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yumemigaoka2023-07-06 05:20 pm
beautifuldreamermods) wrote in yumemigaoka2023-07-06 05:20 pm
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Event #3: Shooting Star Wishes
YUMEMIGAOKA
As it is every year, Yumemigaoka's annual Tanabata festival is held at the street just outside of the Hikawa Shrine. The street and the shrine itself have been closed off during the day beforehand, save for the volunteers running back and forth in the miserable weather to set things up and decorate every inch of the festival space. And all their efforts do pay off - by the time the festival starts at seven in the evening, the street has been transformed into a lovely spectacle; hanging lanterns twinkle with raindrops and cast a warm glow over the street, paper stars are fluttering gently down from strings strung between lampposts and stalls line the full length of the street with food offerings, festival games and just about everything in between. Unfortunately, the month's poor weather hasn't let up yet so the festivities are a little dampened by persistent drizzle, though it seems like everyone's absolutely determined not to let that ruin the festival atmosphere!
For folks looking for games, they can enjoy:
- ⧖ The most popular stalls, the shooting games! Using a gun loaded with paper bullets (so, you know, mostly harmless) the aim of the game is to get a clean hit on one of the prizes along the back of the booth and knock it down! The prizes are mostly candy, snacks or kids' toys but they're deceptively hard to get a good shot at...
⧖ Goldfish scooping, a summertime classic! Using a scooper with a thin sheet of paper for the net, try your best to catch as many goldfish swimming around the water below. Do well enough and you'll win a prize and you might even be able to take your goldfish home - make sure to take good care of it!
⧖ Senbonbiki is basically pure luck - bundles of prizes, usually candies and small toys, are strung up along the top of the stall and you just have to give the corresponding other end of the string a tug. Whichever bundle of snacks comes down is yours! Of course, if you're particularly unlucky then you might get a dud or penalty prize... but surely nobody's luck is THAT bad, right?
⧖ Ring toss! Throw rings onto targets marked "1" through "10", each worth different amounts depending on where they land. Beat the high score and you'll win a prize! Though do you really want to walk around the whole festival with a giant plushie under your arm all night...?
There's also a ton of options for Japanese street food; some traditional, others more modern takes. There's fried stuff, grilled skewers, rice balls, all manner of delicious noodle dishes and mountains of sweets too; taiyaki, chocolate covered bananas, shaved ice, cotton candy, and just about everything and anything else you'd want to spend an evening stuffing your belly with. And naturally there are plenty of drinks available including freshly squeezed fruit juice and tea and some booze for those who feel like playing with fire.
Aside from the rest of the festivities, the main event is really the hanging of wishes - it is Tanabata, after all. A few tables at the top of bottom of the street have been set up to carefully shelter them from the rain and have a whole rainbow of tanzaku for people to write and hang their wishes on the bamboo trees both in the street and in the shrine down below. You can hang as many wishes as you like, if you're feeling particularly greedy, but...
The festival doesn't really reach its peak until darkness falls and, undeterred by the continued drizzle, the Hikawa Shrine lights up the sky with its famous annual fireworks show - it's always pretty spectacular but perhaps out of spite for the nasty weather, it looks even more fantastic than usual this year.
With the fireworks done, the festival begins wrapping up and it's time to head home. But as you settle into bed for the night and drift off, it becomes apparent that the night's festivities have only just begun...
THE DREAM SPHERE
It's happened almost every night for a week now - when you drift away to sleep, your regular dreams are slowly, gently interrupted by a strangely vivid image, an enormous bamboo tree with a wide canopy of leaves under a dazzling night sky. It's maybe not a surprise, given the upcoming festival, but as the nights go by it just gets more and more intense... until the night of the Tanabata festival itself and suddenly everything changes. As you settle down to sleep for the night, whether you went to the festival or not, the moment you close your eyes and drift off... you find yourself distinctly Somewhere Else.
The dream – and surely, it must be a dream – unfolds as an expansive open field, drenched in the silvery light of a magnificently star-spangled sky above and cut through with a river of flowing water that reflects the sky so clearly, it looks to be filled with stars of its own. A fine, steady rain falls and fills the field with a soft mist and the fragrance of the hundreds of tiny, bell-shaped flowers swaying lazily in the grass. And at the center of the field is a familiar sight – that bamboo tree from your dreams, somehow huger and with branches even more widely spread than before. This time they hang low enough for you to reach out and touch and you'll realize as you draw close that the tree is weighed down with tanzaku strips, all glowing softly as if illuminated from within by the wishes upon them.
It's then that you also realize that you're not alone here. And that you're here at all – in the Dream Sphere. Slipping over to the other side isn't uncommon for Dreamers, but... hold on a second! Aren't some of the people here just regular people too? Whatever this strange dream is doesn't seem to have discriminated between Dreamers and the regular folks – maybe it's thanks to the magic of those two starcrossed lovers but somehow, the lowercase-d dreamers of Yumemigaoka have also crossed into the Dream Sphere tonight! The effect will only last until morning, at which point the dream will unravel, so you might as well enjoy it while you're here. Many of the mundane dreamers will find they're able to move differently in the Dream Sphere, running faster and jumping impossibly high and long distances with nary a scratch to show for it; no magic of their own yet, but at least enough to have a little fun while they're here.
There's a little bit of natural magic at play here in the environment, too. If you approach the tree with a wish in mind, there's no need to write it down; it'll appear in pretty, sparkly ink on an appropriately colored tanzaku strip, already tied to the tree. Or if you go to peer at your reflection in the river, you might see it take on a shape that reflects the wish you're carrying in your heart.
... Except...
What sort of things are you really wishing for? The things you won't admit out loud to anyone, or even to yourself? The deepest wishes right in the darkest part of your heart that you want more than anything? Unfortunately for you, this tree seems to be of a mind to grant wishes and once it's gathered enough of everybody's tanzaku, there's a bright flash of light...
And suddenly everyone's secret wishes have been made manifest... though only in the Dream Sphere, of course. These can be anything from silly wishes to something more serious - the important part is that these secret dreams and wishes have been pulled out of your head and put on display for everyone here to see! How on earth are you going to deal with this gracefully?!
Regardless of what you choose to do, the apparitions only last for an hour or so before fading away and the sky lights up with a beautiful meteor shower that seems to go on forever. You're free to stay and watch the meteor shower and enjoy your last moments in the Dream Sphere for as long as you like but eventually, as you're watching the stars streak down from the sky, the dream around you begins to gradually fade away until you find yourself stirring in your own bed. Though it was an exceptionally busy dream, you find you're well rested and... okay, maybe a little embarrassed after all that.
Nobody will be able to return to that strange field or find the dream to stabilize it but... maybe that's fine. Aren't some things all the more special for only happening once a year?
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What she means is easygoing, which is true. Sam has made something of a place for herself and managed to make it well enough. She might never win much recognition anywhere, but she's fine with that. She's still managing to do good, and that, to her, is what matters most.
That and she could use a snack herself, so why not offer?
"It's kind of all in the wrist, though. And being quick enough to not soak the paper when you do try to snatch up one of the swishy little fellas. They are small and cute, you're not wrong. I just worry about forgetting about one. I'd feel awful to come home and find one belly up. So if you're less forgetful, well." Sam was all for goldfish adoption!
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"I think a break is a good idea. I am growing increasingly annoyed with my inability to claim victory. A chance to allow my mind to calm down sounds optimal. I want noodles. And a candy apple, maybe. I think I still have enough for both without giving up on Mr. Fish." She sure seems focused on that fish. But her belly is telling her that maybe its time to do something else for a bit. "Afterwards, I shall make more attempts using your advice. And I shall triumph."
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"I probably ought to eat something remotely nutritious before I go straight for candy and shaved ice, though. Even if you can get it with fruit." The sweetened milk that comes with it, well. Less nutritious, Sam suspects.
"Do you want to do any wish-writing, or is that kid stuff?" Don't ask her, she doesn't really know. Too busy studying or too new to realize what it was all about the last time it came around. But at her companion's final statement, Sam can't help but laugh. It's not mean, though, and she pumps her fist at the enthusiasm.
"Hell yeah, say it like you mean it! I'm Sam, by the way. I think I've seen you around before, but I can't remember where."
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"I have nothing against people hanging their wishes. Its a nice thought. But there is nothing for me to gain by doing it. The only thing I want would be unrealistic to expect, I'd rather not find myself disappointed this year as well." In other words, no need for that. "I only moved to this area last month, I am uncertain where we would have met. Unless you saw me..hmmmm, but you really don't seem the type." She doesn't sound like she's being judgemental. Maybe she'd better explain to avoid coming across that way. "Its nothing to brag about..." And she honestly doesn't sound like she is, her tone is so calm and soft. "..but I've been in a handful of magazines. Perhaps you saw me there? I really don't like to talk about it much, though." Definitely not trying to brag. "Oh, I have yet to give you my own name, huh? Its Miruca. If you want to know anything more, it will have to wait until I have food. Once I am properly fueled, I shall return for Mr. Fish."
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"I work at the DU as a tour guide, but I mean, I do more than that. I've got a band." At least until the next oldest figured out if he was going to college or not. "And I mean, obviously I go to street festivals and stuff. Maybe one of those? Because...well, no, maybe I did see your face in a magazine. I don't buy a lot of them, but I do look. The styles you model, if I recall, aren't exactly ones I would, but no one gives me crap for looking."
She shrugged, then. "Anyway, I'm Samantha Irithyl, but call me Sam. Everyone else does."
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This lady was a musician? Miruca is surprisingly interested in hearing that, and it shows on her frequently expressionless face. Someone who creates and brings entertainment to others always has at least a little bit of value to her. Chances are she wouldn't like the music anymore then Sam liked the clothes she modeled, but it was still respectable.
"A tour guide and a musician? I live on my own, so I have a second job as well. Its even more embarrassing then the modeling, so I am not going to talk about it." Chances are Sam would never randomly walk into a maid cafe, so that one could remain her little secret. "Samantha Irithyl. That doesn't sound much like a local name. Though I suppose that has little meaning anymore, considering how many people move here from out of country. My own name hardly sounds Japanese at all. As I said a moment ago, I am Miruca. Miruca Crotze. Despite how odd the name is, and don't bother trying to tell me its not, I am half-Japanese on my father's side. But we have stood here too long. The yakisoba will not buy itself."
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"I won't ask, but hey, you hustle! You do what you have to to make ends meet, there's no shame in it. I sort of fell into the tour guide thing, music is my real love and what I try to study." She laughed a bit when Miruca brought up her name.
"You're right, though. I'm not a local, I'm a transplant from the United States. There's plenty of Dreamer stuff over there, but my parents thought I'd be better off coming here, so..." Sam trailed off at that, and nodded.
"You're damn right! Let's go get some food first, we can continue this conversation there!" Sam pointed vaguely in the direction of the food stalls and took a step that way, but clearly she was in no rush, not about to make Miruca run to catch up to her.
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It seems she was right on the mark about the name. "My mother was from the States. It is why I have this blonde hair despite living here all my life. Well, not HERE here, I did move to this area only recently, but in Japan I mean. But here I am chatting away while there is food to be eaten." She sure doesn't seem to be in a hurry, but manages to keep up on the trip to tastytown.
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"Oooh, perfect resting bitch face, as they call it where I'm from? There's something to be said for that, honestly. It can scare annoyances off before they even get to you! But...there are the people that it doesn't work on."
Like you, Sam? Then again, she's thinking of someone else entirely. (Zeke. It's definitely Zeke.)
"Well, we have to get there, but it's right there, so there really is food to be eaten!"
As soon as they buy it, anyway. Or as soon as Sam buys it. Whichever. She's not worried about the details, besides eating, once it becomes pertinent.