I wrote this as part of a writing month project. I didn't realize it ended up being so wordy, I think it'll be shorter in the following chapters.

I could not have done this on my own. Thank you to all helps I received.
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Every time I looked into this person in front of me, I never felt like I had anything to write home about, until today.

When then I remember my yesterday’s reading, another thought came across my mind. It was some kind of a newspaper, but it was different from what I receive from my daily Bunbunmaru subscription. In a way, it was sleeker. Full of bright and vivid colors, that seemed to make it more interesting to look forward to than the monotony in the black-and-white sheets of the Bunbunmaru.

Most of what I assume to be the front of the newspaper was occupied by a large picture of a girl, about in her teens. As you flip through pages after pages, there were many more of such images; some more women, some men in very neatly-cut clothes, and what was astonishing was there was a small subset of them wearing garments that were rather bizarre. I saw lots of furs, with collars and chains, and an assortment of other neck ornaments hanging everywhere. It made me think that they were some of the oni or tengu that had separated from their peers (after all, it does happen even here), though still, all of them were much smaller than the girl on the front cover. These pictures extended all the way to the back, covering many pages so there were fewer rooms for texts.

That there was so much space dedicated to those people’s images, it’s really kind of amusing to think on. I wonder if this means they matter a lot to where they all came from. Moreover, I wonder if the girl who pretty much had the front page to herself was some kind of a queen among them. I’m pretty sure if she could surpass even the oni and tengu, she ought to be a very influential person.

“I… really doubt that,” the person in front of me says. Her cheeks creased slightly and her teeth momentarily showed through her lips with the smile she made as she replied.

“Why?” I wondered back to her, although by now she had already returned to re-examining the clipboard she held in front of her. Her maroon eyes move up and down the papers attached to it, delving briefly into a pocket hidden behind a pattern reminiscent of the Seven Stars of the Great Ladle.

“Well,” she successfully finds the pencil inside her pocket and draws it out, scratching away at the clipboard momentarily with it, “for starters, she sounds too young to be a queen.”

“You think so?” I leant forward slightly, readjusting myself on the stool so as to not lose balance. “But it’s definitely easy for youkai to appear younger than they really are. I don’t believe we can take the girl at first glance.”

She tilted back in her chair as she tapped on the clipboard with her pencil, every so often the pencil rushing away on the paper to mark something down. Briefly a flicker of smile and a corner of her mouth drawing up could be seen, however she didn’t even look up to speak.

“What makes you assume she was a youkai?”

“That’s easy,” I said, trying my best to keep my tone level, “it takes a lot to be more revered than even the tengu and the oni. That girl must be extraordinarily exceptional.”

There was a sudden silence that hit the room. The chirping of the few birds outside that twittered to themselves could be heard echoing throughout. The writing hand of the person in front of me had stopped its movement, as she raised her head slightly from its rapt attention on her clipboard, eyebrows tilting as she looked over to face me.

The silence hung there for a while, until it finally passed as her words slowly came out, “considering… that she was pictured on a newspaper from the outside world,” she bluntly revealed the fact, her attention returning to her clipboard. “Wouldn’t it make more sense to assume that she was a human?”

“That isn’t necessarily so,” as I talked I realized I was gesturing slightly with my hands, rolling them forwards with my points or opening them wider on some facts.“Didn’t we recently have an influx of youkai coming from the outside world? Not everyone there has to be humans.”

The woman in front of me let out a slight rush of air from her nose, accompanied by a tone that was so brief and sudden it had to have been a laugh, despite her mouth staying closed and her attention staying focused on her clipboard. As I placed my cheek in one of my hands to rest it on, I noticed my own mouth had turned up slightly at the edge.

She flipped through the pages attached to her clipboard, folding each on in turn to the side before folding them back. While still holding the pencil she took from the pocket on the blue-and-red symmetrically dichromatic outfit she wore, she softly tapped her fingers on the board.

Her clothes always reminded me of something like the inside of a marble, as if someone had taken the center out and made it into cloth which in turn created this piece. It's a fancy outfit, that’s for certain, but in a different sense than the outfits the people pictured in that newspaper wore. Theirs were very elaborate, while hers is much more due to its unique coloring and patterns. I do however think that it matches finely with the way she makes her hair.

“Well, alright, I was only fooling around,” I say, which managed to get the person in front of me to raise her head once again from the clipboard. "Though I was thinking quite a bit, about how it must feel to be pictured like that." Her position had now shifted to be much better for facing me directly, though her gaze still occasionally shifted down to the clipboard. "You would think it’d be pretty nerve-wracking, unless you’re someone with the natural charm to give you the confidence to do so. Someone like the Princess.”

"The Princess certainly has the qualities for that,” she stated with directness.

"Yeah," I said, sighing slightly under my breath and trying my best not to roll my wrists, "she sure is beautiful, though I don't think you'd look bad at all there either, Ms. Yagokoro."

"Oh?" she asked shortly. The slip of name I spoke of would happen to be this woman’s family name.

I always thought that name sounded impressive, as if august, even if unusual. Likewise when I heard of her first name, Eirin, it was similarly odd, but at the same time I thought it was beautiful.

Right now, Eirin Yagokoro sat there, her back facing towards a large cabinet filled with what I assume to be mounds of reports or batches of pre-made medicines. Eirin’s eyes were closed, her mouth forming an unnervingly slight smile. Her face unchanging, she followed up on what she had started, "but who was it that said my hair looks like a loaf?"

"Ahaha...” strangely, I felt something crawling through my body, “did Reisen tell you that?"

Looking back to myself shuffling through the pages of yesterday's newspaper, I had seen one particular page that contained several cooking recipes. The foods looked pretty exotic to me; they were obviously not Eastern foods, but it's not like I'm not accustomed to those. In fact some of the cuisines I've been trying out lately were very much that, especially various kinds of pastries.

One kind of the loafs I’d had was swirly, around the size of a finger roll. It'd have sausages inside of it, while the bread wraps around it in twisted layers. If I had to say, it’d be similar to the long, dangling braid of the woman in front of me. If you think about it like that, I guess it does make her head the sausage doesn’t it? If I had to explain the white coloring of her hair too, I’d say it was sweetener, powdered all over the sausage bread.

I wonder if a pastry so crispy and meaty would mix well with caster sugar. The sweet powder might even be as powdery as the ones used with mochi making. That’s what I mentioned to Reisen too. I guess the joke between us didn't last a secret for very long.

I could tell that just by looking at what I saw at the moment. Eirin was there, motionless as she stared at me, an eerie grin remaining on her face.

"Sorry," I did my best to hide my smile, waving my hands lightly before my face as an act of mock defense.