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[With the recent temperature fiasco, Pilouette hadn't been paying attention and September kind of snuck up on her. Now with a particular day coming up, she's found that she's ended up with a somewhat...odd problem. Having found herself unable to figure out an answer on her own, she decides to turn to the network. ]

You all know how people can come here from different worlds and different times and stuff, right? Well, um...hypothetically. Say someone just had their birthday. Like, maybe a month before coming here. But only a few months after getting here, it's already their birthday again!

Do I...uh, they just keep being the same age and wait a whole year or should they say they're older now? Oh! But the year is different, too, isn't it? I wonder if that matters...I've been thinking about it all day, but it just seems like, so totally complicated...!

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[It's not usually the sort of dilemma that might appeal to Ataru, but it's so odd and the girl seems so bothered by it he can't quite stop himself from answering.]

If it's so close, maybe they [is that an amused glimmer in his eye no it can't be] should call it the same birthday and start again. There's no need to get any older if you don't have to.

[Give her a second because what even is that mask. No. No, considering the circumstances, that's normal, right? It's just a mask. She frowns thoughtfully as she mulls over what he's said. One can almost hear the gears turning.]

S-So I- er, they should just try to ignore that they've had a birthday already? I guess that kind of makes sense. Especially since it hasn't even been half a year...That's going to feel like, totally weird, though. ...O-Or it probably would. Uh, like, hypothetically.

[She's really not very good at this, is she? Not that he can particularly blame her, under the circumstances.]

True. You could try to count it back out to when your birthday would be, but that might cause all sorts of confusion when you get back home. [He pauses, and maybe he's teasing her just a little bit-] General "you", that is.

[She doesn't quite pick up on that teasing because she's just thinking about this so hard. Probably harder than is necessary.]

I didn't think about that...It really could case trouble back home, especially since they say they put us back from the moment they took us. Then it would be a month after again! Or...or wait, would it be considered a couple months after? ...D-Depending on how long they were here.

...Geez, all this going back and forth in time stuff sounds like, really complicated. Like, annoyingly complicated. But I guess if time science or whatever was easy to figure out it wouldn't be worth thinking about.

[Even so, she's caught him off guard for a moment there. He straightens his shoulders a little, tilting his head forward in interest.]

They said that? [So you can wriggle more out of them with a little work. He's been ignoring the native presence on the network so far, but maybe it might be more worth digging into than he first imagined.

... he's getting distracted. Unkindly. Quickly, he drags himself back to the matter at hand.] ... in any case- and I'm not usually one to say this- it may be best to live for the moment for the time being. If you want another birthday party, go ahead and have one. ["you" or "they" or... you know what never mind]

[She gives him a firm nod.]

When I first got here I told them that I wanted to go home right away because I didn't want anyone to think I was skipping school! [Priorities, right?] And the guy I talked to told me not to worry because when you go back you go right back to the second they brought you from! ...I mean, like, I don't really know if it's true or not. But that's totally what he told me!

[Though at the time she had just accepted it.]

I wasn't really thinking about a birthday party or whatever, though. I really just wanted to know what age I should be. Besides I've never had-

Uh! I-I mean! Someone has...Uh h-hypothetically speaking...

O-Oh...[She sighs and can't help but feel a little defeated. He saw through her totally convincing web of vague deceit! Not that she thinks she's especially clever, but she thought she had a good plan with this.]

[That tugs a little more than he expected it to. She's so young- the only thing she should have to worry about is her school attendance, not whether or not she'll ever see her friends and family again.

With anyone else he might take a harder, more cynical line, but Ataru finds himself being a little easier on her.]

They've been honest enough with us so far. Since there's no way of knowing if they're being truthful about that until we do go home, it may not be worth worrying about. [Not in the grand scheme of things, anyway.

Then again, in the grand scheme of things he hadn't thought that a birthday would really matter either. It probably matters more when you have fewer years to count.

He smiles mildly behind the mask.]

... why didn't you want to ask about your own birthday?

Because when I talk about my own birthday people starting asking stuff like "Are you doing anything special?" or "I bet you have big plans, right?" and it's kind of...

[Like she's bothering people. She doesn't want people to feel like they have to do anything.]

...annoying. Besides only kids get excited for their birthdays, right? It's not a big deal or anything.

[Now that he can appreciate. He's never been particularly comfortable as the center of attention either.]

Well, you have a good excuse not to this time, if you've already had a birthday this year. [He cocks his head, suddenly nostalgic.] Still, I've seen a few adults get excited for their birthdays as well. I don't think there's any harm in it.

W-Well...I guess maybe there's no harm. Maybe I'll get excited for it next year. ...If something exciting happens. I'll probably be back home by then, so nothing exciting probably will happen. Right now, I'd be totally okay with that, though.

[Pilouette is very pro-not being sucked into another universe to power a city. Plus she really really wants to believe she'll be home before a year is over but...]

[He can't afford such optimism for himself- it raises expectations and hopes when what he needs is to stay pragmatic and open- but he can definitely support it in someone else.]

Hopefully, you're right- about being back home, that is. It'd be a shame if nothing exciting at all happened before then, though. [He pauses.] When is your birthday?

I kind of miss regular boring life, though. [She can't help but let out a quiet sigh.]

M-My birthday...it's, um, on September 9th. ...Why?

[He's not sure he's ever had anything close to that, not even when he was her age.]

Just curious. At any rate, I hope it's peaceful for you. It seems a little unlikely that something will go wrong again so quickly, so maybe you'll be lucky. [Or maybe lightning will strike twice...]

Y-Yeah, I hope so, too. ...Thank you.

That guy on the network the other day...He did say they were working on stuff, s-so maybe you're right. If they're working that hard on it, everything probably will be okay for a while. Maybe.

[She adds in that maybe because she can't be sure. Not that she ever is.]

[She seems to want to have faith in them more than she's actually able to grant it, and he can't exactly blame her.]

They seem eager to please, don't they? Have they acknowledged problems and made promises that publicly in the past?

Not really, but nothing big has really happened until that temperature thing, so there wasn't really a whole lot to say. ...Well, there were those blackouts a couple months ago, but black outs aren't that much of a big deal in a city that's having power problems, right?

[She frowns thoughtfully for a second before continuing.]

...But it was kind of weird because they'd just had a bunch of people power up a bunch of generators a little bit before that. They never said anything about it, though.

Blackouts? [Now that's interesting- especially when she adds her note about how they came just after a power-up of sorts.

Though he keeps his tone as even and thoughtful as ever, he's chasing the point down like a dog with a ball.] Let me see if I understand you. You're saying that they asked us- that is, their "guests"- to power the generators, only for the city to be hit with blackouts soon afterwards? [His eyes narrow just a touch.] Then where did the power produced go?

Well, that's what happened, yeah. B-But I figured that people were just using more energy because they were excited for the generators being powered up or something...

...I don't really know where the power goes, though. I wasn't actually in any of the generator groups. Actually, I'm not sure if they know either... [Her shoulders slump a little. She wonders for just a second if that might be the kind of thing she should know and feels a bit bad for not knowing the answer.] S...Sorry.

[Did he come on too strongly? Either way, Ataru is quick to backtrack when he spots the stoop to her shoulders and the drop in her tone; it's one thing to submit someone like The Ninja to his theorising, but another entirely to do the same to a complete stranger.]

It's fine. You couldn't have known it would be important. [He pauses.] ... I'm sorry. I haven't even asked for your name.

Edited 2013-09-12 08:26 (UTC)

[She does her best to straighten up. She was always told not to slump when introducing oneself, after all.]

U-Um! My name is Pilouette Bonheur. [She nods politely.] It's, um, nice to meet you.

[She really doesn't have to worry about formalities with him, but it's nice that she made the effort.]

Kinnikuman Soldier. Just "Soldier" is fine- and it's nice to meet you too, Pilouette. [A French name...? It sounds that way, but where she comes from there may not even be a France.]

[A man wearing a mask who says his name is "Soldier." Pilouette seems to be meeting more and more interesting people every day in this place...]

Oh! And, um, thanks for helping me out with that question. ...It's probably a silly thing to worry about now that I think about it.

[Or maybe she's just trying to sound a little grown up.]

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