The glass doors of the budget hotel slid open to let in the pre-dawn winter, which danced past him in the form of a few stray snowflakes. Sniffling slightly, Leroy wound his scarf closer and stepped out into the early morning chill.
“You don’t have to queue overnight, but you will want to be there as early as you can. Especially if you want the limited edition goods. I heard that MaruDora is doing something special this year. The first 119 persons who buy their special ‘Ichi-Ichi-Kyuu no Fuyu Yuuutsu Buster’ pack will get a random lucky dip gift. No idea what the full contents are, but they have confirmed every pack contains a new Megu-tan dakimakura cover and a special holographic poster of Mitsuki.”
Silently blessing Reuben for his advice, he squeezed the foam MaruDora mascot attached to his phone and continued walking towards the convention hall. The queues for Comiket [1] were legendary, so Leroy booked a hotel nearby in advance, for he knew he would be pretty far down the line if he stayed far from the hall.
With little trouble, Leroy soon found himself under the four inverted pyramids that marked the end of every otaku’s pilgrimage. Even though it was barely 4am, there was already a couple-of-thousands-strong line snaking up to the main entrance of the convention hall. Leroy pulled out his DeemaGear portable gaming headset, a lightweight collapsible lounge chair and an aluminium-lined blanket, and settled down for a seven-hour-long wait.
-----
The sun rose, the queue lengthened and the noise level grew. Eventually, a hand politely tapped Leroy’s shoulder with a cheerful “Ohayou gozaimasu!”
The system clock on the bottom right his gaming headset display read 08:03AM. Leroy pulled off the headset to see a smiling mahou shounen [2] cosplayer wearing a gigantic hat, holding on to a stack of printed exhibition guides. Leroy returned the greeting, and paid for a copy to keep as a souvenir, even though he already had a digital copy. He pulled out a shortlist of exhibitors whom he intended to visit and began revising his route for the day within the two exhibition halls [3].
MaruDora had a huge booth on the left side of the West Hall, to prevent the sheer number of their fans from blocking other booths. As their booth was Leroy’s absolute first stop, his route was relatively simple. All he had to do was make a rough zig-zag through the West Hall for the smaller commercial booths, snake through the East Hall for the doujin circles [4], then arrive at the north wall of the East Hall at 1pm for Milky Road’s release of their new illustration book.
Stashing away his DeemaGear and the event guide, Leroy got up for a much-needed stretch. The matcha tea was still warm in his thermos, and he had a giant egg roll and a small stack of dorayakis [5]. He began to people watch as he chowed down on his breakfast.
Leroy did not know a lot of Japanese, just enough to read the signs, order food and get a general gist of what people were talking about. According to the teenage boys just in front of him, they were further ahead in the queue than they expected. He was also amused to hear that they found his mixed-blood gaijin [6] features appealing – they were apparently all “herbivorous” and bisexual. Which somewhat explained [7] why they were all wearing moving neural-controlled neko ears in various designs. Huddled up in thick fleece blankets on a rubber mat, they made an oddly adorable sight.
The mixed group behind him was a small guild of university-going gamers. Compared to the rest of the crowd, which was made up of mostly manga and anime fans, gamers made up a far smaller proportion. However, their numbers have been steadily increasing at Comiket, as visual novel games and MMORPGs have become increasingly popular, and the doujin circles have been producing more goods and art for them.
Having graduated with a Masters’ degree and worked for a couple of years as an environmental researcher, Leroy felt significantly older than the youths around him, even if he was a technically a young adult too. So he cast attentions a little further.
Diagonally in front of him to the left, and ahead of him on the other side of the bend, was a pair of ladies in their mid-twenties, who were sipping on what appeared to be warm miso soup. Two pairs of high heels rested next to their mat – they must have joined the queue from their workplaces.
Further left, two bends away, and looking a little worse for wear, was a slender man in his mid-thirties who was essentially the otaku archetype. Plaid shirt? Check. Fanny pack? Check. Massive functional backpack? Of course.
In contrast with this otaku was another young man who looked of an age with Leroy. Based on his dress sense and what looked like a pair of custom-molded in-ear earpieces from a serious audiophile brand, Leroy judged him to be a creative type, perhaps a journalist of sorts.
Done with his food and slightly warmed up, Leroy packed away his rubbish and stowed away his blanket, and settled back into his chair to wait out the last hour or so till the convention began.
-----
Half an hour before 10am, Leroy was packed and ready, for everyone had tidied up and gotten up to their feet. Thus, the crowd gradually condensed itself closer to the entrance. By the time someone announced the official opening of the 119th Comiket at 10am, Leroy had already halved the distance.
The thousands ahead of Leroy must have dashed into the halls, for Leroy was through the main entrance merely 20 minutes after the doors opened. Hot on the heels of the cat-eared teenage boys, he made a run for the West Hall. The boys eventually split up in multiple directions ahead of him, and Leroy picked up his running speed as soon as a path opened up in front of him.
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Catching his breath, Leroy joined the 30-man-long queue at MaruDora and prayed as he drew closer to the counter. He read the display boards and had to suppress a whoot of joy. Not only did the ‘Ichi-Ichi-Kyuu no Fuyu Yuuutsu Buster’ pack contain the said dakimakura covers and holographic posters, they also contained MaruDora’s new illustration compendium, a pencil board of his beloved Megu-tan, a new T-shirt and a limited edition MaruDora figurine! Now, he HAD TO grab an extra for Reuben, for he’d be so sick with envy otherwise.
When it was his turn, he handed over 25,000 yen in exchange for 2 of the special packs, and a copy of every doujin the group had on sale. To Leroy’s delight, while one of the team members went and got his items together, Maru, one of the two co-founders of the group no less, offered Leroy the lucky dip box. Because he bought 2 of the special packs, Leroy could pick twice. The first gift was an aluminium coaster featuring a chibi Megu-tan, which was pretty squee-worthy, but it was his second pick that caused some excitement amongst those behind him in the queue and Maru.
Clapping his hands and causing his twintails to bounce, Maru pulled a small plastic card from his apron and handed it over to Leroy. He excitedly said “Lucky! ‘Kore wa saigou no piisu’ wa nan to iimasu ka…? AH! Rasu wan! This is last one! Sore o taisetsu ni shite kudasai! Please take care!”
Not exactly getting the reason for the excitement, Leroy popped his freebies into the bags with the rest of the purchases and ran off to the other booths, making a mental note to go through the contents after clearing all his stops at Comiket.
-----
Five exhausting hours later, with Milky Road’s new illustration book safely tucked into his backpack, Leroy collapsed into a chair at a café in the central atrium. He slurped soullessly at a chocolate-banana smoothie, over-priced of course, and waited for his strength to return. ((I am DEFINITELY too old for this.))
Ten minutes was all it took for Leroy regain his vitality and begin rooting through his spoils of war. He hugged himself inwardly, as his fingers took stock of the new illustration books and limited edition merchandise. He was soon looking through the bags from MaruDora, when he remembered Maru’s excitement. He rummaged a little and located the plastic card.
Finally having the time to examine the card in closer detail, he was taken aback by the sheer quality of the card’s make. For starters, the card comprised of a layer of illustrated film sandwiched between two layers of stiff and matte plastic. Secondly, the illustration was a different rendering of MaruDora – that plump little dragon with dorayaki wings appeared to be made of lines of light. The top layer of plastic was printed with a logo that read “MaruDora x Bahram Online”, along with a square of scratch-away paint, ostensibly obscuring a QR code beneath it. What took the cake was this: On the bottom was a line of text that said “Log in to Bahram Online and scan this QR code for your limited edition Light MaruDora familiar skin.”
((Bahram Online…? Where have I seen this…? …Oh. OH. MY. GOD. It can’t be.)) Leroy hastily packed everything up with trembling hands, and made a dash for a large booth on the other side of the central atrium.
“Bahram Online. Where reality is in the eye of the beholder,” read the booth’s main banner. “MaruDora x Bahram Online” proclaimed a display rack of cards containing codes to in-game costumes, weapons and other nice extras.
Leroy took a deep breath, and threw all logic to the wind. He then proceeded to buy one of every single MaruDora’s collaboration items with Bahram Online, along with the new augmented reality contact lenses that he required to play the game.
BAHRAM ONLINELOADING… 0%Q: What do you call a Scottish herding dog with no money?
Author’s Notes: Hi, thank you for taking the time to read the first chapter of Dextera to Bahram. You will notice that this is my very first post on RoyalRoad, for I’m horrendous at self-intros. So do feel free to say your hellos/welcomes along with the comments for my fic. Oh, and please do follow my fic if you like what you’ve read so far, especially if you have a thing for terrible jokes. You’ll see why. (The answer to the little riddle will be revealed when I post the next chapter, so feel free to have a guess in the meantime.)
[1] Comiket – the largest manga, anime and games event in Japan. Held twice a year, the fair brings together both commercial producers and smaller doujin circles (see 4), where fans can purchase art, merchandise, software, etc. that are not usually available via mainstream outlets.
[2] mahou shounen – magical boy; basically, the newer genderbent counterpart of the magical girls. (Think a male version of Madoka, or Cardcaptor Sakura.)
[3] Because Comiket is so well-attended, the event requires two massive convention halls, East and West. They are so big, you’d require an hour to get from one end of the East hall to the furthest end of the West hall.
[4] doujin circles – amateur to professional groups that produce spin-off art, mangas, merchandise, music, software, etc.
[5] dorayaki – a sweet pancake-like confectionery, stuffed with traditional Japanese fillings, usually sweet red bean paste.
[6] gaijin – foreigner
[7] the word “neko” means cat in Japanese; in local parlance, it can also mean the receptive partner in a male homosexual relationship.