Lunar New Year Bomb thoughts!

Ah, Lunar New Year. While this wasn't a holiday Clarity had ever really celebrated before coming to Mahou Wando, he had come to appreciate it through his friend Luo. This year it seemed to be particularly meaningful to Luo. So even if his friend wasn't going to be in the realm to celebrate it (he had to go celebrate with his family, as far as Clarity was aware) Clarity still wanted to do something to celebrate for himself. A small gesture in his friend's honour. It wasn't something he had ever had any sort of desire to do for anyone else. Probably because he hadn't ever really had friends to speak of before, just colleagues and employees. People he was just acquaintances with at best, but who never got close to him in the slightest, and who he didn't have any desire to talk to, outside perhaps some quick water cooler conversations, if he was feeling in a chatty mood. But he would never go out of his way to do something for those people. Especially not when they weren't even around to appreciate him doing it, and he really didn't have anything to gain by it. But for Luo? Well, it just... Felt right to do. He was pretty certain his friend would appreciate the gesture, and that was for some reason kind of enough in itself.

... Well, doing this was probably also going to just be fun and enjoyable for himself. That certainly also made it more appealing to do, but... Still! He most likely wouldn't have done anything to celebrate if it wasn't for Luo! Hopefully, Luo would appreciate this whenever he returned...

... Right, whenever he returned... Thinking about that felt weirdly uncomfortable due to the uncertainty of it all. Luo had seemed so... Final when it came to him leaving for his home realm. He had seen the letter Cygni had gotten. It certainly read like a permanent goodbye. And yet, Clarity didn't really buy it. Call it a hunch, intuition, wishful thinking or whatever, but it just didn't sit right with him that he wouldn't come back. In fact, he didn't believe it for a second. He was going to come back eventually, he was sure of it. He wasn't sure WHEN he would come back, but it was just going to be a matter of time. And if he wasn't going to come back on his own? If he was being kept there by force?

...

A feeling of anger swelled in his chest, and one of the eyes on his wings twitched. He took a minute to wrangle his emotions back under control. There was no point in getting worked up over something he wasn't even sure had happened yet. All these thoughts about what to do would have to wait.

It was a bridge he'd cross if he ever came to it.

Right now? He was going to focus on the Lunar New Year.

What to do for it? Perhaps he'd go see the opera house in LongHua. That had been a very pleasant experience the last time he had been there, and it had been quite a while. Then again, maybe he should find something Cygni could participate in as well... Decisions decisions.

Oh well, one thing he had to do for certain was to dress for the occasion! And that was easily taken care of. The whole Lunar New Year Bomb-thing was pretty practical, taking out a whole aspect of preparation in an instant.

"Let's see what it does." He muttered to himself, before activating it.

Ah. So it was similar to what it had done last year. A quick glance in the mirror revealed as much. That wasn't a bad thing. The suit he had gotten felt stylish. Light blue like his usual sweater, with a few tasteful floral (he assumed that's what they were supposed to be at least) patterns in yellow and pink. The patterns were intricate and beautiful, but not outstanding enough to come off as tacky. And the fabric itself was lovely. Was it silk? Probably. The way it shined and how soft it felt made him think so.

He looked himself over. Perhaps the pattern on the jacket was slightly different from last year, but other than that, it was pretty much identical. Not bad at all.

The only uncomfortable thing about the transformation was the physical changes it brought. The suit was nice, but the lack of wings... It took some getting used to. The halo being different was no issue, but missing not just his wings but the extra eyes that those wings had? It wasn't the most pleasant thing in the world.

"No matter... This is why we prepare in advance." He said to himself. "So we don't look silly and uncoordinated when walking around with worse vision and no wings..."

He had gotten several Lunar New Year Bombs for exactly this reason. So he had time to get used to this transformation. He wasn't going to make a fool of himself by bumping into things while out in public.

"Right! Better get to it then! Let's start by walking down the stairs without falling!"