A Friend In Need

    There's only one person Fukaziroh would go to for this kind of help. Oh, there are others who might give advice. Kauchemar is wise and sympathetic, but she'd no doubt tease the hell out of Fuka for this. Baroness Wake... wise in the ways of romance and kind, yet currently off on her own in the middle of a strange mood. No guy, of course, could possibly help with Fuka's current crisis. Fortunately, Uta is RIGHT THERE. Right over there, sleeping in the next room.

    Sleeping though. And Fuka, despite her many faults, is a great friend. She's not going to wake her friend up from much-needed sleep, especially after all that HP loss, for something that can surely wait a few hours. So it's not until early the next morning that Fuka comes knocking on the door. "Songbird... Uta... please I need you" the little sylph begs through the closed door.

    Upon it opening, Fuka... looks not entirely herself. She looks like she hasn't slept, and her normally pridefully-neat hair is a tangled mess. If she hasn't eaten, well, she ate well just a few hours ago and is in no danger of starvation debuffs but she really looks like she somehow is in the very beginning of another Strange Mood obsession that's taken her over against her better judgment. However shaky that judgment seems to be from time to time.

A mumbled 'Come In' on Uta's behalf might or might not have been the reason that made Fuka think it was safe to enter the room.

Upon entering, however, what Fuka would find would be Uta sitting up in her bed, decked in a long, modest slime-pattern nightie (courtesy of Gwen, no doubt), rubbing her eyes.

The Spriggan stretches and yawns, wings spreading and fluttering along as she does so, and folding back as she relaxes. She clicks her tongue a few times, rubs her eyes, and pushes herself to stand. She mutters something that is reasonably close to "...mrn'n'..", and shuffles towards the washbaisin in a corner, wobbling from side to side.

Apparently, Uta isn't exactly a morning person.

    Fuka has long absolved herself of such silliness as sleeping in or not being a morning person. She has so much to do in any given day, not to mention she lived in a rather large family. Sleeping in was a luxury that she just never got to indulge in, even if it weren't for the fact that she needed to wake up early to get through the day quickly so she could indulge in her more selective vices.

    Though admittedly she's a bit off this morning. No doubt Uta's seen her in mornings before, and the off-ness is kind of obvious once Uta's eyes fully open.

    Of course, not everything about Fuka is changed to the weird. She takes in Uta's nightie admiringly (no not lecherously!) and grins a very familiar Fuka grin. "That's so cute!" she insists, fortunately not indulging in some comment more embarrassing. Possibly for fear of retaliation.

    Speaking of cute, she's wearing her own present already. Or perhaps still. A cute pair of bright explosives. Er, earrings. Because of course she is!

At the comment about the nightie being cute, Uta looks down, and grumbles something along the lines of, "mfpefmgh... slimes...fgmlgegl...."

It is unclear what that was supposed to mean. It sounded like she was putting up some sort of sleepy protest. Maybe.

Give a messy-haired Uta a little time to go through her morning routine, which consists in picking up the pitcher with the water, pouring it into whe top bowl, placing down the water in the appropriate corner, and-

Swipe. Navigate through menu. Hold soap with one hand, stick one finger into water, select bathing option with the other, shimmer. There, clean!

A few menu options and shimmers later, Uta is presentable and dressed in her iconic uniform-gi. Including Haru's pin on her belt sash, meaning she likely hadn't taken it off since putting it on.

Uta squints, still not fully awake. "Oh, hi, Fuka!", she smiles catching up with the recent development. "Need me? What for?", she says, scratching her head, as if she could not, for the life of her, imagine what her friend might want this early in the morning.

And then it hits her. "...uh. Wait. Something... something is different about you."

She squints at Fuka. Long. And finally offers, "...do you have a new earcut?"

    Fuka seemingly hasn't gone for that whole morning routine thing. A dead giveaway to be fair, since she's a creature of routine when no one else is paying attention, like say first thing in the morning. No face-washing, not even via menu. No hair-brushing or the like. Just those shiny new earrings.

    "What? Earcut? NO!" she exclaims, startled. She raises a hand to her ear reflexively, as if to protect them from being cut. Her ears are a cute part of her after all! She discovers the earrings there however, unsurprisingly. And abruptly starts blushing as the facts parade themselves in her suddenly hyperaware memory. Yeeeah Fuka's brain probably needs another reboot. Or maybe there's something medically wrong with her! Could be anything really!

At this point, Uta is already in the middle of rolling up her futon. "I mean... uh..." She shakes her head and sighs. "Don't mind me. Brain still rebooting." Uta may have let herself go with her daily routine, but her cleaning up shows an almost maniacal precision one might probably not expect from such a chaotic character.

Once the bed is out of the way, she moves to a nearby low table and sits down, seiza-style, motioning for her friend to do likewise. That is when she makes, once again, eye contact. "Wait-"

Squint. Fuka? Blushing.

"Okay, I have no idea why, buy you do need my help. Something medical?"

And that is when another chunk of awakeness hits Uta straight on the head. Oh, way to go, Uta. You forgot niceties when greeting. So rude. Quick, fix it! Say something nice, anything nice!

"Nice earrings, by the way."

    It takes a few moments for Fuka to catch on to the invitation but once she does, she joins her friend in seiza. The posture is not wholly unfamiliar but it's not her usual thing given she's not actually a martial artist, so she ends up fidgeting a little trying to get comfortable. That, and trying to figure out just what to say now that Uta's awake and attentive.

    She doesn't need medical attention, probably. Her entering Seiza makes it clear she's got the required number of legs, and her arms seem intact as usual. "Advice." she states cryptically, then just stares helplessly at her friend. Fuka's blush intensifies as the earrings are mentioned. "They're cute aren't they?" she agrees, turning her head and looking away. Possibly to show off the earring... nah, probably not. Probably more to do with that blush.

    Finally she does get around to explaining. Kind of. "Haru gave them to me!" she blurts, a fact which should be absolutely self-evident. "And he kind of said he likes me, and sort of asked me out and WHAT DO I DO NOW?" she asks, the last turning into a somewhat despairing wail.

Uta nods in agreement when Fuka mentions that the earrings are cute, "They -are- really cute. I think you look really- wait, he did what?" The smile she bursts out into radiates excitement at the news that Fuka has a suitor, but the mood is soon chilled by a realization, the kind of metaphorical cold shower that, were this a literal cold shower, one would expect Kauchemar to dump on Uta all of a sudden during a Water technique training.

"Wait, wait, wait, you've come to me for dating advice? Is that what you need me for?", she asks, in mild panic. Now the Spriggan who is blushing and panicking as well.

    Fuka definitely likes her new earrings and Uta's approval. When her friends are happy over something, it's both an affirmation of Fuka's own happiness and her choice in friends. Uta's excitement is contagious, only that sudden panic spoiling it just a little.

    "What, no of course not!" Fuka claims, panic being contagious. "I mean, yes..." she admits. "I mean, uh..." she pauses, takes in a deep breath. Then another. "I told him he was an idiot!" she wails. "And then said MAYBE!"

    Honestly she's sort of got her timing and facts mixed up a bit right now. But the two incidents, though unrelated in timing, are rather central in her memory and focus. She didn't call him an idiot for wanting to date her but she feels like she might as well have. And just WHY did she have to go and call him an idiot? Or say MAYBE?

Uta flails. "WHY ME!", and looks around as if looking for an escape route. But there's no escaping this situation. Uta's about knee deep in it, and given how she's seiza'ing, that means she's also about waist-deep in it.

"I am possibly the worst possible person to ask for relationship advice! Terrible! Dreadful! Abysmal!", Uta blurts out. "And on top of my being unqualified, it is pretty obvious from your calling him an idiot and then saying MAYBE that you do like him. What would you need my advice for?"

    Oh no! Fukaziroh is doomed! Doooomed! Her only hope shattered! "Because you're the one I trust the most!" she explains desperately.

    Well, it's true. Uta's kind and smart and loyal. Fuka trusts her entirely. But it's also a bit of a blunt statement about feelings that normally Fuka would never say. Just more evidence that she's having... issues. Never mind while she realizes this and blushes yet again. No doubt it's just about how Uta says she does like Haru. Yeah, that's all.

    "I ... I guess?" she says. She does like him. He's clever, seems kind, and is actually rather hot, though the hotness is more of a bonus than any meaningful trait. "But he's got secrets! I mean, I guess I do too and I haven't shared the way I probably should, especially since... well, you know." The brief sobering she undergoes should probably imply what exactly she's obliquely referring to. "So, I mean, what if I don't? There's no running away or leaving the game if I do something stupid!" she complains.

"You're the one I trust the most."

Uta wasn't expecting those words. What can they mean? No, no, it clearly means something else, Uta keeps repeating herself. Why would anyone trust her? There are so many better options out there. People who aren't complete scatterbrains. People who can give better advice. Fuka would be so much better if she went to someone else. Even accounting for the urgency, her party -teems- with people...

Cue to Uta running through a few hypothetical scenarios.

Fuka and Schneider sitting across each other, with Fuka as flustered as she is now. Schneider just deadpans, "Fireball him."

Fuka and Haru sitting across each oher, with Fuka as flustered as she is now. "...why are asking -me- that?"

Flustered Fuka sitting across Regular Fuka. "Why, why don't you practice with me first, hm? We can go to my bedroom, where we have more privacy," she nudge-nudge-winks winks.

The little imaginary cloud poofs out of existence. '...I guess I -am- her only hope, given the circumstances...', Uta has to admit to herself.

"Secrets, hm." The discussion veering to this subject seems to make her oddly more comfortable, or at least, uncomfortable in a more familiar fashion, which is a relief. "True. We all have secrets." She doesn't mention that she had never been in a relationship. Neither has Uta Furore, the Adventurer, nor has her human player before the Apocalypse. More than actual, technical advice, Fuka needs to feel reassured. And her practicing as a nurse taught her that giving patients hope is often far more important than giving them medicine. That Etiquette skill she rarely seems to put to use creeps slowly into her posture and mannerisms, probably due to her post-Apocalypse hope-giving-Nurse instincts kicking in. "Well, he didn't ask to marry you. He just asked you out. That is important to keep in mind. It is an exploratory period, where commitment is not final."

There is some hesitation as to what to say next. "It is true, the choice is fraught with risks, but then again..."

More thought."Everything has consequences," is what she says. "Saying yes will have consequences. Saying no will have consequences. Pretending you came down with the Monkey Pox and calling in sick will have consequences."

More silence.

"Since we risk losing our memories, what makes us... us, I might as well start sharing some. Just in case," she begins somber. "I did not really play games, myself, I tended to escape on the printed page. Plenty and plenty of books. Lots of fiction. A healthy dose of essays. I enjoyed a good biography." A pause. "Things... happened, and I settled into a rut. A routine. Work. Go home. Read books. Go to the bookstore to buy books on day off. That's it. Nothing more. Safe. Cozy. No consequences."

A pause. "...No life," she mumbles, looking down. She glances up at Fukaziroh. "I realized that one day. I realized I was just pouring my life directly down the drain. And so I went, hey, let's go out of our comfort zone. Shake it up. Do something exciting! But not too much. Like... It's New Year's Eve, how about you try that VR-MMORPG that's been advertised so much of late? It's gonna be fun! And it's absolutely safe, a great way to get over your distrust of computers in a completely controlled environment..."

A pause. She looks down, somber.

She glances up again, "And yet, despite everything that happened, I am forced to admit that -this- is still better than pouring your life directly down the drain."

    To be fair Fuka doesn't need a solution. The solution's pretty obvious; improvise! Do what Fuka does best, have fun, and find out what comes next with an open mind and open heart. She doesn't really need anyone telling her how to handle her social life. She's unmoored though, facing deeper fears than that, and Uta's a friend. Someone who is wise, kind, and pretty awesome. Even if she isn't good with relationships.

    Fuka listens, and somehow it seems to work. Somehow, Fuka seems to be calming down. She straightens up, pays attention, looks contemplative.

    "Biography? Ewwww." Fuka notes at one point. Okay, so she's still herself. Not the most tactful, but usually pretty good at making a well-timed light jest. She smiles easily, showing she means nothing with the outburst, and continues to listen.

    "I was the same, kind of. Except for me it wasn't usually books, it was games. Especially online games." Fuka states; or perhaps it's Miyu now. She's rarely Miyu these days, but she's made an outreach of sorts to Uta before. "No friends. No social life. Just a big family and my games. And then the worst day of my life ever." she says, her expression going grim before freezing and going blank. She doesn't want to show that kind of expression, not here and now... but she's not so good at masks that she can easily erase it.

    "The games just... stopped. All of them." Miyu explains. Computers died, and of course the online servers quit and the analysts were saying they might never recover. Miyu's life was all but over and she was barely even a teenager.

    She shrugs, face still a bit of a mask, but starting to thaw. "So I decided to hunt for a friend." she finally says. And there is no accident in her use of the word hunt. She even grins faintly, suggesting she's aware of the use of the word. "And I kind of realized having a real friend was pretty amazing too. I think I mentioned her, yeah? You'd like her too." the little Sylph insists, grinning if only a little.

    "I did eventually get my games back." she notes, almost casually. "Some of them. Including this one. Jumped at it really. But I take my friends seriously. They're more important than games!"

Uta stiffens a bit at biographies being dissed, "I'll let you know that some people had really interesting lives, thank you very much!", with a kind of an exaggerated huff that lets on her catching onto the jocular nature of Fuka's own response.

Uta nods a lot to the rest of Fuka's story. She acknowledges she's following.

"I had a lot of acquaintances in my life. Cannot... cannot really think of a real -friend- before the game." She inhales, takes some time to look around, lost in thought. "But I understand now. I've made more friends during this year and a half than in the rest of my life. Having this yanked from you-"

A pause. Eyes defocus.

Her head swivels, from a gaze lost in the distance, she's now looking down, off to a side, scratching the back of her head. "That was a terrible day for many, many people."

"In any case, back to the main question. I am not sure I can give you an answer as to what you should do at this time. It is something you will have to figure out by yourself. But I can hopefully listen, and help you figure out the answer by yourself?"

    A lot of people lost a lot due to the viruses. In the grand scheme of things a girl's loss of her gaming life is a trivial thing not even worth mentioning. But a personal tragedy is still a tragedy, and in this case is important not so much because it happened but because of what resulted from it. And yes, Fuka's definitely one to understand what it's like to not be popular in real life and yet find that the same things leading to isolation in the outside world can sometimes lead to better acceptance only online.

    As to what to do, now that Fuka's calmed down, she shrugs casually. "Oh I don't know what to do." she says, but doesn't seem upset about it. Not nearly as upset as she was earlier. "I suppose I'll figure something out as it's happening?" she adds with a slight upturn to her lips, the bare hint of a playful grin. "He didn't seem to mind when I called him an idiot. Or when I said maybe either. Maybe he's just one of those types who like getting abuse from strong women!" she suggests, smirking fully now and raising an arm to flex virtual muscle. She doesn't actually think so of course, but is pretty sure the very suggestion will either amuse or horrify Uta as way too much information.

    And really, does it matter either way?

"Well, I'd say it's all good signs. See, I still am of the opinion that under the headword 'idiot', dictionaries have a glaring lack of an 'I like you too' entry among the definitions. It can mean exactly that at times. Perhaps Haru caught on on that particular nuance."

Uta does seem taken a bit by surprise by Fuka's suggestion, but after the first moment of awkwardness, she offers, "I... I mean, if he's like that... I won't judge." And then, as she seems to get that it's probably some sort of tease, she follows flawlessly into, "Although that'd explain why he's so interested in you." Uh-oh. Uta is learning. She's evolving.

She leans closer to Fuka, excited. "Oh, man, this is so great. You got a suitor! Congratulations! In case you say yes, let me know if you need help with anything!" She stands up, and begins to pace around the room. "Do you need ambience? I can light 50% more candles!" She sweeps the air as if pointing to an imaginary set of candles. "You need a soundtrack? I can be your fiddler!" She does twirl around Fukaziroh, and mimes playing a violin. "You need to be left alone? Just a flick of your wrist, and I'm gone!"

    Now this is the sort of advice Fuka really needed. Haru meant well, and she's far from angry, but he did kind of inadvertently upset one of the foundations of Fuka's own little internal world. Like the disaster that took away her beloved gaming however, this upset may well open up something... better. Or at least different. She's at least interested enough to give it a try... and isn't that the whole point? The fun of an adventure is not knowing what will happen! Planning it all out in advance is boring!

    And yes it would indeed say something about Haru that he chose Fuka, of all people, to confess to. She grins at that too, taking the comment in what appears to be its intended fashion. Belatedly she realizes she's probably opened herself up to all kinds of teasing from Uta now, but she's okay with that. A good tease can be its own kind of fun. "Sound track would be lovely." Fuka replies, because of course it's going to involve music. "As for being left alone... weeeeelll I guess we'll see how that goes!" she adds with a roguishly suggestive exaggerated wink.

    "I mean, he might prefer you remain." she adds. Just to see Uta explode.

"Oh, he likes music that much?" Uta beams. She apparently took Fuka's sentence, meant to be taken the wrong way, the wrong way. But not the right wrong way, the wrong wrong way. And two wrongs, in this case, wrap it around to the right way, idiom notwithstanding. Which, considering Fuka's intentions, is actually the wrong way.

Confusing, huh?

"I mean, I don't think it would be proper for me to stick around, literally, nor I know how much of a melophile he is. Certain things need to- wait."

She leans back, and gives Fuka an alert look, as if trying to decide whether or not she's kidding.

"Iiiiiii'll leave the two of you alone in any case, I'm sure that's for the best," is what she says. An ambivalent response which holds under either interpretation. Did she actually understand Fuka's true intentions?

    Fuka's true intentions? Well to be fair, they were to fluster Uta. Traditionalism and Fuka don't often see eye-to-eye but she's not actually interested in inviting her friend on THAT kind of adventure! While there's no telling what she'd be into if invited in the right way... yeah no, Fuka does cherish Uta's innocence too.

    "I don't know if he's a melophile. I mean, we're still not at that stage! Do you think I should ask him what he's.... in to?" Fuka asks, again roguishly suggestive, again hoping to see Uta get it and explode. It'd be almost impossible to misunderstand her implication. Then again, it's Uta.

The perfect storm happens.

Uta flushes red, unclear whether from feeling misunderstood or embarrassed (probably a mixture of the two, with a generous serving of the latter). "MELOPHILE MEANS HE LIKES SONGS!" The problem is, in Japanese, 'songs' and 'Uta' are the same word. Which means that after the split second that it takes Uta to realize what she's just said, the redness flushes her face the way a geyser would. "MUSIC! IT MEANS HE LIKES MUSIC!! GAH! HGHHGH!"

She begins to run around the room, looking for something to hide her face under, or into.

    All right that was worth every flustered minute and any possible future embarassment or teasing that might come out of this later. Fuka just starts laughing at that, a mix of wicked delight and pure enjoyment. "Oh indeed, Songbird~" she trills. She's not entirely sure she gets what's got Uta so flustered but does it really matter? Clearly Uta does!

    She takes pity, or at least mercy, on her friend however, pulling herself up out of seiza and moving to offer some entirely platonic comfort. She's in a good mood now, and ... well, kind of exhausted from lack of sleep and hungry too. And kind of bedraggled. She needs to go look after herself if she wants to be presentable! "I won't tell him if you don't~" she adds, probably meaning for the words to be comforting.

It probably does not count as a songbird; notetheless, Uta is channelling her inner ostrich by now: she holds the futon, which had been so carefully rolled up moments ago, over her head, pressed down, while the Spriggan is kneeled over on the ground in a ball with two wings sticking up at an angle.

At fuka's final reassurance, she mumbles, "If by that you mean you won't tell him about this blunder, that would be appreciated." With renewed emphasis, she adds, "Because a blunder is all it was! There was nothing more about it!" By now Fuka probably is familiar enough with Uta to know she's telling the truth.