anko1028
Lets Take It Easy in Winter
Summary:
When winter came, wild yukkuri will lock themselves up in sealed nest with piles of food. But this doesn't happen to city stray yukkuri. The reason is because there's not enough food to stock for hibernation. But in the other hand, because the flow of human's trash never stops, as long as the yukkuri can stand the cold weather, they also don't need to do hibernation.
There's also another problem that wild yukkuri who stay in their warm nest never have to face though.
Our story starts in a wooden box behind public toilet in the park. Here is a very easy family with a not so reliable mother Reimu and her three little ones.
Today they're not so happy. Yesterday, the result of her hunt is better so they can eat a lot and turns fat.
The youngest daughter Reimu, who had her body painted with oil marker due to an incident, always eat a lot. She is now suffering. She can't do her poo poo because it's stuck.
The second daughter Reimu is not as bad as her younger sister, but also has the same problem. This daughter is the most similar with her mother, in the meaning that she's not so smart and not so strong.
The eldest daughter Alice is fine. Her body is still the manju shape as always. To help her mother, Alice often eat from bitter grasses around their nest, letting her family eat the more easy foods their mother gathered. But thanks to this, she eats a lot and grow faster than her sisters.
City yukkuri has a habit. They woke up in early morning and do greetings. After that, they eat the food gathered yesterday, do poo poo, feel refreshed, and then go to hunt in trash dumping site.
But in winter, there's a special yukkuri disease, which is constipation.
Yukkuri's face and feet always move, so it maintains its consistency. But the back side to their anyaru doesn't move much so it's prone to freezing up. The poo also hardening up so it's impossible to force out from the small hole.
Actually, the city yukkuri already know of ways to avoid this. But due to the many years of warm winter, they're too late to prepare against the cold.
After all, adult yukkuri can melt the frozen skin easily by moving. Even Koyukkuri, has grow big enough so their anyaru is also wider so they can excrete their paste normally. This constipation targets only the babies who are still too small.
Luckily, being raised in the city, Mother Reimu know how to handle constipation. First, warm the babies' body with rub rub. After that, using her tongue, she poked and loosen the baby's anyaru and dig out the poo. It's painful, but the baby can let out their poop which is no longer warm but hard like sherbet.
Reimu remembers what's taught to her again. To avoid constipation, they need a warm house, warm bed and warm food.
Unlike wild yukkuri, city yukkuri's house has bad insulation. Warm food is also hard to come for yukkuri who can't use fire. So Reimu tried her best to look for at least a warm bed.
On the way, they meet a group of stray Chen who's gathering behind a restaurant. They enjoyed the warm air leaking from inside. Not only the warmth, they can also smell human's food.
This is Chen's territory, so Reimu is not accepted.
Owner of the shop suddenly came out and capture a Chen for making mess with the trash. But he soon realized, Chen doesn't eat the trash. They only hunts for Wriggle. It's always stranger Marisa and Alice who took the foods.
Seeing that, the shop owner realized. The trash taken is too little compared to the Chen group nesting here. There's also been less cockroach and other pests since the Chen starts living around.
Because of this, the shop owner made them a dog house to live in and even bronze badge so they don't get exterminated. Humans never think more of them, but for the strays, it's already a happy life compared to what they used to have.
When passing the park, Reimu's family saw a single mother Alice doing the same treatment to her constipated baby Alice and Marisa.
Even to their own daughter, many parents refused to do this. After all, even if it's their own daughter, digging into their anyaru to soften their old paste is not something enjoyable.
But unlike Reimu, Alice dug too much and unable to bear the stress, baby Alice's anyaru ripped off and her custard also flows out until she dies. Same thing happened to the baby Marisa and also other yukkuri in the park.
Seeing this, Reimu understand even more how useless she is.
When reaching downtown, Reimu saw weird group of yukkuri. It's not their appearance more than what they're doing. The yukkuri is lining up.
This is the ventilation of subways. When the train passed, warm air blast out of the hole, pushing the yukkuri up a little bit, or in case of babies, they can jump several dozen centimetres.
The youngest daughter Reimu also want to take it easy, but her mother and eldest sister Alice take them away. They still have to find warm bed for their home.
Meanwhile, a worker came to clean up the yukkuri blocking subway ventilation with vacuum. He hoped they could get sucked in before they realized anything, thus lessening their suffering. Of course, it won't happen when the yukkuri realized their situation.
Reimu went to look for help from the orphanage where she's raised. But the head of the orphanage, a Marisa, is busy helping more than 200 orphan babies having constipation. Even though helped by 9 assistant Myon, this is still a hard job.
When the job is finally over, Marisa feed them with water mixed with gum syrup. For the orphans who always eat grasses, the warm sugar water is very delicious.
They then get to sleep in the hut with warm styrofoam bed.
When Reimu asked for some, assistant Myon told Reimu to look on her own. They have nothing more left.
After Reimu left, Marisa is thankful to Myon. But Myon is not lying, they really have none left. Angrily Marisa send them out to get more because tonight will be a lot colder.
Marisa is one of the rare yukkuri who knows to not taking it too easy.
Tired, Reimu want to try one last place. It's called Compost-sama, the guardian god of the yukkuri in this city. If you leave sweets sweets into the place at corner of a elementary school, you will get an advice to take it easy.
In reality, Compost-sama is just a scum Marisa who got thrown into the compost. But amazingly, many of her advice hits the mark so now, not only yukkuri, she had believers among the younger human children too.
On the way, Reimu met Yuuka who works in the school. Yuuka had a styrofoam board she want to get rid of quickly because it reminded her of the time the students made AV movies.
If Reimu can take it away without making a mess, Yuuka will let her have it. She even changed the board into a cart so Reimu can pull it with her children riding on the board.
When they almost reached their home, Reimu's family saw group baby Marisa playing on the river. The river has frozen up so the babies can play safely.
Even Alice is still a koyukkuri and she also wanted to play too. That's when Reimu got an idea. She jumped on the ice and pulled the board like a sledge. The children can play and they're still on their way back to their home.
Sadly, disaster happened. A part of the ice is still thin and breaks under Reimu's jump. Alice tried her best to pull her mother up using the sledge's rope Reimu still hold in her mouth, but a Koyukkuri is still too weak to pull up an adult. Meanwhile her two younger sisters can only cry much to Alice's annoyance.
Luckily, there are 40 rescue Marisa dedicating their lives to save those under trouble in the water. They jumped in and in a moment, 40 Marisa is all dead.
Not to worry. 200 fishermen Marisa watching their children from the side. Some tried riding their hat, but without preparation, they're shocked by the coldness and lost balance. Those who managed to reach the middle tried to give their oar to pull Reimu back, but the ice cracked. Same with those trying from above their hat.
Around Reimu's family is the dead corpse of 240 Marisa leaving their children orphan.
After praising themselves for being so easy to think of helping, finally the two baby Reimu help Alice and pull Reimu back up. Using an oar in one of the Marisa's hat, they reached the shore and back to their home.
Reimu has been in the water for too long, her body is mostly melting. With her last strength, she left her eldest daughter with a will for her to bring her sisters to the orphanage.
Alice misunderstood, after all, Reimu is already not in condition to speak well. She thought her mother asked her to take care of her sister like the caretakers in the orphanage.
Alice has grown big enough and she also learned a lot from helping her mother. Except fighting, she could do almost everything her mother can.
Meanwhile, just after Marisa and her assistants just barely managed to gather styrofoam blanket for themselves, a Chen and Alice pair came with hundreds of baby Marisa losing their parents. Yes, this is the children of the fishermen Marisa dead when trying to save Reimu.
Alice spread the broken styrofoam in their wooden box house, especially the deepest part where they sleep. She also feed her sisters with water she warmed with her body and sweetened with dried fruit.
Nobody know how long yukkuri's happiness will last, but for today, Alice has done well as a sister and as a mother for her sisters.
Illustrations: post #17828