Lynn's dress fluttered lightly around her ankles as we landed in West City.
Today was the day of our first date. According to Bulma's father, there was an opera opening today. I'd always rather wanted to visit an opera in my past life, just for the point of having the experience, but I had zero clue just what it was supposed to be like.
I figured that Lynn would enjoy an experience that'd be new to the both of us, and this kind of dignified affair was the type of thing that fit her style rather well. I'd never dare go somewhere like this with Pepper.
Finding the opera house was rather easy. It was a beautiful work of architectural mastery. One that'd already stood for over a century, and would hopefully stand a century longer… Unless some random idiot blew up the whole city for no reason.
I could see that happening.
Our seats were near the back, up fairly high on the second level. From this perspective, a normal person wouldn't be able to see anything at all, almost.
But for us, it was perfect. From the angle we were at, we could see everything, and most of the sound from the crowd was designed to funnel down towards the stage rather than back on us, so there wasn't nearly as much information overload.
Just the sounds from the opera, and the few people around us.
But almost as soon as they opened the first curtain, I started regretting everything.
"Where is my jacket!?" The main character sang loudly and confidently.
"He lost his jacket!" The chorus responded.
"I lost my jacket!"
"He lost his jacket!"
"Where is it?!"
"Where is it!"
"Can't find it?!"
"Can't find it!"
"My jacket!"
"His jacket!"
"IS GOOOOONEEE!!!" The singer and the chorus sang in unison at the music's crescendo.
Then, a sinking in the music. The curtain was pulled for a moment, then opened to reveal another singer, along on stage in a denim jacket.
"I feel so lo-ost! In the back of this closet, at the end of this so-ong! I just want to SCREEEEEEAM…" The high note faded out. "But…" And the curtain was pulled closed once again, to the faint, "I don't have lungs."
As soon as the music tapered off, the crowd roared with applause.
Due to the fact that we were finally getting a reprieve, Lynn and I joined in, clapping, enthusiastically.
"...That was…"
"The entire opera is about a lost jacket?" Lynn said aloud.
"I through that it was the name of the company that wrote the script, or something. Maybe the name of the company of singers or something. I didn't think…" I trailed off. What sort of playwright actually writes a three-hour script about a lost jacket?
I didn't feel like anyone could blame me for not taking the possibility into account.
"It's a terrible storyline." Lynn agreed with me completely.
"Do you want to leave?" I asked.
"...No. For some reason, I'm kind of interested in how it turns out." She admitted.
"...Me too." It was the dumbest script I'd ever had the displeasure of even hearing about, and I'd been to multiple school plays as a kid in my other life, with truly terrible scripts.
One time, my school let a fourth-grader rewrite and direct a rendition of Peter Pan. That was bad.
But despite that, and despite the fact that some of the singers genuinely thought that stabbing at their audience with what was the equivalent of auditory 'knives' was quality singing, I kind of wanted to know what'd happen to the jacket at the end of the opera.
Would they find it? Or would they get it replaced or something?
We'd already wasted an hour-and-a-half waiting to find out. Somehow, it was starting to feel like Lynn and I were on this journey together, and I wanted to find the end.
Then, just as the curtain raised for the second half, a strange man in a bulky tweed jacket slid into the row behind us.
"Oh, Miss Kitty, look! We made it just in time for the second half! Finally, you'll achieve your life's goal of seeing a real opera show!" The man whispered into his jacket, causing Lynn and I to look back at him reflexively.
Only to see a small head poking out of the man's jacket.
He'd brought a pet.
In fact, not only had he brought a pet, he'd brought…
"Time to go. Lets go. I want to leave." Lynn's hand knocked against my shoulder, half pushing me out of my seat.
"Absolutely. Let's go… We should still have time to go out to that bakery Bulma told us about, get something to eat?" I replied instantly, already half-out of my seat.
"Anywhere, Just not here. Terrible show, terrible story."
I held in a laugh as Lynn practically pulled me out of the opera house by my arm, sparing a glance at the man and the skunk that'd been smuggled in under his jacket behind us as we left.
Inwardly, I hoped that the skunk would like the show.
Maybe it'd be more his speed than it was mine and Lynn's. At least, thanks to that skunk, I'd gotten to see a cute side of Lynn.
Apparently, the woman was terrified of skunks. Who knew?
In the end, we went to the bakery and shared a cake. All in all, it ended up being a pretty good date. We agreed to do it again sometime in the near future. No more opera, though.