“Were you looking for anything in particular?” Foxy asked as their group of five all strode through the double-doors of the vendor’s room together, holding their convention badges up for the staffers at the door.
“Something expensive,” Mary decided, narrowing her eyes at the rows of booths filling the enormous room. Though it seemed impossible, this area was swarming with even more mobs of people than the other areas of the convention, often blocking up the walkways and intersections between the vendor’s booths completely.
There was an incredible amount of variety to the displays, from small, single-table simple booths, to corner vendors spanning a half-dozen tables. Some had simple stacks of anime DVDs and opened long-boxes of manga volumes, others had erected wire frameworks to hang merchandise from, be it stuffed plushies, poster prints, T-shirts, or boxed figurines.
“Expensive? Well, you’ve come to the right place,” Brian said. “Prices’re always marked way up on Fridays and Saturdays. I only ever shop on the final day of the con—that’s when the vendors cut all their asking prices way down.”
“Oh,” Stephanie adjusted her glasses, looked surprised. “Really?”
“Yeah, it’s cheaper for them to sell at close to cost at that point, rather than continuing to ship whatever merchandise that doesn’t sell back and forth between all the conventions.”
“They’re just trying to make an honest living,” Foxy shrugged, giving Brian a dubious look. “Tell you what, Mary, you see anything you really like, just let me know. Beautiful girl like you deserves to enjoy something nice every once and a while, and a convention’s a special occasion.”
“Thank you,” Mary gave him an appreciative smile and walked closer beside him before shyly turning to send a devious glance back at Brian. “But... my brother did promise me that his friend there would buy me whatever I want.”
“True—but thankfully, you don’t even remember my name, so you’re gonna have a hard time holding him to that,” Brian laughed. “Besides… you don’t even like anime, do you?”
“I do remember you,” Mary admitted reluctantly, “...Brian.”
“Well, she tried, at least,” Kelly smirked, tugging at Brian’s arm. “C’mon, Steve. Let’s take a look down this way.”
Stephanie snickered at that, returning to her place in formation at Brian’s side, and the three forged on ahead down one of the rows.
“Hur, hur, very funny,” Mary pouted, disinterestedly poking through the wares arranged on the tables as her and Foxy followed along behind them. How is there even this much junk to sell? Doesn’t anime literally just mean Japanese cartoons? How many different series could there even be?
“Hey, you know those surgical-looking face masks I was telling you about last night, that they wear over in Japan?” Kelly pointed over the stream of convention attendees filling the aisle. “The booth on that side has a big rack of them—but with cute little anime mouths printed on them. Let’s take a look.”
As they rounded that corner booth, each shuffling along through the crowd and slowly browsing the wares, an unexpected voice called out towards them.
“—Kelly!”
Kelly looked over, surprised and perplexed.
“And Miss Stephanie, too! We found you guys!” A brown-haired young woman of approximately college-age exclaimed excitedly. She was wearing an oversized double-breasted pea coat that hung down all the way to her mid-thigh, and her eyeliner was fashioned in an exaggerated feline flick.
“Amanda,” Kelly recalled, surprised. Having only met her once, and just some forty-five minutes ago at that—Kelly almost hadn’t remembered her. This girl was that volunteer from Fetish 101’s shibari demonstration, she’d been getting fastened into her fetters just as Kelly and Stephanie were hurriedly exiting the panel to come meet up with Brian.
“...I’d have thought you’d still be all tied up.”
“Yeah! Uh, I am,” Amanda grinned, tugging her coat open for a second to reveal that beneath it, she was now sporting a rather shocking get-up of bondage rope, finished to the last intricate detail.
So, that’s shibari, Kelly thought to herself, highly intrigued. She’d only been offered a barest glimpse before the giggling Amanda quickly pulled her pea coat closed again, but that tantalizing sight was more than enough to pique her interest for more.
Though Amanda was still wearing casual clothes beneath that ropework, the placement and lacing of those braided cords twining about left very little of her figure to the imagination. Woven rope had been pulled taut to separate and frame the girl’s sizeable breasts, then criss-crossed down her body in a pattern of sexy webwork, finally culminating in a series of knots that ended in a T-thong of rope which rode high above her hip and then slipped down into a single ligature that split across her private parts. This was no slapdash jumble of tangles Amanda was wearing, but a masterpiece of lascivious latticework. Simply saying she was bound tight would hardly do it justice, either—each straining stretch of rope wrapped about her had been visibly biting into her body, like butchers twine trussing a choice slab of meat.
“That’s… extremely impressive,” Kelly admired, meaning every word. Brian’s friends thought the rope demo was lame? This is the good stuff, this is some overtly sexual bondage-play. “Brian! Come take a peek at this.”
As the others—Brian, Stephanie, Foxy and even Mary, took interest and stepped over, Amanda obligingly held open her pea coat for another few seconds so that they could all catch a brief look, turning her head away and blushing with a strange smile. She’s getting off on this, huh? I mean, how couldn’t you?
“Are you a pervert?” Mary asked rudely, arching an eyebrow and making a face of disgust.
“Yup,” Amanda laughed, shrugging her coat closed again. “I guess. I mean, what, are you not?”
“No way,” Mary shook her head, glancing around to everyone else in search of agreement.
Your loss, Kelly sniffed indifferently.
“Kelly’s right, that’s impressive as hell,” Brian told Amanda, nodding in appreciation. “That’s really… yeah, wow.”
“Wow,” Stephanie agreed, face going red as well. “That’s, um, y-you’re very brave.”
“I’m brave?” Amanda shook her head with a broad smile. “You’re definitely just as brave as I am, Miss Stephanie.”
“Nice knots,” Foxy whistled in approval. “I had one of those memorized, used to do it all the time with a special someone. Was a chest-and-arms one, looked kinda like a pentagram.”
“Ooh, ooh!” Amanda’s eyes lit up. “We used to do that one! Bill! What was that one called?”
“Bill?” The girl turned a quick circle before realizing that Bill was nowhere to be found, and gave them an embarrassed smile. “I swear he was right here behind me a second ago. Bill!”
“What’s up?” A lean guy wearing glasses with shaggy, dirty-blond hair and a matching beard called, leaning out from behind a booth’s display past some people further on down the aisle. “Hey, I found Kelly. She’s right there behind you.”
“Yeah, thanks,” Amanda rolled her eyes. “What’s that kinbaku we used to do, that, uh, that one that looked like a pentagram in the front?”
“Star harness. Just called a star harness. Someone need me to show them the ropes?” Bill joked, trotting over to them as he dug through the small plastic shopping bag of his purchases.
“You were ‘sposed to be right behind me,” Amanda accused playfully.
“Yeah, but Pocki,” Bill justified, handing an already opened small red box—which resembled an unusually tall and thin carton of crayons, over to her.
“...Touché,” she relented with a reluctant grin, snatching the box up with one hand while the other held her coat closed.
“Hey, nice!” Bill waved a finger towards Brian. “From Hero Hero Haruki, right?”
“Yeah, one of the Darkmasks,” Brian confirmed, lifting up the helmet he’d been carrying at his side.
“Oh wow, freakin’ sweet! May I?” Bill asked.
“Sure,” Brian passed him the helmet.
“This is awesome. You make it yourself?” Bill lauded, turning the stylized skull helm over in his hands and examining it from all angles. “I’ve been wanting something like this for when we do demos in the future. Think it’d be perfect, at like, setting the mood, or at least way better than just me out there with my goofy mug.”
“Hah, well I was going to try making one out of foam…” Brian admitted with a chuckle, “but, then I found this guy online who was vacuum-forming the plastic pieces and selling them as a kit, so I just had to order one.”
“No shit?” Bill responded, returning the Darkmask helmet. “You gotta link?”
Meanwhile, Amanda had pulled the others aside into a separate conversation.
“So, we were supposed to keep an eye out for you two,” Amanda said with a giddy smile. “Chrissy wanted to find you guys—she has her own vendor’s table over on the other side of the room here, Chrissy-Cat Creations. You two like, saved the panel when you came in, for real.”
“Panel?” Foxy prompted, starting to find their talks increasingly difficult to edge into.
“The fet panel,” Amanda laughed, her eyes flashing with excitement. “These girls just marched on in and stole the show. You guys’re like, panel crashers!”
“I’m so sorry about that,” Stephanie apologized in a meek voice, still holding onto Brian’s arm as he and Bill chatted and compared different images of masks on their phones. “We really shouldn’t ha—”
“Oh no no no, I don’t mean that in like, a bad way! Amanda cut her off quickly. “You totally saved us!”
“Fet as in, like, fetish panel?” Foxy asked, and Mary rolled her eyes dramatically in annoyance.
Why are we standing around talking in an intersection instead of shopping?
“Hey. Buy me some of that,” Mary demanded, tugging on the sleeve of Foxy’s trenchcoat. Amanda was snacking on thin chocolate sticks she drew out of the little red carton. “Like the stuff she has.”
“Pocki? Yeah… no problem,” Foxy agreed.
“We didn’t save anything,” Kelly rebuked modestly. “This rope stuff you’re wearing here’s incredible—Stephanie and I were just... an exciting little interlude.”
“No way, you don’t understand,” Amanda insisted, slightly opening her coat again to allow a partial view of her intricate bindings. “Like, yeah, it looks amazing when it’s done, but it takes like, some half-hour now to get it all laced and knotted right, even for Bill.
“Last year, it was this awful forty-five minutes of pure, awkward silence—and Chrissy trying to stretch out her jokes—while he tied me up. Our audience was getting super bored and restless. This year, we got more than halfway finished while you guys had all of their attention, and you got them all so amped up that they were great for us the whole rest of the panel. You really saved us.”
“We were just delighted to be of service, weren’t we, Miss Stephanie?” Kelly purred.
“I wanted to crawl into a hole and die,” Stephanie chuckled in a sober voice. “I’ve never been that embarrassed in my, uh, well—ever.”
“Oh?” Kelly’s wolfish smile spread wickedly across her face. “Not even last night, when you—”
Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.
“Oh! Uh, wh-where did Mary go?” Stephanie quickly blurted out, changing the subject as fast as she could. “Did we lose her, or—uh, did she walk off away somewhere with… Fox?”
Crap. She’s right, that little Chinese hussy gave us the slip, Kelly frowned, turning and scanning across the crowds casually shopping throughout the aisles. “I don’t think it was Fox, I think it was Foxy.”
“—Of fucking Loxly,” Mary insisted, ripping open a box of Pocki as she stepped back over from a nearby booth with Foxy in tow.
“Whoa—wherever I go, people seem to be talking about me,” Foxy chuckled. “Here, they were cheap.” With a charming smile, he passed a little red box each to Stephanie and Kelly, who looked at them curiously, and then handed another to Amanda, who squealed in excitement.
“Aw, thank you! You’re the bestest!” Amanda proclaimed, hugging her Pocki boxes close and then giving the other pair girls an incredulous look. “Have you not had Pocki before? This stuff’s like, weeaboo crack, I’m not even kidding.”
Her endorsement had opposing effects on them; Stephanie regarded the boxed snack with interest, while Kelly stifled a scowl, lowering the small carton down to her side.
“You both go to AnimeCon and you’ve never had Pocki?” Foxy scoffed, deciding that the two girls were messing with him. “If AnimeCon was a prison, these’d be the cigarettes used as currency.”
“It’s not bad,” Foxy said, popping open a box for himself and unsealing the tiny pouch inside. The Pocki he slid out were so thin they somewhat resembled sticks of incense, slender cookie-like wafers dipped in chocolate. “...There’s even a little game that people play with it.”
“Oh, gawd. No, not the Pocki game,” Amanda let out a laugh before quickly covering her mouth in mock horror. “Don’t bring that up.”
“Pocki game?!” Bill exclaimed, butting back into the other group’s conversation after overhearing Amanda’s outburst. “Oh, hell yeah! I’ve been waiting all year to play.”
“Alright, fine,” Kelly sighed. “...How do you play the Pocki game?” What are they gonna do, have a little sword-fight with them?
“You start off by—”
“First, you take—”
Brian and Foxy had started answering at the same time, and both stopped to look at each other in surprise.
“You can tell them,” Foxy waved magnanimously.
“No, go ahead,” Brian said.
“Alright,” Foxy said. “First, you take a single stick of Pocki, and you have it between two players—each of them takes and holds an end with their lips. Then, the players nibble their way through the stick towards each other. The first one to pull away, loses.”
“That’s dumb,” Mary snorted. “What if neither of them pull back?”
“Then, everyone wins,” Foxy replied with a cocky grin, taking a step closer towards her. He placed the end of one of the Pocki sticks in his mouth... daring her to play.
“Yeah, right,” Mary scoffed, blinking her large eyes around one-by-one at the other figures in the group. “Geeks wouldn’t do that. What’s the real Pocki game?”
“That is the real Pocki game,” Bill retorted, withdrawing another thin box from his shopping bag and popping it open. “Amanda, demonstration time.”
“I think I’m all demonstrated out today, thanks,” Amanda said with a dry chuckle, grabbing that box from him as well. “Making out with you is one thing, but sharing my Pocki... is something else entirely.”
“But, that one was my Pocki,” Bill protested.
“That’s not really how you play, right?” Mary asked. She made no motion to join in playing that sort of game with Foxy. After a few moments seeing that she wasn’t getting a different answer, she made a face and turned away, nonchalantly browsing down the nearby table of anime merchandise.
“So, anyways, Brian,” Foxy changed the subject as smoothly as he could, casually chewing the stick of Pocki into his mouth. “You surprised me back there— you’re actually in pretty decent shape. What kinda workout do you do? Cross-fitness? Tai-bo exercises? Some sort of military regimen?”
“Nah, nothin’ the least bit complicated,” Brian said. “I’m a runner, I go out running in the early mornings.”
“A runner?” Foxy repeated in disbelief. “Hah, you got in shape by running?”
“Yeah,” Brian confirmed, arching an eyebrow. “Is that so strange?”
“Not strange, no, just kinda... useless in real life,” Foxy said. “Like, me for example, I train in mixed martial arts. So, if I’m out on the streets one night and some bozo pulls a knife on me—or if some creep threatens my girl, well, he’s in for a world of hurt. But, you? What’ll you do? Run away like you’ve practiced?”
Mary snorted at that, proving that she was still listening in.
“Hah,” Foxy laughed, clapping Brian on the shoulder. “Not calling you a coward or anything, o’course. I’m just sayin’.”
“Hmm,” Brian looked thoughtful. “I think I started running for some weird psychological thing—I was stuck in a bad situation for a large period of my life, one that I couldn’t do anything about. For a long time afterwards, just simply being still for too long would make me feel… I dunno, trapped. Like I wasn’t exercising my options.
“I didn’t feel like I was running away from anything back then, but I wouldn’t really say I was moving forward, either. It was just this compulsion I’d have, that I needed to move, with all of my might, to feel alive when remaining still felt like I was already dead.”
“Aw, Brian…” Stephanie said softly, looking touched.
“Almost all of that’s way behind me, though,” Brian laughed. “Nowadays I just run ‘cause it’s satisfying, and it gives me time to myself to sort out my head. It’s a good outlet for things, a good release.”
“Running’s cool,” Amanda added in, nodding her head in approval.
“I like that a lot, Brian,” Kelly said, tracing a hand across his chest. “I have my own little method of, well, getting a good release. Remind me to show you how it goes later on, okay?” As her fingertips slid down the skeleton-bone pattern, feeling the delectable profile of the muscles just beneath his outfit, no one was left with any doubts as to what she was implying.
“Yeah, right,” Mary sneered, deciding she wasn’t going to fall for it. “What’s so great about Brian to you, anyways? What're you buttering him up for? Even if he’s like, in okay shape from a bit of running, he’s still just another dumb dweeb.”
“A dumb… dweeb?” Stephanie echoed, stunned by Mary’s assessment. “He isn’t at all, though! Wh-why would, how could you think that?”
“‘Cause he’s a loser who cares more about stupid little cards than he does about getting a real life?” Mary muttered. “There’s no sense in flirting with him.”
“You do realize that, despite being friends with Mark, I don’t actually play Mana: the Mastery, right?” Brian laughed. “I don’t own any Mana cards or plan decks or anything.”
“Whatever,” Mary scowled. “It’s all the same thing. Cards, anime. Games. Losers obsessing over geeky shit because they can’t handle real life.”
“You’re just out of high school—you’re, what, eighteen? Nineteen?” Brian wondered. “Still a kid. How are you even defining ‘real life?’ Most of us so-called geeks are in relationships, we all have jobs—”
“Yeah? What jobs do you guys have?” Mary challenged. “Flipping burgers?”
“I drive forklifts at a distribution center right now,” Brian said, pointing to himself. “Used to work repairing roofs, and before that, yeah, I was a shift manager working in fast food.” As their little group was all standing in an uneven circle now, he gestured to pass the topic on towards Bill.
“Certified electrician,” Bill chuckled. “But what I actually do right now is drive around installing internet for people.”
“Physical therapist,” Amanda volunteered. “In an undergraduate program. I get paid to explain obvious ways to not hurt yourself, to people who somehow do anyways.”
“I sell drugs,” Foxy said with a deadpan expression, before breaking out into a cocky grin. “...Legally, as a pharmacy technician. Very good money.”
“I’m, well, I’m still just a student,” Stephanie admitted embarrassedly. “I part-time in the campus library, but calling it a job would be, um, an exaggeration. I sort the books to be put back, and then I’m free to work on my own assignments.”
“Oh,” Kelly waved them off after realizing that their small circle had turned expectant looks towards her now. “Well, I’m not actually a geek. Working as a hostess now, but... I’ll be doing some modelling in the near future.”
Glaring spitefully at Kelly’s too-perfect features, Mary wasn’t able to refute what would have normally seemed like an idle boast.
“Okay then, what do you do, Mary?” Brian asked.
“I... work in the bakery department of a grocery store,” Mary grudgingly replied. “But, I’m nineteen, and they’re making me go to community college. So, I’m normal for my age. You all are not normal.”
“Steph’s working part-time ‘cause she’s in school, just like you,” Brian argued. “Same exact situation.”
“Yeah, except… I wear normal clothes when I go out somewhere in public, ‘cause I’m not a freak. This isn’t a Halloween party,” Mary said, looking around in consternation at the three of them wearing costumes, with an additional lingering glance of dismay at Stephanie’s cosplay. “Like, why’s she dressed up like a Playmate bunny?”
In her eyes, it was fitting that Brian wore a stupid costume, because she already knew he was a worthless nerd. She was going to gloss over Kelly wearing the elegant gothic lolita dress right now, because... the dark-haired girl actually looked really incredible. Definitely not ‘cause she’s intimidating, or anything like that. Just seems like more trouble than it’s worth.
Stephanie in the silly red and pink rabbit get-up, however, appeared to be the weak link. The easy opportunity to find flaws in, and then call her out on them in front of everybody. Probably just wore it ‘cause she’s secretly kinda slutty. Bet she just loves all the attention.
“I-I’m, I’m not,” Stephanie denied in a meek voice, terribly embarrassed. “It’s, um, this isn’t a Playmate bunny—I made this dress, it’s based on, um, Flamituff. It’s a, well, from Monster Battlers. Th-the video game. And, uh, it has an anime, too…”
“Wow,” Mary blinked in surprise. “Monster Battlers? How old are you? I didn’t think it was possible for me to actually think any less of you… but you somehow managed it.” She pursed her lips in a reproving way, shaking her head in apparent disappointment.
“Mary’s so adorable when she puts on that cute little pout,” Kelly observed with a slow, indulgent laugh. “Doesn’t it make her mouth look just like a butthole?”
Everyone’s eyes went wide, a couple of the attendees passing by their little group in the aisle overheard and turned their heads, and Bill erupted into laughter.
“Hey—don’t talk to her like that,” Foxy said, as shocked as the rest of them by Kelly’s comparison.
“Why not?” Kelly shrugged indifferently. “I said she had a cute pout.”
“No, you just said it looks like a butthole,” Mary said through clenched teeth.
“What, buttholes can’t be cute? Look at the pretty little mouth on you—so pink and puckered, it makes me wanna wiggle a finger inside,” Kelly stepped closer, and her cheery, doting voice dropped down to a decidedly chilly tone. “...But if you’re just going to use it to spout crap about any of us, you’re not gonna like what happens.”
“Don’t threaten her, either,” Foxy warned, stepping forward to place himself between Kelly and Mary.
“That was the friendly caution, coffee is hot print on this cup of attitude she’s apparently having today,” Kelly rebuked with a laugh. “She can wise up and learn to be careful, or she can take a spill and burn the fuck outta herself. I don’t need to threaten people.”
“Okay, easy, easy,” Brian intervened, pulling Kelly back towards him.
“Kelly, it—it’s fine,” Stephanie flustered, uncomfortable at seeing the exchange grow heated. “It’s only my first, um, my first try making a cosplay, so…”
“You look great, Stephanie,” Brian reassured her. “Mary just gets insecure about anything that doesn’t, you know, fit in her little preconceptions ‘bout how things are supposed to be.”
“Yeah, okay,” Mary rolled her eyes dramatically and shared a look with Foxy. “Whatever helps you sleep at night.”
“Yikes, you guys. Yeah, chill,” Bill chuckled, fully entertained by the heated exchange between these near-strangers.
“Brian,” Kelly held up the box of Pocki she’d been given. “Will this fit in one of your belt pockets? S’not real convenient to carry around.”
“Hmm, I don’t know...” Brian said, fumbling with his gloved hands across his utility pouches. Gauging the size by using the easy-to-access one in front, he pulled the harem charm out and then tried fitting the Pocki carton into that pocket.
Unbeknownst to Brian with his unfeeling gloved fingertips, the harem charm almost immediately dropped from between them to the ground. It landing on its edge, and then tumbled another few feet towards the steady procession of AnimeCon attendees moving through the aisle beside where they stood.
What was…? Mary caught a glimpse of the small wooden token, its ends neatly bound in decorative red string, as it fell. Looked almost like a Chinese word printed on there.
She didn’t particularly care whether some passerby’s careless footstep scuffed the flimsy little charm into splintery broken chips of wood—Brian’s fault for dropping it, his problem. Still, curiosity got the better of her, and the slight Asian girl with the endearing features had just deigned to bend down and pick up the thing—
When a red vinyl boot snapped out to neatly pin the tumbling charm to the floor, in the same manner one uses to stop a dropped coin from stubbornly rolling away.
“I was gonna get it,” Mary scowled up at Stephanie in indignation. Wasn’t she on the other side of Brian?
“It’s okay,” Stephanie said, a strangely alert, even wary look playing across her innocent features. “I’ve… I’ve got it.”
“Whatever, then,” Mary pulled back, crossing her arms. “Geez.” She watched as the Stephanie ever-so-carefully crouched down—as if unwilling to shift the foot atop the little charm, for fear that it would scurry away—and retrieved it. Mary had initially thought this girl was just shy, but something about this brief encounter had her mentally recategorizing the girl as socially awkward, instead.
Phew, Stephanie let out a sigh of relief, carefully dusting the harem charm off. Not a scratch. The strange little thing falling onto the ground yesterday had been the impetus that led her to actually meet Brian in the first place. Seeing it happen again, she’d felt a strange spike of—what? Envy? Irritation? Jealousy?— at the sight of seeing Mary stoop down to retrieve their charm. It wasn’t meant for her. There was that same out-of-place-ness, that wrong feeling that had kept her from handing the charm to her friend Megan back then.
Standing back up before a passing cosplayer could knock into her, she held it out in front of her as she rejoined Brian, an eager, beaming smile playing across her face. As if to say, praise me, praise me.
“I mean, it kinda fits,” Brian was telling Kelly, struggling to remove the Pocki box he’d crammed into a pouch. “Won’t be able to close the pocket that way, though.”
“Here, just tuck it behind your belt like this, then,” Kelly suggested, finally taking the box and pushing it partway down into the waistband of Brian’s bodysuit. “Oh... wow. What else’ve you got crammed down in here?”
“He... can't carry stuff in that bag he has?” Foxy asked, pointing towards the Komari-mart bag Brian was holding.
“That's a prop he made. It's for his costume, not for shoving our stuff in,” Kelly rebutted.
“Aren't his belt pouches the same...?” Foxy wondered out loud.
“Brian, your—um, again it went on the… your charm, that is, i-it fell again,” Stephanie stammered out. But rather than a nervous stutter, it was an excited one; trying to voice all of her thoughts at once, and she didn’t seem to mind that they came out in an unintelligible jumble.
“Hey, thanks,” Brian accepted the offered charm from her. “Or I should say, thanks again? Seem to keep losing this li’l guy—maybe I should just have you wear it, instead?”
“Brian,” Kelly interjected, straightening his belt again. “If you’re going to give her something to wear... I think there’s someplace that’ll have just what we’re looking for? Hey, Amanda? Can you show us the way to Chrissy’s booth?”