"Jingle jingle~"
That night, before the shrine in the city, Butterfly and Mitsuba—who had been playing in the city for most of the night—washed their hands with clean water under the guidance of the shrine maiden, then stood before the shrine gates with palms together, praying devoutly.
[May Butterfly be safe forever.]
After making her wish in her heart, Mitsuba—curled up in the basket—had just opened her eyes when she saw Butterfly turning her head back, staring at her with a mischievous grin.
"Looking at little Mitsuba's pious expression, what wish did you just make?"
"Don't ask. Wishes, once spoken, won't come true."
Using her only functional right hand to push Butterfly's face back, Mitsuba put on a dead-fish-eyed expression and said coldly:
"Also, don't stare at me with that weird grinning expression. It's disgusting."
If it were normal times, Mitsuba would absolutely never say such crude words.
But tonight was different.
Under Butterfly's continuous influence, having temporarily decided to let herself go, she seemed to have slightly exposed her true nature.
"Eh~ I couldn't tell, so Mitsuba, you actually believe in gods and spirits?"
"I believe, because deities truly exist."
The figure of Yoriichi flashed through her mind, and Mitsuba's tone was extremely certain.
Yes, deities must exist.
Brother Yoriichi was the most powerful proof of this.
"Alright, alright, they exist, they exist..."
Having absolutely no intention of arguing with Mitsuba about this question, Butterfly pointed to the huge ema rack in the shrine courtyard not far away, covered with countless wooden plaques, and smilingly proposed:
"Then, Miss Mitsuba who believes in deities, shall we go write a wooden plaque together next to increase the success rate of our wishes just now?"
"That is acceptable."
After brief consideration, Mitsuba nodded in agreement, and conveniently reminded:
"Correction—the formal term for this act is called 'ema.'
Its original origin was that people in ancient times would offer living horses to deities for prayers. Later, as times changed, it gradually simplified to the current practice of only needing to dedicate horse statues or paintings, or even wooden plaques..."
"Alright, alright, I got it, young lady, please stop lecturing..."
Receiving two wooden plaques and a brush from the shrine maiden, handing one set to Mitsuba behind her, Butterfly walked straight to a stone stool beside her and sat down, muttering softly:
"You've been giving me popular science lectures in my ear all night. My ears are about to develop calluses..."
"Hah?!"
Hearing this, Mitsuba immediately propped herself up and stood up from the basket, her expression extremely displeased.
"Who was the one earlier shouting for me to have fun? I've only given you a brief introduction just now, and you're already finding me annoying, right?"
"Hah?!?!"
Making a sound even louder than Mitsuba's, Butterfly directly put down the basket, stood up to face Mitsuba, and loudly retorted:
"Little Mitsuba, which ear of yours heard me say you're annoying?"
"You didn't say it with your mouth, but your attitude has been saying it all along!"
"Fine, fine! So that's how it is? Then I'll settle tonight's accounts with you properly right now!"
"Good! Bring it on!"
"Um, two young ladies..."
"You step aside first! We'll talk later if there's something!"
Casually waving away the shrine maiden who was carefully trying to step forward and stop them, Butterfly placed one foot on the stone stool, and in front of Mitsuba standing in the basket, began aggressively counting on her fingers one by one.
"First of all, when we were playing goldfish scooping earlier, we were clearly just one fish away from completely surpassing that brat in first place. What did you mean by suddenly trembling your hand and letting the fish go at the end?!
Speak! Didn't you deliberately do that because you felt soft-hearted seeing that brat crying and whining?!"
"And you still have the face to talk about me?!"
Seeing that Butterfly actually dared to bring up this matter, Mitsuba immediately flew into a rage.
"Clearly having two hands, yet trembling so much you couldn't even scoop up a fish, and in the end you needed me—a patient with only one functional hand—to step in and help. Butterfly, don't you feel any shame at all?!"
Saying this, Mitsuba also used her right hand to grab her immobile left hand and "fiercely" gave Butterfly a punch.
"Fine! Let's not talk about this!"
Directly skipping over the goldfish scooping topic, Butterfly raised her second finger.
"Then let me ask you! When we played haiku relay later, little Mitsuba, weren't your first few lines connected quite well?
How come you suddenly couldn't continue later? Were you throwing the game?!"
"You really think of me as some great poet, don't you?!"
Grabbing her left hand again and fiercely giving Butterfly another punch, Mitsuba angrily said:
"Those two people were clearly plants hired by the shop owner! The two of them against me alone, and they came prepared—how do you expect me to win against them?!
To begin with, wasn't that game supposed to be played in teams of two? Butterfly, what right did you have to just stand there and make me face them alone?!"
"Because I've never studied! I couldn't come up with anything!"
Butterfly loudly replied, with righteous confidence.
Mitsuba choked upon hearing this, and only managed to squeeze out a sentence after quite a while.
"You—you still think you're in the right, don't you?"
Seemingly feeling that Mitsuba's gaze at this moment was suddenly somewhat piercing, Butterfly—face slightly red—continued loudly:
"What? Is it not allowed? Your Doctor Butterfly has only read medical books since childhood. I don't understand those cultured people's twists and turns—does that make the young lady feel ashamed?"
"I didn't say that!"
"You didn't say it with your mouth, but your eyes were saying it!"
"Don't give me that nonsense!"
Somehow feeling that Butterfly's words sounded familiar, Mitsuba immediately interrupted the spell and forcibly changed the topic.
"Next! That pitch-pot game we played earlier—I had already guided you so carefully about what angle to throw from and how much force to use. Why could Butterfly still throw it off in the end?!"
"Who understands what you're saying! Either a bit to the left, or a bit to the right, or else use more strength! Who knows how much 'a bit more' the young lady is talking about?!"
"A bit more is just a bit! More! Point! I already said it very clearly! That young man we met at the ring toss game earlier, didn't he understand very well?!"
"That's because his brain is as abnormal as little Mitsuba's!"
Bringing this up, Butterfly also became angry.
"And that last arrow in the archery competition! Little Mitsuba, speak! Wasn't that shot your fault?!"
"What do you mean my fault! I told you to aim slightly to the left, I didn't tell you to aim that far left!"
"So! I! Said! Who knows how much 'a bit' you're talking about?! Just say whether you didn't explain clearly or not!"
"And you're blaming me for this?"
"Isn't this your fault?!"
After a fierce argument, both stopped, just panting at each other, staring with wide eyes.