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Scene 6. The Tragedy of Errors

“...”

With three days left to go before the cultural festival, I was spending my afternoon sitting alone in the club room. I worked quietly, surrounded by the mass of props and set pieces we’d left scattered around the vicinity, as I waited for Andou, Hatoko, Sayumi, and Chifuyu to show up.

Hatoko, who was in my class, had to work on our class’s contribution to the festival. The other three would be turning up eventually, but they had yet to arrive. We were supposed to do a full run-through of the play this afternoon, so I certainly hoped they’d make an appearance.

In any case, doing nothing but waiting around wouldn’t exactly have been productive, so I ended up working on one of our props: a mask. Specifically, it was the mask that Romeo would wear when he sneaks into the Capulets’ party. Sayumi had put together a priority list for all of our props, costumes, and sets, and we’d already completed almost everything that she’d deemed essential. The fact that the mask wasn’t finished just three days before the real deal, of course, meant that it was relatively low on our priority list. We could’ve gone without it and the play would’ve turned out just fine, really...

“What?! Of course we need the mask! Come on, guys!”

...if it weren’t for Andou, who had put his foot down. In the end, we’d decided that we’d make a mask if we ended up having the time for it after all the actual essentials were wrapped up. I could understand how he felt, I guess. Across all genres and mediums, putting a mask on a character was a surefire way to make them look strong and mysterious. It was also sure to guarantee that the character would be handsome under the mask—well, Gein aside, anyway.

Incidentally, Hatoko had gotten almost as worked up as Andou during that discussion. “Oh, right! I get it, I do! Masks really are cool, aren’t they, Juu?!” she’d shouted.

“Hatoko!” Andou shouted back. “We’re actually on the same page?! That almost never happens!”

“Characters with masks are just so cool, after all! Like Tuxedo Mask!”

“...R-Right,” Andou replied, his enthusiasm waning in a split second. As for whether or not Tuxedo Mask counts as cool in my book...all I can say is no comment.

A heavy sigh slipped past my lips. The hazy, frustrated feelings within me had forced their way out in spite of myself. It wasn’t that I was upset about the mask not turning out how I wanted it to or anything like that. No, the source of my gloom was...well, I mean, honestly...it was Andou.

“All that, and then nothing,” I sighed.

A whole month had passed since the day we went to the summer festival together, and in that time, nothing about our relationship had changed whatsoever. Things were shockingly normal between us. I’d been convinced that revealing how we’d met in the eighth grade would mean a massive, seismic shift in our relationship...but unfortunately, nothing of the sort had occurred.

Ever since then, we hadn’t said so much as a single word to each other about our first meeting. Andou hadn’t brought it up, and I sure as hell wasn’t about to touch on the subject myself if he didn’t make the first move. We were also just plain busy, I guess, which probably had something to do with it. I ended up having my hands totally full with homework right after summer break had ended, and then we jumped right into preparing for the cultural festival the minute that was done. We’d both been more or less totally occupied, with almost no chances to talk in private.

“I mean, really, I have to do something, right? No way anything’s gonna change if I’m just sitting on my hands,” I told myself...but the problem was, I had no idea whatsoever what I could do. I had this idea in my head that I had to, like...attract him, somehow, but I just couldn’t quite figure out how to put that into action.

If there was one moment when I really had tried to put some effort in, it was when I put my name in the hat for the role of Juliet. I knew perfectly well that nominating myself like that wasn’t like me. Back in elementary school, when my class put on a play for an arts festival, I’d turned down the role of a tree because I was too nervous to act onstage, for crying out loud! Asking to play the main heroine was way out of character for me.

To tell the truth, though? I’d never really intended on playing Juliet in the first place. I wasn’t up to the task, and the role didn’t suit me either. But then...then...then...Chifuyu just had to go and start talking about s-s-smooching, and stuff...and I just sort of lost myself. My hand was in the air before I even knew it.

A-And no, it’s not what you think! I-It’s not like I wanted to kiss him, or anything! And it wasn’t that I didn’t want him to kiss anyone else, even if it was just an act... I just, umm... R-Right! I would’ve felt bad about subjecting any of our club’s other members to the miserable fate of having to kiss Andou, so I was forced to offer myself up as a sacrifice...

“...”

...is what I told myself, but honestly, making up excuses to hide my shame really didn’t do much for me when I was the only one in the room. Now that I’d come to understand how I felt about Andou, I’d lost the ability to lie to myself about my feelings. I just had to admit it. I wanted...I wanted to, umm...try kissing, and stuff, with, umm...with Andou.

“Ugggaaahhh!”

Well, I admitted it, and the shame came very close to killing me on the spot. Oh, god, I can feel myself blushing so hard right now! If only there were a hole nearby I could crawl into, or a mask I could...

“...Oh, wait. I guess it’s done?” I said, surprised by my own progress. As I sat there, silently stewing—writhing, really—in my thoughts, I’d kept my hands moving, so I had finished Romeo’s mask before I knew it. “Yeah, this actually looks decent. It’s pretty cool, even, for a mask made out of construction paper.”

I gave the finished mask a thorough inspection. I’d made it cover the wearer’s full face, per Andou’s request. If I had to describe it in short, I guess I’d made it look a little like Kurei’s mask in Flame of Recca? Anyway, I casually lifted it toward my face to try the finished product on...then froze as a thought struck me.

Wait...Andou’s going to wear this thing soon, right? So then, if I wear it before him...in a certain sense, wouldn’t that be something kinda adjacent to an indirect kiss...?

Nope. Nooope nope nope nope, this is stupid. Why would that be the first thing that pops into my head? What am I, delusional? It’d be one thing if we were drinking from the same bottle, but a mask? Really? God, I can’t stand how easily my mind’s been going to that sort of place lately...

I should just put the stupid mask on and get it over with. That’s the ticket—the longer I spend obsessing over it, the stupider it’ll make me feel! Not that there’s any need to force myself to wear it, I guess, but after making this big of a deal out of it not putting it on, it would almost feel like the more obsessive option and be even more humiliating. Oh, but when I think about how Andou’s going to wear it in just a little while...wait, no, don’t think about it! Stop that! I swear to god, brain, if you make this weird one more time I’m going to—

“Oh, hey! The mask’s done!”

“Gaaaaaaaaah!”

The very instant I held the mask up to my face, a voice rang out behind me. My heart leaped into my throat, and I shrieked like a banshee.

“Wh-Whoa, what the heck, Tomoyo? Since when did putting a mask on make you scream your head off? It’s not like it’s made out of stone, or anything!”

“A-A-Andou... How long have you been here?” I stammered.

“Just got here,” said Andou. “Why, what’s up? Something happen?”

“N-No, nothing! Nothing at all!” Ahh... That scared the crap out of me! I seriously thought I was gonna have a heart attack, and for that matter, my heart was still pounding like crazy. I did my best to steady my pulse as Andou held a hand out toward me.

“It’s done, right? Lemme see!” he said. I handed him the mask without saying a word, and he put it on and turned to the mirror right away. “Oooh, dang! This is so friggin’ cool! Thanks, Tomoyo!”

Andou was overjoyed, and seeing him put on the mask that I’d been wearing just a moment ago without so much as a hint of hesitation left me feeling, well...a little conflicted, I guess. I would’ve been devastated if he’d refused to wear it, but the fact that he hadn’t paid it the slightest thought was, well... You know, it just was. Like, come on, it’s an indirect kiss! Or at least an indirect cheek rub!

“Hey, Tomoyo, pass Catastrophe over to me, would you?” said Andou. Once again, I silently picked up Romeo’s sword—which we’d made out of cardboard and aluminum foil—and handed it over to him.

After everything we’d been through, nobody had even batted an eyelash when Andou had named his handmade prop weapon. I did have to admit that Catastrophe was a pretty good name for a sword, actually. Not only did it conjure an image of death and destruction, it also hit close enough to “tragedy” to call to mind the inevitable conclusion of plays and novels that fell into that category, making it a very good fit for our situation in particular...and, by the way, part of me was seriously unhappy about how easy it had become for me to follow his train of logic when it came to this sort of stuff.

“I knew I could count on you for this, Tomoyo! The design’s seriously spot-on,” Andou said with a grin after spending a while posing with the mask and sword.

“All in a day’s work,” I replied.

“All right! Guess I’d better break it now.”

“But why?!” I yelped. That one had come from so far out of left field I just couldn’t let it slide without comment.

“Huh? I mean, masks look way cooler when they’re half broken, right?” said Andou. “That way they make you look like you’ve fought your way through countless battles, emerging victorious each time! Oh, and it makes you look sorta like an Arrancar too.”

“I’m not gonna say I don’t get it, but don’t go breaking our props just to make them look a little cooler! What kind of Romeo shows up to the party with a half-shattered mask on?!”

“Romeo’s definitely one of those mask-wearing final bosses, for sure. You know, the sort where the protagonist’s party manages to pull off a combo attack on him, finally breaking the mask and revealing that he was the main character’s relative or best friend or whatever all along? Then after that huge plot twist, he withdraws to fight another day...and heads straight for the Capulets’ party!”

“Romeo and Juliet does not need an overblown RPG side story!”

“Anyway, I was just kidding about breaking it in the first place. I wouldn’t damage something you made for me, and it’s easily cool enough as is! Seriously, I can’t get enough of this thing,” Andou said as he gazed at the mask, totally enraptured. Seeing how happy he was with it made all the effort I’d put into making it feel worthwhile. “By the way, is it just you here so far?” he added.

“Yeah,” I said with a nod. “I think everyone else’ll be here before too long, though.”

“Makes sense. We’re supposed to do a full-on dress rehearsal today, after all! All the props, all the costumes, everything—just like the real deal!”

“That’s right. Feels like we’ve come a long way, doesn’t it?” I said. We were a bunch of total amateurs trying to build a show from the ground up, and I’d been pretty worried when we were first getting started, but it seemed we’d most likely finish in time for the festival after all. “Your Romeo’s been getting pretty sharp lately too,” I added.

I wasn’t trying to butter him up with that last part—I really meant it. Andou was, surprisingly, a pretty good actor. I mean that in the “pretty good for an amateur” sense, of course, but he’d really been getting into character and playing his part with impressive aplomb.

“Mwa ha ha!” Andou chuckled. “Such a feat is but child’s play for I, the man once known for miles around as the Lord of the Ever-Shifting Countenance! Thanks to my own lack of distinguishing form or features, I have the power to embody anyone and everyone I see fit, granting me the tools I need to become a legendary assassin! Yes, indeed—I am no one, and thusly, I can be anyone!”

“Yeah, okay, I get it now. Considering you’re so used to inventing personas to put on cringey little fantasy skits at the drop of a hat, playing an established character from an actual play must be no problem.”

“Hey! I don’t invent personas, okay?!” Andou protested. He was taking the jab pretty personally, but, again, it’s not like I couldn’t understand why. After all, I’d been there myself.

In a sense, telling a raging chuuni that their playacting was just them putting on a persona was a violation of the gravest of taboos. When you’re that deep in your own narrative, dedicated to convincing yourself that you’re someone truly special and doing your best to act accordingly, the fact that all you’re really doing is constructing a deliberate persona is something you can’t let yourself acknowledge under any circumstances. It becomes vitally important to make it seem like your whole shtick is, in fact, just how you naturally conduct yourself. When I was in middle school... Actually, no, let’s not think about that after all. Yup. Moving along.

“A-Anyway,” Andou continued, “you’re acting like all that’s beneath you, but doesn’t everyone put on a persona pretty much all the time? I mean, look at you! Your whole demeanor changes in a bunch of subtle ways when you’re in class compared to when you’re with us.”

“That’s... I mean, that’s totally different from inventing a persona,” I said, but even as the words left my mouth, part of me was starting to wonder if it really was all that different after all.

Depending on who I talked to, I’d totally change the subjects I brought up and the tone I spoke in. I’d read the room and adapt accordingly, putting on a front and keeping my true feelings in check, being careful to think about how the people around me would take everything I said. I think everyone does all that stuff, to a greater or lesser extent, and if you wanted to sum it up in a single phrase, “putting on a persona” fit the bill pretty nicely.

“I mean, okay, you have a point,” I admitted. “When you’re around people you don’t know super well, I guess there is sort of an urge to keep the impression you give them in check. Like, what’s a good example...? Okay, so when you’re tweeting or putting up a blog post, don’t you sometimes think, ‘Wait, is saying something like that out of character for me?’ It happens almost unconsciously, but it’s still there in the back of your mind, right?”

Even when you’re talking to people you can’t see online, it’s easy to fixate on your own persona. All the more so when you’re talking with a real, live human being.

“You know, the more I think about it, the weirder it seems. Why do we get so obsessed with our own personas?” I mused. It wasn’t like we spent our day-to-day lives acting, after all. We’d be ourselves whether we made an effort or not, so what was the point?

“Huh? There’s nothing weird about that at all,” Andou said without missing a beat. “Everyone has an idea or two about how they want the people around them to see them, right?”

Suddenly, everything sort of just clicked together. Oh, I get it now. I guess it is pretty straightforward—we put on personas because we care about what other people think of us. We want to know how they see us, and we want to influence that perception for the better. We construct our personas in an effort to make people see us in a certain way, or not see us in a certain way. When all’s said and done, we’re defined by the personas—the characters—that we build up and act out throughout our interactions with others.

“‘All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players,’” said Andou, reiterating the words of Shakespeare that he’d already quoted some time beforehand. “Now, this is just how I see things,” he continued, “but I think what Shakespeare was trying to say was that everyone’s constantly putting on an act of sorts, with the people around them being their audience. But, like, that’s just my interpretation,” Andou added, doubling down on the uncertainty.

He didn’t seem particularly convinced by his own logic, possibly on account of the fact that he didn’t actually know crap about Shakespeare. Of course, I didn’t know crap about Shakespeare either, so deciding whether or not his interpretation was valid was totally beyond me. What I could say for sure was that I thought it was a pretty interesting take.

“I guess if you’re right about that...then being a total poser, saying everything in as over the top of a manner as you can, and putting on a super self-indulgent persona probably counts as normal too,” I said. “Everyone wants to look cool in front of their own personal audience, after all.”

In some cases, the desire to become something and the desire to be perceived as something are probably one and the same. Take people who want to be rich, for instance—in a lot of cases, that desire could just as accurately be expressed as wanting people to believe that they’re rich. Then there’s the case of people who want to be hot—wouldn’t it be just as true to say they want people to see them as hot? Or, to take the logic to a bit of an extreme, people who want to know how to play the guitar. In some cases, doesn’t it seem possible that they just want to be seen as a person who can play the guitar? And then there are people who don’t want to learn about Shakespeare for the fun of it, but rather because they want to come across as someone who’s well versed in Shakespeare’s works.


When I really thought about it, a certain someone’s constant outbursts were, in a sense, expressions of a perfectly ordinary desire that all humans had. Everyone puts on a persona. Everyone wants the people around them to see them in a certain way. Everyone wants to bring the them that other people perceive closer to a certain ideal through whatever means they can. And that being the case...then maybe sufferers of the affliction known as chuunibyou were nothing more than individuals who’d taken that impulse far past its logical extreme—people who went beyond simple exaggerations and pretenses and crossed over into the realm of fiction as they searched for the pieces to construct their persona from.

I took a moment to pause and collect myself. I could only look back on that sort of thing objectively because I’d been through and gotten over my own chuuni phase. When I’d been in the thick of it, I’d wanted to be perceived as cool just as much as I’d wanted to actually be cool. That’s why I’d gone out of my way to turn up the cringe around other people—because I’d been under the terrible misapprehension that it would make them think that I was some sort of badass.

Even as I’d fallen into the delusion that being different from everyone else made me cool, that desire to be cool was, in and of itself, founded upon a desire for the very same people I’d tried to distance myself from to see me that way. I’d considered being misunderstood to be a badge of honor, but at the same time, I’d wanted to be understood in equal measure. It was yet another unresolvable paradox.

Maybe, when all is said and done, chuunibyou is nothing more than the result of losing your way on the path to growing up and learning to build the persona you use when you interact with the rest of society. Maybe chuunis are just people who’ve taken a slight misstep and wound up learning a very different sort of lesson instead.

“Hey, Andou,” I said, unable to resist asking a question that sprang to mind. How will a current chuunibyou sufferer respond? “Do you want to be cool? Or do you want people to see you as cool?”

“Hmm, good question. I think...” Andou said, then paused for a few seconds to consider the question.

“I want my name to spread as far and wide as the vilest criminal the world has ever seen, making people all over the world despise me and curse my very existence, only in truth, there’s actually some crazy set of extenuating circumstances, and the people who understand those circumstances decide to join up with me and fight by my side while the villagers in the towns I saved long ago worship me as a hero and a savior. Basically, I want to be cool in the sort of way where the whole world hates me, except for the certain very small percentage of people who think I’m cool as hell.”

“That’s the least cool answer you could’ve possibly come up with!”

Hatoko arrived at the club room eventually, and she, Tomoyo, and I decided to get the props and costumes ready for our dress rehearsal while we waited for our last two members to show up.

“Hey, Juu,” said Hatoko, “we’re waiting until the real deal to stick the cardboard onto the balcony, right?”

“Yeah, exactly,” I replied. “We won’t be able to take it apart to carry it after the cardboard’s on, so we should leave it for now. We can finish it tomorrow after we bring everything into the music room.”

“Okay!” Hatoko said, then she left the balcony in the corner of the room and moved on to work on another prop. “We’re all wearing our costumes and running through the whole play, just like the real thing, right? Ahh—I’m starting to get a little nervous...”

“C’mon, why get nervous now? This is still just practice!” I sighed.

“B-But still!”

“Y’know what they say you should do to deal with stage fright? First, you use your finger to write the character for ‘person’ in your palm...”

“Oh! Oh, I know this one! Then you—”

“...then you crush it!”

“Or maybe I don’t know it after all!”

“And through that act of senseless brutality, you abandon your humanity and transform into a cold-blooded, merciless killing machine!”

“Th-That’s terrifying, Juu! Why would you want that?! Just swallow it! That’s what most people do!”

“Okay, but really think about it, Hatoko: isn’t swallowing a tiny person even freakier than crushing them?”

“That’s... Actually, that’s true!” said Hatoko, her eyes wide with shock.

The old “write the character for person in your hand and swallow it to cure your stage fright” routine had been around since pretty much forever, but thinking about it divorced from that context, it struck me as being really darn weird. I mean, that’s just straight-up cannibalism, right? People don’t power up by eating other people, assuming they aren’t ghouls!

Just as I decided to ask Sayumi where that old ritual came from, Tomoyo, who’d been working on getting the costumes ready, spoke up. “Now that I think about it, are we still going with Romeo and Juliet for the play’s title?”

“Huh?” I grunted. “What sort of question is that? Does the play have some other name, or what?”

“Not what I meant. We made a ton of cuts and tweaked the story a lot, right? So I thought it might be a good idea for us to tweak the title too, just to let the audience know what they’re in for.”

Hmm. Actually, she has a point. It might be easier for the audience to accept all the liberties we took if we warn them in advance. “So you’re saying we should call it, like, Romeo and Juliet: The New Testament, or something?”

“Right, exactly.”

“Hmm. What could we go with, though?” I mused. Actually using “The New Testament” felt like it could come across as a little pretentious, and it wouldn’t tell the audience anything in particular about the play we’d be putting on. On the other hand, Romeo and Juliet: Happy Ending Edition would spoil the whole shebang. “What would get across the core of our version of the story...? Our big thing’s Chifuyu’s twist where a kiss brings Romeo back to life, right? If we wanna work that in, we could—”

“H-How about we don’t work that in, actually?” said Tomoyo. “It’s, y’know...pretty embarrassing, and all.”

“Oh...right. Fair enough,” I said.

Tomoyo and I fell into an awkward silence. Then Hatoko piped up and said, “Oh, right... Juu and Chifuyu are finally gonna kiss soon,” making things even more awkward than ever.

The thing about the kiss scene—the scene that was causing all this discomfort—is that, in truth, we’d barely practiced it at all. We’d more or less said “We’ll make sure the audience can’t see what’s happening and fake it somehow” and left it at that. Today, however, was our dress rehearsal, and that meant we might finally have to do a proper runthrough of that whole sequence.

Right, yeah. That’s true. I will have to act out a kiss scene with Chifuyu...

“Wh-What’re you blushing for, Andou?!” Tomoyo shouted.

“I-I’m not, so nothing!”

“Hmph! You’re such a loser. Who gets that worked up about one little fake kiss? Ugh, seriously, this is why I can’t stand teenage boys!” Tomoyo grumbled, though it didn’t escape my notice that her face was easily as red as mine—no, probably even redder. She was, after all, a teenage girl herself.

“What’s there to get worked up about?” I sighed. “She’s an elementary schooler, for crying out loud! Of course I wouldn’t.”

“Oh, really?” Hatoko asked, sounding a little pouty. “But Juu, you chose Chifuyu, didn’t you? And you chose her over Tomoyo, Sayumi, and me!”

“Well, yeah, but—”

“Right?” said Tomoyo, jumping on the bandwagon. “You knew there was going to be a kiss scene, and you picked Chifuyu—an elementary schooler—anyway! What gives?”

Suddenly, I was fighting a two-front battle. There was a faintly mean-spirited look in their eyes, and the way they were teasing me felt very pointed. I couldn’t tell if they were just in the mood to mess with me or if they were venting their frustrations at not being chosen to play the leading role.

“Oh, right,” said Tomoyo. “While we’re on the subject, remember back when you had that one awesome title? What was it—the Lolicon Knight?”

“Oooh, right, that did happen! That was the perfect title for him!” said Hatoko.

“Give me a break, please,” I moaned. Now that they’d dragged the Kuki incident into the picture, all I could do was throw up my hands and beg them to stop.

“I’m not a lolicon, for the record! I just picked Chifuyu through process of elimination, that’s all!” I insisted, using a slightly stronger tone than I’d usually resort to. I needed all this speculation about me being into little girls cleared away as soon as possible, after all. “I’d never have feelings for an elementary schooler, no matter what, trust me!”

That was it. That was the moment—the moment I threw out that casual, haphazard declaration.

I heard a crash from the corner of the room, and turned around to find that part of the balcony set had collapsed. We’d put it together out of chairs and desks, and since we were due to take it apart and move it to the music room the very next day, we’d only done the bare minimum to keep the pieces attached to each other. The slightest shock was enough to break it apart. And there, standing in the wreckage of the crumbled balcony...

“Ch-Chifuyu...?”

...was our very own Juliet.

For a moment she just stood there silently, not moving an inch, but then she walked straight toward me. I do mean straight toward me too, ignoring everything in her path—the fallen desks, the props scattered across the floor, all of it...not to mention Tomoyo and Hatoko, who’d rushed over to make sure she wasn’t hurt. She just walked right up to me, then came to a stop.

“Chifuyu... Are you, umm, okay?” I asked.

“I’m fine,” Chifuyu muttered indifferently as she stared at the ground.

“So, like... How long were you over there?”

“The whole time. I got here early, and I was napping.”

At that moment, I remembered how Chifuyu had explained that lately, she’d been into deliberately napping in cramped, uncomfortable places. She’d arrived early—even earlier than Tomoyo, most likely—then crawled into the balcony set and fallen asleep. And we, having never realized that she was there...

“Andou,” Chifuyu muttered, eyes still glued to the floor and voice slightly quavering. “I...was really happy when you picked me to be Juliet. I thought you wanted me to play her. That’s why I worked so hard. I worked...so hard...”

Chifuyu’s gaze stayed fixed downward. She was avoiding eye contact at all costs, and as she spoke, her shoulders began to tremble.

“Did you pick me...by process of elimination?”

“Th-That’s not what I—”

“Andou...you’d never have feelings for an elementary schooler?”

“...”

“You’re not a lolicon?”

I let out a strangled gasp as my words caught in my throat. I had no idea what to say—no idea what sort of answer I could give her. I wasn’t a lolicon. I didn’t have the slightest hint of a lolita complex. I wasn’t interested in elementary schoolers in any sort of sexual light, nor a romantic one. And so needless to say, as far as Chifuyu was concerned...

“...I’m done,” Chifuyu muttered. Maybe she was indignant that I hadn’t managed to muster up any sort of excuse or apology? One way or another, she turned her back to me and walked away, quickly using her power to bring a Gate into existence before her. She was planning on jumping away to who even knew where.

“W-Wait! Wait a second, Chifuyu!” I shouted as I frantically reached out for her—but then she turned to look at me, and her expression made me flinch back again.

Chifuyu...was mad. Even as tears pooled in her eyes, she shot me an intense, furious glare. Her cheeks were flushed red, and her every gesture exuded a sense of pure rage. I’d never, ever seen Chifuyu look that purely, unambiguously angry before.

“I hate you, Andou!”

And with that parting scream, Chifuyu vanished.



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