"Yes. That sounds like a good idea." Simone is often twitchy and uncomfortable and it does not matter what she does or does not want to do and everything is fine (and she still doesn't know where Ichiro is but that can be fine too, or at least it can be fine for a while.)

Time to go retrieve his flatmate from whatever foolish thing he is doing now, apparently.

"It was interrupted, at the end," he tells Oscar. "I don't think the play actually finished. Someone just came on the intercom and announced that it was over and we should leave."

He still has a copy of the King in Yellow. If he goes with them... he only has to deal with them for a bit longer, and then he can read it, the whole thing, as soon as he gets a chance to slip away. It's not as good as seeing it; he has no standout memories of the script.

But it's something.

"Simone," he adds, like he is just making conversation, "did you notice anything about the voice on the intercom? I felt like I'd heard it before but I couldn't quite place it."

"I-- yes," she says, because she didn't at the time but now that she thinks about it, "that was Ichiro, he said at intermission he needed to do something and didn't tell me what, why--"

It is not totally clear even to her whether she's planning to finish that "why do you ask" or "why did he do that".

Also, where is he.

Oh, she just went and said it, that's nice. It seemed like maybe it would randomly turn out to be a secret. "Maybe he couldn't take any more of the poor staging." ...What is the real answer, actually? That's such an odd thing to do.

"Maybe." That would be such a comfortingly normal answer.

It really is a bizarre thing to do, though!

"Poor staging" is bullshit, come on Simone. Christ, they're refusing to explain what happened in there, and their explanations don't even agree with one another.

"Why are Terrence and Jing Yi taking so long, I thought we agreed we don't want to hang around," he says. "What with the police."

"Maybe we should just start walking. Let them catch up."

Sure, starting walking works. "Next time I see Ichiro I can ask what on earth that was about."

(Poor staging is absolutely bullshit but all the other answers are at least that bullshit.)

"Let's go now, then." (He hopes they do not in fact catch up.)

Inside--

The fight continues; bystanders are intervening to protect the women and children present and prevent serious injury. 

Oh, that's... not great. Probably more important than meeting Estus. Terrence would like to find someone who looks like they work there and discreetly ask if he ought to call the police or anything.

"The police are CALLED," says Mr. Noble the theater manager, looking very harried. "I don't know where they-- oh, there they are."

"Stay strong," Terrence advises, pointlessly but passionately.

Well, he's not going to get involved in the brawl. ... Is the reception part still going on or has that been disrupted entirely?

The police manage to arrest the violent people and take them away to ride it out in the drunk tank.

The reception is in fact still going on!

The only people who are there are the cast and Talbot Estus.

Oh, hell yeah. Mingling time. 

Terrence wants to finish watching the play, but of course he does.

Talbot Estus is eating a canape, unbothered by recent events.

"Mr. Estus? I'm a huge fan. I'm so sorry to see the disruption, some people aren't prepared for real art - I never thought a stage adaptation of such a text could be as evocative as you have managed it; my sincerest compliments."

"I deplore what happened, of course, but it wasn't a complete surprise to me," he says, “any work of art should seek to inspire fervor."

He is going to make a beeline for Terrence. Why is he at the canape table. Why is he talking to people. How hard is it going to be to disentangle him. Damnit.

"So true, and yet so few can manage it. And the transformative elements! I was stirred. As an admitted huge fan of the original, I daresay you may have matched it."

"Thank you. It was always my intention to honor the work as it was meant to be performed."

He can schmooze and retrieve people at the same time. He is a professional: he can do more than one thing at once. "You must be Mr Estus?"