week one | arrival

[marriagebroker]

The characters will arrive one by one, in whatever vehicle suits them the best to the front of estate. It's a beautiful estate filled with plants and trees and little ponds and all kinds of little hideaways. But it all cumulates at the main house, where they will be dropped off and greeted by a familiar face who stands outside the house and welcomes them in. They will be able to bring one suitcase with items and clothes as well as their pet(s?).

The main thing to notice when you step into the house though is that cameras are everywhere. Despite the many little hideaways of this house, there's no privacy whatsoever. Oh well!

When everyone is gathered together, the host from earlier will greet everyone with a merry:

"Welcome, my affection seeking friends! This is where you'll be staying the next few weeks. Find a place to settle in and get to know each other! I'll be around, in case you need anything."

He genuinely seems to mean it, at least?! But that seems to be it, he'll slip away in the meantime and leave you all to it.

A few things to note, of course:

• There is only one "bedroom" which is a large room, with a closet full of futons to roll out and use in said room. Sleepover time!


• There is an extra, extra, extra, extra large futon for Messmer.


• In one of the rooms of the estate, there is a lovely piano ready for use. Feel free to ask for more instruments, if you'd like.


• The kitchen is filled with food of all kinds and modern appliances so folks can cook whatever they'd like! There is also a bar in the kitchen, stocked with alcohol.


• In the living room, there is a screen showing everyone's profiles. It is touch screen, so feel free to swipe through!


• There is, of course, a banner in the living room reading 有緣千里來相會 (which, for the keen-eyed, translates to "Fate brings together those that are a thousand miles apart"). This was definitely written by the host.


• There is a welcome cake.

Boom Boom Room | Property Damage
Truth Booth Voting | Match Ceremony Voting

Comments

[irreversal]

[ Shoko's smile: 0, the void: 1... ]

...I think it's the futility that makes it having been there in the first place meaningful. Isn't being alive meaningful enough?

[poans]

If it is, I have yet to grasp its meaning. Pray tell, whence do you summon the strength to grip it?

[irreversal]

[ Alcohol and cigarettes, mostly. ]

Mmm...

[ She looks down at her reflection in the pond. Is this what he'd been thinking of, the whole time they were standing in silence? When she sees her rippled self looking back at her, she thinks about where she truly got the strength to keep going... ]

...That would be the people around me, I think.

[ And the people who are no longer around her, too. ]

[poans]

[In the time she takes to gather her thoughts, Yi Sang waits. She does him the kindness of giving a meaningful answer, though he himself struggles to see it.]

Those people will eventually scatter as petals do. What then?

[irreversal]

As much as we might try to be, people don't... ever exist in isolation, do they?

[ As much as they might try to be alone. ]

The people who scatter will always leave others behind who remember them, too.

[poans]

[His brow creases faintly.]

Is that so . . . ?

[irreversal]

[ She shrugs. She certainly didn't come out here for such a philosophical (depressing) talk, but she didn't want to brush him off when he seemed just as likely to try to drown himself in the pond— ]

I think so. Maybe making memories with people to carry with them when you're gone is what life's really about, or something.

[poans]

[Brush him into the pond.]

Remembrance, is it.

[It is no wonder, then, that they stand on different footings despite the equal elevation of the pavilion they're atop.]

[irreversal]

You don't seem convinced at all, huh?

[ But to be fair, neither does she. Even saying all of that, it feels... foreign, to her. Like an ideal she's entertained, but hasn't quite been able to uphold. ]

[poans]

I see clearer now that we walk different paths.

[On the contrary, he sees the potential validity of what she utters. Only, such a belief bears little to no point for someone like him.]

Perhaps you are correct. If isolation is home to the death of meaning, then the resultant life is a pointless one. An empty world will remain so, incapable of filling anew.

[irreversal]

[ ...She can't believe she's having this kind of conversation with someone right off the bat. But here they are. ]

I wonder if you're missing that there's always a choice. Staying isolated, keeping one's world empty... assumes that nothing can ever change. But I don't think that's true.

[ ... ]

But that's just my opinion, hm? I guess we can agree to disagree.

[poans]

. . . I have overspoken.

[He turns away from the pond, intending to make his exit . . . or, rather, his return to the manor interior.]

A long month awaits us. I shan't trouble you with such meager thoughts.

[irreversal]

[ She should probably just let him go. It's far less troublesome that way. But in the spirit of why they're all here, she calls out: ]

Hey, you. Don't you want to start over, at least?

I'm Shoko.

[poans]

[He pauses, if only because she's called out to him. He has a rudimentary grasp of her—a healer, yet something more. As for him . . . ]

I am Yi Sang.

[irreversal]

[ She watches him while he pauses in his tracks, burdened demeanor and all, having to wonder what brought him to such a point where he would speak to a stranger about the futility and meaning of life (or lack thereof).

It would be far less troublesome to just let him be on his way. But hadn't she, in a way, done that before with someone else in the past, too? ]

Yi Sang, then. [ A long pause of her own. ] You seem a little down, but... don't hide yourself away too much, alright?

[poans]

[In the vast stretch of emptiness, the ground becomes a burial site that conceals what would otherwise be laid bare. Flowers grow upon the grave—a memorial and an obfuscation at once.]

I shall remember those words.

[Whether or not he can hold onto them . . . remains to be seen.]