>"Damn it, Yukari."
>Sigh.
>Head through the gap if that doesn't goad her out.
>You call out to Yukari and sigh. If she heard you, she gives no indication of it.
>Deciding that you're not going to get any further response here, you step through the gap.
>You emerge in a small room, crowded with scroll racks and bookshelves, a well-equipped writing desk against one wall. It takes a moment for it to register that this is your room. Those are your books, and your desk. That pile of papers stacked by the side are student essays, graded in your own hand. You're
home!
>You move towards the desk and tentatively pick up one of the essays. You remember assigning this; it would have been due yesterday. You don't remember correcting it, but the comments seem exactly as you would made them. Leafing through the pile, you see essays from all the students you would expect, and none from those you wouldn't. If this is your own timeline, two days after you left it, nothing seems out of place.
>You decide to investigate the downstairs, hoping beyond hope that you find nothing which shouldn't be there; no incongruous detail which shatters the illusion that you might
really be back among the timeline you remember.
>As you descend the stairs, you catch a glimpse of a familiar form sprawled out in a low chair with her feet resting on the table. She glances in your direction and you feel your heart catch in your throat.
>"You come in through the window or something?" Mokou asks, giving you a strange look. "Anyway, I made some curried rice earlier. I can heat it up for you if you're hungry. I-" She stops, frowning deeply as she sees tears begin to flow freely down your checks. You find yourself unable to speak.
>You're really home, aren't you? That's really her. Your Mokou. Oh God you've missed her; you've missed everything about this place...
>"Whoa, whoa, what's wrong?" she says, standing up. "What ha-" Her words are cut off as you all but throw yourself against her, and begin to bawl into her shoulder. You feel her arms enfold you, her embrace soft and warm and the very most wonderful thing in the world at this moment.
>You've been strong. You've faced down youkai, nightmares, and an angry god, never allowing yourself to falter, though so much of what you knew lay dead and ruined. You've crawled through hails of bullets, been drowned and suffocated, pushed yourself to the brink of collapse and refused to stumble even an inch, for the sake of all the things that depended on you. You've been strong for others, and strong for yourself, for fear that if you let the world rush in on you, you'd never stand up again.
>But you're tired of being strong. The world is a terrible weight to bear on one's shoulders and you've carried it enough. The emotions kept in check during all this rush out of you in a flood, and you cry and cry and cry.
>Once you find your voice again, you start to tell Mokou about all you went through in that other world: the lonely, the horrifying, and the heartwarming. She listens with the kind of selfless patience you've known only from her, letting you speak without interruption because she understands just how much you need to speak right now. After a while, the tone grows less serious, and you start to chatter about Rumia's antics, the curiosities of the outside world, and the minutia of your less unpleasant experiences. Mokou has a few laughs at her counterpart's expense
>After you feel you've talked enough, you decide to take a walk around the village, perhaps to prove to yourself that it's really still there. It is a pleasant night, cool for August, and cloudless. The waning moon, one day past full, rests brightly in the sky. There are few people still about at this hour, although pleasant chatter drifts towards you from the tavern and cheerful light shines from people's homes as you pass.
>Though the village scene is tranquil, you cannot help but see the memory of that other village imposed on top of it, ruin and disuse where homes should be. You pass by your school, and for a moment see it charred and blackened, the east end of it in rubble. Mokou grips your hand tightly as you pause, like an anchor securing you to this world.
>You pass the herbalist's shop where Shiouko had been living, then walk out to the graveyard. There are fewer grave markers than the last time you saw it, and no woman sits patiently upon the hill. Still, you can see the rows and rows of them where now lies empty grass. You pause a moment, and pay your respects to the dead she'd mourned; you may be the only one who remembers them now.
>Eventually you return home, and Mokou makes good on her threat to feed you. The meal may be simple fare, but it's warm and flavorful, and you're eating it at your own table with the woman you love. What else could be better?
>You drift to sleep in Mokou's arms that night. Never had her embrace felt more sheltering, the touch of her skin upon yours a reminder that you're really here. You're really home.
>The next day, you somehow muster the presence of mind to teach the classes that were scheduled. You find your thoughts often drifting elsewhere, but the routine is reassuring. Even the occasional disruptive student is a welcome thing. This is the life you have known. This is what feels right and normal. At this moment, there is nothing more precious than the mundane.
>A few days later, you make an excursion to the Scarlet Devil Mansion to fulfill your promise to Patchouli a second time; a promise she now has no memory of you making.
>She accepts the newspaper and phone book with an uncertain frown, perusing their contents as you explain where they came from.
>She remains staunchly skeptical of their origins, and furnishes you with a small diatribe on why they should be impossible, but you suspect she is rather intrigued by them nonetheless. Certainly she accepted both without hesitation, and was still examining them when you left. She never was the most effusive with her gratitude...
>Once you feel up to the task, you start to document your experiences in the other world in as much detail as you can possibly recall. Every element, whether trivial or profound, is preserved on paper. Real people lived real lives there, and you may be the only one left to tell their story. Even if that world still exists somewhere, the only trace of it is in your memories. What more sacred obligation could a historian have than to preserve this?
>In time, you set this work aside and consider it finished. Unlike your other texts, you remain uncertain whether this should be shared with others. Many good people are painted darkly by it. Though the people you write of are not wholly the same, there is sometimes very little separating them. Would a tale of their actions be a warning of what is possible, or slander?
>For now, you keep it safely locked away in your desk. Perhaps one day, you will decide what should be done with it.
>Time passes, and life returns to normal. Or rather, you return to the normal life you left behind.
>For the first few weeks, you find yourself keeping a wary eye out for anything out of place, any element that isn't quite how you remember it being. You never find anything, and after a while you start to forget to look. This place is as much a home as the home you remember.
>You bump into Rumia while traveling one afternoon and decide invite her home for dinner. Mokou raises both eyebrows at the suggestion at first, but warms up to her before long. You quickly discover that she's not so different from the Rumia who'd traveled with you in that other Gensokyo.
>You decide to make her a proper hamburger in honor of her counterpart's request, and she devours it with relish. Afterward, you furnish her with ink and paper and try to teach her how to use it more skillfully this time. Your efforts meet with mixed success, but you find the endeavor oddly satisfying, and regard the mess of paper and shared scribbles strewn across the floor afterwards with a satisfied smile.
>On a whim, you take one of her more cheerfully incomprehensible artworks and have it framed, hanging it next to one of the wall scrolls in your study, a reminder of some of the good you experienced in that world.
>All that's left of your adventure now is records and memories, though the latter can sometimes have a more profound effect on a person than anything else. As time amends the hurts and trials of those days, you find yourself feeling glad for your experiences there. You learned a lot about yourself, and about others. The things you were both capable when pushed to your limits, and sides of people you had never seen before. These were not always happy discoveries, but you feel the wiser for them. If nothing else, it has given you a greater appreciation of the things you have right here: a comfortable home among people who care about you, the opportunity to freely pursue your passions to preserve knowledge on paper, and to foster knowledge in each new generation, and the chance to share your life with someone you love and are loved by deeply.
>And really, what more could one ask for?
