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yumemigaoka2024-07-07 02:09 pm
beautifuldreamermods) wrote in yumemigaoka2024-07-07 02:09 pm
Tanabata Log
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 and despite the absolute rancid weather, the community has come together to get the festival space set up and ready for everyone to enjoy. And somehow, as they usually do, things just seem to come together somehow.
Come seven in the evening, the street opens to pedestrians and the festival finally kicks off. A steady, misty drizzle of rain persists through the entire evening but somehow, it just adds to the dreamy atmosphere. 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. In the wake of all the chaos over the last few months, isn't it nice that some things are still simple, quiet and unchanged?
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 just as with last year, the night's festivities seem to have only just begun and as you drift off to sleep that night, you feel a gentle unmooring as you're carried off to somewhere new...
THE DREAM SPHERE
Most people in Yumemigaoka seem to have known what was coming tonight and sure enough, it's happened again - a week's worth of dreams of a strangely vivid image, an enormous bamboo tree with a wide canopy of leaves under a dazzling night sky, just like last year. And, just like last year, when you fall asleep on Tanabata evening, you find yourself arriving Somewhere Else.
The 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. Just like the real festival, there's a fine rain drizzling down from the sky, filling the air with mist and the sweet fragrance of the hundreds of tiny, bell-shaped flowers swaying lazily in the grass. And at the center of the field, just as it was last time, is the bamboo tree from your dreams. In the year since last Tanabata, it seems to have somehow gotten even taller and even though it's so huge, though, it doesn't seem like a threatening presence at all. Its branches are spread out even wider than before, hanging low enough for you to reach out and touch and this time, they're not just weighed down by tanzaku strips but glass wind chimes, too, that tinkle and sing whenever the breeze rustles the trees.
It seems tht once again, the magic of those two starcrossed lovers has allowed everyone in Yumemigaoka to cross the Dream Sphere tonight, Dreamer or not! 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?
2
Sure, it's a good way to get away from something - but the problem is the you might run into something. Or someone. Maybe Hibiki was just so overwhelmed that she isn't thinking, but after a little while she manages to bump right into someone in the crowd. Someone relatively small enough to overlook.
And considering Illya is so small, she immediately falls down with a pained yelp when Hibiki runs into her like that at full speed. It takes a moment for her to even realise what happened, since it kind of feels like a freight train ran into her. But no, it's just-- ]
H-Hibiki-san..?
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[ To Illya's credit, running into her at full speed causes Hibiki to stumble and fall as well, if only because of how unbalanced she is as she sprints. She looks around frantically, her eyes eventually landing on Illya. ]
I-Illya-chan...!
[ But her eyes don't stay on her for very long. Instead, they turn to look in the direction she'd been running away from, as if worried she was being followed... ]
I-I...
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It seems like such an odd way to think of Hibiki when Illya has never seen the other as anything other than brave and strong. ]
I-It's okay!
[ Does Illya think she can do anything about something even Hibiki of all people seems scared of?
No. But she can try.
It means she quickly moves back up onto her feet, holding a hand towards the other girl. ]
Come on! Do you need to get away from here? I-- I'll come with you!
[ She can figure out what more to do later. If Hibiki is awkward and uncomfortable right now, then Illya's priority is absolutely with getting the other girl out of here first. ]
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But right now, she just can't get herself to feel that way, no matter how much she wants to. ]
A-Ah...! N-No, it's fine! I'm fine, Illya-chan!
[ But... she doesn't take Illya's hand. She gets up on her own, still trying to force herself back into her "normal" anyways. ]
I'm... I'm fine. Really...
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You're clearly not okay, she wants to say, but it feels too bold in this moment. If Hibiki is trying this hard to say the opposite, then she's got to have a good reason for it, even if Illya isn't sure what it is. Still.. It's so hard to just watch the other look like this. What could even have happened to reduce Hibiki of all people to a state like this? ]
Did something happen..?
[ It feels like the safer question. It at least doesn't imply something is wrong, only that something happened! T-That doesn't even have to be a negative thing, right?
Even though Illya feels like something negative sure happened. Especially with Hibiki not accepting any help, Illya's held out hand uselessly dropping after it's not been taken to instead hang by her side. ]
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...Nope! Nothing you need to worry about, at least!
[ Hibiki can see the worry in Illya's eyes, and... well, that just can't stand, can it? Hibiki-onee-san needs to be strong, reliable, unshaking. She's the one who kids like Illya go to when they have problems, not the other way around. ]
I mean, come on! Can you imagine anything that I can't handle? Trust me, I'm fine...
[ Everything's alright, everything's fine... ]
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[ Illya would hate to deny that out loud. It just feels like an objective sort of truth, after all. The sky is blue, Hibiki is strong. And besides - even if it wasn't true, could she really insult Hibiki when Illya looks up so much to the other girl? And when she'd feel super mean for doing so?
There's no way she could. So she does just say that to Hibiki, even if it doesn't really stop the worry. It may be nothing she has to worry about, but Illya is going to worry anyway. Because she cares. ]
You just seem a little bit off. [ She says - trying to point it out as gently as possible.
Which is very gently, considering Illya is trying so darn hard to be careful about this here. Even if Hibiki is strong, it's almost as if something about the older girl seems weirdly delicate in this moment. ]
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Illya-chan... [ Hibiki smiles. ] You're a good girl, Illya-chan... but you don't have to worry about me. I can handle it myself.
[ Illya is smart, and she's right too. She's not off in the slightest... and to her credit, it's her delicacy that keeps from pushing Hibiki too far. Hibiki would hate to snap at her... to do anything that might hurt her, emotionally or otherwise.
But alas, being gentle isn't enough. So she repeats the same thing she's said over and over again this entire time... ]
...I'm fine.
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It's such a tiny part of her that loses out to the part of her that wants to respect Hibiki. But it still exists. It's the part of her that thinks of all the horrible things that have already happened just because people wanted to handle stuff by themselves. And it's not like that sort of thing is going to happen to Hibiki, but what--
What if it does?
Without realizing it, Illya reaches back out towards the other girl. Her hand grabs onto Hibiki's sleeve, clinging onto it like she's afraid the other girl will disappear or get hurt the moment she lets go. ]
Can we.. do something together then?
[ If Hibiki doesn't want to leave this place, despite looking like she really wanted to only a moment ago, then-- maybe the best thing she can do for now is make sure she's not alone. ]
I really want to eat ice cream.. [ Look at her at least being smart about this. Framing it like it's some selfish desire - maybe it'll ironically enough make it more difficult for Hibiki to say no than if Illya would tell the truth and show it's actually for the other girl's sake. ] Can we get some together..?
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[ Hibiki isn't the smartest, she knows this, but she can see the look in Illya's eyes as she clings to her sleeve... and in that moment, Hibiki's expression finally softens. Still pained, but... ]
Mm... I'd love that, Illya-chan!
[ And finally, even if it's not in a way that truly changes anything, Hibiki takes Illya's hand in her own and smiles. ]
Let's get some ice cream together, then.
[ But even if it's small... and even inconsequential... in this moment, it helps. ]
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So though everything is obviously not suddenly all okay with Hibiki agreeing, it's still a little bit of relief for Illya. At least it feels like she hasn't totally failed here. ]
Thank you..!
[ It's why that 'thank you' also sounds so genuine. It feels like Hibiki is doing her a huge favor by going along with this.
Illya already starts dragging her in the direction of the ice cream stall, still holding onto the other's hand after Hibiki started holding it. It still feels a little bit too much like Hibiki will disappear if she lets go for her to do exactly that. ]
Hey, hey, what flavors do you like? You should get those! You deserve to give yourself a treat, Hibiki-san..! [ Maybe Illya is a little too energetic by Illya standards.
But she can't help it. She really wants to help cheer the other up a little, so she's giving it her all.. ]