In the very big place called the Universe, there is a planet that could be worth taking a look at. It is a quaint little sphere of moderate size with one moon, orbiting around a rather unimpressive yellow star in a rather unimpressive spiral galaxy. The indigenous peoples of this planet refer to themselves as “humans” more often than not, and are funny little bipedal creatures of average intelligence and passable physical attributes. They are carbon-based, have low tolerances to heat and radiation, and require continued consumption of hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon, along with trace amounts of other elements, to sustain their bodily functions.

They often enjoy building things to make their lives easier and more enjoyable for themselves. Sometimes they will build things to help them gather sustenance, or perhaps to find shelter. Other times they will build things for recreation, which produce no quantifiable output other than minor chemical reactions within the bodily organ they call a “brain”. They refer to these reactions as “happiness” or “excitement”, or a myriad or other words which they seem to be so fond of using.

They also engage in varied arguments amongst themselves, for unknown reasons. Often they will argue over the possessions they have made to make life easier for themselves. More often they will argue about the possessions they have made for entertainment. These arguments appear to have no discernable outcome other than the withdrawal of these humans into separate groups, which seem to argue only slightly less with each other than with different groups. Incidentally, they will often take the things they once used to make life easier for themselves and try to shoot each other in the foot with them. More often than not, the only person who ends up getting shot is the person who fired in the first place.

They almost destroyed themselves once. Almost. After a time, they forgot about that and almost destroyed themselves again. Almost. As has been remarked in times past, these humans are not always very smart. They will often say they are smart, because they can build so many different things to make life easier for them. However, most of the things they build will eventually be used to shoot themselves in the foot with, which is not very smart at all.

However, this story is not about them, making the last few paragraphs a complete waste of time. Or, perhaps more accurately, this story is not about most of them, making the last few paragraphs mostly a complete waste of time. This story, instead, is about you.

Not “you” in a physical, literal sense, of course. Quite likely the physical, literal “you” is currently sitting down observing a video screen, thinking to yourself, “The heck is this, Owen? Shoes?!”, or perhaps something with slightly larger and more forceful words. This would not make for a good story at all, and then the physical, literal “you” would most likely not read past this sentence if that were the case. Thus, because the weakest and most skeptical of you have already stopped reading by now, this sentence can contain just about anything, and it will not matter very much at all, such as the phrase, “Shazam!! Ah’ pity the foo’!!”

No; instead, this story is about a different “you.” This “you” lives in a small bubble of a world inside a small bubble of a world on the bubble of a planet mentioned in the mostly-useless paragraphs you might have read two minutes ago. The largest bubble is called “Earth” often enough by its inhabitants. The smaller bubble is an island called “Japan” often enough by everyone except its inhabitants, who instead call it “Nippon.” The smallest bubble yet is a region called “Gensokyo” often enough by everyone (which is actually not a lot of people), as well as its inhabitants, of which this different “you” is one of.

Judging by your obvious presence in front of this video screen, it is not difficult to assume that you are aware of what such an odd place contains. Thus, a phrase like, “You are a rather unimpressive female youkai of minor power” is not hard to accept and comprehend. However, a more complex phrase such as, “You have the power to barely manipulate shoes; like, you can maybe tie up the laces with your mind on a good day” is quite a bit more abstract, and more difficult to accept owing to your human mind’s adherence to logic. Perhaps it is because the literal “you” wants life to be perfect, and perfectly explained. Perhaps it is because the literal “you” finds the notion of a shoe youkai absurd and pointless, especially in the hands of an author who the literal “you” recognizes as anything but an author of light-hearted, nonsensical slice-of-life adventures.

Unfortunately, the “you” who is the protagonist of this story does not care about those things, and in fact does not even know what a “U. N. Owen” or a “CYOA” is. What you do care about is shoes. Lots of shoes. Everyone’s shoes. So much so that you will not rest until you have stolen each and every Gensokyan’s shoes for yourself, and they lie safely held within your stainless-steel, numerically-encrypted vault hidden carefully underneath your “house”, which is really little more than a few dozen pieces of two-ply cardboard held together with duct tape borrowed from Rinnosuke Morichika, whose shoes incidentally rested within your vault on that very same day. Not a bad pair really; you had hoped for something more than common tan sandals with rickety brass clasps, but there’s something quite soothing about their mundane nature when you look at them. Maybe it’ll make him get a better pair that you can steal later; what fun it would be to see the look on his face as his shoes disappear again! Too busy, though; there’s so many more pairs you need to get, and you can’t waste time doubling-up on a target you’ve already hit.

Wait, where were you again? Oh yes, of course: shoes.

ARE YOU A BAD ENOUGH DUDE TO STEAL EVERYONE’S SHOES?