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My heater from the outside world has been repeatedly making noises. It has some switches I don't quite understand, but since I press them and nothing happens, I'm using it in my own original way. Lately, the fire has been too strong at times, so it's a little dangerous.

Speaking of fire, there has been an increase of cremations in Gensokyo lately. Until now, cremations were almost never performed to dispose of a dead human's remains - well, those probably ended up as youkai food. Maybe it's because the youkai are attempting to act more civilized so that, as of late, the ones that would eat corpse meat seem to be decreasing. If you see it from the side of the humans in Gensokyo, those remains simply can't be left neglected - for both sanitary and spiritual reasons - so apparently, there's little choice but to cremate them.

On the other hand, doesn't that reduce the opportunities for new youkai to be born? Humans have little chance for being anything but humans. And if they do, they mostly happen after they die. If they are cremated, it would be difficult for them to become Jiang Shi, Vampires, or other such beings.

Well, maybe that's a good thing. And besides, there are times when youkai can be born from ashes. Ghosts, especially, might be easily formed this way. Speaking of which, it feels like there has been an increase of ghosts in Gensokyo lately. Maybe this is an effect of the cremations, and maybe not...however, these more recent ghosts sure are cheerful and high-spirited. But, after all, ghosts, as far as Gensokyo is concerned...

*Knock-knock.*

Someone had arrived, but I hesitated in saying "welcome." Usuaully, the visitors are the ones to start with the boisterous talk, because usually, they are not actually customers.

"...Is someone there?"

"Eh? Ah, welcome. How may I help you?"

"I'm looking for just the right kind of teacups. Would you happen to have some here?"

There was a girl with the appearance of a maid standing there. (Although the frequency is low, I do get real customers!) My expectations were unusually off, but that's because if I always have only one kind of expectation, if a customer shows up, they will always be wrong.

"Yes, I surely do. What kind of cup would you like?"

"A small, pretty, white one...you see, the kind of white cup that would look nice with dark liquids, and it can't be too heavy. But the real issue is the shape, which is a little complex; well, I'll decide about that when I see them. Oh, and I need a pair of them."

"Err, I see..."

A complicated request. It almost seems like an exam for a Cup Expert certification. This is a rather difficult problem. Solving it while I try to remember just where the cups are in the piles of merchandise might be a little too difficult.

"Well, I have all kinds of cups. It's for drinking black tea, right?"

"Well, it's in the same style as cups for black tea."

"The cups for black tea were around here..."

Black tea and coffee are major luxury items in Gensokyo. It's been established that the youkai that drifted here naturally brought with them foreign countries' culures, and things like tools and books. Even if Gensokyo is closed as an area, it's very international in spirit.

Well then, I just found an antique case. I'm sure that in this case were two cups that I liked.

"Here it is! I think these will be to your liking!"

When I opened the case, I was astonished. Those weren't the shapes I was expecting to see inside. There was a teacup, and something that once was a cup was lying there in several broken pieces. Yes, one of my favorites was cruelly broken.

"Which ones?"

"Er, no, just a moment."

Even in my disappointment, I noticed that there was a single sheet of paper inside the case. What could that be? I reached for the paper, but...

"Hmm, this looks like Marisa's writing, doesn't it? 'Sorry?' What does that mean?"

?!

What just happened? Why wasn't I holding the paper? And I really mean "why?" Once I realized that, this girl was holding it.

"Please, have it back."

I looked at the paper she handed me. The only thing written there was a 'sorry.' ...That Marisa, what should I do to her the next time she comes here?

I quickly recovered from my confusion. I shouldn't bother too much with things I don't understand. if you don't do that, you can't live in Gensokyo.

"Yes, just like you said. I really like these. Can I take them?"

I take that back. I'm still confused. She liked the broken cup?

"Eh? I-is that so? Well, I do like them...but they are not exactly normal."

"As for small, they are as small as they get," because they are in pieces, "and they aren't heavy. Just as requested."

"They are so pretty, and the will look glorious with black tea. They are exactly what the Mistress wished for."

Yeah, but you may bleed if you touch them...

*Knock-knock-knock.*

"Hey! Sakuya, are you in there?"

This time I wasn't wrong. It's usual for the noise to begin less than 3 seconds after the door opens. And, of course, this red one is not a customer.

"My, isn't it Reimu? When did you return from the shrine? And the Mistress, too..."

"Return? That's not the point! What's with going inside the shrine when there's nobody there?! And on top of that, you leave this one there to go doing I don't know what."

"I'm not doing anything. It's just there weren't any good cups at the shrine, so we couldn't have a proper tea time."

"I won't treat people who come in on their own to tea!"

Most likely, entering in other people's homes on your own whim seems to be a tradition among the girls of Gensokyo.

By the way, the name of my client is Sakuya. And the mistress that Reimu brought along is called Remilia. Sakuya is a maid in Remilia's service. But, as you can see, this mistress is a vampire. It seems like they were taking a walk and decided to stop by the shrine.

"Even during a walk, tea time in indispensable. And with beautiful cups, of course."

"Remilia, in the first place, why are you walking about in the middle of the day, even though you're a vampire? Shouldn't you be inside a coffin?"

"Even I can have a sunbathing viewing. And by the way, coffins are for putting dead people into. You seem to have a misunderstanding."

A sunbathing viewing apparently consists of appreciating other people sunbathing.

"Anyway, what am I going to do if rumors of demons at the shrine start to spread?!"

"You don't have to do anything. Besides, the donation box was empty."

"But that may be because it's a godless shrine. Right, Mistress?"

"Don't call it godless!"

I'm probably the only one who knows about the origins of the Hakurei Shrine. I thought about telling them now to restore Reimu's honor, but...it's not really important, so it was rejected. How sad.

"Oh, right, Sakuya. Did you find the beautiful teacups?"

"Yes, I believe I did. They are quite splendid."

And then I was immersed in confusion again. What am I going to do about that cup? Its pair is in pieces.

"Here, Mistress. Can you see them?"

Sakuya opened the lid of the case, and lowered it so that her Mistress could see.

Why is a broken cup acceptable? Maybe this is some kind of riddle. That's it; there must be a meaning behind the broken pair. For example, the black tea and the cup pieces would represent a pond of blood and a mountain of splinters, like it was a choice between two kinds of Hell...for a devil and a maid, that must certainly be it!

However, when Remilia saw the cups, she showed a doubtful and disturbed expression on her face. That was a more human reaction than I expected.

"Ah...? What in the world is this?" Remilia pointed inside the box with a tired air.

Well, that's an understandable reaction; Sakuya came to buy teacups, and chose a broken one. I thought Remilia had some strange reasons behind her orders, but it seems I was wrong. Surprisingly, I can relate to Remilia's feelings.

"Eh? 'What,' you say? Why, they are teacups. Are they not to your liking?"

"It's a remarkably avant-garde design; for example, even if you take it by the handle, one third won't come with it, so you almost wouldn't think it's a cup at all...but I think it would be better if more of it could hold liquid."

"But isn't it a nice style? I really like this relaxing and refined antique feel it has. And the shopkeeper also said he liked it, right?"

"This design...so even the shopkeeper likes this odd design."

Remilia was giving me a suspicious and pitiful look. Well, I used to like them. If she starts thinking that I'm trying to push a broken cup onto them, I'll be in trouble.

"Oh? And what is this paper?" The paper with Marisa's apology was inside the case too.

"I think maybe it is an expert's appraisal, or something like that."

"Are there such things as expert appraisals with only 'sorry' written on them?"

"It's an 'I couldn't appraise it' appraisal."

"That's like a magician's introduction saying 'there isn't any kind of trick,' isn't it?"

That would be highly improbable.

Maybe Reimu got tired of their wordplay, because she went to have teatime by herself. Speaking of which, I wonder why there's a chawan just for Reimu at my place anyway.

"I will ask again, Sakuya. Just what in the world is that?"

"As I said milady, it's an avant-garde teacup."

"Did I ask for such a thing?"

"Indeed, you asked for it to be small, light, unusual, pretty..."

"Well...this one is pretty, though."

It is...?

"And besides, it has a more refined air than the ones at the shrine, does it not?"

"Their shapes are indeed similar, but..."

Their shapes are similar? Are there such avant-garde (meaning not limited to the original form) cups at the shrine? I asked Reimu about that.

"I don't know about any cups like that."

"Ahh, Reimu doesn't know? They were there just before I sent Sakuya out."

"I don't know about that, Mistress. It was after we arrived that the cups became avant-garde."

"Wha...? So you broke my cups?!"

For a while, the shop resounded with a barrage of Reimu's angry words.

...Right, so that's what happened. They broke Reimu's teacup, so they came to buy another one to replace it. But then, why would they buy a broken cup?

"Sakuya, I did indeed ask for a cup that looked like Reimu's. But I didn't mean how it looked afterward, but how it looked before it changed. Didn't you understand that?"

"Hmm, is that so? I was sure you wished for a cup that made a set with Reimu's."

"This is not a set, it's a mix."

"But if I bought a normal cup, you were planning on saying something like 'What are you doing?! Their shapes are completely different!', correct?"

"I...I wouldn't say that."

Maybe you would. Even for a maid, it must be hard to accompany this childish (even though she's apparently over 500 years old) and malicious mistress. But even if you wanted a broken cup, isn't it just a matter of buying a normal one, then breaking it? That's what I thought, but that might as well be one of the Gensokyo girls' idea of a joke. If I think about it too much, I'll get tired. That's why I take that stance of not worrying too much about things I can't understand.

"I understand. You want a normal cup, then?"

"If that is what you think, then do as you please, Sakuya."

"Of course. That's just what I'm thinking."

Good grief. Those girls are a completely different type of bother than Reimu and the others. Anyway, the moment I was thinking that I had to go searching for another cup, I heard Sakuya's voice.

"Well, these teacups are trash, then."

What?! Wait a moment! When I turned around in confusion to face Sakuya, it was already too late; she had thrown the case and the cup high up in the air!

...The fragments were dancing in midair! Time seemed to run slowly due to the tension, like an illusion! One of the cups was still in one piece, but even if they were both broken, what kind of person would just throw them?! Even the carefree one drinking her tea seemed surprised! And I would've been even more worried if Reimu wasn't going to drop her chawan from surprise. As for Remilia, her bat-style wings were completely outstretched. I'm not sure if that was because of the tension or the surprise, though...

...But, the cups are sure taking some time to fall...hasn't the case already hit the ground? Well, that's obvious, considering the time...the piece of paper with Marisa's 'sorry' written on it was fluttering in midair.

"So how was it? Real sleight of hand, without any setup."

I couldn't see even one piece of the cup on the floor! Surprised, I turned to Sakuya, and, mysteriously, she was holding the cup. However, more mysteriously than that, in the end, the teacups were sold without a problem, and the two of them left the shop. Remilia seemed greatly pleased with Sakuya's performance. Reimu was in mute amazement for a while, but then she must have remembered that those two were going to the shrine, so she left behind the half-drunken tea and went chasing after them.

As for me, I didn't understand how Sakuya could gather up all the pieces of the cup she threw up, much less how she could perfectly restore the broken cup to its former shape. I just stood there dumbfounded for a while...




Several days had passed. By following my "don't worry too much" theory, I was able to safely recover from my confusion. Just then, Marisa came to visit, and after I scolded her about the cup, I made her listen to what happened. She started explaining with her usual way of speaking, "nothin' weird about that." Apparently Sakuya has this ability, an ability to stop time, it seems. Of course, this way, even if thrown, she could catch the cup before it broke. You could indeed say that there was, in fact, no setup.

But, wait a moment...this ability couldn't restore a broken cup, could it? Something's not right. Even though I should have given up, I started to think about it again. Yes, there's a way to restore a cup only by stopping time. The more I thought about it, the more my brain focused on a single concern.

"That's it! The cup that I 'used to like' wasn't like that!"

With a bad feeling, I looked through my piles of merchandise. That customer is the type to knowingly do something so unbelievable! Well, I did sell it, so there's no real loss, but...I checked most of the merchandise, so the only one left...is it the pile Marisa is sitting on top of? I moved Marisa, and under her I found a refined-looking case. That's the one, no doubt about it. With Marisa peeking along, I fearfully opened the lid.

Both Marisa and I recognized the Japanese paper sheet and the cup fragments. On top of the Japanese paper there was a new slip of western paper, bearing the words "I'm sorry."

Truly a magician's "appraisal."

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