Christmas & New Year's Day/2020/Story

## Introduction

**Antonio** | When I play my music, I don't have to worry about getting an audience... Yet on this Christmas night, alcohol is my true companion.

**Antonio** | We don't have to call each other by name, friend. My name will surprise you and ruin the night.
At this moment, in front of a bar on the side of a snow-covered street, I'm just a violinist.
...Don't get me wrong —— I'm fine with spending Christmas Eve with alcohol.
Like many unfortunate people, when my money runs out, my companion will be gone as well.

**Antonio** | A coin for a song. While this may not be a concert, it's certainly worth it.

**Antonio** | This is why performing on the street is so much fun.

## Antonio

### Initial meeting

**Antonio** | (Everyone left after the performance) Oh, well, I guess I'll be my own audience.

**Antonio** | Hehehe, turns out there's still one loyal listener.
Even if there's only the two of us——

**Antonio** | I'm Master Antonio, the Violinist.
You don't have to hide your surprise, and you can keep your excitement to yourself.

### Friendship Dialogue 1

**Antonio** | You’re a talented listener!

**Antonio** | I’m serious. One must first learn to “listen” in order to become a musician.
Listen to others’ performance, listen to their own performance,
listen to what others have to say, listen to their own heart.

**Antonio** | The gentle serenades in casinos, the decadent music in the royal orchestra–I’ve heard them all.
When I was at my weakest, I had even heard terrifying sounds.

### Friendship Dialogue 2

**Antonio** | (Holds his hair) This? It’s just natural to me.

**Antonio** | ...when I’m out of it, it will guide, control, manipulate...
I’m intoxicated, not with alcohol but with music.
No one is as talented as I am, and no one can be as intoxicated with music as I do.
–to a point where I lose myself.
...when I raise my hands, I’m Master Antonio, the Violinist.

### Friendship Dialogue 3

**Antonio** | Zzzz...Zzzz...

**Antonio** | Zzzz...Zzzz...Zzzz...
Zzzz...

**Antonio** | Zzzz… Good question…
...good question… If you want me to stay–
You’d first get that shameless princess... off my bed...

### Friendship Dialogue 4

**Antonio** | Hmph, I’ve had enough of those upper society snobs.
In order to show the world that they are of a different class,

**Antonio** | Those pretentious folks didn’t respect music at all. All they needed was a toy.
When the toy was out of their control, what do you think those vain and stingy folks would do?
...however, I never thought I’d end up in a place like this today,
where I’d get the chance to simply enjoy music and alcohol.

### Friendship Dialogue 5

**Antonio** | –I suppose this song was somewhat up to my usual standard.

**Antonio** | Hmph, you haven’t seen anything yet.
Have you listened to a proper solo in G? Have you felt the tide-like melody of Perpetual Motion?

**Antonio** | Don’t be greedy. My performance today should be enough for you to savor for a long time!
Anyways, I did gain something today.
As both a performer and a listener.
How long has it been since I played for myself last time?
It should be back then when I let go of myself and embraced my talent.

**Antonio** | Bewitched? Hahaha, how well do you know about your life?
(Lifts the violin) So long as I hold on to this, I’m a genius master.
(Raises the bottle) So long as I have this, I’m Antonio.

## Emma (Longing Tune)

### Initial meeting

**Emma** | … hi there, I’ve never heard music that’s...so relatable before.
This reminds me of my father and the many Christmases we spent together.
When I was young, I’d always get two presents for Christmas.
My birthday is on December 21. Father would always prepare a present and hide it from me.
On Christmas day, he would put my birthday present and Christmas present under the tree.

**Emma** | No, don't get me wrong. The violinist's performance is a present on its own.

**Emma** | Can I stay?
I won’t disturb you. I just want to listen.

### Friendship Dialogue 1

**Emma** | No one has ever played a song for me. This is awesome!
Father spent a lot of time with me, but he didn’t know how to play any instruments.

**Emma** | I prefer the doll father brought home when he ran a textile factory–

**Emma** | –he made it himself, my personal doll!
He said he also made two “little bodyguards” for the doll.

### Friendship Dialogue 2

**Emma** | Say… will there be pieces like this at a concert?
I never got the chance to go to a concert before.

**Emma** | My mother took on a lot for our family… she was always busy taking care of my father and me.
They had a great time, but I didn’t really get it and I wasn’t in the mood anyway.
I didn’t like that man. I wished father would have gone to the play with us...
But father and mother were in a quarrel back then.
If there’s a chance, I really wish I can listen to this song with my parents.

### Friendship Dialogue 3

**Emma** | This song is great. The musician is so talented–

**Emma** | Uh, but I’m not good at singing.
Not everyone can sing like a canary.
I prefer trimming branches and fertilizing the soil.

**Emma** | Unlike music appreciation, some people consider it boring to spend time with plants. They’re slow and brittle.
Yet during my days at the orphanage, watching the plants grow freely outside the fence brings comfort to my heart.

### Friendship Dialogue 4

**Emma** | This song reminds me of my last Christmas.
The last Christmas I spent with my father...
Back then, my father dressed up as Santa Claus and I dressed up like a Christmas tree.

**Emma** | He said, “Emma, this little tree of yours will be filled with so many presents next year that I won’t be able to see your little face.”
My father’s words never came true.

### Friendship Dialogue 5

**Emma** | This outdoor concert today was awesome!
Oh right, let’s decorate a Christmas tree together!

**Emma** | Let’s use the tree by the bar entrance! It will bear witness of us spending Christmas together!

**Emma** | Sounds good! So this will be our Christmas witness!

**Emma** | Merry Christmas! This is a Christmas wreath I made, even though it’s not very intricate,
but I’ve decorated with a lot of fruits and seeds–

## Robbie (Longing Tune)

### Initial Meeting

**Robbie** | This song is lovely!
I can tell you’re an interesting fellow.

### Friendship Dialogue 1

**Robbie** | Fuhafuhafuha.

**Robbie** | I just want to make a scene! Fuhafuhafuha!

**Robbie** | (Runs away) No! No!
Wulawulawu! ...wuwuwuwuwu...

### Friendship Dialogue 2

**Robbie** | Robbie likes the stories about juniper trees.
I’ve listened to them many many times.
Robbie also likes to chop down trees, but Robbie won’t chop any juniper trees down.

**Robbie** | Robbie isn’t playing with axes. Robbie is chopping firewood! Ka-cha, ka-cha!

### Friendship Dialogue 3

**Robbie** | Sister?
...where is sister?
Wulawulawu! ...wuwuwuwuwu...
Robbie can’t remember.

**Robbie** | In the yard, there were nuns and many other children around.
And then… I can’t remember. Robbie woke up under the juniper tree.

### Friendship Dialogue 4

**Robbie** | Wuwuwu...
Robbie wants to play hide & seek.

**Robbie** | Sister used to play hide & seek with Robbie all the time.
Sister couldn’t use her hands properly.
Robbie never hid in boxes.
Robbie would hide behind the juniper tree.

**Robbie** | Wahaha, wuha!
Enough with the songs. Let’s play!

### Friendship Dialogue 5

**Robbie** | Ahhhh...

**Robbie** | Are you doing what my sister did? Eating in secret, getting presents in secret?
Sister always asked Robbie to sleep first, then she would drink soup in secret.
Robbie took sister’s soup one time. It wasn’t very good.

**Robbie** | Eh? You really don’t have any?
Not even one? Not even a Christmas stocking?
...

**Robbie** | Robbie would always get a stocking from sister at Christmas.
Sister said one must have a stocking in order to get presents.

## Victor (Anticipation Tune)

### Initial Meeting

**Victor** | I'm Victor, this... This is my friend, Wick the Post Dog.
I'm a Postman and this is a Post Dog.

### Friendship Dialogue 1

**Victor** | ...

**Victor** | Oh, I-I really like it–
I’ve heard a lot of Christmas songs before, but none of them belongs to me.

### Friendship Dialogue 2

**Victor** | I don’t listen to much music. I mean, this song is great.
...but when I’m free, I often hang out with stray animals.
While they can’t talk, they are sincere and very–direct. (points at a scratch from a cat on the back of his hand)

**Victor** | Yes, I deliver letters!
But I’ve never received a letter from friends, as I don’t have any...friends.
I often send letters to myself.

### Friendship Dialogue 3

**Victor** | Hm… should I write a letter to myself?

**Victor** | Because you only have to read a letter. You don’t have to say anything.
Not just me, sometimes people simply can’t say what they want to say face-to-face.

**Victor** | That-that’s because...I-I’m the messenger of secrets.
Messenger! Protector! Owner!

### Friendship Dialogue 4

**Victor** | It’s not a pet! It’s my most important companion.

**Victor** | Wick’s previous owner...died in a fire.
I found Wick at the scene of the fire. It was horrible.
It was guarding the entrance to the room with a letter in its mouth. It kept on scratching the door.

**Victor** | ! ...

### Friendship Dialogue 5

**Victor** | I want to thank you.
I never had any friends. I even thought about how great it would be if Wick could talk.
Is it possible...
Can...we...friends...

**Victor** | I’m just...really grateful for your performance!

**Victor** | ! ...merry Christmas… I wish that all of us would make more friends who are sincere.

**Victor** | These are Postman bells custom made by our post office for Christmas!

## Violetta (Anticipation Tune)

### Initial Meeting

**Violetta** | Are you inviting me to join you?

**Violetta** | I don't show myself easily.

**Violetta** | But since you invited me——
(A huge shadow slides down) Hello, I'm Violetta.

**Violetta** | Violetta (regardless of option chosen): (Spreads her body) What? Don't you think I'm beautiful?
I hope you're not as foolish as those biased folks.

### Friendship Dialogue 1

**Violetta** | I realized that the violin’s rhythm and the pace of weaving are quite similar.
The bow is a horizontal thread and the violin’s strings are vertical threads. One’s fingers then strum the horizontal thread while the vertical threads are plucked.
I’ll only have to strum like this–
(A screeching sound emits)

**Violetta** | (Flips her hands back and forth) Thank you for your kind words.
I used to spend every Christmas Eve weaving by myself.

### Friendship Dialogue 2

**Violetta** | I want to make a piece of clothing. Ka-da, ka-da...
A piece of clothing for myself!

**Violetta** | This is for me! In the past and right now!
(Spreads her claws) This is my body, but this isn’t the real me.
I used to perform on a special stage with a huge audience.
Whether it’s a long robe or a tiny dress...
None of them fits me.
But I believe–no, I know they were gifts of passion and sincerity!

**Violetta** | Kindness? I don’t need kindness. I just need something to keep me warm in winter.

### Friendship Dialogue 3

**Violetta** | While there wasn’t a violin during my performance in the past,

**Violetta** | No, I was only observing and listening.
Mr. Max thought none of the instruments was suitable for my body.
Or perhaps he thought the audience wouldn’t want the music to be tainted by my deformed limbs.
He would only let me practice jumping and weaving...

**Violetta** | When I ran out of tricks, he made me lie on a ball and flip around like a clown.
–it was more like two balls rolling around.
The other performers were jealous of me for getting the audience’s laughter and cheers with those “simple” and “clumsy” performances.

### Friendship Dialogue 4

**Violetta** | (Raises the top) It’s done! ...I wouldn’t have been able to add in the special rhythm to my weaving if it wasn’t for this violin piece.

**Violetta** | I weaved a top as a gift for myself.
But a top that doesn’t fit is simply a terrible gift.
–I’d always receive a terrible gift every Christmas.

**Violetta** | I wanted some warmth. Even if I have to pay for it–
After I left the circus, I weaved many clothes for friends whom I didn’t know well.
But they all ran away screaming when they saw me.
The sun is too far, while the flames are too fierce...

**Violetta** | Even if I look like this?

### Friendship Dialogue 5

**Violetta** | What is that in your hands?

**Violetta** | (Picks up the bandage) At least it can wrap around my claw!
Is this really for me?
(Wraps the bandage tightly around her claw) I finally got a gift!

**Violetta** | (Reappears on the wall) Merry Christmas, my friends!
Hold on! Hold on, I can still...
(Tears a strip of cloth from her claws) Just give me a minute–with the thread I made...
(A scarf drifts down from the wall)

## Kevin (Nostalgia Tune)

### Initial meeting

**Kevin** | I wasn't expecting a street performance on Christmas Eve. What a pleasure!

 I never thought I'd see a Cowboy outside of a farm.

**Kevin** | We all have two legs and a mouth. There's nothing special about me.

**Kevin** | Don't you want more spectators?

**Kevin** | A person who left their home is a vagabond, but a cowboy who has left the farm is still a cowboy.

### Friendship Dialogue 1

**Kevin** | Yet another cold night on the street, yet another winter...

**Kevin** | The farm at which I was born was remote. Despite my parents’ hard work, cold winters made it difficult for business.

**Kevin** | Romantic? There was something that’s actually quite romantic–
When I was young, my parents always sent me to the barn in winter to clean the sheds for the hungry, cold, and agitated animals.

**Kevin** | Oh, that’s the first time I met her.

### Friendship Dialogue 2

**Kevin** | She was really cute and short then. Even though it’s winter, she was only wearing a leather vest. There was even a layer of snow on the outer layer of leather.
She had a feather on her head… I forgot which eagle’s feather it was.

**Kevin** | Her? A well-mannered lady? Hahaha… She’s an Indian[1] girl with personality!
She was lost in the storm when we met, and I set off for a new journey because of her.

### Friendship Dialogue 3

**Kevin** | No, even though the musicians I praised didn’t have elegant string instruments,

**Kevin** | They play Indian music.
Music filled with a sense of nature and life.
But I was just a hurried passerby. Before I had any chance to know their musical instruments, the songs they hummed, and their faithful dance moves...

### Friendship Dialogue 4

**Kevin** | ...
...
There are always things you can’t evade.

**Kevin** | Are you kidding? I’m clearly the only cowboy you know.
...thanks for not asking more difficult questions to embarrass me.

### Friendship Dialogue 5

**Kevin** | (Comes out from the bar) Hey, why are you still here?

**Kevin** | (Tipsy) When I was young, my parents would always give me a gingerbread man at Christmas.
At Christmas that year, they prepared a pair of gingerbread men.

**Kevin** | Perhaps they were blinded by greed, perhaps they didn’t mean to inform against her.
But at that moment on that day at least, they must have considered her their own daughter.

**Kevin** | That simple and remote farm was my home which I would never forget.
The area around that tent, and the clan which longed for my return.
(A gingerbread man is being tossed in)
A crazed ox was lassoed, and a wild wolf was expelled from the clan...

## Patricia (Nostalgia Tune)

### Initial Meeting

**Patricia** | What kind of indecisive and compelling music is this?!

**Patricia** | I don't like this atmosphere! I don't like this street, nor this coldness-

**Patricia** | I'm no "miserable lady". I'm Patricia.

**Patricia** | I'm not someone with no place to be. I'm Patricia.

**Patricia** | (Stops) I... Don't like Christmas.

### Friendship Dialogue 1

**Patricia** | Hmph... The sound of decadence!

**Patricia** | Cheer people up? How shallow!

**Patricia** | With no soul, there's no fear. It's merely self-pleasing music for mortals——isn't it that the sound of decadence?
Music that is worth praising should be a ceremony in which we pray and communicate with deities.

**Patricia** | The warmth of family——I don't have a family, nor any warmth.

### Friendship Dialogue 2

**Patricia** | So long as Papa Legba refuses to respond to me, I can't lower my standards to myself!

**Patricia** | There is a lot more to do...

**Patricia** | ...I’m just a bit lost, a bit tired...
Just...
...

### Friendship Dialogue 3

**Patricia** | I’ve heard about the violin from those smug folks before.
Ah… so this is the violin.

**Patricia** | Appreciate? No, the violin reminds me of another instrument–the “banjo.”

**Patricia** | Mother Mary once mentioned that it was a very popular instrument in my hometown.
However, it was branded with prejudice and bias overseas.

**Patricia** | I went back once, but it was filled with a different type of irrefutable discrimination.
I wasn’t welcomed in the place where I was born, nor the place where I grew up.

### Friendship Dialogue 4

**Patricia** | (Talks to herself) I’m feeling much better now. Is it because of the violin music?
No… not simply because of the violin music, but the fact that you were listening with me.
At this moment, right here, there is no discrimination or prejudice between us–

**Patricia** | Never ask about the past nor the future. This has got to be the easiest type of relationship.
We can’t choose where we were born or to whom we’re related.
We can’t choose the way we meet people or bid them farewell.

**Patricia** | Be it strangers, Christmas Eve or the violin music–

### Friendship Dialogue 5

**Patricia** | If it weren’t so cold, this has been a good day.
It wouldn't even snow in my hometown.
There were some stubborn old men who wouldn’t believe there’s snow in this world!
...hold on.

**Patricia** | I’ll tell them the things I’ve seen and heard in this world.
So that they’ll know that there are even more prejudices, biases, and disagreements outside of my hometown...
But that the world is also vast and brilliant...with different temperatures.

**Patricia** | Wood carvings have a special meaning in my hometown. They contain the clan members’ emotions about all the things in this world.
We believe that one won’t be able to create wood carving with a soul unless they have first-hand experiences.
(Shoves the wood carving to you) Take it! You’ve convinced me about the violin’s music.

## Melly (Individuality Tune)

### Initial Meeting

**Melly** | What an awesome performance!

**Melly** | (Points at her gauze hat) You mean this?

**Melly** | It's a type of, hmm—— "precaution".

**Melly** | Getting hurt? Prejudices? Embarrassment? ...Everything which I can't face or am not willing to face.

**Melly** | But it's worth the adventure to hear this song over here.

### Friendship Dialogue 1

**Melly** | It won’t. Also–
I have my unique way of filtering sounds which I don’t like.

**Melly** | Yes, these adorable creatures.
They obey my commands and would never hurt me.
They gave me freedom and a direction in life.

**Melly** | –a strict entomologist.
Observation, research, experiment… Taming a swarm of bees isn’t as romantic as you imagined, but it’s what I’m good at and what I relish.
Ah… these little guys don’t like the cold weather.

### Friendship Dialogue 2

**Melly** | I’m sorry, I have… I have to go.

**Melly** | It’s probably because...I’m used to isolating myself. I have a professional habit of “keeping distance.”

**Melly** | Of course they’re different. ...more complicated, more difficult to grasp.

**Melly** | Your positivity is rare.
...thank you for your kind words.

### Friendship Dialogue 3

**Melly** | Hmmm… I think I found the flaw in this musical performance.
It’s unstable; the venue is temporary, the musician is brilliant, and the performance is ad hoc.

**Melly** | It doesn’t have a pattern. People get anxious when they have to face something without a pattern.
When will the good become bad? When will the bad end, and when will it reoccur?

**Melly** | I know I should pray for a beautiful future on Christmas Eve.
But more importantly, I should remind myself to treasure what I have, be grateful for them, and celebrate them.
All I want is a stable life. Take control as much as I can before things get out of hand...

### Friendship Dialogue 4

**Melly** | (Guides the bee back) Don’t worry, it's just one.
Perhaps it was attracted by the violin’s sound.

**Melly** | The individual behavior of each bee make [sic] up the behavior pattern of a group. But sometimes, the group’s tendencies will also be shown on an individual.
Perhaps this bee was moved by the music.
Or perhaps the entire swarm of bees is looking for some...some changes, and it was just the start–
...
...even the swarms of bees that have been trained are all seeking for changes.
Will what I care about ultimate [sic] become something foreign to me?

### Friendship Dialogue 5

**Melly** | Actually, I have a gift.

**Melly** | (Nods) ...
But this is a gift that can’t be delivered.
He’s gone.
From the moment he left, everything changed.
But I am still lingering in the past.

**Melly** | (Points at her gauze hat). No, I have this.
Before I come to terms with a quiet and stable new life, I can’t get rid of it fully at ease.
(Hands out the Christmas hat) Here… for you!