Audience: Hanako

[becomemod]

Comments

[hanaban]

Aw, I think red lasers would've been so much cooler. Or green!

[ he and Mr. Moon Man have to talk ]

That whole thing made it into the papers, didn't it? There has to have been a date on them. Does the library have a newspaper archive?

[becomemod]

Why green?

Yeah, it seems to, but the library doesn't have a newspaper archive. It's weird because I definitely remember seeing newspapers back then...

Now they come from those adventures you guys go on.

[hanaban]

There's this movie about hamsters in space fighting an intergalactic war and some of their battleships—

[ snaps his mouth shut. we are not talking about hamsters in space or we will be here forever. focus, hanako ]

Ah, well... we can go see it later if you want, but that's not important right now. What do you know about those adventures?

[becomemod]

Wait no, go back to the movie some time.

[ Sometimes you are Just A Nerd. ]

What kind of adventure did you go on? And did you get anything like a page or a newspaper clipping from it?

[hanaban]

Later. [ maybe if they're really really reaaaally lucky, they can find a copy of Hamster Space Wars somewhere, because he can't exactly Amazoom something he'd only heard about in the movie theaters once upon a time ]

Yeah, we did! In ours— it was me, Ryuki, and Rita— we went through one of Danny's past experiences. But that can't be the same for everybody, right? Like Nico's "adventure" [ finger quotes ] was some sort of ... curry heist.

[ UNLESS THAT WAS ALSO A MEMORY, WHOSE WAS THAT, WHO IS THE CURRY FIEND ]

[becomemod]

[ The most baffled look in the world, that's half hidden behind a mask. ]

"Curry heist"? Who's that into... Curry...

[ The very distinct feeling of somebody putting pieces together. ]

[hanaban]

... Who are you thinking?

[ don't you try to hide anything from him ]

[becomemod]

She's not here, but my director's really into curry. We almost had to eat curry every day for every meal for a year.

[ He's FINE with curry, but this horrendous. ]

[hanaban]

[ A3!Tsuzuru?????? ]

That... sounds like torture...

[ he can survive maybe a week, tops, but a year? ]

But that means it was your memory! Hold still, I need to punch you.

[becomemod]

[ how do you know a3???? ]

I've never been part of a curry heist!

[hanaban]

[ me asking myself the same question, i think i had it on my phone for two weeks ]

Don't lie to me. You can't save yourself. Clench your teeth.

[becomemod]

[ This is just his life, huh.

Well, he braces himself for impact like god's most exhausted older brother. ]

[hanaban]

[ Yep

Hanako pulls his arm back, elbow tucked low as if he's going for an uppercut to smash Goat's lower jaw into his upper again. But, at the last moment, he veers— close enough to scare anybody who hasn't already pulled away, but aiming more for simply knocking that mask off of Goat's face, tell me I'm right ]

And apologize to Nico the next time you see him!

[becomemod]

[ The way it's not glued onto his face. So like. Yeah. ] To Nico?

[hanaban]

Mmhm.

[ It's a semi-distracted "mmhm," he's busy staring up at Goat's face like he's trying to figure something out. ...

but anyways, ]

Nico went on your curry heist.

[ So did some other people but he doesn't know who, so they don't matter ]

[becomemod]

Again, I've never gone on a curry heist. Also, I wouldn't want to. [ He had enough curry! Thank you! ]

[hanaban]

Your director's curry heist, then.

[ Same thing, he's still responsible for it ]

Did you ever go on one of those memory trips? You get brainwashed, kill your friends, and come home with that piece of paper.

[becomemod]

I haven't seen her once since we've been here.

[ He's putting the mask back on. ]

We did go on a memory trip, but none of that happened for us. We just had to win an acting competition. Is that seriously what you went through?

[ This is SO much worse than his. ]

[hanaban]

[ He makes a face, because that's so unfair. Acting is easy. He acts every day. ]

Yeah. Others had it worse. Did you win?

[becomemod]

[ Not when you're trying to recite your lines and write and also make sure your troupemate doesn't kidnap your director. ]

Worse?

[ Nobody tells him anything. ]

Yeah, we won.

[hanaban]

Like they got put through a meat grinder. What'd you win?

[ he's thinking of Nico's curry that disappeared, or Danny's empty lunchbox ]

[becomemod]

In that trip? Nothing.

At home it let us keep our troupe together, we were in crushing debt and without a win we would've definitely gone under.

[hanaban]

Why not just open up a curry restaurant...

[becomemod]

It's the director's father's theater company, so she really didn't want to see it go under while she could still do something about it.

[hanaban]

[ Family business, then... sounds complicated. ]

Good thing you won, then. I'm guessing you guys never found out who's behind all of that. Maybe it's a group, unless somebody has the powers of one, four, and five.