"Rinu-Chan my lovely wife I'm home!" Mr Oshiro exclaimed as he ran towards a blue-haired woman in an apron holding a tray of cookies and hugged her.
From the looks of it Mr Oshiro really missed his wife, standing at the porch, Douma watched the reunion between two that reminded him of heartwarming moments at the shrine. Maybe human connections could turn out well if both parties put effort into making it work. Douma wondered if the couples he met at the shrine were still together, they deserve a happy ending.
"We have two special guests, Paradise Shrine's founder, Douma and his dear friend Shinobu."
Mrs Oshiro looked at Douma confused. Isn't he from the tales of Hasu Mountains? So the sightings and stories are all true? But then again it could just be someone in a costume. This didn't seem convincing to Mrs Oshiro, even though some people claim to have seen Douma they never stated how he really looked like. The only sources were just drawings and paintings, inconsistences were inevitable when it came to most topics, especially about an entity that society had very little information about. None of Rinu's friends ever brought up about Douma when they talked about folklores or any type of media, with how niche the Hasu Mountain tales were, perhaps they too didn't even know about these stories associated with it. Afterall, there were many people in the city areas who didn't view Hasu Mountains' significance as something legitimate, to them they were just ordinary mountains in the scenery given that name with a few destinations such as Hayori Town.
Whenever people from the Hasu Mountains came and talked about Douma, most people would normally brush it off. There was once a man who claimed to have taken a picture of Douma during his visit to the shrine, but Douma never appeared in any of the photos so they assumed he was just trying to fool everyone into thinking he went to a special shrine. There were just a few people standing on tatami mats near some plantations in the photos.
"That's... Douma? The shrine leader from the folklore? But how this can't be real when one of the TV channels did a documentary on Hasu Mountains they visited the shrine and-
Mr Oshiro raised an eyebrow at Rinu he wasn't buying it, the founder of Paradise Shrine was standing right there with the same platinum blonde hair and rainbow hues that everyone recognized him with, no one else they saw had the same traits. Now he was disappointed in Rinu who is the biggest supporter of his research. This was only going to belittle Douma.
The blue-haired woman looked away and sighed. If Mr Oshiro was confident that this was the actual Douma that people were talking about, she will just have to try to believe him, spending most of his days with Atlas Science he'd be able to differentiate between legitimacy and a fraud.
"Strangely it wasn't a young man with platinum blonde hair that they saw, it was a normal-looking person in a grey robe, no multicolored eyes that his followers said he had. I don't think they went to the wrong shrine it was the Paradise Shrine that everyone was talking about."
Douma covered his face with his fan to hide the smile plastered on his face. What Mrs Oshiro said was really amusing, it brightened up the dullness of the atmosphere from her doubts. Before he could say a word, Mr Oshiro rushed to his room and returned with a few books, one titled: 'The Blessing That Came to Hasu Mountains' which stood out to Douma the most. Shinobu looked at the books in awe, they sounded really significant.
"Let's start reading! You two are gonna love this!" Mr Oshiro placed the books in front of the television and flipped through the pages of the book that piqued Douma's curiosity he felt honored that someone wrote a book about his kindness. He knew there were stories about what he's done to help people, it was remarkable to see how far the stories came to the point where anyone could read up about it regardless of where they resided.
As Mr Oshiro continued browsing through, Douma realized it was more of a compilation of stories put together, from the conditions of these pages, Douma could tell they were kept in the drawers or shelves for a longtime, only read once or twice. Despite having been on Earth for almost two years, these stories sounded old even the paintings looked very ancient. They could fit in with historical sources that were on display.
"Wow there's so many stories about you Douma." Shinobu browsed through the pages she never thought her friend was this famous.
"With that, Douma saved the village from an earthquake by summoning stalagmites from the ground that impaled upwards from the Earth's crust, holding the mass of soil that remained mid-air until the last aftershock's force split the mass into pieces leaving a large gap in the ground that remained for several months." Mr Oshiro read the words out loud like a devoted reader, from his tone it sounded like he had memorized the whole paragraph, Mrs Oshiro just listened she never caught up with any of the books he had.
"Even though not all the villagers were there to witness it having been told to evacuate their homes from the disastrous earthquake that would engulf everything in its path within a matter of seconds, they knew Paradise Shrine's founder saved everyone from the earthquake and prevented the two mountains from the brink of collapse with the trees' roots he controlled that held the mountains to the ground."
Holding a tray containing three cups of tea, Mrs Oshiro placed one next to Douma who was also reading the books and another where Shinobu was.
"No thanks." Mr Oshiro said without looking at Mrs Oshiro who narrowed his eyes at him.
"Whatever aren't you tired of reading the same thing over and over again?"
"Huh? It's been a year since I laid my hands on these books!"
"Hmph you always use that as an excuse!" Mrs Oshiro stomped away frustrated with Mr Oshiro now.
"Geez you could always join me you know! They're very interesting!" No response Rinu was completely ignoring him.
Douma fanned himself and watched Mr Oshiro who was still reading the page with a painting of the shrine leader and a crack in the ground between the two mountains held by large roots.
"You hurt her feelings you know, that's not very nice." Douma said it wasn't OK for Mr Oshiro to prioritize these pages over his own wife who clearly wanted the best for him and spending the whole day reading these books wasn't going to convince anyone about Douma's status which didn't bother Douma at all he never looked for any sort of validation from people, he just wanted to help others.
"That's right," Shinobu added. "Did you see those cookies she made when we just got here? Make her efforts count Sir. Whether it's today or tomorrow she will always be there for you so return the same favor."
Frowning, Mr Oshiro looked at Rinu who walked past the living room in a hurry. He could tell she didn't want to have anything to do with him. Oh dear it seems I've made my wife really mad.
"Go talk to her."
The man ruffled his hair and walked to where Mrs Oshiro had gone, Douma didn't like seeing anyone unhappy it turned the atmosphere dull. With the situation happening in front of him and Shinobu, maybe he could start feeling sympathy for humans again, the main ones responsible for burying those feelings away. Not that he ever felt any sense of emotion towards them in the first place but understanding them was getting tougher over time. This was a good start to remove the title of being emotionless when interacting with people.
Shinobu stared at the floor in pity. "I hope Mrs Oshiro is alright. Honestly, we didn't know this was going to happen between them." As compared to the Isamu couple, this was a completely different atmosphere that they just had to adapt to after a while.
"I'm sure they'll talk things out with each other." Douma said hopefully as he smiled at Shinobu who nodded.
A smaller book that they haven't read stood out to him. It was the most unique out of all the books on the table. Douma reached out to it curious about the story it holds.
Let's see what else Mr Oshiro wants to discuss with me, there's another book here that seems different from the others.