Record: A Question of Decorum is an event in NieR Reincarnation.
Story[]
Part 1[]
This is a story of when a boy was still happy.
He was very young, not yet in elementary school. He sat engrossed in an illustrated space encyclopedia in his room of his family's apartment. There entered his mother clad in a beautiful dress. He looked up at her, despondent. Whenever she dressed this way, that meant she'd be away for a long while.
But today was different. She dressed the boy in his finest clothes as well.
Today, the boy's father and sister would have a day out. Perhaps the mother felt guilty about leaving the boy home alone. So she brought him to a cocktail party.
Chandeliers hung in the grand hall, and a plush red carpet lay over the floor's marble tiles. It was fancy beyond anything the boy had ever seen. The guests, much like his mother, were dressed lavishly as well. Though dazzled by all the new sights, he soon realized he was the only child there, and soon grew bored.
"I'm meeting some very important friends today, so behave, would you?"
He watched his mother speak to adults he had never seen before. If he had known it would be like this, he would have asked to stay home to read his encyclopedia, as unreasonable as it might have sounded.
But just as the boy gives a yawn...
Pop, pop. Loud noises drew everyone's attention to one spot in the hall.
Standing on the venue stage was a man, perhaps the host of the event. The noise had been champagne bottles. Standing beside him was a tower of champagne glasses several tiers high, gold leaf floating in the bubbly liquid. His suit gave him an air of great wealth. He then began a speech to all those present at the party.
At the end, he raised a sparkling glass, smiled wide, and said,
"To the happiness of unfortunate children everywhere!"
The guests raised their glasses and exclaimed in unison, "Cheers!"
It was a charity event in which the wealthiest people raised money for the poorest children.
Part 2[]
The boy's mother brought him along to a resplendent charity event. After the toast, party-goers came to his mother one after the next. She was quickly swallowed by a sea of people. The boy desperately tried to keep sight of her, but she was buried in the throng of grownups. He could hardly keep his own bearings.
He silently pleaded for his mother as he struggled to push through the crowd. No one paid the boy any mind. The whorl of powerlessness and anxiety grew in his heart. The murmur overhead was like the ominous whispers of ghosts. The gaudy dresses were like a forest at the boy's eye level. He looked all over for his mother, like he was trapped in a maze. No matter where he went, it was all the same.
There you are, Mom! Only it was a woman in a similarly colored dress.
I finally found you! Only it was a woman with the same hairstyle.
That's my mom's voice! But with so many voices overlapping, there was no way to be sure what direction it came from.
He proceeded through the thicket of dresses, finally emerging at the edge of the hall. An outdoor balcony overlooked the nighttime cityscape. Two adults were talking there. One of them was the man who led the toast on stage. He was arguing with a woman beside him. The boy decided to listen in.
The woman pleaded with the man as she wiped away her tears.
"Please, only temporarily. I just need what I've donated back..."
The man heaves a deep sigh.
"I can't do that," he said. "I've already spent it on the kids."
The woman then sobbed even harder.
Seeing this, the boy was convinced. This was a dangerous place. He needed to find his mother and get out of here as quickly as possible.
Part 3[]
Some time passed since the boy eavesdropped on the man and woman arguing on the balcony. He finally found his mother. She seemed to be comforting someone. It was the woman who had been arguing with the host.
"Mom, let's go home."
"Mommy is in the middle of something very important right now," she said, urging the boy to go and play by himself.
His mind crafted a scheme to get his mother out of here.
"Excuse me, miss? Is this a charity event?"
He spoke to a random woman, and she explained to him the significance of the gathering that it meant supporting children who are less fortunate. But the innocent boy didn't quite understand.
"It's supposed to help children who can't afford to eat? But there's so much food here! Isn't that funny?"
His bright and naive voice drew the attention of the guests around him.
"Also, I saw the guy on the stage make that lady cry!"
He spoke loudly, announcing what he witnessed with half-truths. The adults around him tried to appease him, but he could not be silenced. He had a powerful sense of purpose in this moment. He believed he was the only one who could protect his mother.
Hearing the commotion, his mother dragged him away and they left the event.
"Not everyone there is as bad as you think."
His mother grumbled in the taxi home as the boy lay across her lap and drifts asleep.
In spite of his shyness, he had acted to save his mother. Speaking to so many adults had taken a great toll on him mentally. But his heart was filled with pride. He alone had managed to rescue his mother from that dreadful gathering.
Part 4[]
Days passed since the charity event. The boy watched TV with his family. It was a joyous moment. Though he and his sister occasionally bickered, he cherished the time they spent together.
But a news segment suddenly cut in, and tea spilled from his mother's cup. It detailed a corporate executive's embezzling of company funds. The executive's face perfectly matched that of the woman who had been arguing with the man who hosted the event. The boy recalls his mother putting a hand on her shoulder and comforting her.
"I feel sick," she said, leaving the room without bothering to clean up her spilled tea. Worried, the boy quietly followed her into the dark bedroom.
What was he to do?
His mother was always so brilliant and calm, but now she gripped the dress she had worn the night of the event, sobbing into it. The embezzling executive had grown too enthusiastic about her charity work and put virtually all of her assets into the organization. After having sold her house and car and everything else as a result, she set her targets on the company's money. On the day of the event, the boy's mother had tried to talk the woman down from her embezzlement idea. But she ultimately went back home with no success.
The boy's thoughts muddled at the sight of his mother's tears. On that day, the boy had thought of his mother's happiness and acted to protect her. He did so successfully and savored the victory.
What, then, was this?
The way she wept made her seem more pained and distraught that he had ever seen her.
"If I had only...had a little more time to talk..."
She wailed. Was the boy wrong to do what he did?
His heart pounds so hard in his chest he feels like it's about to shatter. Was the event really so evil to begin with? No matter how deep he looked for answers, he could not find them.
If only he were a smart grownup.
If only he could have grasped the mechanics of society, the workings of the adult brain, he would never have hurt his mother.
His throat tightened and breathing became difficult. Hearing his mother's muffled sobs, the boy could only stand there, frozen in time.
Event Characters and Weapons[]
Medal Exchange[]
- Guardian Student (Yuzuki) | Pulverizing Gale (1H Sword)