in which the narrator prepares for the dark secrets episode | Rumi
Audience? Yes. Captive? Not really. She came there out of her own volition, sat down out of her own volition, and spoke to Ameya out of her own volition. That head tilt was making her uncomfortable, though, and obviously it made the Narrator uncomfortable too. The entire situation was just very uncomfortable.
Rumi soon became less tense, though. She was waiting for someone to ask her something like this. “Nah, I don’t have a tragic backstory!” she answered with confidence. “Those are usually reserved for the edgy characters who think friendship makes you weak. I, on the other hand, am a class act huggable cutie who thinks friendship is pretty great.” The waitress paused briefly, her hand over her heart. She quickly snapped out of her ‘moment’ though. ”Oh god. You might just be rubbing off on me.” She shook her head a little. Anyway…
"Wait wait wait wait Matsura-chan. You’re—Uh. Moving reeeaaally fast. Too fast for Ru-me, Nyoomi, even though one of my specialties is my ability to go fast. What you just said was like a tongue twister somehow pulled off perfectly and tongue twisters never make much sense themselves." Rumi took a few seconds to rub at her temple in confusion. So… Something about a scar, genre-savviness, (whatever the hell that was) and seriousness? Or was it unseriousness? That was a very important detail.
After a while, it did finally click that Ameya was talking about the scar under her own eye, but she wasn’t really sure what it meant. It was so… Tiny and insignificant to her appearance. She decided not to comment in favor of addressing her next question. “Well I’m not psychic,” she shrugged. “There could be something related to the fear rooms we encountered in the team challenge before the last one… Urgh.” Good job, Rumi. You reminded yourself of your own failure. “Sorry. But yeah, there are some people whose rooms seemed really personal to them? I mean, of course they’re all personal. But I mean extra personal. Like, stuff way beyond stage fright and… Haunted houses.” More shuddering. If there was one thing she wouldn’t miss about the world she had been used to, it was Halloween.
"The Narrator prides herself on the ability to inject genre-savviness into the proceedings. They all have to be careful not to be Wrong Genre Savvy, however. Happy characters can still have a lot lurking under the surface, and it's better to assume though than to assume not, right? As Cotton-candy-kun just demonstrated to the detriment of the class. That dick," she muttered good-naturedly. "Either way, you will forgive her if she doesn't wanna assume anything about anyone, right? Like...Diva-kun and Fancy-chan and the various dudes formerly known as Dickbag-kun all obviously have hella issues, and maybe even Umami-kun, but if someone like Nyoomi-chan has a mysterious secret then it hits harder! Of course, it might also seem to bizarrely come out of nowhere, but..."
The end of the sentence fizzled out, and Ameya rubbed her face with both hands as though she was falling asleep on her feet. Which was ridiculous, because no matter who she was rooming with, she hadn't had any motives fucking with her head, and really had no reason to fear, right?
"She moves fast. She speaks fast. She could probably out-rap record holders if she wanted but that is kind of a boring pursuit and she's never liked rap overmuch anyway. Not enough to dedicate herself to SHSL pursuits, anyway. That's weird. ...Things are as important as people make them, anyway. Even when that's taken into account, The Narrator is kind of a secretless blank space anyway. What a boring pair we are. Well, she's barely a character, she doesn't have a lot to feel self-conscious about."
She dropped back into her seat with no further ado. Sure, Rumi was free to leave at any time, but a lot of character development was driven by people not leaving scenes they probably would have without the influence of curiosity or genuine care underneath their exterior. Putting people that had no reason to hang out together in certain situations at least made them have the conversations that everyone wanted to see. Not that she and Rumi were characters like that. Well, she had to wonder about the viewers. "It's a sad world we live in, Nyoomi-chan. If everyone gets a plot twist then it's overdone but then that means only a few can get super cool revelations out of it. And the rest of us are resigned to...comic relief."















