"Happy Valentine's Day!"
Reimu looked down from Sanae's proud, beaming face to the colourful bundle of cloth she was holding forward with both hands. "What is this?"
"Open it and find out!"
Reimu took the bundle and undid the long blue ribbon holding it closed. Within she found a selection of round chocolates on a tray just barely large enough to hold them. Each piece was as big as the circle made by Reimu's forefinger and thumb and generously thick. They came in three colours: brown, white, and pink.
"There's almond paste inside the white ones," Sanae explained helpfully, or perhaps hopefully. Her eyes kept flitting between the chocolates and Reimu's face with bird-like alertness.
Normally, Reimu would have been too busy stuffing a chocolate in her mouth to respond. This time, she found herself frozen studying the embellishments on each piece. They were all unique: one was topped with a sugar rose, another bedecked with silver beads. On several Sanae had written characters in somewhat smudgy pink icing: flower, dream, love.
Reimu closed the bundle, suddenly feeling that she might go blind if she stared at its contents for much longer. She felt like someone had replaced a portion of her blood with sparkling sugar. "These are..."
"Don't you like them?"
"They look really good." Reimu re-opened the bundle to peer ever so slightly into it. The sight of the sweet treasures was just as dazzling as the moment before. "How long did it take you to make these?"
"I'm not sure. A couple of evenings." Sanae's smile was suddenly tremulous. "Is it too much?"
Reimu shook her head slowly, unsure what she even meant by doing so. "What day did you say it was?"
"Valentine's Day. In the Outside World, it's when girls give chocolate to those they like."
Either the girls of the Outside World loved to go all out with their gifts, or Sanae had made a truly incredible effort. Maybe it was both. "Okay. Thanks. I'll eat them with care."
"Thank you for accepting them." But Sanae didn't look thankful. Her gaze had sunken to the frosty ground between them, and while Reimu could only make out a part of her expression, the impression she got was that of mourning. "Um, I promised Lady Suwako I'd pick something up for her from the village. See you later."
With that, she hurried away. Reimu was left standing in the courtyard with the bundle in her hand, breathing out mist and feeling like she had just committed the faux pas of a lifetime.
"Your girlfriend gave you a really nice present?" While Marisa didn't literally roll her eyes, her tone made it clear she had considered it. "With problems like that, it's a miracle yer still alive."
"Shut up." Deciding the tea was ready now, Reimu poured herself and Marisa a cup and settled down to drink. The warmth warded her hands from the cold air as she brought it closer to breathe in the steam. "You know that's not the issue."
"Then what is?" Marisa snatched a cracker from the tray before one-handedly picking up her cup. "Oof, hot."
"I wouldn't be telling you about this if I knew." The truth was that she likely would have, but that hardly mattered right then. "I just don't understand why she was upset."
"Were you rude to her?"
"Who do you think I am? I thanked her and said they were nice." At least, Reimu assumed they were nice. She had tried one of them, the one with "flower" iced on it. Even knowing what she was eating had in truth been delicious, the flavour had become inexplicably bitter after the first bite. Unless the chocolates had been prank from the outset, she was going to have to get to the root of this nonsense before she could actually enjoy them.
"Maybe you weren't sufficiently grateful."
Reimu sighed. As she drank her tea, she reviewed what Sanae had said to her and nearly choked on the liquid. "Wait. Do you think she expected me to have made chocolate for her as well?"
"Could be. Did she hint at that?"
"She did say it was what girls did on that day." Irritation surged within Reimu. "But that's stupid. She must have known I had never heard of a tradition like that before."
"Maybe she told ya and you just forgot?"
"No." Reimu thought the matter through after she had already denied it, then shook her head all the more vigorously. "No, she really didn't."
"Then I dunno. Guess you'll just hafta wait till she's no longer mad."
"She wasn't angry. Just disappointed." Which was still distinctly unfair as far as Reimu was concerned. Had Sanae honestly expected her to intuit some strange Outside World custom based on absolutely nothing?
"Then wait till she's no longer that. It doesn't seem like a big deal. I'm sure it'll smooth itself over."
"Thanks for the brilliant advice." Reimu had intended to be snappish, but she couldn't muster any real heat to her response. To compensate, she emptied her cup in a single, decisive swig.
The thing was, Marisa was right: at worst, this incident would be a minor chink in Reimu and Sanae's relationship. She could keep going as though she hadn't seen the hidden hurt on Sanae's face, and the whole thing would be swept aside in a matter of weeks.
She kneaded her forehead. No matter how many times she explained it to herself, her headache showed no signs of abating.
She stood up so abruptly she toppled over her teacup. The dramatic momentum she had attempted came to a slightly awkward halt as she rushed to grab it before it rolled away. Glaring at the cup, she said, "I'm going for a walk."
"Eh? Right now?"
"Right now." Without further ado, she set the cup down and walked away from the shrine.
"At least put a scarf on! It's freezin'!" And, when Marisa's comment provoked no response, she called after Reimu in a even louder voice. "I still think you just forgot her tellin' you about it."
"Shut up!"
Annoyingly, Marisa had been right about one additional thing: it was cold enough for Reimu to shudder as she walked. She tried to ignore the tendrils of cold slithering into her clothes and doing their best to burrow into her skin and kept moving forward at a brisker pace.
Overall, the winter which would soon end had been a very nondescript. Reimu frowned at the bare trees and the few patches of snow lingering in shadows as she walked past them, struggling to see their appeal despite usually enjoying every season to some degree.
She slowed down and watched her breath rise up towards the grey clouds. Why had Sanae been so disappointed? And why was that now bothering Reimu so much? Everything had been fine until that point. Normal. Simple. In fact, apart from a few stealthily exchanged kisses, things had progressed more or less as they had been before they had become a couple. It had been easy to pretend nothing had changed.
...Maybe that's it, she thought as she attempted to breathe some warmth onto her hands. The gift was proof we really are in a relationship.
Romance wasn't something she had ever sought out for herself. She hadn't been opposed to the idea, had even entertained the notion in some vague daydreams, but she had never felt the need to pursue it. Sanae had more or less fallen onto her lap. And now...
Am I just fooling myself? The thin treetops rattling in the wind provided no answers, but Reimu stared at them all the same. Maybe I was never cut out for this.
The more she thought about it, the more certain she became she was at a crossroads — figuratively so, since the literal path on the edge of the field continued forward as far as the eye could see. If she decided this had been a mistake and that she wasn't actually equipped to date anyone, she ought to make that clear to Sanae as soon as possible. Even if that thought seemed to make the clouds thicker and the chill within her more severe.
As she retracted her hands within her sleeves, her eyes fell on a daub of colour ahead. A lone camellia blossom, boldly red as if in defiance of its wan surroundings, bloomed from a small shrub. Reimu stared at it before approaching. At close range, she saw the flower was accompanied by a slew of spherical buds, their eventual splendour revealed by hints of red peeking from within them like inner layers of clothing.
After a long pause taking in the flowers, Reimu turned around and retraced her steps back to the shrine.
"Can I take this off now?"
"I said wait." The makeshift blindfold was about to slip off Sanae's eyes at any moment anyway, so Reimu hurried to guide her to the next room to preserve what element of surprise she still could. "Okay, fine. Take it off."
Sanae peeled the fabric from her face, blinking as her eyes adjusted to candlelight. Her mouth fell open.
Reimu placed her hands on her hips, unable to keep herself from huffing with pride. She knew she had outdone herself. The spread of confectionery waiting for them would have been enough to entertain a twenty-headed tea party, and that was before getting into the sheer variety on offer. She was especially proud of how the mochi had turned out: it had been a pain to make so many different kinds, but the array of colourful cakes, from faint matcha green to gentle purplish blue and cherry blossom pink, looked almost too tasty to eat.
Sanae blinked slowly. "Reimu, this is..."
"It's payback for the chocolates. I don't know if today's a special day in the Outside World, but it can be one in Gensokyo."
Sanae kept blinking as she took in the rest of the room (spotlessly clean, with Reimu's best cushions waiting for them) and slowly shook her head. "You didn't have to do this."
"I did, actually." Since Reimu had already chosen her path, it only made sense to sprint along far enough to make it difficult to change her mind later. "Don't give me that look. I wanted to do it."
"Really?"
"Of course really." Reimu frowned. "I thought you'd be happy."
"Well, yes. I'm..." Sanae studied Reimu for a long moment. Finally, her usual smile reasserted herself. "I think I'm a little overwhelmed."
"A little?" Maybe this really was payback.
In a rare instance, Sanae's thoughts appeared to be travelling on similar tracks to Reimu's. "I think I finally know what you felt like on Valentine's Day. I thought I'd made a mistake because you looked so confused."
"It wasn't a mistake," Reimu said, because that at least was both true and easy enough to say. She tilted her head. "Marisa thought it was because I didn't have a present to exchange with yours."
"Well, no. How could you have had one? I never told you about Valentine's Day."
I knew it. So certain I'm just forgetful now, Marisa? But that didn't really matter in the moment. What mattered that Sanae was right there next to her and things seemed to finally have been cleared up. "So we're fine?"
Sanae's eyes crinkled at the corners. "Of course! Thank you so much for this!"
Reimu smiled back. Yes. She had made her choice, and whatever happened next, she would keep striding forward if it meant preserving that look on Sanae's face. "Come on, sit down. I have some great tea to go with these."
And as they settled down to enjoy private tea party, Reimu knew it would be one to remember.