Well. At least Steph and Kelly aren’t stuck in here with me, Brian thought, hiding a bleak expression beneath his Darkmask helmet. He was jostling his way through narrow gaps between clusters of people in the overcrowded gaming room, looking for his friend Mark. This is what I imagine Hell must be like.
The Mana: the Mastery regional tournament took up two entire convention center conference rooms, a partition wall that would have normally divided them having been dismantled to make room for the event. While at the one far end of the rectangular expanse there were registration kiosks and some satellite vendors’ booths hawking Mana cards and franchise-branded commodities, the rest of the room was filled lengthwise by the stretches of nine long rows of folding tables.
Every seat at those tables had long since been filled. Twenty minutes before the event was to kick off, the aisles between the tables were completely congested as well, hundreds of Mana geeks, each seemingly caught up in the nearest card game, conversation, or argument. Everyone was packed in tight, even claustrophobically close, the room was uncomfortably warm, and it stank.
The smell of sweat was predominant, acrid and somehow sour, but interspersed throughout was a bevy of different body-spray fragrances, individually failing to combat the overall funk on their own, but serving, at least, as a heady distraction. It brought to Brian’s mind the old joke, that weebs used those body-sprays as a ‘shower in a can’—that is, in lieu of actually bathing at all. Every year he worried that there might be a disturbing amount of truth to that.
The card players and fans throughout the tournament area were overwhelmingly male, while a tiny fraction of females drew the attention of everyone around them like beacons. Some of the attendees were scrawny kids still fighting their way through pubescence, others were haggard looking college students with stubbled faces. There were hipster geeks dressed in stylish, self-aware fashion, as well as unkempt shut-ins struggling to adapt in the overpopulated environment.
In a single glance, Brian saw unkempt dudes casually wearing fandom hoodies, a fedora-wearing guy in a suit with a nerdy neck-tie, and excitedly bantering teens decked out in vintage eighties shades, a collection of geeky buttons visible on the straps of their backpacks. Besides himself, Brian only spotted only one other cosplayer amid the bustling gathering—a black guy dressed as one of the Killer-Corps soldiers from Shinobi Souls standing several aisles over. Of course, everywhere there were Mana: the Mastery cards. Slotted into binders or slipped into individual plastic protector sleeves, shuffled through hands and spread across the tables. There were even a few strays underfoot.
After parting ways with Stephanie and Kelly, Brian had immediately began searching, straining his eyes for the familiar face of his friend. He was starting to worry. If he couldn’t find Mark in this next twenty minutes, he’d be flushed out with the rest of the non-participants when the tournament actually began.
Mana: the Mastery players aren’t the worst bunch of geeks, Brian told himself, pushing and shoving as politely as possible to move along the outer pathway at the edge of the room. But man, are some of them really, really bad.
All it took was the poor hygiene or nervous sweating of a few people to foul the whole room for everyone, but beyond that, there were also obvious instances of socially awkward guys who talked more and more loudly the more excited they became, as well as those who got too flustered to properly speak when they were arguing over even petty, inconsequential details. Brian had never been at ease with the Mana crowd—they’d mostly always seemed wound too tight, too competitive and caught up in themselves for his tastes. He was the laid-back sort of geek at heart, and always would be.
C’mon, there’s hardly even any Asians in here… he grumbled as he methodically scanned through the aisles in passing. Hey, wait. Isn’t that…?
There was a Chinese face he spotted—but it wasn’t Mark. It was a cute, dark-eyed girl in her late teens standing some distance away. She wore a button-up light-blue sleeveless blouse, had her long black hair pulled into a bun atop her head, and had her arms crossed in obvious irritation.
Isn’t that Mark’s… little sister? He leaned and craned over to see over the people sitting near her, and sure enough, he spotted a familiar dragon egg hat, that goofy beanie sewn to resemble an egg with cracks in it that Mark always wore at conventions. I’d forgotten all about his dumb hat.
It was a good deal harder to actually get over to where Mark and his sister were, he had to exhale deeply and compress his chest to squeeze sideways through a press of people, and then nudge and push his way through the knots of geeks one group at a time. Mark’s sister noticed him first, turning her frown toward him and staring wordlessly as he approached.
Ah, right, the helmet. Lifting off the stylized skull helm, he stepped closer only to realize, to his amusement... that she still didn’t recognize him in the slightest. Ah, well. It has been a few years, I guess?
“Mark, hey!” Brian waved, raising his voice over the dozens upon dozens of different discussions in the tournament area. He glanced up to see Mark’s sister still staring at him, her expression unchanged. “Hey, Mary.”
“Who the fuck are you,” Mary spat, scowling.
Wow, just like old times.
“Brian!” Mark yelled, slapping his hands on the table and rising up out of his seat. “About damn time! Jesus, man, where’ve you been? Good to fuckin’ see you!”
“Uh, yeah, you too, man,” Brian agreed, leaning in so he didn’t have to shout. “What’s the big emergency?”
“This bitch, as always!” Mark swore, jerking his thumb towards his sister. “Parents made me take her with me to the con, because—well, fuck if I even really know, that’s why. She won’t stop her bitching, and she won’t go fuck off on her own, and she can’t stay here with me, ‘cause the first division matches are starting like, any minute now!
“Can you and Chloe take her out and around the con or something for me? Oh, fuck. Man, hope you didn’t bring Chloe in here with you.” Mark gestured around to encompass the noise and business of the closely-packed confines within the tournament room.
“No, uh, I didn’t,” Brian admitted. “‘Cause she dumped me. Like, last week. Moved out and everything.”
“No shit!” Mark exclaimed, leaning over and clapping Brian heartily on the shoulder. “Congratulations, man! Fuckin’ finally!”
“Attention everyone, uh, can I have your attention please—” A man’s dreary voice, sounding strained as it reverberated through the sound system, “—preliminaries are beginning in fifteen minutes, that’s fifteen minutes until matches begin, and we’ll need everyone who hasn’t registered for the tournament to make your way out through the exits at this time. Again, if you have not registered—”
“See? I told you,” Mark tried to jab his sister, but she elbowed his hand down while her arms remained crossed in front of her.
“They don’t let you stay in here during the tournament if you’re not playing, idiot, like I fuckin’ said,” Mark yelled. “Brian made it here just in time, go with him out and around the rest of the con and leave me be.”
“I’m not going anywhere with him,” Mary refused, indignant. “Why does he even know my name? Have you been telling your stupid little friends about me?”
“Uh, actually, we’ve met before,” Brian pointed out with a weak smile. “Like, a dozen or so times. I went to High school with Mark? We live in the same city. My apartment’s even, like, a six-minute drive from your house.”
“I don’t remember you,” Mary insisted, not budging an inch.
“Yeah, you didn’t last time, either,” Brian shrugged, looking back to Mark in exasperation.
“Mary. Go. With. Brian.” Mark demanded impatiently. “He’s single again now, so that means he’ll have loads of cash to spare. He’s gonna buy your lunch and pay for your souvenirs and shit.”
“Oh, I will, will I?” Brian arched an eyebrow and letting his lopsided grin surface.
“I am hungry,” Mary admitted bluntly, before making a face of disgust as she wavered over whether or not she would really go. “Do you have to be dressed like a fuckin’ weirdo, though? I don’t want to be seen walking around with you you.”
“Brian, I’m beggin’ you, here,” Mark pleaded. “It’s just gonna be like, I dunno, two hours, tops, while I win this championship. You’re single now, right? Well, look how cute she is! She wasn’t even legal last time you saw her, was she? Now she’s nineteen! You can check her out, flirt and whatever with her as much as you want. Just get her out of here.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Mary growled.
“Ugh, Mark...” Brian sighed. “She can follow me around, but I’m with other people, so it’s not like I can watch her every second.”
“That’s fine, that’s perfect! Thanks, man. I’ll owe you one.”
Well, this is gonna be awkward. Brian ultimately deciding to don his costume helmet again. It felt a little impolite, but Mary’s arms remained crossed, and her frosty, unreadable expression indicated she had no intention to warm up to him. Leaving the helm on would give her the space she probably needed. The skinny Chinese teenage girl did finally follow him out, however, trudging some distance behind him as the crowds made their way through the aisle between tables and out into the hall.
It won’t be THAT bad, though. After all, I’m used to having Chloe around, Brian consoled himself as he stepped off over to the side, just outside the hall, waiting for her to catch up to him.
“...If you try anything funny, I’m going to scream,” Mary warned, and she stopped several paces away from him.
If I try anything funny? For a long moment Brian stood still and regarded her, and then he slowly leaned in towards her in a provoking manner… and daringly slapped the side of his own skull helm, spinning the helmet around his head in a comical fashion. It continued to revolve for another few seconds, and when it finally slowed to a stop, he slapped at it again so that continued to spin, now in the other direction.
The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.
“...That wasn’t funny,” Mary decided as Brian finally righted his Darkmask helm.
“Well, I thought it was hilarious,” a voice to their side remarked, catching both of them by surprise. A guy in his mid-twenties wearing a knee-length black leather trenchcoat was leaning against the nearby wall.
While trenchcoats weren’t uncommon among the geeks attending AnimeCon, most of them weren’t particularly flattering. With a scrawny physique and oversized coat, you looked like an edgy kid or a wannabe-tough-guy—even with an average build, the first impression a black trenchcoat usually made was ‘hey, is that guy shoplifting?’ This was, however, the rare guy who managed to naturally pull off the look, appearing casual and comfortable rather than out-of-place.
He was handsome, and in a relatively clean-cut way, but there was so much charming confidence in his smile that he went full-circle to seeming shady again—almost as if a drug dealer had finally realized that selling cards to Mana: the Mastery junkies outside the tournament hall was easier and more profitable than peddling heroin. “You guys just came out of the Mana: the Mastery rooms—I guess you have some interest in the game?”
Oh, no. He really IS hustling cards, isn’t he?
“Ew, no,” Mary answered, while Brian simply shrugged and shook his head.
“Hmm, you probably wouldn’t have heard of me, then,” the guy said. “I go by the name... ‘Foxy.’”
“Foxy of fucking Loxly?” Mary guessed, looking at the guy without a trace of emotion on her face.
Mary recognizes him? When she refuses to remember me even after all these years? Brian blinked in surprise. He wasn’t particularly feeling inclined to speak up, though—his full-body cosplay rendered him comfortably anonymous, and he was already trying to peer through the bunches of passerby in each direction of the hall for any glimpse of Stephanie or Kelly. Guess I’m gonna have to text them, after all. Wonder where they decided to go?
“Ah, so you have heard of me,” Foxy grinned. “Yeah, that’s me—I’m Foxy of Loxly.”
“Foxy of fucking Loxly,” Mary corrected. “Everyone was very specific about the way they phrased it. Foxy of fucking Loxly.”
“Hah, figures,” Foxy’s grin transformed into a derisive smirk. “What’d they say about me?”
“Didn’t care,” Mary answered in a deadpan manner. “Everyone mentioned you, though… something to do with cards, I guess?”
“Yeah, you could say that,” Foxy chuckled. “Well. Didn’t really mean to intrude all the sudden here like this, but… are you alright? You just told Joe Skellington here that if he tried anything, you were gonna scream—I was about to step in.”
“I guess I’m alright,” Mary admitted with reluctance, glancing warily from Foxy to Brian and back again. “He’s okay. He promised to buy me lunch and pay for things.”
“...Those both sound suspiciously like things I never said,” Brian pointed out, finally entering into the conversation. “I offered to help out your brother, but what exactly that entailed… well, that was a little fuzzy. I can walk you to wherever you want to go, though, if that’ll make you feel safe. Somehow, I doubt you actually want to spend the day going around the con with me and my friends.”
“Her… brother?” Foxy turned to regard Mary more closely. “And as you’re of the Asian persuasion, that’d mean your brother is... Mark? Mark Ouyang? Plays graveyard control decks?”
“I guess? He plays Mana: the Mastery,” Mary retorted dismissively. “That card game. Like all the other losers in that armpit of a room back there.”
“Oh, they certainly are losers,” Foxy agreed, his eyes tightening for a moment, while that careless friendly smile he wore remained unchanged. “But, seeing as you’re Mark’s li’l sister, and you happen to be pretty cute, how bout I buy you lunch, instead of this clown?”
“Er… Mary’s not real trusting around strangers,” Brian tried, as diplomatically as possible. “So, don’t take it personally, but—”
“I trust whoever’s buying food and paying for everything,” Mary cut him off with a frown. “And, would you take off that stupid costume?”
“Great! Anything in particular you’re hungry for?” Foxy asked cheerfully. “My treat; sky’s the limit.”
Not great. Yeah, sorry Mark. Soon as I led your sister out of the room, some random guy in a trenchcoat offered to take her off my hands—who could say no to that? With a sigh, Brian removed his helmet, and Foxy seemed to size him up differently at seeing his face, as though he’d expected the guy beneath the Darkmask costume to be much dorkier-looking.
“There’s a little cafe inside the convention center just a few halls down, or there’s the concession stands they have set up in the main lobby,” Brian proposed. “We can all go, I’ll just text my friends and ask them to meet us there.”
“Cafe, not concession stands,” Mary decided.
“I’m down,” Foxy added, “but just so you know—I offered to pay for Mary here, not you. I’m not in the habit of giving handouts to every random dude.”
YOU’RE the random dude, Brian thought in vexation, wishing he’d left his helmet on so he wouldn’t have to disguise his annoyance. “Mary, you’re okay with this guy coming along?”
“He’s Foxy of fucking Loxly,” Mary smiled. “Mark’ll flip his shit for sure once he finds out I’ve been hanging with him. Serves him right.”
“Er… sorry, she’s not real subtle yet,” Brian rubbed the back of his head awkwardly, “but scientists say that when she’s matured a bit more, she’ll be able to pick up on normal behavior and blend in with humans better.”
“That wasn’t funny, either,” Mary scowled. “You’re not funny.”
“Well, he tried,” Foxy shrugged. “Honestly, seems like he doesn’t want to be around you anyways—he can go run off with his friends, if he wants. I know how to treat a lady to a good time.” He was wearing a grin of challenge, now.
“Uh-huh. But just in case, I better tag along anyways,” Brian rebuked, removing a glove so that he could send a text to Stephanie. “You know, just in case you turn out to be one of those scummy Mana: the Mastery players that Mary hates so much.”
“I’m nothing like those guys,” Foxy laughed, shaking his head. “They’re all sitting in a big sweat-box of a room flipping cards at each other, while I’m off on a charming date with this lovely little thing. Oh, and uh, you’re here too for some reason… I guess?”
Yeah… great.
The trek towards the little cafe turned out to be an agonizing one, with Foxy openly flirting with Mary, and occasionally sending thinly veiled barbs Brian’s way. The cute Chinese girl had remained stoic at first, but it seemed like she was becoming more and more responsive with each of Foxy’s subtle stabs at Brian—after all, she despised her brother’s friends.
“I guess it’s a shame your boyfriend couldn’t be guiding you around today,” Foxy casually probed, sending another smile Mary’s way.
“Oh,” Mary smiled back. “I don’t keep a boyfriend.”
You don’t keep a boyfriend? Brian grimaced. As in, you can’t hold onto one, or is it that they’re like pets, like property?
“That’s smart,” Foxy nodded. “What about you, Brian—you have a girlfriend you should be off somewhere with?”
She’s not my girlfriend, but there’s absolutely someone I’d rather be with right now, Brian glowered. His mood had taken a dive at seeing, or rather, not seeing Stephanie and Kelly waiting outside the Mana: the Mastery rooms. He was dismayed at realizing how disappointed he was, and found himself glancing back to see if Steph had responded to his text over and over again. Guess they went off to do their own things. I mean, we did just meet, I shouldn’t have ever assumed we’d spend the whole day at the con together or anything.
“He doesn’t have one, anymore,” Mary laughed, scoffing back at Brian as she walked ahead, side-by-side with Foxy. “I heard she just dumped him.”
“I’m actually, er, kind of between relationships,” Brian elaborated. “Things are… complicated right now.”
“Hah! Yeah, okay,” Foxy laughed. “Heard that before. Mary, don’t you think it’s pathetic when guys phrase it that way? Oh, I’m not single—I’m just between girls right now. Kind of makes them sound desperate and lonely?”
Brian was just opening his mouth to retort when he felt several somethings brushing through the people walking just behind him and bumping into him. No, not bumping...
“But, he really is between girls... so to speak?” A sultry, feminine voice joined in out of the blue, and both Foxy and Mary looked back in surprise. In their eyes, Brian had been trailing listlessly behind them all this time, humbled and alone—now he was being embraced—straddled, really, on either side by an astonishing pair of attractive young women.
On the right was a raven-haired beauty, resplendent in the saturnine swathes of a magnificent gothic dress. Showing Foxy and Mary both a cunning, bewitching smile, Kelly slipped one hand around Brian’s waist while the other splayed out in a possessive, intimate way across his chest.
On the left, a pink-haired girl wearing a bright-red sleeveless sundress and long red gloves had wrapped herself around Brian’s arm. Stephanie was gazing up at him in a fawning manner with her blindingly pure smile, not even taking notice of the others. Her dress ended briefly in a micro-skirt, showing succulent thigh and slender leg all the way down to her ankle socks—the pair of tall red vinyl boots had been taken off, draped now over the crook of her arm.
“There you both are,” Brian exhaled slowly in relief. “I was getting worried. Where’d you girls run off to?”
Mary’s mouth fell open in surprise, but she quickly closed it, determined to resume her frosty facade. Isn’t Brian just one of Mark’s worthless lackey friends? Aren’t these girls way too hot to be convention weirdos like him?
“We—” Stephanie hesitated, looking guiltily across Brian’s chest towards Kelly.
“—It’s a secret of the heart,” Kelly intoned with a cryptic smile. “We can’t tell you, but... maybe later we’ll show you.”
“You sure make that sound ominous,” Brian chuckled. “Did you at least stay out of trouble?”
“No,” Kelly grinned proudly.
“...N-no,” Stephanie agreed, turning her face down bashfully.
“Er, these are…?” Foxy inquired, looking at a loss in this sudden turn of events.
“These are my friends we were gonna meet up with,” Brian introduced, “Stephanie, and Kelly.”
“Oh. Uh… really?” Foxy blinked in disbelief. “Your friends.”
“They’re not his friends,” Mary shook her head doubtfully. “No way.”
“Ha, you caught us. We’re not his friends,” Kelly purred, lightly squeezing the hand she’d placed across Brian’s and wetting her lips. “We’re his disobedient slaves. We erred, and knew we must be punished, so we eagerly rushed back, hoping to receive our just deserts.”
“Mm-hmm, rushed back from where, exactly?” Brian arched an eyebrow at Kelly, but her wicked smile told him nothing. He turned towards Stephanie, instead. “Steph, you took your boots off?”
“N-no, you see, when we—” Stephanie began, but stopped herself as she noticed Kelly insistently shaking her head at her. “Uh… well, yes? I did?”
“They were hurting her feet since yesterday, of course she couldn’t run here in them,” Kelly explained. “The poor thing was positively pining for you—you should’ve heard the pitter patter of her cute little feet as soon as we found out you were out of that disgusting Mana: the Mastery room.”
Brian couldn’t have been happier to see them again, and he allowed himself to put his arms around them. He still didn’t think of them as belonging to him, or deserving of them or anything—but he was very glad to see them.
“Well, this is Mary; Mark’s little sister. He wanted me to look after her while he’s holed up in the Mana tournament. And, this is... her new friend, Foxy.”
“—Of fucking Loxly,” Mary added, still staring warily at these two new girls.
“A little sister?” Kelly’s eyes lit up. “She’s cute—and so adorably crass. Just look at her, she’s like a sullen little cat. I can see why you like her.”
Mary blinked, unsure of how to respond to that.
“H-hello,” Stephanie said in a meek voice.
“Hi,” Mary greeted in a flat tone.
“Pleasure to meet you both,” Foxy nodded towards them politely.
“Oh, is it?” Kelly glanced back at the guy with renewed interest. “Weren’t you just saying something about our Brian being desperate, and lonely?”
“Er, that was—”
“Kelly,” Brian gestured for her to drop the matter. “He didn’t mean anything by it.”
“Ah, of course. Just pointless posturing, then,” Kelly smiled indifferently, but there was a chilling lack of emotion in her eyes, as unforgiving and inhospitable as the emptiness of deep space.
“Ahem,” Foxy coughed uneasily, looking away as a sudden chill went down his spine.
“...Can we go?” Mary interrupted with a scowl. “I still haven’t eaten anything today.”