video | un: furuderika

[miiraculous]

 [Near the end of the month, after playing Jumanji more times than she cared to, Rika is able to face some realities. Those being that her house is more empty than before and that she's feeling lonely. She's never lost a friend in the way that she has lost Rena. There's no way to flip a switch and have her back, and that has been weighing heavily on Rika's mind.

And yet, the matter for which she makes a network call is rather childish and unimportant in comparison.]

Is the Trench always like this..? I never expected that a game board would be so mean... Games are supposed to be fun, not like that.

[She sounds more disappointed than traumatized. Perhaps a sign of maturity? Or being numb to so much suffering.]

Where I am from, my friends and I had a club where we played games together. Games let us leave our troubles behind for a few hours and spend time together, in a piece of the world where everything was fun. It makes me sad to think that games might have been ruined for the people here, because one of them was naughty. So I...

[Rika's voice trails off. She briefly imagines a cheerful Rena and how she would react to this. As part of her grieving, Rika tries to follow in the imaginary Rena's footsteps. This is more proactive than Rika's used to, so she can't help but sound uncertain.]

I want to make a game board that isn't mean and play it with everyone here. Does anyone know where I can find some paint? And a biiig piece of wood, or something similar, for the board? I've never tried this before, but... I would quite like to try. I do not wish for the fun of games to be taken away too.

Comments

[imaglyphwitch]

Sure, of course! Granted, there's not much to tell! It's kind of a small place, though it IS technically housing a way to enter another realm!

[miiraculous]

Really? Another realm? That sounds very exciting!

Hinamizawa has no such thing. But we do have a nice shrine and old traditions.

[imaglyphwitch]

It is! Once you get used to demons and other monsters, of course.

Aw, that sounds interesting too! I love old towns and their histories!

[miiraculous]

Demons and monster? Are they friendly?

[Rika giggles, but she is also assuming that Luz is referring to folklore.]

We have a similar story in Hinamizawa. They say that the big lake goes aaaall the way down to hell.

[imaglyphwitch]

They can be! Not all of them are, but you could really say the same about people. Honestly, it varies.

[In a way that people were sort of like this too: some were ok, some were not].

Wait, really?!

[miiraculous]

Such as people~. [She catches on quickly.

Rika wiggles her fingers mischievously;] They call it The Onigafuchi Swamp. Like "depths" and "~demon~". Demons used to come out of the swamp and terrorize the villagers, until a god came down from the heavens and told everyone to "play nicely~!"

That's how the story goes, anyway! The god's name is Oyashiro-sama and they watch over our village.

[imaglyphwitch]

Yup!

Oh, what a cool folklore! Did you actually ever see any of the demons?

[miiraculous]

[Rika smiles,] I think if I told you the rest of the story, you would become shiver-y shiver-y with goosebumps~.

[imaglyphwitch]

[Luz could help laughing].

I think I'll be OK. Let's just say I've seen my fair share of scary things.