part 5:
An American Otaku in Akihabara
by Matthew Atanian
©2013 by Matthew Atanian
An American Otaku in Akihabara
by Matthew Atanian
©2013 by Matthew Atanian
Matt woke up with a start and sat up in his futon. He remained there for a moment, his eyes slowly focusing as best as they could without his glasses as he took in the not yet familiar surroundings of his room at Maison Ikkoku. There was something important pressing on his mind, but just having woken up he couldn’t quite think of what it was.
He groped around the floor beside his futon looking for his spectacles, and upon success, donned them. Then he sat for another moment, trying to decipher what it was that was pressing so intently upon him. Finally, he realized what it was, and that it wasn’t his mind it was pressing on but another part of his anatomy, and so he got up and made a mad dash to the bathroom. He was fortunate to find it unoccupied and thus he darted inside. As to what he got up to in there, reasons of taste decree that that shall remain unchronicled. Suffice to say that, as he was starting to wash his hands after he had finished, he heard a knock upon the door.
“Just a moment!” he said. He finished up, dried his hands quick as he could, and was pleasantly startled when he opened the door to find one Ms. Sarah Porter standing on the other side of it. “Good morning,” he then said, in what he hoped was a friendly way.
He couldn’t be sure, but he thought Sarah looked a bit annoyed. “Hello,” she said in a tone he couldn’t decipher.
“Sleep well?” he then asked. It hadn’t quite occurred to him that after keeping someone waiting for the bathroom was likely not the best of occasions to engage in small talk.
“I suppose,” she responded curtly. Then, a bit surprisingly, she followed up with, “And you?”
“Quite well rested.” Matt smiled. “Looking forward to hitting the town today.”
“Going out with the others?” Sarah asked.
“No, no. I’ve been wanting to come here for a while now,” Matt explained. “Something of a dream of mine. So my first time inflicting myself upon the country is going to be something of a personal experience.”
“I see,” Sarah said, somewhat darkly.
“Unless,” Matt began to say. He looked down at the floor for a moment. “Unless you’d like to go with me?”
“Do you mind?” Sarah asked.
For a brief moment, Matt had a glimmer of hope. Was she asking if it was really okay to come with him? His mind screamed at the top of its metaphoric mental lungs, “Duh!”
But the brief moment of hope passed as Sarah motioned towards the bathroom with her hand, and Matt realized that she had actually been asking him to get out of her way. As further confirmation, she then followed up with, “I kind of need to use that.”
“What?” he asked, clearing his brain of the last of his hope. He then moved aside with a simple statement of, “Oh, sorry.”
She entered and closed the door behind herself.
“Well, that went well,” he muttered to himself as he returned to his room.
“Good morning, young Mr. Atanian,” Yotsuya greeted him as he entered. The mysterious man from the neighboring room was sitting on his floor as if it was the most natural place for him to be.
“Why don’t you join me for breakfast?” Matt asked, noticing that Yotsuya was already munching on what looked like some of his pop tarts.
“A most gracious offer,” came the response. Yotsuya took another bite as Matt grabbed himself a pair of the cinnamon toaster pastries. “A most unusual breakfast confection,” Yotsuya commented.
“Indeed, and I should point out my rather limited supply,” Matt responded.
“Then we shall have to savour the ones that you have,” was the swift reply.
“Yes, I shall have to do so,” Matt rebutted.
Yotsuya ignored him by means of taking another bite and then changing the subject completely. “Are you enjoying your stay in our country thus far?”
Matt by now had very much sensed some kind of game was at play. What troubled him was that he could not decipher if he was himself a participant, or the object of the game itself. For now, he foolishly decided to continue to try and play along. “It is very nice here, yes.”
“And your accommodations?” Yotsuya asked.
Matt sensed an opportunity to perhaps put his opponent in check. “Quite nice,” he replied. “Although I shall have to speak to the management about a draft I feel coming through one of the walls.
Yotsuya feigned hurt. “Surely you speak not of the portal between our two rooms? Can you not see it as an important bridge for those who seek multi-cultural understanding?”
Matt opened his mouth to reply, even though he wasn’t quite sure how to follow that up. Fortunately, he was saved by a knock at the door. “Come in!” he said.
In walked Kenny. “I hope I am not disturbing you?” he asked.
“Not at all, please do come in,” Matt assured him. Then, with a quick glace towards Mr. Yotsuya, he asked the boy, “Would you like a pop tart?”
With a hurt look, Yotsuya slinked back through the hole in the wall from whence he came as a snake might retreat into its nest. Matt smiled, feeling he may have won this round.
“I don’t have a lot of time, I fear,” Kenny said.
Matt offered once more.
“Well, I suppose they aren’t a very time consuming breakfast,” Kenny conceded, finally taking one of the offered pastries. He took a bite as he sat
down.
“On your way home, then?” Matt asked.
Kenny nodded, swallowing. “I was just making my rounds offering good byes to all of the others.”
“You’ll be coming back though, yes?” Matt asked.
“Indeed.”
“Awesome,” Matt responded. “You can bring me more pop tarts.”
“If there is anything else that you want,” Kenny asked, “feel free to e-mail me a list. I do know of your proclivities towards a selective pallet.”
“You mean I’m a picky eater?”
Kenny nodded. “Isn’t that what I just said?”
Matt smiled. “You’ll be missed around here, Kenny. But good to know you’ll be back.”
Kenny smiled and finished his pop tart. “Well, I must get going before Mr. Becker creates any more biological abominations.” Matt was pretty sure Kenny was jesting.
Pretty sure.
Kenny rose and headed for the door.
“Safe trip to you, Kenny, and see you again soon.”
Kenny smiled, thanked him, and then was gone.
“Well,” Matt announced to the empty room, “suppose it is about time I got ready for my day.”
Somehow, in ways that would have made Bill Gelinas question reality, Matt managed with minimal difficulty to navigate his way through the Tokyo public transit system and arrive in Akihabara.
Akihabara!
From what he had read on the internet, this “electronic town” shopping district was something of an Otaku Mecca, and now here he was.
Akihabara!
Bright signs, many of them incorporating neon, begged for his attention from every direction. He couldn’t read what any of them said, but that didn’t matter. To him, they were all enticing. Pictures of mascot characters accompanied many of the signs, from fluffy animals to cute or sultry anime goddesses. Various shops of all sorts selling all matter of things that Matt couldn’t even begin to fathom, interspaced with occasional themed cafes catering to the Otaku market.
Akihabara!
Because Matt was so excited to be here, he definitely felt the need to punctuate things with another narrative declaration of, “Akihabara!” Thus, another paragraph was needed for the purpose of separating them. So Matt took a moment to ponder this, and to ponder where – in the expansive paradise that lay before him – he should even begin! He supposed he should just go into the nearest store and take it from there, if he just stood around all day trying to come up with some sort of plan on how to do something he had no experience with, he’d get nowhere at all. Better to just plunge in and see where things took him, yes? Anyway, where was he? Ah, yes...
Akihabara!
Okay, that was enough. He opened the nearest door and plunged in.
It was rather cramped inside of the store. If this was America, lawyers would descend upon it will all manner of complaints related to the ADA. But it wasn’t, so they didn’t. Even as a person of statistically average human ability, Matt found he had some difficulty navigating the interior. After about half an hour, he thought he was making some progress when he found instead that he had accidentally managed to go back out through the front door.
“What just happened?” Matt asked himself. He scratched his head and looked back at the door he had just exited. He suspected that the store may have had some stuff that would have interested him inside, but the interior was so tight that he couldn’t even begin to give it a proper browse. How the natives managed, he hadn’t the foggiest. He felt a brief flash of sadness, hoping that his trip here had not been in vain, before he decided to not be foolish. “I’m not giving up when I’ve only just started!” he announced to himself.
So... where to now? He tried a few other stores, with progressively better results. In one, he even managed to pick up a few items and examine them before being overpowered by his surroundings. He was sure he might even be able to buy something soon. His confidence grew slightly as he looked around trying to decide which store to try next.
And that was when one store in particular caught his eye. It was huge, probably the biggest one he could see in the immediate vicinity. He undoubtedly would have noticed it sooner if not for his strategy of dashing in the closest door. The sign above the entryway said, in large, flashy letters, “Grand Prix.” There seemed to be a fairly steady stream of people in and out.
Looked promising. And being so large, hopefully it was at least a tad bit roomier inside.
Matt entered the store. He was right. It was roomer inside. A tad bit. It still seemed rather tight, but no longer oppressively so. He felt like he could move around now, and that was enough. He began his browsing.
His eyes lit up as they caressed shelf after shelf lined with videos, CDs, figurines, toys, and books of all sorts. He picked up one interesting looking comic with a flashy picture of Yuffie Kisaragi on the cover and began to flip through it. When his eyes saw what was inside, he suddenly blushed rather intently and put the book back down. That was not the sort of book you flip through in public!
Matt looked to his left, and to his right, and observed that perhaps others did not share his inhibitions in this matter. He pondered for a moment on if he should decide to adopt a “when in Rome” attitude, but somewhere in his brain a penguin drew an illustration of Sarah hitting him upside his head and showed it to him, so in the end Matt decided to move onto another part of the store.
“Ooh, cels!” Matt said. Cels, of course, were the clear pieces of plastic upon which animators painted frames of animation. He had always wanted to own some. He began flipping through them. Many of them were from shows he was somewhat unfamiliar with, or had some rather impressive looking prices on them. He came across a few from El Hazard though that seemed to be at a decent price. They looked to be from the TV series rather than the superior OAV version, but that was probably why they were a bit more affordable. One caught his eye. It was definitely the Muldoon priestesses, and what looked like an oddly dressed Makoto, but it was unfamiliar to him. Was this from the El Hazard 2 he had heard they had made recently? He picked them all up and carried them around with him.
Next he came across a collection of toys. One that caught his eye were a Veritech... no, sorry, a Valkyrie from Macross. This particular one was in the coloration used by Skull Leader. Then he saw a Transformer that he could not resist. Or rather, three Transformers in one box. The box was marked, “GOOD BYE CONVOY” and contained the G1 versions of Red Alert, Mirage, and (most importantly) one Optimus Prime. Matt had to have it.
He continued through the store, and found himself in the CD section. He picked up some CDs that looked like they were soundtracks to some anime series that he was fond of, and a few Final Fantasy game soundtracks. Then his eyes fell upon it.
The one item that was to make his shopping trip.
It was a large red box, if it had been a little larger it might have looked as if it contained vinyl records rather than compact discs. Its design was simple and elegant, no flashy pictures. Simply a giant silver letter, “U,” and under that some text that read, “URUSEI YATSURA Complete Music Box.”
Matt had read about this. A fifteen disc set that contained virtually all of the music from what was one of his favorite anime series.
He had to have it.
He picked it up. His hands were starting to get rather full. Perhaps it was time to make his way towards the counter?
Hmm... Where was the counter?
He navigated his way through the crowd of otaku, vaguely fearful of accidentally once again blundering his way out of the store. (Such a thing would be especially worrisome now that his arms were laden with his intended bounty.) Fortunately, he needn’t have worried, and soon he was standing at the counter and he placed upon it the items he wished to purchase.
The woman on the other side of the counter looked politely at Matt and asked him something. Unfortunately, Matt had no idea what it was she had said and it then dawned on him that there was a potential flaw in his plans.
“Um... How much is this?” Matt asked.
The cashier tilted her head slightly, a confused look on his face.
“Need a hand?” a cheerful voice asked from behind. Matt turned.
A girl was standing behind him. She was Japanese, but there was no accent he could detect in her voice. If Matt had to guess, he would have said she was younger then he was, perhaps a bit older then the Porter twins. She was tall and slender, and had large, expressive blue eyes. She almost seemed as if she could have stepped out of an anime series and into real life. Of course, Matt pondered, they had discovered since being here that there was a lot more truth to anime then one would typically have suspected. Indeed, although the ends her rather lengthy hair was the stereotypical jet black a gaijin would have expected to see, he did notice that the majority was a sort of light blue, ever so slightly but not quite leaning towards greenish color. She was holding what he supposed she was intending to purchase, a plush form of what he supposed was likely some Sanrio character.
“A hand,” Matt said, “would be most appreciated.”
She looked at what he had put down on the counter. “Quite a haul,” she said. She then stepped forward and began speaking with the cashier. There seemed to be a bit of familiarity, as if this woman was known in this store, and indeed she addressed the cashier, Fukuhara, by name. Matt suspected that she might be an at least semi-regular customer. Finally, the brief conversation ceased, and the woman who had placed it upon herself to act as his interpreter turned back to Matt and quoted him a price.
Internally, Matt balked. That was a bit more then he had been prepared to spend. Obviously, this store was dangerous. Fortunately, he somewhat paradoxically came prepared to spend more than he had been prepared to spend, and so he took out his wallet and began to pull out his money. A thought struck him. “As thanks for your help, can I get that,” he gestured towards the plush character she was holding, “too?”
She smiled, and it was one of those smiles that greater writers then this one have had difficulty giving justice to. Suffice to say, it was a Smile with a capitol S. “Nah,” she said, “but you can buy me lunch. Deal?”
“Deal.”
They found a small outdoor café that to Matt seemed almost out of place in its surroundings. It was decorated, not that Matt fancied himself an expert, almost as if to give a feeling of being something out of post-war Europe. It had a somewhat nostalgic feeling to it. As he sat, it occurred to Matt that something important had yet to take place.
“So thanks for the help back there,” he said. “I’m Matt, by the way.”
“Meg,” the girl said, offering her hand. “Nice to meetcha.”
“Meg?” Matt asked. A rather Western sounding name.
“Meg,” the girl insisted. “First time in Japan?”
“Pretty obvious, eh?”
Meg nodded. “Don’t worry, I’m Japanese, and I’m still getting used to it. Of course, I’ve only been here about six months, myself. Daddy works for a big international company, and for most of my life he was assigned to head up a branch office in California. But he worried that I wasn’t growing up, ‘Japanese enough,’ whatever that means, so he asked for a transfer back home.”
“You didn’t have much of a choice, I am guessing?”
“You’re darn right!” Meg responded. “But enough about that,” she said. “I hope this place is okay, it serves a lot of western dishes. I’d hate to think you’ve come all the way here and are just going to be disappointed because you have to eat a burger or something.”
“Actually,” Matt said, “that sounds perfect.”
“Oh, good.” Meg smiled again. “Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate Japanese food. I grew up eating it at home, after all. But I miss a good hunk of burger or some pizza now and then.”
They placed their orders and made small talk, and when their food came Matt tried a bite. The taste of his cheeseburger was a tad unusual, but not unpleasant.
“So, you stop in that store a lot?” Matt asked.
“One advantage of being in this country,” she said, “easier access to primo merch. And I get to see the latest shows sooner.”
Matt had suspected, but didn’t want to believe it. But the conversation seemed to be indicating his suspicions were true. “You’re into anime, then?”
“Oh yeah!” she replied after sipping her soda. “When I was in the States, it seemed kind of like a connection to my roots. (Although not quite the connection daddy would have liked.) Yet strangely enough, now that I am in Japan, it almost seems like a connection back to my home in the States. At my high school there, there was a small anime and sci-fi club, and I was kind of their mascot.”
“Mascot?”
She grinned. “Oh, yeah. You should see some of the costumes I got to wear when we did various events. I’ve got an album at home! Of course... that doesn’t do us a lot of good, here.”
Now, someone might look at this and think she was flirting with him, or see this as an opening to try some line on her about going back to her place. But Matt knew better. No chance this girl could be interested in him. None at all. Not that, if he didn’t have Sarah (not that he had Sarah) he might not find her interesting... but if there was one thing life taught Matt, it was that any such thing never could happen to him.
Right?
She smiled again. “So what brings you to Japan? Vacation?”
“Not quite,” he responded. “Some friends of mine and I are here for a year.”
“Oh?”
“Part of a scholastic exchange program. My friends are going to be attending school here as students. As for myself, I’ve been asked to help out at a different school in an English emersion class.”
A funny look came over Meg’s face. “You don’t say?”
Matt didn’t notice the look. “Indeed.” He took the last bite of his burger. “A bit nervous about it, though, it isn’t like I am a professional teacher. But I suppose I do have going for me having spoken English all my life.” He laughed slightly.
She laughed with him, then looked up in surprise. “Huh, I thought it was supposed to be sunny out, today.”
“What do you mean?” Matt asked. One advantage of his trademark hat and coat was that it did offer him brief protection against rain. A disadvantage, which became apparent now, was that it sometimes delay him in even noticing when rain was starting, And he realized, now, with a bit of alarm, that a light sprinkling had begun. His alarm grew when the sprinkle changed into a brief downpour.
“Good thing we just finished eating,” Meg commented. She was bending down as she said, “Quick, shove your bags under the table.”
Matty instinctively did so, moving her bags with her feet, alarm at the thought of her spoils being ruined taking over. But then she realized, with some alarm, that she was in fact a she. So while Meg was still bent down, Matty did the only thing she could think of: she bolted.
Meg was rather surprised by this development: her dining companion was making a mad dash. She thought she detected a hint of... red? He had kept his hat on the entire time, but she’d been sure he had black hair. Anyway... What the hell? She took off after him.
“Matt!” she shouted. The trench coated figure dashed down a thin alley between two stores. She was impressed, actually, that he fit in the space. She followed him in, and it was quite a tight squeeze. When she was only half way through the alley, the object of her pursuit was exiting out the other side.
When she finally made it through herself, it took Meg a moment to orient herself on the crowded street she had exited onto. She looked left. She looked right. She spotted a black fedora in the crowd about twenty feet away. Why is he running? she thought. The bill won't be that large! He must be desperate to hide from me, crouching down like that. The fedora was lower down then it should have been on someone of Matt’s height.
Meg was quick, and deftly cut her way through the crowd, careful of her footing to not slip on the wet pavement. She caught up to Matt, grabbed him by the shoulder, and spun him around. “What do you think you’re... oh, sorry,” she said to the red haired woman that she encountered. “Pardon me.”
“No problem,” the woman said. She turned and began to walk away.
Meg started to turn herself, when something stopped her. She grabbed the red haired woman’s shoulder again, re-spun her around, and with a large smile spread across Meg’s lips. “I think,” she said as the sun broke back through the clouds, “you have some explaining to do.”
Feeling that the cat was out of the metaphorical bag, Matty felt there was little point in not explaining the basics of the situation to Meg. As they made their way back to the café, she told her about the trip to Jusenkyo and about the curses that had changed the lives of her and her friends. She didn’t feel the need to go into the super secret organization looking to hunt down and kill them, or the other organization that was seeking to protect them, but she certainly told her lunch companion the basic knowledge necessary to explain why she was now walking along side another woman rather than still sitting at a table with a man.
Meg’s reaction was rather low key, Matty thought. “Huh, cool,” she said as she pulled out her chair. “Sounds almost like something out of an anime.”
Matty laughed as she, too, sat back down. “Yeah, I suppose it does.” Matty took a quick peak under the table and breathed a sigh of relief when her eyes saw the packages still sitting there.
“Anyway, you certainly rock the female form. Love the color of your hair.”
“Yours is certainly an interesting one,” Matty responded.
“Thanks. It is so nice not to have to hide it anymore,” Meg replied. “I was sick of dying it black all of the time when we were in the States, that’s the one think I like better about being here. I kept saying I could just tell people that my natural color was actually the dye job, but nope... daddy wouldn’t have it.”
Matty couldn’t help but notice that there seemed to be a bit of hostility in this girl towards her father, but didn’t feel it was important to dwell on just that moment. She wasn’t quite sure what to dwell on at the moment, other than (not that she had much choice) she’d just let someone else in on the big secret. Ah, well, couldn’t be helped. Probably wouldn’t come back and bite them in the arse. After all, she probably wasn’t going to be seeing Meg again after this day. Anyway, something did still need to be said.
“So... um... not to put too fine a point on it, but we are trying to keep this kind of... confidential.”
“So I’m a secret keeper, eh? Like in a superhero comic?”
“I suppose that is one way to look at it.”
“Well,” Meg said, “it is usually the duty of the secret keepers to do little tasks that aid the superheroes from time to time.” At that, she called the waitress (a rather subservient girl in an elaborate maid’s costume) and ordered something from her. Meg turned back to Matty. “I ordered a pot of hot water for you.”
“Thank you.”
A moment later the waitress returned with a small, steaming pot. “Suppose I’ll let it cool a bit,” Matty said upon inspecting it. “There is, after all, an important distinction between ‘hot’ and ‘scalding.’ By the way, Meg,” Matty suddenly thought to ask. “How did you know it was me?”
Meg laughed. “I’ll admit getting yourself a smaller frame (although adding some impressive size to a few areas on that frame) and changing your hair color made for a good disguise, but how many gaijins do you suppose are running around Akihabara dressed exactly like that?”
Matty thought about that for a moment. “You know, it is kind of surprising how often people don’t notice that... Especially kind of strange when I’m running around in a Boy Scout uniform.”
Meg shrugged. “Just genera savvy, I suppose,” she added with a grin.
The two continued talking for a while as Matty waited for the water to be less painful for use. Matty talked about her plans for while she was in Japan, and how she looked forward to the English instructional position she was being given. She then listened to Meg talk about some of the anime series she liked, including some of the ones that hadn’t made it to the U.S. yet that Meg had discovered upon returning to Japan. After that, they then got to talking about science fiction. Matty was just about to begin a rant on why Greedo shooting first was the second worst thing to ever happen in the history of cinema when Meg interrupted. “The water?” she asked.
“Oh yeah.” She checked the temperature. If she’d left it much longer, she probably would have been in trouble. But fortunately, the pot had worked well to keep its contents warm. “Well, here goes nothing,” Matty said.
As she watched her lunchtime companion change before her eyes, Meg couldn’t help but to comment, “That is so cool.”
“Well, I suppose it has some advantages,” Matt replied, “but all things considered, it can be damn inconvenient on occasion.”
“They don’t call ‘em curses for nothing.”
“Indeed they don’t.”
Meg’s eyes narrowed slightly, and her lips curled upwards. “I could certainly think of some of those advantages, though,” she said slyly.
Matt looked at Meg quizzically. The vaguely devious grin on her lips as she made that statement betrayed nothing, yet somehow made him feel slightly embarrassed. Meg just shrugged and picked up the small piece of paper that had come with the pot of water. “I think this belongs to you,” she said, grinning.
Matthew paid for the meal and the two of them continued to talk as they made their way toward the train station. It turned out that they actually had the same train, although where as Matt just took the one train to his final destination, Meg would be getting off at the same stop but then taking another train from there.
As Matt paid for his ticket, Meg excused herself to use the restroom. She whistled a happy tune as she walked away, a song that after a moment Matt recognized as a tune from Project A-ko. He smiled.
Meg, meanwhile, walked into the women’s room, stopped whistling, waited for the door to close, looked to see that there was no one there, and then did something somewhat interesting...
She squeed. It was quite an epic squee. It filled the bathroom and echoed across its walls.
The sound of a flush came from one of the stalls. Startled, Meg silenced herself and felt her face warming as a blush spread across it. The stall opened, and out stepped a girl, a gaijin, with longish auburn hair.
“Um... Excuse me,” Meg quietly said as the gaijin went over to the sink and began washing her hands.
The gaijin nodded politely. “No reason to excuse yourself. You sure seem excited about something.”
“You bet!” Meg said. “I just met the most awesome guy!”
Now the gaijin smiled. “Oh?”
“Granted, I don’t know much about him yet... But he’s super nice! And he’s into anime, yet doesn’t seem like a total fanboy... I mean, granted, I did find him in a store buying some merch... but I can understand, he just got to Japan and needs to indulge himself a bit.”
The gaijin’s smile faded a bit, although Meg didn’t notice as she continued.
“And he’s got a cool thing, where he changes into... Oh, I shouldn’t talk about that.” Meg giggled. “But man, he looks good doing it. Love the red hair.”
“Oh,” the gaijin said, now looking a bit green around the edges. Meg’s obliviousness continued. “Well then... Good luck with that.” The gaijin exited the restroom, leaving Meg alone once more.
Meg’s squeeing resumed for a minute, before she finally composed herself. She decided she should probably play it cool for now. She splashed a bit of water from the sink onto her face, dried it off with a towel, and left to go find Matthew once more.
Kirstin Porter made her way towards her sister, Aaron, and Hughes. “Relax,” she overheard her sister saying, “it’ll be fun. Oh, there you are!” This last bit was directed towards Kirstin as Nicole noticed her approach. The train was also approaching. “Good timing!”
The train came to a stop beside them and the doors on the opposite side opened, swiftly spilling out the passengers within.
“Oh, hey,” Kirstin replied. She peered over Nicole’s shoulder, and saw the woman she had encountered in the bathroom waiting to get into one of the cars up ahead. Her suspicions were confirmed when she saw the black clad figure waiting next to the woman. “So, um,” she absentmindedly muttered, “what’ll be fun?”
“Just figured out where dinner’s going to be,” Nicole replied. “Um... you okay there, sis?”
“Huh?” Kirstin focused on Nicole. “Yeah.”
The others looked at her a moment. The train doors opened. Nicole shrugged, turned, and got on the train.
Aaron and Hughes were about to follow when they both felt a tug on their sleeves. They turned to Kirstin who had a sleeve clutched in each hand. “We’ve got to talk,” she said.
Aaron looked concerned. “What is it?”
Kirstin wasn’t quite sure herself. She honestly didn’t know what had just occurred, and normally would hate to be thought of as a gossip… but something odd had just occurred and she had to try and express it to someone. “I encountered a woman in the bathroom, talking about an amazing guy she’d just met, and some of the things she said sounded strangely like they could apply to someone we know… And I just saw… I just saw…”
“What was it?” Aaron prodded, trying with some small success to sound patient.
Kirstin swallowed. “I just saw her getting on the train with Matt!”
“Matt?” Hughes asked. “Our Matt? With a girl?” He blinked. “You sure?”
Kirstin lowered her voice. “I think it was the girl Nicole saw him with earlier. Remember?”
“That wasn’t Matt,” Aaron insisted.
“I suppose…” Kirstin trailed off for a moment. “I guess I didn’t see Matt clearly.
Nicole stepped out to where they were standing. “Hey, you guys getting on?”
The door closed behind Nicole.
Nicole turned to look at the train.
The train started moving away.
Nicole sighed. “Oh, crud.”
Matt, laden with his colorful bags from his shopping excursion, departed the train and headed for the exit of the Clock Hill station. Meg followed, having a few minutes before her second train arrived. Once outside, Matt turned to her.
“So, uh, Meg.”
Meg looked at Matt expectantly.
“Thanks a lot for today. You were a big help.”
Meg smiled. “Sure thing.” She turned back towards the station, needing to get to her platform. She waved an arm as she walked away. “See you around, Matthew Atanian!”
Matt returned the gesture, even though her back was turned towards him.
“See you around,” Matt thought. I somehow doubt I’ll be seeing her again. Pity, she was kind of cute… He shrugged, dismissed any further thought, and began his trek up the long hill.
Meg turned, hoping she’d waited long enough for Matthew to begin walking away. Sure enough, his back was to her, and he was walking away. She sighed with relief at this, she didn’t want to seem too eager.
But man, she couldn’t wait for school! The upcoming semester was going to be interesting.
He hadn’t gotten far along his journey when Matt was alarmed to encounter a familiar figure. Mr. Yotsuya tipped his fedora to Matt as he approached from the opposite direction. “Ah, young Mr. Atanian. Returning from your excursion?”
Matthew nodded. “Indeed I am. And did you, yourself, have a productive day?”
“Most productive indeed,” Yousuya exclaimed. “Although I shall not even entertain the thought of boring you with the details.”
Matt couldn’t help but wonder what his mysterious neighbor did for a living. “I assure you, I’d find such details of intense interest,” he said, suspecting any response might be cryptic at best.
He was not disappointed. “Ah, but that would be telling, would it not?” Yotsuya merely said. “Come, sir,” he then added. “Join me for a drink!” Yotsuya indicated the establishment they were standing outside of, a bar that was a short distance from the train station and at the base of the long hill. The sign outside said, “Cha Cha Maru.”
“Oh no, I couldn’t. I’m… well, I suppose I am old enough to drink now,” Matt said, recalling having turned 21 a few months back. (Although, while Matt wasn’t aware of it, such a thing wouldn’t have been a problem, anyway, with the legal drinking age in Japan being 20.) “Still, I must admit I don’t drink.”
Yotsuya opened the door and motioned for Matt to enter. “Ah, yes. I recall you only partook of juice at our welcoming party,” Yotsuya commented. “Most disappointing.”
“Well, it is only because I don’t personally care for the taste of alcohol. It isn’t that I have a moral objection to such things, you understand,” Matt explained as he walked through the door Yotsuya was holding open for him. “As long as they are not done to excess,” he then felt compelled to add when he saw what sight greeted him inside.
Mrs. Ichinose was there, and clearly had gotten herself a good head start. Seated next to her was an unfamiliar red haired woman with a tired, worn-out look – the kind of look that implied she had once been something to look at but she had lived her life hard, perhaps enjoying it a little too much. Mrs. Ichinose spotted them and shouted something Matt couldn’t understand, but which seemed to be an invitation to come join her. As Yotsuya, who had come in behind Matt, then proceeded to do just that, Matt surmised that his assumption had been correct and also joined the gathering.
“So, young Mr. Atanian, what can we get you?” Yotsuya asked. “Beer? Sake? Shochu? I do believe that Master has recently gotten in a shipment of Awamori from Okinawa that I have been quite looking forward to trying.”
“I really would be most happy with something else,” Matt insisted. “Some tea, perhaps?”
Yotsuya made a great show of disappointment, but then relayed some instructions to the red haired woman who was sharing their table. She then got up, moved over to the bar, and began preparing the drinks. Presumably, this woman worked at the establishment.
A small tea pot was placed in front of Matt. He poured some of the contents into a provided cup and took a large sip… which he then immediately spit out, barely missing showering anyone else at the table.
“That is not,” Matt slowly said, “tea.”
Both Ichinose and the red haired woman began to laugh loudly. “Oh, I must apologize,” Mr. Yotsuya said. “I must have misspoke when I placed your order.”
Without having been given further instruction, the red head went and got a new pot of tea, still laughing all the while. The new pot arrived rather quickly, surely more quick then would have been possible had the sequence of events not been pre-planned and the real tea not been prepared along with the “mistake.”
Matt shrugged. He sipped his tea. He supposed these weren’t bad people. Still, it came as a relief when about fifteen minutes later, much to his surprise, Aaron, Hughes, and the Porter twins walked in through the door.
“Hi, Matt!”
“Hey, guys.”
After a brief discussion, a few tables were pushed together and the now larger party was all seated together. Matt took note that the combined seating included some extra, yet unoccupied chairs, and presumed that they would shortly be having more people joining them. His suspicions were confirmed when, as they all were discussing food options, the door opened once more to admit Mike, Bill Gelinas, and Sarah Porter.
“Are the Godais not coming?” Yotsuya inquired.
Sarah responded, “Kyoko-san had already done her shopping for dinner tonight, and was preparing dinner. She said she and her husband may come down later, however, if we’ve yet to return home.”
Yotsuya translated this for Mrs. Ichinose and the other woman, who both hollered with delight at this news.
Meanwhile, everyone placed their food orders. The Cha Cha Maru did not have the greatest selection, being primarily a bar and snack establishment, but there were enough options to satisfy everyone – including the perpetually picky Matt.
Dinner conversation was plentiful. As he was finishing his plate, Mike was regaling his friends with detail on his many crushing defeats of Gelinas earlier that day.
“Shut up, Mike!” Gelinas tried to say, reminding the hat-clad youth that he had in fact won the final game.
“Out of how many?” Mike retorted.
Bill shut up.
“Oh, hey,” Kirstin said. “We saw the school we’ll be going to.”
“What was it called again?” Mike asked.
“Furinkan High,” Hughes replied.
“Why does that name sound familiar?” Gelinas wondered aloud.
“We only saw the school from the outside, but the facilities looked quite nice,” Kirstin continued.
“Did you get the things you needed to pick up?” Sarah asked Nicole.
Nicole nodded. “I even haggled the price down a little bit,” she said, “and helped the boys not get swindled too much on the things they wanted to buy.”
“That reminds me,” Gelinas asked. “Matt, how did you go and buy a bunch of stuff without knowing the local language?”
“Hmm? Oh,” Matt said. “I’ll admit my plan did have that fatal flaw. I guess I was about to resort to putting a bunch of money on the counter and hoping for the best, but I met someone who gave me a hand.”
“Should have just come along with us,” Aaron said.
“Nah,” Hughes said. “He had to have his ‘personal experience.’”
“This good Samaritan,” Nicole asked. “Female? Great figure? Pretty face? Long, bluish-green hair?”
It seemed like an evening for Matt to be spitting out beverages, as he had been sipping his tea as Nicole made her inquiry.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” Nicole said.
Kirstin, Aaron, and Hughes remained rather silent. Mike, however, couldn’t help but say, “That’s some fast work, Matt.”
Matt could swear he could feel twin daggers of ice stabbing him, and he glanced in Sarah’s direction. Her eyes were upon him and her expression was unnaturally neutral.
“Just someone who offered to help me out,” Matt said, turning back to Mike. “Nothing more. Not like I set up a date with her or anything. Probably I’ll never see her again. So, um, looking forward to school, then?”
The boys and the Porter twins all indicated that they were.
“What about you, Matt?” Mike asked.
“Well, I never pictured myself being a teacher, but I’ve been trying to plan what I’ll do. I hope it goes over well with the class.”
“You were pretty good with that session you had at the Junior Leader Training course,” Aaron encouraged.
“And that Collections merit badge class you had was fun,” Mike reminded him.
“Yeah, I still think I might have gone a little too easy on you with that,” Matt said. “Remember when you had to separate your collections into categories?”
“Magazine covers where Gillian Anderson is photographed dry and magazine covers where Gillian Anderson is photographed wet are valid categories,” Mike insisted.
“You’re going to be at a different school, though, right?” Hughes asked.
Matt nodded.
“Isn’t it an all girls’ school?” Gelinas asked.
The dagger feeling returned. Matt took a sip of his tea. “Shut up, Bill,” he then said.
The door opened, providing a convenient distraction in the conversation. In walked the Godais, Kyoko and Yusaku.
“Ah, excellent!” Yotsuya said, motioning them over. “Now everyone is here! Let the second night of welcoming celebrations commence!”
This had Sarah worried a bit. “We should probably make it an early night tonight,” She said. “We are still adjusting to the time difference, and we all have early days tomorrow.”
Yotsuya seemed to pay this no heed as he called the master of the establishment over to bring more drinks.
“There’s no stopping them once they get started,” Yusaku confided. “But no worries, when you need to leave, we’ll cover your escape.”
“Are they always like this?” Matt asked.
Kyoko smiled. “It seems we’ve just become accustom to it, but I suppose it is shocking to newcomers.”
Yusaku, too, smiled in some sort of shared memory with his wife. “Welcome,” he said once more, “to Maison Ikkoku.”
He groped around the floor beside his futon looking for his spectacles, and upon success, donned them. Then he sat for another moment, trying to decipher what it was that was pressing so intently upon him. Finally, he realized what it was, and that it wasn’t his mind it was pressing on but another part of his anatomy, and so he got up and made a mad dash to the bathroom. He was fortunate to find it unoccupied and thus he darted inside. As to what he got up to in there, reasons of taste decree that that shall remain unchronicled. Suffice to say that, as he was starting to wash his hands after he had finished, he heard a knock upon the door.
“Just a moment!” he said. He finished up, dried his hands quick as he could, and was pleasantly startled when he opened the door to find one Ms. Sarah Porter standing on the other side of it. “Good morning,” he then said, in what he hoped was a friendly way.
He couldn’t be sure, but he thought Sarah looked a bit annoyed. “Hello,” she said in a tone he couldn’t decipher.
“Sleep well?” he then asked. It hadn’t quite occurred to him that after keeping someone waiting for the bathroom was likely not the best of occasions to engage in small talk.
“I suppose,” she responded curtly. Then, a bit surprisingly, she followed up with, “And you?”
“Quite well rested.” Matt smiled. “Looking forward to hitting the town today.”
“Going out with the others?” Sarah asked.
“No, no. I’ve been wanting to come here for a while now,” Matt explained. “Something of a dream of mine. So my first time inflicting myself upon the country is going to be something of a personal experience.”
“I see,” Sarah said, somewhat darkly.
“Unless,” Matt began to say. He looked down at the floor for a moment. “Unless you’d like to go with me?”
“Do you mind?” Sarah asked.
For a brief moment, Matt had a glimmer of hope. Was she asking if it was really okay to come with him? His mind screamed at the top of its metaphoric mental lungs, “Duh!”
But the brief moment of hope passed as Sarah motioned towards the bathroom with her hand, and Matt realized that she had actually been asking him to get out of her way. As further confirmation, she then followed up with, “I kind of need to use that.”
“What?” he asked, clearing his brain of the last of his hope. He then moved aside with a simple statement of, “Oh, sorry.”
She entered and closed the door behind herself.
“Well, that went well,” he muttered to himself as he returned to his room.
“Good morning, young Mr. Atanian,” Yotsuya greeted him as he entered. The mysterious man from the neighboring room was sitting on his floor as if it was the most natural place for him to be.
“Why don’t you join me for breakfast?” Matt asked, noticing that Yotsuya was already munching on what looked like some of his pop tarts.
“A most gracious offer,” came the response. Yotsuya took another bite as Matt grabbed himself a pair of the cinnamon toaster pastries. “A most unusual breakfast confection,” Yotsuya commented.
“Indeed, and I should point out my rather limited supply,” Matt responded.
“Then we shall have to savour the ones that you have,” was the swift reply.
“Yes, I shall have to do so,” Matt rebutted.
Yotsuya ignored him by means of taking another bite and then changing the subject completely. “Are you enjoying your stay in our country thus far?”
Matt by now had very much sensed some kind of game was at play. What troubled him was that he could not decipher if he was himself a participant, or the object of the game itself. For now, he foolishly decided to continue to try and play along. “It is very nice here, yes.”
“And your accommodations?” Yotsuya asked.
Matt sensed an opportunity to perhaps put his opponent in check. “Quite nice,” he replied. “Although I shall have to speak to the management about a draft I feel coming through one of the walls.
Yotsuya feigned hurt. “Surely you speak not of the portal between our two rooms? Can you not see it as an important bridge for those who seek multi-cultural understanding?”
Matt opened his mouth to reply, even though he wasn’t quite sure how to follow that up. Fortunately, he was saved by a knock at the door. “Come in!” he said.
In walked Kenny. “I hope I am not disturbing you?” he asked.
“Not at all, please do come in,” Matt assured him. Then, with a quick glace towards Mr. Yotsuya, he asked the boy, “Would you like a pop tart?”
With a hurt look, Yotsuya slinked back through the hole in the wall from whence he came as a snake might retreat into its nest. Matt smiled, feeling he may have won this round.
“I don’t have a lot of time, I fear,” Kenny said.
Matt offered once more.
“Well, I suppose they aren’t a very time consuming breakfast,” Kenny conceded, finally taking one of the offered pastries. He took a bite as he sat
down.
“On your way home, then?” Matt asked.
Kenny nodded, swallowing. “I was just making my rounds offering good byes to all of the others.”
“You’ll be coming back though, yes?” Matt asked.
“Indeed.”
“Awesome,” Matt responded. “You can bring me more pop tarts.”
“If there is anything else that you want,” Kenny asked, “feel free to e-mail me a list. I do know of your proclivities towards a selective pallet.”
“You mean I’m a picky eater?”
Kenny nodded. “Isn’t that what I just said?”
Matt smiled. “You’ll be missed around here, Kenny. But good to know you’ll be back.”
Kenny smiled and finished his pop tart. “Well, I must get going before Mr. Becker creates any more biological abominations.” Matt was pretty sure Kenny was jesting.
Pretty sure.
Kenny rose and headed for the door.
“Safe trip to you, Kenny, and see you again soon.”
Kenny smiled, thanked him, and then was gone.
“Well,” Matt announced to the empty room, “suppose it is about time I got ready for my day.”
Somehow, in ways that would have made Bill Gelinas question reality, Matt managed with minimal difficulty to navigate his way through the Tokyo public transit system and arrive in Akihabara.
Akihabara!
From what he had read on the internet, this “electronic town” shopping district was something of an Otaku Mecca, and now here he was.
Akihabara!
Bright signs, many of them incorporating neon, begged for his attention from every direction. He couldn’t read what any of them said, but that didn’t matter. To him, they were all enticing. Pictures of mascot characters accompanied many of the signs, from fluffy animals to cute or sultry anime goddesses. Various shops of all sorts selling all matter of things that Matt couldn’t even begin to fathom, interspaced with occasional themed cafes catering to the Otaku market.
Akihabara!
Because Matt was so excited to be here, he definitely felt the need to punctuate things with another narrative declaration of, “Akihabara!” Thus, another paragraph was needed for the purpose of separating them. So Matt took a moment to ponder this, and to ponder where – in the expansive paradise that lay before him – he should even begin! He supposed he should just go into the nearest store and take it from there, if he just stood around all day trying to come up with some sort of plan on how to do something he had no experience with, he’d get nowhere at all. Better to just plunge in and see where things took him, yes? Anyway, where was he? Ah, yes...
Akihabara!
Okay, that was enough. He opened the nearest door and plunged in.
It was rather cramped inside of the store. If this was America, lawyers would descend upon it will all manner of complaints related to the ADA. But it wasn’t, so they didn’t. Even as a person of statistically average human ability, Matt found he had some difficulty navigating the interior. After about half an hour, he thought he was making some progress when he found instead that he had accidentally managed to go back out through the front door.
“What just happened?” Matt asked himself. He scratched his head and looked back at the door he had just exited. He suspected that the store may have had some stuff that would have interested him inside, but the interior was so tight that he couldn’t even begin to give it a proper browse. How the natives managed, he hadn’t the foggiest. He felt a brief flash of sadness, hoping that his trip here had not been in vain, before he decided to not be foolish. “I’m not giving up when I’ve only just started!” he announced to himself.
So... where to now? He tried a few other stores, with progressively better results. In one, he even managed to pick up a few items and examine them before being overpowered by his surroundings. He was sure he might even be able to buy something soon. His confidence grew slightly as he looked around trying to decide which store to try next.
And that was when one store in particular caught his eye. It was huge, probably the biggest one he could see in the immediate vicinity. He undoubtedly would have noticed it sooner if not for his strategy of dashing in the closest door. The sign above the entryway said, in large, flashy letters, “Grand Prix.” There seemed to be a fairly steady stream of people in and out.
Looked promising. And being so large, hopefully it was at least a tad bit roomier inside.
Matt entered the store. He was right. It was roomer inside. A tad bit. It still seemed rather tight, but no longer oppressively so. He felt like he could move around now, and that was enough. He began his browsing.
His eyes lit up as they caressed shelf after shelf lined with videos, CDs, figurines, toys, and books of all sorts. He picked up one interesting looking comic with a flashy picture of Yuffie Kisaragi on the cover and began to flip through it. When his eyes saw what was inside, he suddenly blushed rather intently and put the book back down. That was not the sort of book you flip through in public!
Matt looked to his left, and to his right, and observed that perhaps others did not share his inhibitions in this matter. He pondered for a moment on if he should decide to adopt a “when in Rome” attitude, but somewhere in his brain a penguin drew an illustration of Sarah hitting him upside his head and showed it to him, so in the end Matt decided to move onto another part of the store.
“Ooh, cels!” Matt said. Cels, of course, were the clear pieces of plastic upon which animators painted frames of animation. He had always wanted to own some. He began flipping through them. Many of them were from shows he was somewhat unfamiliar with, or had some rather impressive looking prices on them. He came across a few from El Hazard though that seemed to be at a decent price. They looked to be from the TV series rather than the superior OAV version, but that was probably why they were a bit more affordable. One caught his eye. It was definitely the Muldoon priestesses, and what looked like an oddly dressed Makoto, but it was unfamiliar to him. Was this from the El Hazard 2 he had heard they had made recently? He picked them all up and carried them around with him.
Next he came across a collection of toys. One that caught his eye were a Veritech... no, sorry, a Valkyrie from Macross. This particular one was in the coloration used by Skull Leader. Then he saw a Transformer that he could not resist. Or rather, three Transformers in one box. The box was marked, “GOOD BYE CONVOY” and contained the G1 versions of Red Alert, Mirage, and (most importantly) one Optimus Prime. Matt had to have it.
He continued through the store, and found himself in the CD section. He picked up some CDs that looked like they were soundtracks to some anime series that he was fond of, and a few Final Fantasy game soundtracks. Then his eyes fell upon it.
The one item that was to make his shopping trip.
It was a large red box, if it had been a little larger it might have looked as if it contained vinyl records rather than compact discs. Its design was simple and elegant, no flashy pictures. Simply a giant silver letter, “U,” and under that some text that read, “URUSEI YATSURA Complete Music Box.”
Matt had read about this. A fifteen disc set that contained virtually all of the music from what was one of his favorite anime series.
He had to have it.
He picked it up. His hands were starting to get rather full. Perhaps it was time to make his way towards the counter?
Hmm... Where was the counter?
He navigated his way through the crowd of otaku, vaguely fearful of accidentally once again blundering his way out of the store. (Such a thing would be especially worrisome now that his arms were laden with his intended bounty.) Fortunately, he needn’t have worried, and soon he was standing at the counter and he placed upon it the items he wished to purchase.
The woman on the other side of the counter looked politely at Matt and asked him something. Unfortunately, Matt had no idea what it was she had said and it then dawned on him that there was a potential flaw in his plans.
“Um... How much is this?” Matt asked.
The cashier tilted her head slightly, a confused look on his face.
“Need a hand?” a cheerful voice asked from behind. Matt turned.
A girl was standing behind him. She was Japanese, but there was no accent he could detect in her voice. If Matt had to guess, he would have said she was younger then he was, perhaps a bit older then the Porter twins. She was tall and slender, and had large, expressive blue eyes. She almost seemed as if she could have stepped out of an anime series and into real life. Of course, Matt pondered, they had discovered since being here that there was a lot more truth to anime then one would typically have suspected. Indeed, although the ends her rather lengthy hair was the stereotypical jet black a gaijin would have expected to see, he did notice that the majority was a sort of light blue, ever so slightly but not quite leaning towards greenish color. She was holding what he supposed she was intending to purchase, a plush form of what he supposed was likely some Sanrio character.
“A hand,” Matt said, “would be most appreciated.”
She looked at what he had put down on the counter. “Quite a haul,” she said. She then stepped forward and began speaking with the cashier. There seemed to be a bit of familiarity, as if this woman was known in this store, and indeed she addressed the cashier, Fukuhara, by name. Matt suspected that she might be an at least semi-regular customer. Finally, the brief conversation ceased, and the woman who had placed it upon herself to act as his interpreter turned back to Matt and quoted him a price.
Internally, Matt balked. That was a bit more then he had been prepared to spend. Obviously, this store was dangerous. Fortunately, he somewhat paradoxically came prepared to spend more than he had been prepared to spend, and so he took out his wallet and began to pull out his money. A thought struck him. “As thanks for your help, can I get that,” he gestured towards the plush character she was holding, “too?”
She smiled, and it was one of those smiles that greater writers then this one have had difficulty giving justice to. Suffice to say, it was a Smile with a capitol S. “Nah,” she said, “but you can buy me lunch. Deal?”
“Deal.”
They found a small outdoor café that to Matt seemed almost out of place in its surroundings. It was decorated, not that Matt fancied himself an expert, almost as if to give a feeling of being something out of post-war Europe. It had a somewhat nostalgic feeling to it. As he sat, it occurred to Matt that something important had yet to take place.
“So thanks for the help back there,” he said. “I’m Matt, by the way.”
“Meg,” the girl said, offering her hand. “Nice to meetcha.”
“Meg?” Matt asked. A rather Western sounding name.
“Meg,” the girl insisted. “First time in Japan?”
“Pretty obvious, eh?”
Meg nodded. “Don’t worry, I’m Japanese, and I’m still getting used to it. Of course, I’ve only been here about six months, myself. Daddy works for a big international company, and for most of my life he was assigned to head up a branch office in California. But he worried that I wasn’t growing up, ‘Japanese enough,’ whatever that means, so he asked for a transfer back home.”
“You didn’t have much of a choice, I am guessing?”
“You’re darn right!” Meg responded. “But enough about that,” she said. “I hope this place is okay, it serves a lot of western dishes. I’d hate to think you’ve come all the way here and are just going to be disappointed because you have to eat a burger or something.”
“Actually,” Matt said, “that sounds perfect.”
“Oh, good.” Meg smiled again. “Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate Japanese food. I grew up eating it at home, after all. But I miss a good hunk of burger or some pizza now and then.”
They placed their orders and made small talk, and when their food came Matt tried a bite. The taste of his cheeseburger was a tad unusual, but not unpleasant.
“So, you stop in that store a lot?” Matt asked.
“One advantage of being in this country,” she said, “easier access to primo merch. And I get to see the latest shows sooner.”
Matt had suspected, but didn’t want to believe it. But the conversation seemed to be indicating his suspicions were true. “You’re into anime, then?”
“Oh yeah!” she replied after sipping her soda. “When I was in the States, it seemed kind of like a connection to my roots. (Although not quite the connection daddy would have liked.) Yet strangely enough, now that I am in Japan, it almost seems like a connection back to my home in the States. At my high school there, there was a small anime and sci-fi club, and I was kind of their mascot.”
“Mascot?”
She grinned. “Oh, yeah. You should see some of the costumes I got to wear when we did various events. I’ve got an album at home! Of course... that doesn’t do us a lot of good, here.”
Now, someone might look at this and think she was flirting with him, or see this as an opening to try some line on her about going back to her place. But Matt knew better. No chance this girl could be interested in him. None at all. Not that, if he didn’t have Sarah (not that he had Sarah) he might not find her interesting... but if there was one thing life taught Matt, it was that any such thing never could happen to him.
Right?
She smiled again. “So what brings you to Japan? Vacation?”
“Not quite,” he responded. “Some friends of mine and I are here for a year.”
“Oh?”
“Part of a scholastic exchange program. My friends are going to be attending school here as students. As for myself, I’ve been asked to help out at a different school in an English emersion class.”
A funny look came over Meg’s face. “You don’t say?”
Matt didn’t notice the look. “Indeed.” He took the last bite of his burger. “A bit nervous about it, though, it isn’t like I am a professional teacher. But I suppose I do have going for me having spoken English all my life.” He laughed slightly.
She laughed with him, then looked up in surprise. “Huh, I thought it was supposed to be sunny out, today.”
“What do you mean?” Matt asked. One advantage of his trademark hat and coat was that it did offer him brief protection against rain. A disadvantage, which became apparent now, was that it sometimes delay him in even noticing when rain was starting, And he realized, now, with a bit of alarm, that a light sprinkling had begun. His alarm grew when the sprinkle changed into a brief downpour.
“Good thing we just finished eating,” Meg commented. She was bending down as she said, “Quick, shove your bags under the table.”
Matty instinctively did so, moving her bags with her feet, alarm at the thought of her spoils being ruined taking over. But then she realized, with some alarm, that she was in fact a she. So while Meg was still bent down, Matty did the only thing she could think of: she bolted.
Meg was rather surprised by this development: her dining companion was making a mad dash. She thought she detected a hint of... red? He had kept his hat on the entire time, but she’d been sure he had black hair. Anyway... What the hell? She took off after him.
“Matt!” she shouted. The trench coated figure dashed down a thin alley between two stores. She was impressed, actually, that he fit in the space. She followed him in, and it was quite a tight squeeze. When she was only half way through the alley, the object of her pursuit was exiting out the other side.
When she finally made it through herself, it took Meg a moment to orient herself on the crowded street she had exited onto. She looked left. She looked right. She spotted a black fedora in the crowd about twenty feet away. Why is he running? she thought. The bill won't be that large! He must be desperate to hide from me, crouching down like that. The fedora was lower down then it should have been on someone of Matt’s height.
Meg was quick, and deftly cut her way through the crowd, careful of her footing to not slip on the wet pavement. She caught up to Matt, grabbed him by the shoulder, and spun him around. “What do you think you’re... oh, sorry,” she said to the red haired woman that she encountered. “Pardon me.”
“No problem,” the woman said. She turned and began to walk away.
Meg started to turn herself, when something stopped her. She grabbed the red haired woman’s shoulder again, re-spun her around, and with a large smile spread across Meg’s lips. “I think,” she said as the sun broke back through the clouds, “you have some explaining to do.”
Feeling that the cat was out of the metaphorical bag, Matty felt there was little point in not explaining the basics of the situation to Meg. As they made their way back to the café, she told her about the trip to Jusenkyo and about the curses that had changed the lives of her and her friends. She didn’t feel the need to go into the super secret organization looking to hunt down and kill them, or the other organization that was seeking to protect them, but she certainly told her lunch companion the basic knowledge necessary to explain why she was now walking along side another woman rather than still sitting at a table with a man.
Meg’s reaction was rather low key, Matty thought. “Huh, cool,” she said as she pulled out her chair. “Sounds almost like something out of an anime.”
Matty laughed as she, too, sat back down. “Yeah, I suppose it does.” Matty took a quick peak under the table and breathed a sigh of relief when her eyes saw the packages still sitting there.
“Anyway, you certainly rock the female form. Love the color of your hair.”
“Yours is certainly an interesting one,” Matty responded.
“Thanks. It is so nice not to have to hide it anymore,” Meg replied. “I was sick of dying it black all of the time when we were in the States, that’s the one think I like better about being here. I kept saying I could just tell people that my natural color was actually the dye job, but nope... daddy wouldn’t have it.”
Matty couldn’t help but notice that there seemed to be a bit of hostility in this girl towards her father, but didn’t feel it was important to dwell on just that moment. She wasn’t quite sure what to dwell on at the moment, other than (not that she had much choice) she’d just let someone else in on the big secret. Ah, well, couldn’t be helped. Probably wouldn’t come back and bite them in the arse. After all, she probably wasn’t going to be seeing Meg again after this day. Anyway, something did still need to be said.
“So... um... not to put too fine a point on it, but we are trying to keep this kind of... confidential.”
“So I’m a secret keeper, eh? Like in a superhero comic?”
“I suppose that is one way to look at it.”
“Well,” Meg said, “it is usually the duty of the secret keepers to do little tasks that aid the superheroes from time to time.” At that, she called the waitress (a rather subservient girl in an elaborate maid’s costume) and ordered something from her. Meg turned back to Matty. “I ordered a pot of hot water for you.”
“Thank you.”
A moment later the waitress returned with a small, steaming pot. “Suppose I’ll let it cool a bit,” Matty said upon inspecting it. “There is, after all, an important distinction between ‘hot’ and ‘scalding.’ By the way, Meg,” Matty suddenly thought to ask. “How did you know it was me?”
Meg laughed. “I’ll admit getting yourself a smaller frame (although adding some impressive size to a few areas on that frame) and changing your hair color made for a good disguise, but how many gaijins do you suppose are running around Akihabara dressed exactly like that?”
Matty thought about that for a moment. “You know, it is kind of surprising how often people don’t notice that... Especially kind of strange when I’m running around in a Boy Scout uniform.”
Meg shrugged. “Just genera savvy, I suppose,” she added with a grin.
The two continued talking for a while as Matty waited for the water to be less painful for use. Matty talked about her plans for while she was in Japan, and how she looked forward to the English instructional position she was being given. She then listened to Meg talk about some of the anime series she liked, including some of the ones that hadn’t made it to the U.S. yet that Meg had discovered upon returning to Japan. After that, they then got to talking about science fiction. Matty was just about to begin a rant on why Greedo shooting first was the second worst thing to ever happen in the history of cinema when Meg interrupted. “The water?” she asked.
“Oh yeah.” She checked the temperature. If she’d left it much longer, she probably would have been in trouble. But fortunately, the pot had worked well to keep its contents warm. “Well, here goes nothing,” Matty said.
As she watched her lunchtime companion change before her eyes, Meg couldn’t help but to comment, “That is so cool.”
“Well, I suppose it has some advantages,” Matt replied, “but all things considered, it can be damn inconvenient on occasion.”
“They don’t call ‘em curses for nothing.”
“Indeed they don’t.”
Meg’s eyes narrowed slightly, and her lips curled upwards. “I could certainly think of some of those advantages, though,” she said slyly.
Matt looked at Meg quizzically. The vaguely devious grin on her lips as she made that statement betrayed nothing, yet somehow made him feel slightly embarrassed. Meg just shrugged and picked up the small piece of paper that had come with the pot of water. “I think this belongs to you,” she said, grinning.
Matthew paid for the meal and the two of them continued to talk as they made their way toward the train station. It turned out that they actually had the same train, although where as Matt just took the one train to his final destination, Meg would be getting off at the same stop but then taking another train from there.
As Matt paid for his ticket, Meg excused herself to use the restroom. She whistled a happy tune as she walked away, a song that after a moment Matt recognized as a tune from Project A-ko. He smiled.
Meg, meanwhile, walked into the women’s room, stopped whistling, waited for the door to close, looked to see that there was no one there, and then did something somewhat interesting...
She squeed. It was quite an epic squee. It filled the bathroom and echoed across its walls.
The sound of a flush came from one of the stalls. Startled, Meg silenced herself and felt her face warming as a blush spread across it. The stall opened, and out stepped a girl, a gaijin, with longish auburn hair.
“Um... Excuse me,” Meg quietly said as the gaijin went over to the sink and began washing her hands.
The gaijin nodded politely. “No reason to excuse yourself. You sure seem excited about something.”
“You bet!” Meg said. “I just met the most awesome guy!”
Now the gaijin smiled. “Oh?”
“Granted, I don’t know much about him yet... But he’s super nice! And he’s into anime, yet doesn’t seem like a total fanboy... I mean, granted, I did find him in a store buying some merch... but I can understand, he just got to Japan and needs to indulge himself a bit.”
The gaijin’s smile faded a bit, although Meg didn’t notice as she continued.
“And he’s got a cool thing, where he changes into... Oh, I shouldn’t talk about that.” Meg giggled. “But man, he looks good doing it. Love the red hair.”
“Oh,” the gaijin said, now looking a bit green around the edges. Meg’s obliviousness continued. “Well then... Good luck with that.” The gaijin exited the restroom, leaving Meg alone once more.
Meg’s squeeing resumed for a minute, before she finally composed herself. She decided she should probably play it cool for now. She splashed a bit of water from the sink onto her face, dried it off with a towel, and left to go find Matthew once more.
Kirstin Porter made her way towards her sister, Aaron, and Hughes. “Relax,” she overheard her sister saying, “it’ll be fun. Oh, there you are!” This last bit was directed towards Kirstin as Nicole noticed her approach. The train was also approaching. “Good timing!”
The train came to a stop beside them and the doors on the opposite side opened, swiftly spilling out the passengers within.
“Oh, hey,” Kirstin replied. She peered over Nicole’s shoulder, and saw the woman she had encountered in the bathroom waiting to get into one of the cars up ahead. Her suspicions were confirmed when she saw the black clad figure waiting next to the woman. “So, um,” she absentmindedly muttered, “what’ll be fun?”
“Just figured out where dinner’s going to be,” Nicole replied. “Um... you okay there, sis?”
“Huh?” Kirstin focused on Nicole. “Yeah.”
The others looked at her a moment. The train doors opened. Nicole shrugged, turned, and got on the train.
Aaron and Hughes were about to follow when they both felt a tug on their sleeves. They turned to Kirstin who had a sleeve clutched in each hand. “We’ve got to talk,” she said.
Aaron looked concerned. “What is it?”
Kirstin wasn’t quite sure herself. She honestly didn’t know what had just occurred, and normally would hate to be thought of as a gossip… but something odd had just occurred and she had to try and express it to someone. “I encountered a woman in the bathroom, talking about an amazing guy she’d just met, and some of the things she said sounded strangely like they could apply to someone we know… And I just saw… I just saw…”
“What was it?” Aaron prodded, trying with some small success to sound patient.
Kirstin swallowed. “I just saw her getting on the train with Matt!”
“Matt?” Hughes asked. “Our Matt? With a girl?” He blinked. “You sure?”
Kirstin lowered her voice. “I think it was the girl Nicole saw him with earlier. Remember?”
“That wasn’t Matt,” Aaron insisted.
“I suppose…” Kirstin trailed off for a moment. “I guess I didn’t see Matt clearly.
Nicole stepped out to where they were standing. “Hey, you guys getting on?”
The door closed behind Nicole.
Nicole turned to look at the train.
The train started moving away.
Nicole sighed. “Oh, crud.”
Matt, laden with his colorful bags from his shopping excursion, departed the train and headed for the exit of the Clock Hill station. Meg followed, having a few minutes before her second train arrived. Once outside, Matt turned to her.
“So, uh, Meg.”
Meg looked at Matt expectantly.
“Thanks a lot for today. You were a big help.”
Meg smiled. “Sure thing.” She turned back towards the station, needing to get to her platform. She waved an arm as she walked away. “See you around, Matthew Atanian!”
Matt returned the gesture, even though her back was turned towards him.
“See you around,” Matt thought. I somehow doubt I’ll be seeing her again. Pity, she was kind of cute… He shrugged, dismissed any further thought, and began his trek up the long hill.
Meg turned, hoping she’d waited long enough for Matthew to begin walking away. Sure enough, his back was to her, and he was walking away. She sighed with relief at this, she didn’t want to seem too eager.
But man, she couldn’t wait for school! The upcoming semester was going to be interesting.
He hadn’t gotten far along his journey when Matt was alarmed to encounter a familiar figure. Mr. Yotsuya tipped his fedora to Matt as he approached from the opposite direction. “Ah, young Mr. Atanian. Returning from your excursion?”
Matthew nodded. “Indeed I am. And did you, yourself, have a productive day?”
“Most productive indeed,” Yousuya exclaimed. “Although I shall not even entertain the thought of boring you with the details.”
Matt couldn’t help but wonder what his mysterious neighbor did for a living. “I assure you, I’d find such details of intense interest,” he said, suspecting any response might be cryptic at best.
He was not disappointed. “Ah, but that would be telling, would it not?” Yotsuya merely said. “Come, sir,” he then added. “Join me for a drink!” Yotsuya indicated the establishment they were standing outside of, a bar that was a short distance from the train station and at the base of the long hill. The sign outside said, “Cha Cha Maru.”
“Oh no, I couldn’t. I’m… well, I suppose I am old enough to drink now,” Matt said, recalling having turned 21 a few months back. (Although, while Matt wasn’t aware of it, such a thing wouldn’t have been a problem, anyway, with the legal drinking age in Japan being 20.) “Still, I must admit I don’t drink.”
Yotsuya opened the door and motioned for Matt to enter. “Ah, yes. I recall you only partook of juice at our welcoming party,” Yotsuya commented. “Most disappointing.”
“Well, it is only because I don’t personally care for the taste of alcohol. It isn’t that I have a moral objection to such things, you understand,” Matt explained as he walked through the door Yotsuya was holding open for him. “As long as they are not done to excess,” he then felt compelled to add when he saw what sight greeted him inside.
Mrs. Ichinose was there, and clearly had gotten herself a good head start. Seated next to her was an unfamiliar red haired woman with a tired, worn-out look – the kind of look that implied she had once been something to look at but she had lived her life hard, perhaps enjoying it a little too much. Mrs. Ichinose spotted them and shouted something Matt couldn’t understand, but which seemed to be an invitation to come join her. As Yotsuya, who had come in behind Matt, then proceeded to do just that, Matt surmised that his assumption had been correct and also joined the gathering.
“So, young Mr. Atanian, what can we get you?” Yotsuya asked. “Beer? Sake? Shochu? I do believe that Master has recently gotten in a shipment of Awamori from Okinawa that I have been quite looking forward to trying.”
“I really would be most happy with something else,” Matt insisted. “Some tea, perhaps?”
Yotsuya made a great show of disappointment, but then relayed some instructions to the red haired woman who was sharing their table. She then got up, moved over to the bar, and began preparing the drinks. Presumably, this woman worked at the establishment.
A small tea pot was placed in front of Matt. He poured some of the contents into a provided cup and took a large sip… which he then immediately spit out, barely missing showering anyone else at the table.
“That is not,” Matt slowly said, “tea.”
Both Ichinose and the red haired woman began to laugh loudly. “Oh, I must apologize,” Mr. Yotsuya said. “I must have misspoke when I placed your order.”
Without having been given further instruction, the red head went and got a new pot of tea, still laughing all the while. The new pot arrived rather quickly, surely more quick then would have been possible had the sequence of events not been pre-planned and the real tea not been prepared along with the “mistake.”
Matt shrugged. He sipped his tea. He supposed these weren’t bad people. Still, it came as a relief when about fifteen minutes later, much to his surprise, Aaron, Hughes, and the Porter twins walked in through the door.
“Hi, Matt!”
“Hey, guys.”
After a brief discussion, a few tables were pushed together and the now larger party was all seated together. Matt took note that the combined seating included some extra, yet unoccupied chairs, and presumed that they would shortly be having more people joining them. His suspicions were confirmed when, as they all were discussing food options, the door opened once more to admit Mike, Bill Gelinas, and Sarah Porter.
“Are the Godais not coming?” Yotsuya inquired.
Sarah responded, “Kyoko-san had already done her shopping for dinner tonight, and was preparing dinner. She said she and her husband may come down later, however, if we’ve yet to return home.”
Yotsuya translated this for Mrs. Ichinose and the other woman, who both hollered with delight at this news.
Meanwhile, everyone placed their food orders. The Cha Cha Maru did not have the greatest selection, being primarily a bar and snack establishment, but there were enough options to satisfy everyone – including the perpetually picky Matt.
Dinner conversation was plentiful. As he was finishing his plate, Mike was regaling his friends with detail on his many crushing defeats of Gelinas earlier that day.
“Shut up, Mike!” Gelinas tried to say, reminding the hat-clad youth that he had in fact won the final game.
“Out of how many?” Mike retorted.
Bill shut up.
“Oh, hey,” Kirstin said. “We saw the school we’ll be going to.”
“What was it called again?” Mike asked.
“Furinkan High,” Hughes replied.
“Why does that name sound familiar?” Gelinas wondered aloud.
“We only saw the school from the outside, but the facilities looked quite nice,” Kirstin continued.
“Did you get the things you needed to pick up?” Sarah asked Nicole.
Nicole nodded. “I even haggled the price down a little bit,” she said, “and helped the boys not get swindled too much on the things they wanted to buy.”
“That reminds me,” Gelinas asked. “Matt, how did you go and buy a bunch of stuff without knowing the local language?”
“Hmm? Oh,” Matt said. “I’ll admit my plan did have that fatal flaw. I guess I was about to resort to putting a bunch of money on the counter and hoping for the best, but I met someone who gave me a hand.”
“Should have just come along with us,” Aaron said.
“Nah,” Hughes said. “He had to have his ‘personal experience.’”
“This good Samaritan,” Nicole asked. “Female? Great figure? Pretty face? Long, bluish-green hair?”
It seemed like an evening for Matt to be spitting out beverages, as he had been sipping his tea as Nicole made her inquiry.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” Nicole said.
Kirstin, Aaron, and Hughes remained rather silent. Mike, however, couldn’t help but say, “That’s some fast work, Matt.”
Matt could swear he could feel twin daggers of ice stabbing him, and he glanced in Sarah’s direction. Her eyes were upon him and her expression was unnaturally neutral.
“Just someone who offered to help me out,” Matt said, turning back to Mike. “Nothing more. Not like I set up a date with her or anything. Probably I’ll never see her again. So, um, looking forward to school, then?”
The boys and the Porter twins all indicated that they were.
“What about you, Matt?” Mike asked.
“Well, I never pictured myself being a teacher, but I’ve been trying to plan what I’ll do. I hope it goes over well with the class.”
“You were pretty good with that session you had at the Junior Leader Training course,” Aaron encouraged.
“And that Collections merit badge class you had was fun,” Mike reminded him.
“Yeah, I still think I might have gone a little too easy on you with that,” Matt said. “Remember when you had to separate your collections into categories?”
“Magazine covers where Gillian Anderson is photographed dry and magazine covers where Gillian Anderson is photographed wet are valid categories,” Mike insisted.
“You’re going to be at a different school, though, right?” Hughes asked.
Matt nodded.
“Isn’t it an all girls’ school?” Gelinas asked.
The dagger feeling returned. Matt took a sip of his tea. “Shut up, Bill,” he then said.
The door opened, providing a convenient distraction in the conversation. In walked the Godais, Kyoko and Yusaku.
“Ah, excellent!” Yotsuya said, motioning them over. “Now everyone is here! Let the second night of welcoming celebrations commence!”
This had Sarah worried a bit. “We should probably make it an early night tonight,” She said. “We are still adjusting to the time difference, and we all have early days tomorrow.”
Yotsuya seemed to pay this no heed as he called the master of the establishment over to bring more drinks.
“There’s no stopping them once they get started,” Yusaku confided. “But no worries, when you need to leave, we’ll cover your escape.”
“Are they always like this?” Matt asked.
Kyoko smiled. “It seems we’ve just become accustom to it, but I suppose it is shocking to newcomers.”
Yusaku, too, smiled in some sort of shared memory with his wife. “Welcome,” he said once more, “to Maison Ikkoku.”
Author's Notes & Disclaimers
Hello! Been a while! Let’s see here… The last story went online in 2011, and that was by another author. My own last story went online in 2009. So… um, yeah. Four years. So… How’ve you been doing?
So yeah… Sorry about that! I really should have gotten to this sooner. Various things derailed me, including (but not limited to) the disappearance of the Boy Scouts ½ website and the time it took to restore it. I finally finished that a four days ago, and thus paved the way to resume writing!
This particular story has actually been sitting about two-thirds finished on my hard drive for quite some time. It was in the last few days, however, that I finally finished it. Thus concludes the initial storyline in Boy Scouts ½ in Japan. Five stories over seven years!
At the risk of repeating things I’ve said in past author’s notes, hopefully I can pick up the pace a little bit.
But yeah! New website, and now new story! I’m feeling good about things.
Time for the usual disclaimers: This story is not condoned by or meant to reflect the values of the Boy Scouts of America. Some characters and situations are drawn from the works of Takahashi Rumiko, specifically from Ranma ½ and Maison Ikkoku. Finally, although it is intended to be more of a referencing homage rather than a direct lift (in order to maintain that the aforementioned Takahashi series are the only works of anime or manga that are real in the BS½ Universe) I should mention that the store Grand Prix and the employee Fukuhara are references to a program called Otaku no Video.
The story concerning the Collections merit badge? Yes, in real life, Mike did use a collection of magazines with Gillian Anderson on the cover. (The "dry" category should be self explanatory, and the "wet" category referred to photographs where she had appeared to have been doused with water before the photo was taken. Apparently, the latter was common enough to warrant categorization.)
So, that should wrap things up for everyone’s introduction to their new home in Japan. There might be a bit of a wait for the next story, as it will have to be started from the beginning instead of being sitting two-thirds done as I mentioned this one was. (The wait may be alleviated a bit for those who read the spin-offs, as I do have some other previously unpublished writings from Jason Bertovich that I can work on presenting to you.) The next story will be a slight detour, but then in part 7 we’ll see what happens when everyone begins their various schooling or employment… and when the boys need to begin preparing for the peril they will inevitably face!
So yeah… Sorry about that! I really should have gotten to this sooner. Various things derailed me, including (but not limited to) the disappearance of the Boy Scouts ½ website and the time it took to restore it. I finally finished that a four days ago, and thus paved the way to resume writing!
This particular story has actually been sitting about two-thirds finished on my hard drive for quite some time. It was in the last few days, however, that I finally finished it. Thus concludes the initial storyline in Boy Scouts ½ in Japan. Five stories over seven years!
At the risk of repeating things I’ve said in past author’s notes, hopefully I can pick up the pace a little bit.
But yeah! New website, and now new story! I’m feeling good about things.
Time for the usual disclaimers: This story is not condoned by or meant to reflect the values of the Boy Scouts of America. Some characters and situations are drawn from the works of Takahashi Rumiko, specifically from Ranma ½ and Maison Ikkoku. Finally, although it is intended to be more of a referencing homage rather than a direct lift (in order to maintain that the aforementioned Takahashi series are the only works of anime or manga that are real in the BS½ Universe) I should mention that the store Grand Prix and the employee Fukuhara are references to a program called Otaku no Video.
The story concerning the Collections merit badge? Yes, in real life, Mike did use a collection of magazines with Gillian Anderson on the cover. (The "dry" category should be self explanatory, and the "wet" category referred to photographs where she had appeared to have been doused with water before the photo was taken. Apparently, the latter was common enough to warrant categorization.)
So, that should wrap things up for everyone’s introduction to their new home in Japan. There might be a bit of a wait for the next story, as it will have to be started from the beginning instead of being sitting two-thirds done as I mentioned this one was. (The wait may be alleviated a bit for those who read the spin-offs, as I do have some other previously unpublished writings from Jason Bertovich that I can work on presenting to you.) The next story will be a slight detour, but then in part 7 we’ll see what happens when everyone begins their various schooling or employment… and when the boys need to begin preparing for the peril they will inevitably face!