[ Another year has passed. Funny enough, doing requests for the elf kick-started Oosouji for Joshua, so for once he had it done on time. It's another empty new year in the house he once shared with the man he'd been closer to than anyone else. Another convenient excuse for a birthday. Nothing more.

He's almost convinced himself it doesn't hurt. ]

How has your time here changed you?

[ It's windy, and it's cold, but Joshua has an anniversary to celebrate in his own quiet way and he's not going to let the weather stop him. His first stop is to swing by his old room, room 7 at Community Housing 5. It's still empty, but he's not surprised to find that both Hanekoma's graffiti and his own long-disabled traps have disappeared from the walls.

After that, he'll spend some time trying to spray paint one of the not-yet-painted walls of House 38. Of course, given that spray paint doesn't like cold temperatures and really doesn't like wind, that's going to produce a result that's about as neat and tidy as you'd expect. So after a little while wrestling with that, he'll head inside to make himself a cup of nostalgia coffee (not as good as Hanekoma's...) and sit down with his journal to warm up. ]

What was your first experiment here, and what did you think about it? [ He giggles. ] For me, I suppose an amusement park made for a rather gentle introduction. Does anyone else remember the Great Mysterio?

[ The 16th. July 16th. Six months minus one day after January 17th, one year minus one day after July 17th of the previous year, and one year and six months minus one day after the day he was made to be no longer an Angel. Hanekoma and Neku are both gone. Shiki has been here even longer than he has. Rhyme and Beat are both Players, far too fragile to rely on, far too distant to trust.

Tomorrow, he will probably die.

It's strange, in a way. He's never been afraid to die before. But he's caught up now in so much more than he was any of the previous times he was faced with death. This time, if he dies, there's no telling what will happen to Shibuya back home. And that's what he's afraid of.

This entry is public. This entry isn't anonymous. Maybe it's his way of saying goodbye for now. ]

Why are you afraid of death? Or, why aren't you afraid of death? Home, here, or both.

[ A few moments later, after drawing up a filter, he adds this to the message. ]

[ Filtered to Shiki Misaki: 100% ]

I have a favor to ask.

[ While leaving out a mug of coffee, mostly-filled, might seem to be a weird thing to do in remembrance, regardless it's what Joshua does as he goes about cleaning the downstairs floor of his house, the space previously known as Kat's Kradle.

Without any real reason to keep more than the cooking area clean, he hadn't. Dust coats many of the tables and forms sometimes-impressive piles in the corners. Today, despite the rain, Joshua has the front door of House 38 wide open, and he can occasionally be seen sweeping piles of dirt outside.

It's rather cold, but Joshua doesn't seem to mind it. At least it's keeping him from working up a sweat. It's a bit late for a new year cleaning, but at least he's getting around to it at all, right?

Every so often he takes breaks to check on his journal, which he left the following question on earlier in the day: ]

How many of you learned things here that you're not looking forward to having to learn again when you go back to your own worlds? Your own death might be the obvious one, but I mean things like, say, some truth about your world, or friends, or family as well. Anything you'll need to find out again if you forget this place.

[ Sometime in the early afternoon, the following question goes out over the journals. The camera is covered, and the handwriting is disguised. ]

Let's have a thought experiment. Say you were dying, and the only possible way to save yourself is to get help from someone very close to you. However, you don't know for sure that this help will indeed save you, and whether or not it does, there's a chance that it will damage the one helping you. Trying to help you might even kill them.

Do you ask for their help anyway? Would you accept their help if they offered it?

[ Later on in the evening, Joshua makes a separate post from the previous, this one voiced and not anonymous. ]

[ Filtered to Neku, 100% ]

Hey Neku, are you busy tomorrow?

[ /Filter ]

I've gathered that some of you out there are rather old. I'd think if you were immortal, individual years would start to lose their meaning with time. So, what do you think constitutes a memorable birthday? Every ten years? Every one hundred? How old do you get before you stop taking notice of single years?

[ The camera is covered, but Joshua is making no real effort to disguise his handwriting. He's too upset for that. ]

What should you do if you're so homesick you honestly, truly cannot stand it?

[ A few minutes later, the following is added. ]

[ Locked to Haruhi - 100% ]

The friendship club might have to wait a bit longer.

I'm guessing most if not all of you have felt the phenomenon where time seems to move at different rates, even though you know it's all in your mind. So tell me, does being in Luceti cause time to feel different to you than it did when you were back home?

[ Two years. It's been two years, and after experiencing as much time slip by as Joshua has, feeling those two years is a less-than-welcome change.

As a distraction, he spends the day painting a side of his building that has been blank ever since a certain someone went home. It's certainly not Hanekoma's style, but it's similar to it, the color scheme the same though the designs are more fluid, less blocky and more streamlined, with harsh points instead of rounded curves.

Maybe this is his way of making peace with it. Maybe he's finally moved on.

Maybe he's just that homesick. ]

[ The journal feed opens to the sound of dull tapping in the background. Then it pauses, and Joshua speaks. ]

What do you suppose is their criteria for drafting individuals to fight?

Or if you don't care for musing, what do you do when so many people are away?

[ If you happen to be celebrating the new year with some coffee or pastries or... whatever else Hanekoma feeds people at Kat's Kradle, then you might hear the sound of someone tuning a violin coming from the second story.

It starts off quite out of tune, but within a minute or two, it sounds fine. Then, Joshua starts up a piece of music: fast-paced, somewhat frantic, somewhat chaotic, without chorus or verse, but it has an overall feel to it of life, of progress, of change.

Or maybe you just missed the whole performance.

Either way, a little later, the following goes out over the journal. ]

Why do you want to go home? [ And then, after a short pause, ]

Why do you want to stay?

[ The question indeed comes a couple hours after midnight, early enough that you don't have to be too much of a late-nighter to catch it going up. ]

What sort of things do you do to help yourself relax?

[ After he poses the question, Joshua will be off doing his current favorite: showering. So he won't be responding for a while until he's done. ]

[ It's early in the morning when the audio clicks on, just about the time when the earliest risers will be waking up. Joshua isn't going to be going to bed any time soon, though, so he'll be responding well into the day. ]

Call me curious. What do you dream of?

[ His tone of voice is level, more bored than curious with just a hint of weariness. ]

With so many people suddenly dying, I was wondering: what's it like to die here, where death isn't permanent? If you've died back in your home world, what's the afterlife like where you're from?

And even if you haven't, does death seem less important, does it carry less weight here than it did back home?

Given the nature of time here in relation to our own worlds, would you say that birthdays here even have a point? You lose any time you spend here when you go home, and possibly regain it if you return, so it the end it arguably doesn't exist in any permanent capacity. But it's still time that you've lived and experience that you've gained.