Author's Note: Welcome to an extremely short chapter, in which nothing happens except for the fact that two people talk, walk around, sit, and stand. Well, to hell with it! Let's start.

If there is such a thing as fate, I suppose it just happened to transport me to some other world.

How do I know? There are strangely-shaped pieces of metal on wheels making grumbling and groaning and sputtering noises as they hurry by on a black path. There are poles that have contain no lamps but instead have a crystalline and somewhat transparent elliptical orb hanging off of the side. There are oddly-dressed people pushing past each other and looking down at a rectangular object in their hands.

What a bizarre place I'm in! This must be the outside world that so many have either fantasized about or feared, listened to exciting adventure stories about or had nightmares of. In this case, however, I'm only a tad shaken, as these views have filled me with curiosity.

Intrigued, I decide to head over to a yelling horde of men and women.

I ask over the shouting, "What's this for? What're you doing?"

A tall man dressed in a burgundy shirt and dark gray pants replies without looking down at me, "Clearance sale. It ends in five minutes, so I'm getting a microwave." I observe as he takes off his dull blue cap, fixes his hair, then puts the cap back on.

"What's a microwave?"

"Don't play games with me."

He looks at me for the first time. "Young man, isn't it a bit late for Christmas?"

"What?"

"Isn't it too late for Christmas?"

"It's not that I can't hear you, it's..."

The man had already left with an "Ack, I'll miss it!" and suddenly disappeared into the loud group. After looking for him for some time, I spot him leaving the crowd with a shiny black box, quite similar to the beat-up boxes in the junk store, in his hands, and a satisfied grin on his somewhat aged face. After approximately 3 seconds and contemplating whether or not to approach him, I end up approaching him with a question.

"Is that a microwave?"

"Isn't it a tad too late to have a Santa hat in your possession, young man?"

"Is that a microwave?"

"Yes. But tell me, why are you holding a Santa hat at this time of the year?"

"A Santa hat? What kind of… ah, this. It's my friend's hat that I'm holding for her. And now I'm lost and can't find her. It seems that I've been seemingly transported to another area without knowing."

"You aren't from around here, then? Probably from one of those smaller (and somewhat primitive) towns a few miles away from here, I'm guessing, since you've asked me that question regarding a microwave."

Racking my memory of the outside world for a plausible lie, I state, "I'm from… Japan. Since everyone's dressed differently here, is this not Japan?"

"You came all the way here to America without knowing it!?"

"Yes." I pause, thinking for a moment. "This is America? Is that the name of this town?"

He seems quite taken aback. "It's a country. A nation. You're in California right now, in Anaheim. Around where Disneyland is."

It was my turn to be temporarily immobilized as I processed the information. "Yes?"

"Well, you're basically very far from home. I'm a commercial pilot so I think I'd be able to take you back."

"Commercial… pilot?"

"I will be able to take you back home, with very few disruptions. But let me rest first."

"Okay." There was a pause, in which the man took off his cap, fixed his hair, and put the cap back on.

"...Do you… have a place to sleep?"

The obvious answer was "Yes, I have a place to sleep in Gensokyo!" but I give him this answer instead:

"No."

After humming in consideration, he suggests, "There's a guest room in my home. I'll call my wife to see if she has anyone over, and we'll work from there." Call? Is his wife a dog? However, seeing that I have no experience in this world whatsoever and that I am draining what little energy he has through asking all these questions, I do not ask. Instead, he answers my unanswered immediately as he pulls out a slim white box from his pocket and fiddles with it, poking it in various spots on the lighted side. Surprisingly, he brings it up to his ear and begins talking through it as if there was a person in front of him.

"Do you have anyone over tonight? … Oh, that's good! I have a lost man from Japan, and he needs to get back home. Ah, yes… No, that won't be a problem. He speaks flawless English! … Oh? That's alright. I'm going to fly him over…. Come to think of it, your sister always wanted to go, right? Maybe I can drop her off there, and… Ah, that's alright." The man looks at me with excited eyes and a satisfied grin. "Then I'll see you in… Let's say, fifteen minutes? Alright, bye!" He stores the box in the pocket it came out of.

I stand there, blinking blankly at him, as he sits on a bench and motions for me to sit there as well. So I sit, warming the cold bench, watching the sky nonchalantly as more stars appear.

My brain completely disregards his energy level suddenly and forces me to ask more questions: "What time is it? What day is it?"

The man merely chuckles as he brings out his box again. "Young man, you really are lost. It's about six twenty, and today's Tuesday."

And before he could hide the box again, I ask him, "What's that?"

"A phone."

"A… phone."

"Yep. A tool that can do all sorts of things. It's basically an electronic slave. But it has no feelings, since other people made it to be like that."

"Isn't that immoral?"

"Well, it's just a tool." I stare back at him in response.

"Oh, alright. Think of it this way. You use shoes, right? They don't have any feelings, and they're man-made tools, right?"

"That's different. They don't do all sorts of things for you." The man gets up as a huge colorful box on wheels approaches and stops directly in front of our bench.

"Come on in," says quite a familiar voice.