| Tsumugi | “I want to help you as a friend.” |
| Guy | “Friends? You have hope and a whole future ahead of you; I reside at the bottom of hell. You and I, friends? What a fool you are.” |
| Izumi | (Huh? Guy-san’s expressions have changed a little. They change naturally when he’s exchanging lines.) |
| (It’s still not much, and you can hardly tell the difference, but it’s better than the mask-like expression he had on up till now.) |
| (His exchanges with Tsumugi-san are flowing smoothly, too; this is good.) |
| |
| Manager | Here we go—cough, cough! |
| Tsumugi | What’s that cardboard box? |
| Manager | Well~, I finally started organizing the depths of the storage room I’d been neglecting all these years, and found this.... |
| Izumi | The depths of the storage room.... |
| Tsumugi | So that’s why it’s so dusty. |
| Tasuku | It’s pretty old. |
| Manager | These are videos of some of our earliest performances. |
| Hisoka | ...Is this “The Phantom of the Opera”? |
| Manager | Ah, that’s a performance by the Original Winter Troupe. They had a number of reruns, but if the video is that old, it might be their first run. |
| Winter Troupe was full of skilled actors, so they were good at performing classics. They had deep-rooted popularity among their fans. |
| Tasuku | Let’s try watching it. |
| Homare | Seems interesting. |
| Tsumugi | It might give us some hints to improve our acting. |
| Izumi | Then let’s have a screening party with everyone in Winter Troupe! |
| |
| Izumi | .... |
| (They were rightfully known as the skilled troupe. Their acting skills and their presence are on a higher level than the other troupes.) |
| Tasuku | So an onnagata[1] actor played Christine. |
| Tsumugi | The script is also a classic. A serious story about revenge and the romantic rivalry surrounding Christine. |
| Homare | As expected, it’s a bit of a different taste from our play. |
| Hisoka | ...There’s no onnagata. |
| Izumi | Now that you mention it, nobody in Winter Troupe has played a woman. |
| Tasuku | If someone were going to do it... I guess Azuma-san? |
| Azuma | It might be hard for me to play Christine. She’s a rising opera singer, after all. |
| Homare | I don’t mind playing the role! Gender is insignificant when it comes to art and beauty, after all! |
| Hisoka | ...It’d be impossible for Alice. |
| Homare | Why do you say that! |
| Tasuku | You’re too huge. |
| Tsumugi | It might be difficult to balance out your height with the rest of us when we stand next to each other. |
| Azuma | Then maybe Hisoka? |
| Tasuku | Well, if we’re going by height, Mikage is the only answer. |
| Guy | .... |
| Izumi | Guy-san? Is something wrong? |
| Guy | —No, it’s nothing. |
| Izumi | (He’s staring at the members of the Original Winter Troupe. I wonder if there’s something on his mind....) |
| |
| ??? | Did you have fun? |
| Guy | Yeah. |
| ??? | I’m glad! That theater company is made up of four troupes, and each one has its distinct characteristics. |
| They’re all lots of fun, so let’s come back to watch performances by the other troupes, too. |
| Guy | Yeah. |
| ??? | Guy, do you want to become an actor like father? Theater is really interesting. |
| |
| Guy’s mother | That’s enough! Please be more realistic! |
| Guy’s father | I have a lot on my mind, you know! |
| Guy’s mother | Enough with your excuses. I’m tired of you. |
| Let’s go, Guy. |
| Guy | ——. |
| Guy’s mother | Come on, hurry—. |
| Guy’s father | Where do you plan on going!? |
| Guy | Father—. |
| Guy’s father | Guy! |
| Guy | (No... mother, I don’t want to go! Father...!) |
| |
| ??? | <<Guy... you don’t need emotions. You’re nothing but a machine that obeys every command. You’re an android.>> |
| |
 |
| Guy | ——. |
| ...Pant, pant. |
| Azuma | ...What’s wrong? |
| Guy | ...I had a dream. |
| Azuma | I didn’t know androids could dream. What sort of dream was it? |
| Guy | ...—No, that’s not right. It’s not a dream. It’s defrag. The system organizes my memory data every night while I’m on suspend mode. |
| Azuma | Judging from how you leapt up, I thought you had a bad dream... Since I’d been haunted by nightmares too. |
| Guy | I’m an android. I don’t dream. |
| Azuma | Is that so...? |
| |
| Tsumugi | “I want to help you as a friend.” |
| Guy | “Friends? You have hope and a whole future ahead of you; I reside at the bottom of hell. You and I, friends? What a fool you are.” |
| Izumi | (...Huh? Guy-san’s acting is different from yesterday. Actually, it’s more like his emotional expressions have gone back to the way they were before.) |
| (He’s all mask-like again... I wonder what happened....) |
| Guy-san, can you do that part one more time, more like yesterday? |
| Guy | “Friends? You have hope and a whole future ahead of you; I reside at the bottom of hell. You and I, friends? What a fool you are.” |
| Izumi | (Hmm.... His expression is stiff.) |
| Your emotions were beginning to show in your acting yesterday, and that was good... Did something happen? |
| Guy | ... Probably a defrag failure. |
| It’s like periodic maintenance. There’s either a bug or a falsification of sorts in my memory data. |
| Izumi | Eh, will you be okay? |
| Tasuku | Does it mean you’re malfunctioning? |
| Guy | No, as of now it just concerns the contents of my memory data. It has no effect on my behavior. |
| My memory data is backed up as needed in Zahra kingdom’s storage medium. |
| If I return to my country, I can restore my data and fix my bugs. |
| Izumi | I-I see.... |
| Azuma | .... |
| |
| Izumi | Let’s end today’s practice here. Nice work. |
| Tasuku | Nice work. |
| Tsumugi | Nice work, everyone. |
| Izumi | Guy-san, please rest well today so you don’t malfunction. |
| (I don’t know if it’s something that can be fixed with some rest, but....) |
| Guy | All right. Well then, excuse me. |
| Tasuku | ...Is Guy-san really okay? |
| Homare | If he breaks, there’s no way we can fix him. This is a problem. |
| Izumi | Medicine wouldn’t work, right... |
| He went back to his stiff expressions, too. I wonder if we can fix that... I thought yesterday’s acting was an improvement.... |
| Tsumugi | I talked to Guy-san during break, but I felt like there was a wall between us. It was like—we had gotten a little closer, but he suddenly began shutting his heart off again.... |
| Homare | You’re right. He was acting a little strange. |
| Hisoka | ...Is he starting to break? |
| Izumi | Eeh!? Please don’t make it sound so ominous. |
| Tsumugi | Tasuku, can’t you do something about this? You know how computers work, right? |
| Tasuku | No, you’re asking for the impossible here.... |
| Homare | Why don’t we try restarting him like Citron-kun did? |
| Hisoka | ...We might not be able to switch him on again. |
| Homare | That would be a problem. |
| Izumi | If only we knew that this would happen. We should have asked Citron-kun all about Guy-san.... |
| Azuma | ...Hey. |
| Izumi | Yes? |
| Azuma | ...He’s not an android. I think he’s a real, flesh-and-blood person. |
| Izumi | !? |
