| Tsuzuru | (Manzai, hmm......Now that I think about it, I've never written a manzai script before. I wonder if I can?) |
| ...... |
| (Well, whatever. It's just fun between friends. I'll write as it comes.) |
| ...... |
| (Huh, this might go surprisingly well......) |
| |
| Tsuzuru | Alright, that's done. |
| (Somehow, it was done in the blink of an eye. It's been a while since I've been able to concentrate on writing like this.) |
| (I feel refreshed, so it really was a change of pace, huh.) |
| |
| Tsuzuru | Citron-san, I've finished the manzai script. |
| Citron | Ohh, how speedy! |
| Tsuzuru | ......How is it? I've never written a manzai script before, so I learnt by imitation. |
| Citron | ...... |
| Tsuzuru | ......Citron-san? |
| Citron | It's funny! My guts are boiling! |
| Tsuzuru | That's a strange way of putting it, but well, that's good then. |
| Citron | Let's hurry and start practising after practising for the play today! |
| Tsuzuru | Yup. |
| |
| Citron | As I was walking down the road at night the other day, I was mistaken for a suspicious person and interrogated. I was told to take off the mask. |
| Tsuzuru | That's tough considering it's just a difference in culture. |
| Citron | I just had on the iron mask I wear for doing laundry. It was really terrible. There are plenty of foreigners like this! |
| Tsuzuru | Your choice of laundry clothes is messed up! If you want to cover up, there are plenty of other options. |
| Citron | I have an arabesque bandana too.[1] |
| Tsuzuru | Enough already! |
| Thank you very much. |
| Citron | Thank you! |
| Itaru | Nice work. |
| Tsuzuru | Itaru-san, don't you get tired of seeing the same thing every day? |
| Citron | Then, are you a fan of Citrun? |
| Tsuzuru | Citrun? |
| Citron | 'Tsuzuru' and 'Citron' make 'Citrun'! |
| Tsuzuru | That's mostly just Citron! |
| Itaru | In some sense, I might be a fan. It's grown on me as I've been watching. |
| Citron | Let's steadily gather fans like this! We'll expand to the MANZAI stage! |
| Tsuzuru | Where are you aiming? |
| Citron | We'll work hard tomorrow too~ I'm hungry~. |
| Tsuzuru | Thanks for all your hard work. |
| Citron | I'll be going first~. |
| Itaru | ...... |
| Tsuzuru | How was our manzai act? |
| Itaru | Hm~? At first it was hideous, but I've come to snicker at it once in a while. |
| You've gotten pretty relaxed, so if you can get to the stage where you're comfortable adding in improv it should have a pretty good feel. |
| Tsuzuru | We'll just have to practice. |
| Itaru | Thanks to the manzai practice, your interactions during the play practices have improved too. |
| Tsuzuru | That's true. I get the feeling we've settled into a rhythm somehow. |
| Itaru | After that's the ending of the play, huh. |
| Tsuzuru | ...... |
| What do you think of the story this time, Itaru-san? |
| Itaru | I think the worldbuilding and the character designs are good. I'm a fan of the steampunk feel. |
| Tsuzuru | It wasn't a conscious decision, but it's about friendship again. |
| Itaru | So? |
| Tsuzuru | Well, I've written friendship a bunch of times before, and when I wrote Romeo and Julius I based the idea off a past experience. |
| But it seems that's become a hindrance this time around. |
| Itaru | A hindrance? |
| Tsuzuru | How do I put it...I wonder whether I'm turning the friendship I couldn't hold on to in the past into a play for my own benefit. |
| When I think that I've been making everyone in the troupe go along with a script that's just for my own self-satisfaction, it kind of freaks me out. |
| Itaru | ...... |
| Tsuzuru | That's why I thought a script with a convenient end was wrong and tried to change the ending. |
| But I feel like a bad end would be ignoring the feelings of the audience as well, and it gives off a pretty bad impression overall...... |
| With my thoughts in a mess, my writing doesn't make any progress, and nothing I write seems fitting to me. I'm awfully stuck. |
| Itaru | It doesn't matter whether you wrote it for self-satisfaction. What's so bad about that? |
| Tsuzuru | Eh? |
| Itaru | There are plenty of works out there that were created out of negative emotions like complexes or complaints or desire. |
| Many are even called masterpieces. |
| Even conveniently becoming a hero and saving the world in games is to fulfil the wish to become a hero. |
| It doesn't matter why you write. |
| Whatever motivates you, if the finished work becomes an inclusive work that strikes people's hearts, it doesn't matter. |
| Tsuzuru | ――. |
| Itaru | The moment something becomes a work, that desire stops being just the creator's. It belongs to the audience of that work too. |
| Tsuzuru | It stops being just mine...... |
| Itaru | Rather, these friendship stories are ones that only you, with those sorts of desires, can write. |
| Tsuzuru | ...... |
| Now that you mention it, the Director said that Romeo and Julius was a Romeo and Julius that only I could write...... |
| Itaru | See. |
| Tsuzuru | ......You're an adult, Itaru-san. |
| Itaru | Did you think I was just a childish gamer only growing older on the outside? |
| Tsuzuru | I didn't mean it like that! |
| But well, I think I've kind of got the picture. Or like, I feel super refreshed. Thank you. |
| Itaru | ...... |
| Tsuzuru | What? |
| Itaru | No, well, you get pretty nervous when someone genuinely relies on you all of a sudden. |
| Tsuzuru | Eh? |
| Itaru | Nothing. It's an adult thing. |
| Well, I plan to have you write a game scenario just for me with my pocket money someday, so write what you like now. |
| Tsuzuru | What sort of scenario? |
| Itaru | One where even though I'm so surrounded by all the sorts of characters I like that I can't move, I'm still the strongest. |
| Tsuzuru | The heck is with that extreme wish-fulfilment......! |
