'll have to say it quite a few times more until the message sinks in. I'm known to be fairly hard-headed."
Mokou chuckled and unwrapped the bundle, then checked her hands. They looked clean enough, and so she grabbed the topmost rice ball and tucked in.
She had to pause and close her eyes after the first bite. She hadn't been starving, not even close, but the first mouthful of freshly cooked food after a long stretch of eating nothing but forage and stale scraps was always a welcome experience.
She swallowed and breathed in. "I've been gone for too long."
"As usual." A note of chiding rang through Keine's overall tenor of fondness.
"Surviving isn't a problem during summer. There's food everywhere."
"I know." The glint in Keine's eyes suggested that if she could put Mokou in detention, she would. "I wouldn't have minded some notice."
"Sorry." Mokou was confident the single word was enough to let the issue drop. Neither of them really wanted to discuss why Mokou didn't always come around or why she sometimes wandered into the far corners of Gensokyo without so much as a hint of advance warning.
"Thank you."
They fell back into a companionable silence. Though both the overgrown meadow and the treetops picked out in gold courtesy of the dwindling sunlight were as stunning as a painting, Keine chose instead to watch Mokou as she ate. Not that Mokou minded. She polished off the rice ball and immediately got started on the next one.
"This is really good," she mumbled between munches.
"I'm glad you like it."
"It's so good I'd worry about it making me too soft, but I think it's already too late for that."
"A little softness can serve as a cushion."
That a little softness could get one killed was more in line with Mokou's experience. However, she could have said the exact same thing about flintiness, and of attempting to walk a path somewhere in between. Since every direction led to death, she might as well pick one with some interesting sights and the occasional good meal on the way.
As she chewed through the last of the rice balls, noticing to her amusement that Keine had also included a clean cloth in the bundle for her hands, Keine's eyes trailed over her clothes. Most of the tears and scuffs she paused at had been caused by Mokou's run-in with a thicket of wild roses. Eventually, however, she saw the bloody gash on Mokou's thigh, neither washed nor dressed.
"More assassins?"
"Just the one. This one was pretty light on her feet." Mokou picked out the remaining grains from her fingers. "Didn't even bother finishing the job."
Keine pursed her lips. To salvage the mood, Mokou changed tack. "Speaking of assassins, did you know that Arimura Jizaemon ate smoked eel as his last meal shortly before the attack on Naosuke Ii?"
"Really?" Keine looked around before giving up on the idea that a scroll and ink might spontaneously spring up from the grass. She instead grabbed the cloth and used it to wipe the blackened blood on Mokou's wound. "This is the first time I've heard that."
"It's the truth." Mokou thought back on her living conditions during Bakumatsu. "It's too bad my knowledge of the times I've lived through isn't that historically relevant."
"You still have a unique first-hand perspective on the past. I appreciate every detail you can give me."
Mokou leaned back and let Keine see to her task. It was strange to think that this moment too would one day be history. Perhaps there would even exist a future kindred spirit of Keine's, quizzing her on these very details.
She drove the thought into the mists on the outskirts of her mind. Such ponderings belonged to lonely twilight walks and moonless nights. Not in the sun-gilt present that even eternity seemed unable to touch.
A powerful wind, the first herald of the encroaching autumn, rattled the treetops just as Keine finished tying the cloth in place. It swept downwards and struck them, sending their hair flying askew. The oldest and rattiest of the paper charms in Mokou's hair tore apart and joined the first yellow leaves of the year in the gust.
"Oh." Keine rose. "Your charm."
"It's fine. I needed to replace it anyway."
Keine nodded, but remained upright. She followed the charm with her eyes as the wind carried it farther and farther, until it finally vanished behind the long grass.
In turn, Mokou watched Keine. The light of the descending sun caught each individual lock of her hair, casting them in blue and silver in equal order. Her expression was solemn but calm, with the furrows that so often wrinkled her brow smoothing out of view.
The wind rose again, whipping the blades of grass around Keine's ankles. Her hair grew as wild as her posture was steady, a maelstrom of gleaming strands.
Mokou got up. Before Keine had time to react, she encircled her arms around her waist and pulled her into a hug.
Keine gave the slightest of starts, then settled into the embrace. "Is something wrong?"
"The opposite." Mokou leaned her face into Keine's hair. It carried the scent of soap and an entirely unseasonal whiff of cherry blossoms. "Can you stay a while longer?"
Very gently, Keine detached Mokou's hands from where they had come to rest on her stomach. Mokou took it for an answer and stepped back, but Keine only let go of one hand. She turned around and cupped Mokou's cheek.
"There can't always be a while longer." Keine's voice was so low Mokou couldn't catch the sentiment it was meant to carry. The wind swept her hair back, leaving only her bare face with its clear eyes and soft features. "But there can be a while longer tonight."
Mokou pressed her hand over Keine's. "What more could I ask for?"
And although the eerie scent of inexplicable cherry blossoms only grew stronger as Keine leaned in to kiss Mokou, Mokou dismissed it with merely a thought. What were reminders of the transience of life in the face of moments that almost made facing eternity seem worth it?