menial | 1 ~ when did I stop believing in Santa Claus? [audio/action]

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1 ~ when did I stop believing in Santa Claus? [audio/action]

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[A teenage boy is extricating himself with some difficulty from having been dumped, or appearing, in the middle of the fountain in the center of the village. He's muttering to himself and clambering out. He's dressed in the generic-enough North High uniform, but of more interest may be what he's saying -- which is picked up by the split-open journal next to him.]

...Really, Haruhi? After all of that, I'm in some other time and place again?! Oh, boy. She really just doesn't stop... Where the hell is it this time?

[Once he gets up and brushes himself off, he can be found staring with slightly less bewilderment than you might expect at his surroundings.]

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And a throughout read through the guide as well, though there are parts we could explain ourselves before he reads them. You should also get a place to stay as well, though the Welcome Center is prepared for it if you want to settle there temporally at first.

'Yeah, I don't know if I'm ready to settle anywhere not temporarily. In fact, I'm pretty sure I'm not. Not at home, either.'

Right. What's the most important thing?

Wandering around.

[So helpful Haruhi. Keiichi stares at her for a second before he sighs and stands up.]

'Kay, I'll accompany you to the Welcome Center and tell you on the way there. On the top of my head the wings are the most important thing as I told you already. I suppose that knowing that if you die you will return to live again after a week is important to know too.

[Just don't go around dying. Let's see, he already explained about the time thing and the part about people from from other times and such.]

Also... Don't make too many big plans for the end of the months, just in case something screws them over.

'Oh, of course. If I die, I'll return to life again. Yup, I can't see any way in which that might be a fundamentally bizarre sentence requiring a little more explanation than that!'

Something like dying for a week?!

K-keiichi!

[After all, it is true, but not something she would throw around so casually. She scrambles to her feet]

No. Not that like. Nothing like that- people dying isn't exactly common and it's not like there's a ton of psychopaths around these days or anything- just-!

[Her cool is lost, how does she salvage- inhale, exhale]

Anyway, forget it, I'll take him there.

[Should he make a big deal of it? Or not say it at all and let him freak out once it happens? Anyway, Keiichi steps back the moment she scrambles to her feet, raising his arms apologetically.]

That's true, the dying for a week part is important information but it's mostly a trivia kind of data than anything else. Anyway, if Haruhi will take you there and all I suppose I'm not needed. I'll see you both tomorrow, I suppose.

[Immediate withdrawal the moment Haruhi steps into action? Not at all, must be your imagination.]

'Trivia?! How many lives does this guy have?!'

--Uh--Yeah. See you, Maebara.

'Not a ton of psychopaths around? These days? Haruhi, as ever you fail to reassure.'

[Ugh. Well then, time to yank on Kyon's arm to start to pull him along towards the door. She can release him once they get going]

'--Oh, boy. Well, that's a familiar tug, at any rate.'

[And he obediently follows along, not having much other choice in the matter anyway.]

[Good. :I But she'll release him once they're outside, expecting him to be lead anyway. Now... what to say? That's another matter]

Keiichi's a weirdo anyway, you need to recognize that. There's really no one who focuses on the death thing as much as him or certain other fatalists do.

'I guess he'd have to be, wouldn't he? The death thing is a little existential teen, but that's nothing new, right? He can put the gothic in gothic lolita... Not that that's an image I should really be bidding to arise.'

Fun guy to have in the Brigade, then.

Well, yeah, I guess.

[ :I ]

It's certainly a change, anyway. Does it change any of your feelings about death?

'An odd question? Maybe, but I'm just wondering how different she really is.'

[ ... ] Don't be stupid, death's still not something anyone looks forward to or ought to take lightly. It's painful... for everyone.

[He voice drops a bit at the end there. Thinking back to Rena, who tried to kill herself, or to Usagi, who died - exploded - in front of her. A note of the fear and weakness she felt in those moments might bleed through a bit. Also she might derail from going to Welcome Center. It is literally just across the street but she starts to talk past it, perhaps willing him to follow.]

'...Well, that was instructive. A serious Haruhi. To be honest, if it weren't for the topic being so grim, I would welcome more moments like this.'

Hope you're not talking from experience there.

[He will have very little idea about where they're going, and he will in fact just follow blindly.]

No. [quickly. She winces visibly though] I've never died.

['...Now I'm worried.']

Then... has anything happened to someone else? A--[friend?]--close associate or whatever?

[...Pfft. That could almost make her laugh, honestly. It doesn't thought - she's not in that mood, not now. Instead, she just nods]

Yeah, bad things have happened before. [She evades it confirming or not confirming death though - they now leave the square.] But why are we even talking about this? Jeez, there's got to be other things you can ask about.

['I know an evasion when I hear one. But that's fair, if she's some alternate version of Haruhi that's from six months before and then lived two or three years after and there I go getting a Koizumi headache again. And he's not even here. This is why I need to punch him in the face.']

...Sure, I guess. How long did you say you've been here?

Three and a half years, not quite consecutively. If you're being exact, it's more like two and a half years, pause, come back, one more year. But that sort of trivial detail is more explanation than most people need to be fed, it's sort of like the back-story for the villains in movies? I mean who cares.

--Yeah, I think the length speaks for itself.

[He looks alarmed. It's even longer than he'd thought.]

Things must've changed a lot for you.

Well, I've had a lot of things happen, at least! It was really cool at first. I've seen aliens, a number of time disturbances, child assassins, mafiosos - or I think they were anyway - historical figures who happen to have weird hair colors, the fabled naturally blonde Japanese person, magicians, wizards, knights, demons, you name it. Like you already saw I've also got a working relationship with a magic-granting spirit entity.

[but that's glossing over all the bad things]

['A naturally blonde Japanese person?! This place truly is out of control...']

So are you pretty satisfied with it...?

['Or more satisfied with the world than you used to be? More satisfied with this world than our actual world?']

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