AnimeCon Harem Bonus Part: Mary, the Mastery (Patreon)

   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.

   “...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.”

•     •     •

   The small, tastefully-appointed cafe was just as Brian remembered it from yesterday, although rather than empty, today a small group of overly-excited young girls cross-dressing as noble princes from Blood Butler had appropriated the far side of the eatery for a posh photo-shoot. Foxy led the way, followed closely by Mary, and then Brian entered while still trapped between Stephanie and Kelly.

   “Shall we? If you’d like, I can buy you two lovely ladies’ meals as well. It’d be my pleasure,” Foxy offered, waving casually at the exorbitant prices brazenly displayed across the cafe’s menu board. “Can’t speak for Brian, but these numbers mean nothing to me.”

   “No, thank you,” Stephanie politely declined.

   “No thanks,” Kelly agreed. “We’re fine.”

   “Are you sure?” Foxy leaned forward to send a frown towards Brian. “You girls don’t have to be polite—even if this guy won’t buy your lunch, it’s really no problem for me.”

   “No thanks,” Kelly repeated, snorting.

   “W-we really just ate not too long ago,” Stephanie explained. “Brian woke up early and went out to buy us breakfast, an-and brought it all back to the room for us.”

   “Oh... I see,” Foxy said, disappointed.

   “I think I even ate too much, I still feel full,” Kelly yawned, and she stretched out luxuriously with a satisfied smile.

   “Th-that’s because you stole my pancakes,” Stephanie griped, grinning from where she still clung to Brian’s arm.

   “True—but you’re not exactly innocent, either. At some point before we left, didn’t I happen to see my syrup on your fingertips?” Kelly asked, grinning wickedly and winking.

   “Y-your…? N-no, I didn’t, I mean, I-I’d, I n-never—”

   “Wow, look at how smart and thrifty you folk are,” Mary said with sarcasm. “It’s okay if you’re too cheap to eat here—you didn’t have to go and make excuses. It’s actually kind of embarrassing then, isn’t it?”

   “Oh, totally. Definitely not like Steph and I ate here together just yesterday, or anything,” Brian mentioned, rolling his eyes.

   “You ate here without me?” Kelly pouted playfully. “Tsk, tsk.”

   “That was right before we first bumped into you, actually,” Brian said.

   “I-I only had one of their salads,” Stephanie chimed in a chipper voice, so caught up in the memory of that intimate meeting in the cafe yesterday that she was oblivious to Mary’s verbal jab. That kiss! “It was pretty great, though, I think. Th-the salad, I mean.”

   True to his word, Foxy bought a lavish meal for Mary and an expensive coffee for himself, and the group sat together at a large corner booth.

   “What’re you gonna do ‘bout your boots? Are they too uncomfortable to wear?” Brian asked, stealing another glance up Stephanie’s lovely legs while struggling to keep his thoughts from spiraling into sin. Those legs, last night... were wrapped around my head.

   “She’ll be fine—we were just in a rush to get here. A half-hour goes by without you and already she’s missing you,” Kelly answered in her charming voice. “Although, you know, maybe one of your magic massages would have her feet feeling all better?”

   “O-of course not,” Stephanie blushed, but made no motion to put her thigh-high boots back on yet. “I mean, um, unless you want to…”

   “Ew, gross. Please, not while I’m eating,” Mary scolded with a disgusted look.

   “Ah, I was—I was actually wondering,” Stephanie spoke up, taking a nervous glance at Brian. “Would it be alright if you… added me into your chat group? The one you showed us before? I know we can text each other, but I, um, I thought that it would be a cool thing to be a part of. If-if that’s okay.”

   “Sure, no problem,” Brian chuckled. “I’ll send you an invite now.”

   Foxy frowned. Despite now being in the presence of three gorgeous girls rather than only one, he wasn’t feeling like he’d really gained anything. Stephanie and Kelly were clearly long-time companions of Brian’s—maybe they’d even known each other for years—and there was no easy way to wrest firm control of the conversations from them.

   “Ah,” Stephanie said after a few short moments. “Got it. Oh, b-but—what should I use for my display name?” She turned her phone towards him, where the cursor was blinking beside her default name.

Stephanie Brandt

   “Your last name’s Brandt?” Brian asked, curious.

   “Ah, uh, yes,” Stephanie felt her cheeks warming as she realized she’d just met Brian almost exactly a day ago—of course he never would have known her full name all this time.

   “Cool. Mine’s Douglas,” Brian revealed. “Can I try setting a name for you?”

   “Of—of course!” Stephanie breathed. Brian Douglas? I… really like that. It’s so much more… complete.

   “And I’m Kelly Killy,” Kelly joined in with a smirk, watching Stephanie surrender her cell phone to Brian.

   “And I’m Fawkes, Fawkes Loxly,” Foxy revealed, setting his coffee down in a hesitant manner. They’re telling each other their last names? Maybe they aren’t as close as I thought. Maybe they just see each other every year at the convention?

   “Fawkes? Cool name,” Brian nodded.

   “Fwwu—” Mary attempted around a mouthful of food. “Fwucking.” 

   “Ah, right,” Foxy laughed. “Fawkes of fucking Loxly, then. But you can call me Foxy.”

   “And the young creature still learning how to chew would be Mary, Mary, quite contrary,” Brian chuckled, tapping a sequence across the screen of Stephanie’s phone and then sliding it back to her. “Here, how ‘bout this?”

   “I’m nineteen,” Mary growled, as if that point made a difference to anyone.

   “Perfect-in-Pink?” Stephanie read aloud, blushing fiercely. “I-I can’t use that. I’m not the least bit—”

   “I think she should go with ‘Fanny,’” Kelly suggested. “Fanny as in, short for Stephanie, and also, you know—because of this amazing ass she’s got going on. Fanny. It works.”

   “I’m—I’m not going by the name ’Fanny,’” Stephanie blustered out a denial, shaking her head quickly.

   “Here, let me try one,” Foxy offered, gesturing for the phone. After a moment’s pause, Stephanie passed it towards their uncertain new friend across the table.

   “Nineteen. That’s not little,” Mary insisted again, increasingly annoyed that no one was paying due attention to her anymore—not even Foxy.

   “Righteous-Pink?” Stephanie read the name Foxy had inputted with a dubious expression.

   “Never heard of her? She’s from Sentai Senkai, Foxy explained. “It’s what they called the pink Iro-ranger. Great show, you’ve gotta check it out sometime.”

   “Alright, my turn,” Kelly snatched the phone from them and began altering the inputted name once again. “You accepted the invite? I’m gonna go ahead and say hello to everyone for you in Brian’s chat.”

   “...Please tell me you didn’t change my name to Fanny, first,” Stephanie pleaded.

   “Of course I didn’t, Stephanie,” Kelly blinked innocently as she submitted the message. “I’m hurt. Joking aside, do you really think I’d have you going by the moniker Fanny in front of Brian’s friends?”

   Quickly pulling up the chat window on his own phone, Brian immediately saw the newcomer who’d entered their message queue.

Right-in-the-Pink: sup everyone

   “Th-that’s not, wh-why would you—I can’t believe that you just did that,” Stephanie cried out, looking completely mortified. She stared balefully down at the screen as she seized the phone back from Kelly, looking absolutely betrayed. “That wasn’t nice at all!”

   “Yeah, Kelly, that was kinda…” Brian shook his head in disapproval, though a faint smile was stubbornly tugging at the corner of his lip.

   “What?” Kelly huffed. “It’s referring to her hair color... obviously. Isn’t that the cool little personal connection you two’ve got going on? Perfect handle for her! Even better than Fanny.”

   “Uh, yeah. Hair color, definitely what comes to mind,” Foxy smirked, raised his eyebrows and hoisting his coffee up in the air as if announcing a toast. “Right in the pink!”

   “Right in the pink!” Kelly agreed, pumping her fist.

   “Right in the what?” Mary looked around at each of them and made a disgusted face. “You guys are all nasty.”

   “Can I still change it? It’s-it’s not set like that for good now, is it?” Stephanie fretted, flipping back through her message settings.

   Mick95: who dat?

   Oberon: Friend I met at convention.

   coffee-vein: ah

   coffee-vein: lol

   Mick95: asl?

   Tanya_Mykha: @Mick95 dont fucking asl ppl

   coffee-vein: oh shit

   Mick95: @Tanya_Mykha lol god damn

   Mick95: @Tanya_Mykha was just asking

   Mick95: @Tanya_Mykha chill

   Tanya_Mykha: @Mick95 dont fucking asl ppl

   Stephanie_Brandt: I’m so sorry about that. I received the invite to the chat, but then a friend had my phone. I’m so sorry.

   Stephanie exhaled a slow sigh of relief at seeing she’d successfully reverted her username to its default, then furrowed her cute brow in concentration as she caught up on that message log.

   “Um, A-S-L?”

   “Age, sex, location,” Foxy reported. He couldn’t see the chat’s messages anymore from where he sat, but was familiar enough with internet slang to understand her confusion. “Asking for basic information people can associate with your name, so they have some perspective on your identity. Not that you should ever trust anyone’s ASLs on the internet, mind you.”

   “That was Mike asking that,” Brian laughed, watching as a mess unfolded in the group chat on his phone. “And then his girlfriend Tanya jumping down his throat, ‘cause she doesn’t want him flirting with anyone.”

   “Mike’s an asshole,” Mary commented, balling up her napkin and discarding it onto the tray she’d just finished clearing. 

   “Oh, so you remember Mike?” Brian asked, shaking his head.

   “Uh, yeah, why wouldn’t I?” Mary challenged, making a face at him as she rose up out of her seat. “I want to go shopping now.”

   “Cool, want me to show you around?” Foxy immediately offered, rising out of his seat as well. “There’s a lot of awesome stuff in the vendors room this year... if you know where to look.”

   He’d originally planned to get to know the attractive young Chinese girl better over the course of the brief meal—or at the very least stimulate her interest in some subtle way, but instead he’d been forced to discreetly re-establish himself within the group hierarchy. Contrasting himself only with this guy Mary already seemed to dislike had honestly seemed too easy, but Brian’s ‘friends’ unexpectedly consisting of these jaw-dropping babes was another social paradigm altogether.

   Nothing to worry about, though, Foxy smirked, crushing his empty coffee cup into a crumpled ball in his fist, and then casually tossing it over his shoulder. He heard the wadded-up cup clipping the edge of the waste receptacle’s stainless-steel funnel on the opposite side of the cafe, followed by the distinctive swish of it dropping down into the trash.

   Mary noticed, catching his eye and breaking out into a smile. Good.

   The others didn’t notice at all—the Kelly girl was bantering playfully with Brian as they all collected themselves and rose out of the corner booth, while Stephanie seemed completely unable to tear her eyes away from Brian, period. 

  Good, Foxy thought again, returning Mary’s smile, but saying nothing. Our little secret.

   Besides practice, the only real secret to his little trick was squashing the cup into a ball first—he’d always score a shot at anything that was at a certain angles directly behind him. He didn’t have to try to capitalize on every single little gimmick he knew, though—he was wealthy in more ways than one, and there was still more than enough time to win Mary over. And perhaps one of the other two, as well.

   “I don’t get why you hang around with this guy,” Mary stated, snorting at the scene across from her. Brian was kneeling down beside Stephanie at the edge of the booth’s bench and fussing with her boots, carefully pulling them back up her smooth legs, which she extended out one at a time. Look at her, blushing like an idiot. And for what? Him putting on this cringe-worthy chivalrous-guy act? I’d have kicked him right in the face.

   “I was just pondering on why I stick around them myself, early this morning,” Kelly confided to her in a low voice, “counting off the reasons with my fingers, in a way. Don’t know how far I got in the end, but it sure was a lot of fun.”

   This dark-haired girl, or rather, mostly dark-haired girl—she now noticed there were a few errant streaks of brilliant red—was watching for her reaction with a satisfied smile. It was as though Kelly was daring Mary to call her out on her double entendre, to turn unspoken tension into outright confrontation.

   “Really.” Mary composed her face into an expressionless mask once again. “Somehow… I doubt that.”

   “I thought you would,” Kelly’s dazzling eyes flashed, and she stepped over to Stephanie. “Steph, can I see your phone? I want to show Mary that picture you took last night.”

   Snapping out of her dazed reverie, Stephanie this time actually looked hesitant to lend the girl in the gothic dress her phone again. But after a brief moment and a nervous smile, she relented and passed it into the waiting hand.

   Kelly then swiped through menus on the phone with practiced flicks of her fingertip for a few seconds, and turned the screen to face Mary.

   It was a picture taken in dim lighting, of a man seated upon an ordinary hotel bed. He was half-naked, wearing nothing but a pair of pants and some straps that may have been suspenders—it was difficult to tell. His figure lit only by the nearby table lamp, and the curving contour of every muscle in his chest was beautifully defined in warm, fleshy tones. His shoulders were broad, and although not buff, per se, Mary would absolutely define him as a rather scrumptious specimen. With one knee up upon the bedspread and the other leg draping down out of sight, a hand partially upraised as if to ask are you seriously taking my picture, he looked as perfect and iconic as that famous chapel ceiling painting in France. Or was it Italy?

   “Very nice,” Mary said approvingly, before twisting her face in a smirk. “But, well—it looks pretty fake to me.” Can’t believe they actually took the time to shop Brian’s face onto the picture of some male model, and expected me to fall for it. Do I look that fucking stupid? What do they get out of pretending for this guy like this?

   Curiosity having gotten the better of him, Foxy took a peek and had to agree—the guy in that picture definitely wasn’t Brian. When a dude works out to get a body like that, he then shows it off with the right kind of cosplay. He wouldn’t hide it under some goofy-looking skeleton minion getup. I don’t need to squint for mismatched pixels to tell this is a fake. It just takes common sense.

   Hah. Mary glanced indifferently over to Brian, who was gingerly fastening up Stephanie’s boot, afraid to pinch the soft swell of her thigh between the teeth of the zipper. As if there’s even a comparison to be made in the first place. I bet under that dorky costume Brian’s just as pale, flabby, and gross as my brother. Fucking disgusting.

   “Pffft! Fake, huh?” Kelly sputtered with laughter in the face of Mary’s apparent skepticism, stepping back over towards her friends just as Brian rose from his crouch and helped pull Stephanie up onto her feet.

   “Aw, Brian—you can’t squat down like that, it gets your belt all twisted out of place on your outfit,” Kelly pointed out. “See? It’s all messed up.”

   “It is?”

   Before he had the chance to catch her blatant lie, she’d untucked the top of his costume bodysuit from his belt, peeling back the black fabric with the cartoony skeleton bones stencilled on. 

   Jesus, fuck, Mary’s eyes went wide at the sight. Splendidly sculptured muscle was revealed, the neat lines of a six-pack drawing her gaze down into the most delicious abdominal V she’d ever had the pleasure of witnessing in person. Okay, maybe he isn’t the guy in that picture... and maybe he is. Seriously, though… what the fuck? Since when does my brother have any fit friends?

   Foxy, of course, didn’t stare hungrily like Mary did, but the glimpse he’d caught startled him. At least that explains why I haven’t been making any real headway—I haven’t been taking this guy seriously. Guess he’s like me, the kinda guy who hides his fangs until he’s ready to bite. Interesting. Been a while since I’ve even seen anyone who’s any kind of threat to me.

   “Hey, it’s okay—I’ve got it,” Brian said, trying to brush Kelly’s hands away, but instead she lingered, as if slowly savoring each tug and pull as she finished righting his fabric to its proper position.

   “There. All set,” Kelly announced, pulling away from him with a final friendly pat that landed square on the bulge of his cup-piece. “Are we all ready to go? I want to take a closer look around the vendor’s room, too. Wouldn’t want to miss anything, would we?”

•     •     •

   “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—”

   “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?”

   “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?”

•     •     •

   “Kelly! Miss Stephanie!” The plus-sized goth girl seated behind one of the booths ahead stood up in surprise. “Amanda, you found them! Oh my God, thank you so much!”

   “Yeah, Bill and I ran into them back… uh…” Amanda pirouetted in a slow spin, clutching her coat closed and Pocki boxes against herself, to find that Bill had disappeared again. “Dammit, Bill. Well, I found them, at least.”

   “Chrissy, this is our… close friend, Brian,” Kelly purred, tugging Brian forward, closer towards the Chrissy-Cat Creations booth. Foxy and Mary following behind them apparently didn’t warrant an introduction, and Chrissy simply glanced across them and smiled.

   “Brian? Hi! Nice to meet you!” Chrissy greeted energetically, waving at him despite being just a tables-length away from him. “I love your costume!”

   Her vendor’s table was a neat arrangement of small and medium-sized white boxes in small piles, without any logo or product information upon them. Instead, on top of each stack a piece of fetish-wear was displayed. The majority seemed to be simple leather collars and cuffs, some with spiked studs, some without, while there was also pieces that would sheath a person’s entire forearms together in restraint, as well as a number of gags.

   “Thanks, er…” Brian began, a little overwhelmed by the content of her booth. “Some pretty interesting toys you have here.”

   “Thank you!” Chrissy exclaimed, launching immediately into her sales spiel. “I make them all myself! Well—I order the studs and buckles—but I cut and process the leather myself, and assemble them by my own unique designs. All the silicone parts like on the gags are easily removed with these snaps, and everything but the leather is dishwasher safe!”

   “Brian, I think you should buy one of these for Steph to wear,” Kelly proposed, looking over to see that her shy friend in the sleeveless gijinka dress wasn’t paying attention to them; Stephanie was listening to Amanda as the eccentric girl excitedly related some story involving a leather collar like the ones displayed for sale.

   “A fetish gag?” Brian noticed where Kelly was pointing. “You can’t be serious.”

   Some of the gags were simple silicone balls, others were shaped like baby pacifiers, an open pair of lips, or had phallic shapes that would rest within the mouth, but each of them had a fixture of black leather sporting a simple buckle that would loop around the back of the head to hold the gag firmly in place.

   “I’m dead serious,” Kelly snapped back with a smile. “One of these could help her out a lot.”

   “And how’s that?”

   “I know you’ve noticed her stutter,” Kelly explained, picking up one display gag after the other and examining them closely. “Her social anxiety. Do you think she’s happy having her mouth refuse to cooperate with her? Do you think she’s comfortable tripping over her own words all the time, especially around you? Slip one of these on her, and all of those... particular worries, they disappear.”

   “I, uhm, well I don’t, it-it’s not that bad—” Stephanie blustered, having overheard some of what Kelly said. The cute girl with the fluffy pink hair quickly trailed off in defeat, however when she realized her stammer seemed to patently prove Kelly’s point.

   “Wouldn’t that silence her completely? That seems way worse,” Brian shook his head.

   “There’s… other ways for her to communicate with you, at that point,” Kelly argued. “If you think about it, it’s really a shame that she’s so disadvantaged in speaking with you normally. Something like… this would level the playing field, be a little more fair to her, don’t you think?” She held up a black ball-gag, the mouth-piece resembling a flexible wiffle-ball, riddled with evenly-spaced holes for easier breathing. Stephanie looked bewildered, having missed too much of their conversation to follow what they were talking about now.

   “Wait-wait-wait! No, not that one!” Chrissy stopped them, waving her hands in a fluster as she bent down behind the table to pick through even more plain white boxes. “If it’s for Miss Stephanie, here, how ‘bout this one, instead?”

   The ball-gag she withdrew after pulling open one of those boxes was nearly identical to the one in Kelly’s hands—but the silicone ball on this one was a vivid shade of pink.

   “Oh, perfect!” Kelly laughed in approval, taking the gag and holding it up in front of Stephanie. “It matches her... magic color? How about it, Brian?”

   “If Steph wants it, I’ll buy it for her,” Brian relented with a roll of his eyes. “You can’t be pushing this kind of stuff on her all of the sudden.”

   “Stephanie?” Kelly asked, eyes twinkling with anticipation.

   “Um, w-well, thank you, but I don’t have a dog,” Stephanie replied in confusion. “My dorm, it, uh, at my dorm they don’t allow any pets.”

   Foxy openly snickered and Mary rolled her eyes, still silently glowering, while Chrissy quickly clamped a hand over her own mouth to contain her laughter, and Amanda broke out into a fit of giggles.

   “Stephanie… these, uh, these aren’t for pets,” Brian said.

   “Well, that’s not technically true,” Amanda tittered.

   “Stephanie, this would be for you to wear,” Kelly elaborated in a soothing, patient voice. “The ball fits into your mouth, and then these straps fit across your lovely little cheeks and buckle behind your head.”

   “Uhh,” Stephanie blushed. “That’s, that is, um. Wh-why would I wear that?”

   “So that you don’t speak,” Kelly’s eyes flared with excitement. “So that you can’t speak. All that pressure of figuring out what to say, all the difficulty of stumbling over your words, grasping desperately for the right meaning… gone.”

   “Couldn’t I, just, um, not speak?” Stephanie asked timidly. “I don’t see the need for—”

   “But there’s this big difference between choosing not to speak and being unable to speak,” Chrissy chimed in. “You’re subject to the will and whims of your partner. And then, hah, of course, there’s the drool…”

   “Drool?!” Stephanie sputtered.

   “Oh, yes,” Chrissy grinned. “The gag holds open your mouth, so of course you’re going to have your saliva just flowing out, uncontrollably. I love seeing girls first try these on—watching them as they realize their own slobber is dribbling down their chin! Watching them fight it, fight to hold onto their dignity as a human being! But slowly, surely, inevitably, they realize they’ve been reduced to nothing but an animal, a plaything, something to be toyed with. Someone’s pet!”

   “That’s disgusting,” Mary commented in a quiet voice, looking around at everyone as though she was ready to leave.

   “W-would it be like—um, like that?” Stephanie blinked over towards Brian. “Or, uh, do you think it’s… disgusting? I don’t want to gross you out, or-or anything like that.”

   “You wouldn’t gross me out, but nobody’s going to make you wear one of those, so you don’t have to worry about it,” Brian assured her.

   “They’re normally twenty dollars each,” Chrissy jumped in sensing her window of opportunity closing, “but, since it’s Kelly and Miss Stephanie, I can do… two for fifteen? Yeah, let’s say, two of them for fifteen dollars?”

   “Two for fifteen?” Kelly chuckled, “That’s indeed very generous of you, but... after all, we only have the one Stephanie to play with.”

   “Oh?” Chrissy arched one of her carefully drawn eyebrows. “I thought you’d want one for yourself?”

   Kelly was just opening her mouth to retort when someone else beat her to the punch.

   “I’ll wear one,” Stephanie spoke up, grinning mischievously. “If Kelly does.”

   “Oh, is that how it is?” Kelly looked at Stephanie with renewed interest. “Why do you want me wearing one?”

   “B-because you’re too good,” Stephanie fussed. “With your words. Making things the way you want them. L-like I heard you say earlier, it’s not, um, this really isn’t, isn’t a level playing field, at all. But if we both had one… then, maybe we could have a fair fight?”

   “...You really think you can take me on?” Kelly laughed in surprise, and she leaned in uncomfortably close to the other girl, letting a saucy smile spread across her lips. “...I’ve got more than just my words, Miss Stephanie.”

   “Oooh,” Amanda crooned. “Looks like the gloves have come off! Well, um, I’m gonna head back and see if I can find wherever Bill disappeared to, you guys. Hope to run into you again, though! It was nice meeting you, Brian! And, uh… other peoples! See you at the rave tonight, Chrissy!”

   “Later!” Chrissy called.

   “Well, alright then,” Brian chuckled. “We’ll take the pink one, and then a normal one in black, then. You said fifteen dollars?”

   “W-wait,” Stephanie paused, looking thoughtful. “Do you… do you have red ones?”

   “Oh, of course! You want to go with red instead of pink?” Chrissy asked, beginning to dig through the boxes behind her table again.

   “Uh, no, um, pink for me still, but red for, for Kelly? If that’s okay,” Stephanie explained meekly.

   “Red, huh?” Kelly said, idly playing a hand through her hair. No one but Stephanie had noticed yet, and she’d almost forgotten about it. “You think it’s gonna come to that, huh?”

   “I, I mean, it might?”

   “Pink and red, then?” Chrissy passed a pair of boxes over the merchandise piled on her booth to Brian, accepting a twenty from him and giving him a five back. “Thank you so much!”

   “You interested in any of this?” Foxy offered, glancing at Mary.

   “No,” she replied with a snort. “Not any of the creepy stuff. I’ll take a pair of the leather cuffs, I guess.”

   “Okay, so first of all, wow,” Chrissy gushed. “Those stunts you pulled back at the panel? Amazing. Getting people to help me put even like, a simple presentation together is like pulling teeth, and then you guys waltz in outta the blue and—”

   Chrissy trailed off in momentary confusion as she saw Kelly raise a finger to her lips, tilting her head to indicate Brian.

   “...Panel?” Brian asked, tucking the pair of white boxes under an arm.

   “Oh,” Chrissy realized. “Oh. Uh, yeah, we… there was…”

   “Amanda mentioned you were looking for us?” Kelly supplied helpfully.

   “Yes! That. There’s this other thing, this other… panel, that I host! A late-night one, where we have a little more leeway with what we can do because it’s in the ‘after-hours’ scheduling block. It’s in the same room, but late tonight, starts an hour before the big anime rave. If you guys feel like it...”

   “We have a lot planned for tonight,” Kelly smiled. “But who knows? Maybe we’ll be able to stop by before the dance.”

   “Skullfie!” An eagerly grinning young girl wearing a cat-eared hat exclaimed as she approached, pointing at Brian in an exaggerated manner. “OH-EM-GEE!! Can I get a picture with you?!”

   “Yeah, sure,” Brian agreed, spinning the skull helm between his fingertips and slipping it back onto his head in one smooth motion.

   “Sooo cool! Aaaah! Thank you, Skullfie!” The excited girl squealed, pouncing upon him in the over-enthusiastic hug conventions fans knew as a glomp. A freckled teenage guy following behind the girl snapped their picture together with his phone, and then the two left just as abruptly as they’d appeared, squeezing right back into the crowd.

   “...Was that a hit and run?” Kelly remarked with a chuckle, turning to watch as the overeager young girl and the teenager tailing her pressed on down the row towards her next victim, a girl with an enormous wig dressed as Magical Doll Yui.

   “Skullfie?” Stephanie wondered.

   “Ah, that’s what they decided to call the Darkmask soldiers in the English adaptation of Hero Hero Haruki,” Brian revealed, making a face. “Nowhere near as cool.”

   “Anime is so fucking stupid,” Mary grumbled, listlessly leafing through anime DVDs at one of the nearby booths. “Why does it all have to be these dumb cartoons? They could be selling something halfway decent here—like some Korean dramas, or something.”

   “Ah, um… they are,” Stephanie spoke up.

   “No, they’re not,” Mary retorted, looking annoyed.

   “Well, no, uh, not at this booth,” Stephanie elaborated, giving the girl a timid smile. “Megan, m-my friend Megan, that is, she’s really into some K-pop bands, so when I saw a booth that was selling—”

   “K-pop?” Mary interrupted. “At an anime convention? Yeah, right. Show me where, then. You’d better not be lying.”

   “O-okay,” Stephanie agreed, gesturing. “It was in that direction, towards that side of the hall, I-I think. Brian?”

   “Hmm? What’s up?”

   “Can we, um,” Stephanie timidly pointed across the other side of the vendor’s room, away from the direction they’d been aimlessly meandering in. “Th-that way? Mary’s looking for, um, trying to find Korean dramas.”

   “Sure, lead on,” Brian waved. 

   “You don’t need to ask for permission,” Mary muttered under her breath. “He’s not our fucking keeper. Retard.”

   “Mary, what the hell’s your—” Brian began, but Kelly beat him to the punch, quickly stepping over to cut Mary off.

   “Say that again,” Kelly dared her, leaning in close and putting herself right in Mary’s face. “Fuckin’ say that again.”

   Mary recoiled in surprise, her petulant expression giving way to an ugly one as she regarded Kelly without saying a word. The attention of all the nearby attendees turned towards them at that bit of altercation, tension filling the air. There’d been an edge to Kelly’s tone, a twinkling flash of crazy in her eyes that promised immediate violence, violence without any consideration for whatever consequences or repercussions might follow. 

   “Hey, c’mon,” Brian placed his hands on Kelly’s shoulders and eased her back away from Mary. “Mary, what’s your problem all the sudden?”

   “I’ve got it—back off,” Foxy interjected, stepping forward to face Mary, putting his back to the others.

   “Sorry,” Kelly murmured indignantly to Brian, blowing out a steady breath. “But I’m not gonna let her make fun of Steph anymore... alright?” Standing close by their side, Stephanie watched both her friends with wide eyes, completely speechless.

   Kelly was pretty surprised herself by her own sudden flare up. She knew herself, knew she always kept her head about her, had the upper hand and maintained composure whenever she had a spat with someone. Because I’m cool about it, cool and distant like fuckin’ outer space, Kelly huffed to herself. But I was about to go supernova on that bitch and slap her stupid little face into stir fry lo mein. Just ‘cause she called Steph a retard? That’s not like me, right?

   “Well, he’s not in fucking charge of us,” Mary spat at Foxy. “We can go wherever we want. Brian’s just one of my brother’s stupid fucking dweeb friends. He’s a nobody.”

   Kelly seethed at overhearing that, and she’d just started to turn on her heel back towards Mary when Brian pulled the livid young woman in the gothic lolita dress directly into his arms.

   “Hey, s’alright. S’alright,” Brian soothed, speaking softly for her. “She’s just being a brat. Play nice.”

   Kelly blinked in surprise at him hugging her against his body. There’d been no real intimate contact since kissing last night, and she hadn’t really expected him to initiate anything. Still, she was tense, she was pissed, and she was determined to at the very least give that uppity Chinese girl a healthy shove or two. So, Kelly kept on her stiff face and shrugged Brian off—or at least, she tried to.

   Fuck me. Her brief attempt at struggling free of him had immediately turned into useless floundering, because he’d been ready for it, and—he was quite a bit stronger than her. She was forcibly reminded of how easily he’d pulled her up off the floor last night, back when he’d first invited the girls to stay with him. Yeah, fuck me. Please.

   She tried to wriggle away again, though really less intent now on escaping his embrace and more interested in testing his hold on her. Satisfied with her situation stuck where she was, she stopped resisting, putting a cute pout up over the faint smile she’d felt forming. Her body remained rigid, but an undercurrent of excitement was rapidly changing the context of her tension. Pretty fuckin’ hot when Brian gets a little physical.

   “So, let’s go,” Foxy suggested to Mary in a low voice, quirking a charming smile towards her. “You’re right; you’re nineteen. They can’t dictate where you go—or who you go with.”

   Mary regarded him with surprise for a moment, as if she’d expected him to disagree with her. She looked with trepidation from him to where Brian was holding Kelly, and then to Stephanie.

   Decisions, decisions… Mary hated how exasperated and condescending had Brian acted around her—how he, of all people, treated her like she was just this dumb kid, and her malice had risen to a new heights at seeing these two girls treating this loser like he was actually a somebody. He’s just a joke. All of Mark’s nerdy little friends are. Why can’t they see that? However, she also had an uneasy feeling at the idea of going off alone with Foxy. He was as good-looking as Brian... but he was still an unknown element, practically a stranger, no matter how familiar he was trying to be.

   Having Foxy with her had seemed to put Brian’s attitude in check, but the presence of these two girls had then restrained Foxy from being more forward with his advances—which was equally useful to Mary. She didn’t want to be looked down on, by some geek of all things, but she also didn’t want to bother dealing with an unbridled Foxy. Flirting just enough to get everything she wanted, while also fending him off enough that he received nothing substantial in return? That would be much more of a hassle all by herself.

   “Fine. Show us where the K-pop and dramas are, then,” Mary edged herself closer to Foxy, but looked past him, without any expression, to address Stephanie. “Please.”

   “Th-they’re, they, um, this way,” Stephanie managed out. She wasn’t sure what to make of everything that had just transpired. Mary’s sudden outburst and Kelly’s reaction both seemed to have come out of the blue, before Stephanie even had a chance to apologize for whatever it was she’d done wrong. Kelly had been at the girl’s throat. Stephanie still wasn’t even sure why, though.

   The flustered girl with the fluffy pink hair looked uneasily over towards Kelly, now wearing a contented look from her position in Brian’s arms, and then led their small group down the aisle, weaving slowly through the crowds and across several junctions.

   “There... really is a booth,” Mary remarked in surprise. “You weren’t lying.”

   Visible from a good distance away, the K-pop booth was big, two tables forming an L shape. A towering wire rack behind the table had dozens upon dozens of posters clipped to it—Korean pretty boys posing together in some, and stylishly-dressed heart-throb bad boys looking out from other posters. The outer portion, the tables facing the aisle, had an LCD monitor playing music videos amid the open boxes upon boxes of CDs, while stepping around the L shape of the tables and into the booth there were dozens of shelves of DVD cases.

   However—no more shoppers could squeeze into the booth area, as it was completely full of excited young women excitedly trying to push past each other for a look at the merchandise. The vendor was a tall, handsomely-dressed Korean man with striking cheekbones and carefully styled hair, leaning down to ring up each of the fans’ purchases with a pleased expression.

   Mary immediately pushed her way into the fray, pulling Foxy along with her, while Brian and the other girls hung back a distance away.

   “I need a box set, the one for Choejong Kiseu—Final Kiss,” Mary instructed Foxy with an extremely serious face. “I need it no matter what.”

   “Uh, well yeah, sure,” Foxy said, squinting over the heads of the group in front of them for DVD titles but finding nothing but unfamiliar squiggle characters. “But... I don’t read Korean.”

   “It should have a big lipstick print in red beside the name,” Mary added frantically, tottering on her tip-toes to see above the other girls swarming throughout the booth. “They have to have it. They have to, I need it. Oh my god. Oh my God, they a 4NE1 poster! 4NE1!”

   “So... she’s actually a geek after all,” Brian remarked in a dry voice from where they waited on the other side of the aisle. “Kinda funny, isn’t it?”

   “What a fucking hypocrite,” Kelly muttered under her breath. “I don’t even see the appeal. All the pansies in those posters look completely metrosexual.”

   “Metro..sexual?” Stephanie asked.

   “Guys that put a lot of time into their appearance,” Brian offered helpfully. “Looking, you know, well-groomed, clean, and stylish or whatever.”

   “Only teenies and tweenies fall for guys with the prissy boy image,” Kelly scoffed. “When you’ve become a woman, you’re naturally gonna be more attracted to a guy with some actual fuckin’ manliness.”

   “B-but, Brian’s pretty, though,” Stephanie blustered out.

   “Pretty? How the fuck is Brian pretty?” Kelly countered, arching an eyebrow.

   “Yeah, I’m only pretty when I keep my helmet on,” Brian laughed, waggling the stylized skull helm for emphasis.

   “He’s, um. It’s this kind of… bishounen guy, uh, s-sort of thing,” Stephanie mumbled, looking down at the floor in embarrassment. “He’s just, um. Nice. To look at.”

   “Thanks… I think?” Brian chuckled. “You’re pretty nice to look at, yourself.”

   “I am?” Stephanie managed to look shocked.

   “Yeah. You’re very easy on the eyes,” he nodded. “We should spend a whole bunch of time, just looking at each other.”

   “...Yeah,” Stephanie agreed breathlessly. “Lets.”

   “But, then who’s gonna look at me?!” Kelly interjected, equally amused and horrified at how corny they were being.

   “Well, not everyone’s made to be looked at,” Brian teased.

   “What the hell does—”

   “Some people are made to be touched, instead,” he interrupted with a grin.

   “Fuck, well, you got me there,” Kelly laughed, tracing her hands down between her breasts and then down her navel. “But... hey, since when—” 

   “He bought it for me!” Mary had returned, now carefully holding a large white box set with gilded Korean lettering and a bright red lipstick imprint emblazoned upon it. She looked at each of them in shocked disbelief. “He bought it for me.”

   “Nice, how much?” Brian asked.

   “A hundred and ninety-seven dollars,” Mary declared proudly. “Plus tax.”

   “...Wow,” Brian said.

   “For that?” Kelly smirked at the DVD set, skepticism apparent on her  face.

   “Yeah, they’re, um. Bad. That’s why I wasn’t in any rush to tell my friend Megan about the booth,” Stephanie admitted.

   “Bad?” Mary frowned. “What do you mean, bad? It’s amazing.”

   “Imported stuff gets crazy expensive sometimes,” Brian grimaced. “For a lot of things, even if sellers over there have their stuff online, they’re still not willing to ship it overseas because of the tariffs and taxes and whatnot.”

   “Wait,” Kelly said, narrowing her eyes and looking back over at Brian. “Isn’t this dress imported?”

   “No one cares. Your dress is shit,” Mary insisted, making a face. “The Choejong Kiseu Collection right here was a hundred and ninety-seven dollars—plus tax!”

   “Listen, you botched little cunt flap,” Kelly laughed, “I’m in a great mood right now. Watching you cream yourself for overpriced Korean garbage with that goofy fuckin’ look on your face already makes for a good laugh. Why’re you going out of your way tryin’ to get yourself a bloody nose and some missing teeth, too? S’not gonna be any easy teasin’ free shit outta suckers if you get any uglier, now is it, you shitty little piss wrinkle?”

   Mary gasped and involuntarily took a step backwards, abruptly colliding with another attendee who’d been crossing the aisle. Kelly’s expression was beautiful and bright—but the dark, cruel look in her eyes completely eclipsed the sweet smile she wore. It wasn’t a glare, exactly—it was a look of certainty, an overwhelming confidence born of Kelly’s natural disposition, amplified even further by her beautiful gothic dress. An angelic, but somehow also sinister appearance. She’s like a fucking demon. She’d… she’ll actually hurt me!

   “Wh-what did you say to me?!” Mary finally sputtered out as she attempted to collect herself. Where’s Foxy when I need him?!

   “Kelly…” Brian began, but the throb of vibration from his phone curtailed his intervention. Checking the display, he found that Mark was finally finished with the Mana: the Mastery tournament, so their time as chaperones was coming to a close.

   “Wow. Wow. You’re actually fucking jealous,” Mary sneered. “Foxy bought me this, for a hundred and ninety-seven dollars, plus tax. Brian hasn’t gotten you jack-shit.”

   “Yeah, just my convention badge, the hotel room, my food, what’ll either be a gag gift or a for-real gag, and—oh my, the very dress I’m wearing,” Kelly shrugged indifferently. “What he gave Steph last night, though… that was something really special—somethin’ money can’t really even buy.”

   “You—” Mary fumed, glaring daggers at Kelly and then Stephanie. “You’re lying.”

   “Hey, what’d I miss?” Foxy asked, trotting back over from the K-pop booth with a poster rolled into a long tube. “They were sold out of that 4NE1 poster, but for a little extra I convinced him to give me his display one. What do you think?”

   “You got it?!” Mary shrieked, clutching her box set protectively with one arm while she hugged him fiercely with the other. “You’re perfect. You’re amazing. A hundred and ninety-seven dollars, plus tax, plus the sold out poster that’s not even for sale anymore! Hah!”

   She beamed triumphantly at Kelly, certain that she’d won.

   “Not a big deal,” Foxy shrugged, giving them all a cocky smile. “Oh—but they don’t charge tax in here. Flat dollar amounts.”

   “...Oh,” Mary said, looking visibly deflated at the news.

   “Mark says the Mana: the Mastery tournament’s over already,” Brian reported. “He’s waiting for us in the lobby.”

   “Hah, yeah, right,” Foxy laughed. “The tournament’s over for him, maybe. Must’ve been eliminated in like, the first couple rounds. That’s hilarious.”

   “There’s probably just a lot of great players this year,” Brian shrugged.

   “We don’t have to go back right away,” Mary protested, making an ugly face. “I’m not just gonna come and go at his beck and call. I’m not his property.”

   “You’re a liability, that’s what you are,” Kelly smirked. “Fucking child. It’s embarrassing I was gonna even put in effort—she’s just outta her training bra and already she thinks she’s hot shit.”

   “Whoa, take it easy,” Foxy warned, looking from Kelly to Mary and back again and wondering what’d happened in the minute he was gone.

   “Yeah,” Kelly laughed, shaking her head. “I just did. C’mon, Steph. C’mon, Steve. Time to return little Betsy bed-wetter here to her brother.”

   Gnashing her teeth, Mary positively trembled with rage. If Kelly’s earlier words had been infuriating, then that gothic lolita girl now acting dismissive of her, as though she wasn’t even worth acknowledging—That just crossed my bottom fucking line.

   Kelly was already pulling Stephanie and Brian along.

   “Um,” Stephanie leaned over to Brian to whisper, “What… were they, er—why are they both getting so upset? I, uh, I don’t understand it at all.”

   “Upset?” Brian put on a stunned look. “Here I was thinking that was just their way of flirting with each other, it was getting hard to watch. Hey—ow!” He turned the other way to see Kelly cluck her tongue in annoyance, and she pinched him again.

   “Listen, Mary. I like you,” Foxy said as he escorted Mary back out of the vendor’s room, travelling in the wake of Brian and his two companions. It seemed like he was running out of time. What the fucking hell, Mark. Couldn’t you have lasted a few more tournament rounds?

   “No, you don’t,” Mary shook her head. “I’m not nice.”

   “I’m not interested in nice,” Foxy said with a dismissive gesture. “I like that you know you’re better than everyone else here, because I feel the same way. I like that you’re honest with yourself about it—you’re not putting up that false pretense, this nice attitude for people who’re beneath you.”

   “I don’t think I’m better than everyone,” Mary denied, frowning in disgust. “Kelly’s prettier than me, isn’t she?” Though she was fairly confident in her looks, Kelly was undeniably superior in several ways, a stinging fact that rankled even more each time they interacted. Although Stephanie was threateningly cute, the weird little pink-haired girl didn’t seem to have much real presence to back that up. 

   “Kelly’s probably been preparing that specific look she’s wearing now for months and months. Maybe even years. That’s what chicks into all that gothic lolita fashion stuff are like,” Foxy shrugged. “I bet every other day of the year she’s just this plain jane wallflower nobody even notices.”

   “Yeah? So, you think I’m pretty?” Mary turned towards him with an unreadable expression.

   “Obviously, or I wouldn’t be here hanging out with you.”

   “That’s kinda shallow,” Mary said in a disapproving tone, but he could read a faint smile beginning to emerge.

   “Is it? I appreciate a girl who very obviously takes good care of herself, who takes some pride in her appearance, because those things are important to me. Would you still be talking to me if I was some sweaty turbo-lard guy from the tournament hall?”

   “Hah ha, ew,” Mary laughed, making a face.

   “I’ve gone and put myself out there a bit, now... I think you’re worth my time,” Foxy said. “So, you’ve gotten to know me a bit. What do you think about me?”

   She stared at him with those unreadable dark brown eyes of hers, wearing an amused smile, before giving him a noncommittal shrug and glancing away as their group stepped through the small row of open double-doors and back into AnimeCon’s lobby.

   A familiar impatient face was waiting for them, a casually-dressed Chinese guy wearing a somewhat ridiculous dragon-egg hat.

   “Mark!” Brian grinned. “This is Stephanie and Kelly. Stephanie and Kelly, this is Mark—Mary’s brother.”

   “H-hi.”

   “I can see the resemblance.”

   Mark blinked in confusion, turning from the Brian to the girls and back again.

   “...Who are they?”

   “Mark… I literally just introduced them to you,” Brian said, gesturing to each of the girls once again. “This is Stephanie, and this is Kelly.”

   “Yeah, well, I mean but who are they?”

   “We’re his obedient slaves,” Kelly offered, slipping her hand through Stephanie’s and fluttering her eyelashes innocently.

   Mark’s mouth fell open to gape in disbelief, and he turned doubtfully back to Brian.

   “Where’d you find them? Where’s Emily and Becca and everyone?”

   “Becca couldn’t make it, she’s with her new boyfriend,” Brian explained. “Emily and Rebecca aren’t getting here ‘till later today. Everyone else made other plans, I guess.”

   “Rebecca? The viking chick? Heard of her—haven’t met her, yet.” Mark muttered, still eyeing Stephanie and Kelly with a questioning expression. “...And you guys are Brian’s slaves?”

   Kelly simply smiled, while Stephanie shot an amused glance to Brian, bit her lip, and then nodded with a blush.

   “No shit? Hey, make them do something,” Mark tried goading Brian for a moment before realizing with a start who was standing next to his sister. “Well, well, well. If it isn’t Foxy of fucking Loxly.”

   “Mark,” Foxy nodded politely. “Out of the tournament already? Must’ve not done so well this year.”

   “Christ, was it shitty this time,” Mark made a sorrowful expression, shaking his head in dismay. “Lost to Little Tucker, he’s playing a denial deck. But I wreck all of his creatures in the first few turns, pull them from his graveyard into my hand. So by the time he shuts me out from re-deploying anything, he has nothing to hit me with but Rite Rats.

   “Rite Rats! They wouldn’t have even been able to damage me if they hadn’t counted as consecrated, and in the end it still took him like, twelve turns to whittle me down. Twelve fucking turns where I didn’t draw a single ancient stone or leyline so that I could deploy anything. Fucking disgrace all around. Fucking Rite Rats, can you believe it?”

   “You lost to Little Tucker?” Foxy frowned. “That should be embarrassing, but it’s really just sad. There’s nothing satisfying about him beating anyone. I should’ve been there.”

   “...So you really were a Mana player this whole time?” Mary accused Foxy, looking disappointed.

   “Hah, he wishes,” Mark spat. “Couple years back, he was the regional champ here. Played an Elder Gods deck, if I remember right—back when those were still viable. But then, last year, he’s going up against this whiny fat guy, really pulverizing him, I guess, and fatass loses it and flips the table—like, really, he actually flips the table over. All of their cards, all over the fuckin’ place. So guess how Foxy responded to that? He—”

   “Knocked him the fuck out,” Foxy said through his teeth, shaking his head at the memory.

   “Really?” Mary asked, her eyes sparkling. “You knocked him out?”

   “One hit K.-O.” Mark laughed. “You really don’t remember? I was trying to show you the video of it last year?”

   “No,” Mary said, frowning. “I want to see it.”

   “It wasn’t that amazing,” Foxy said. “Like tipping over a sweaty mattress somebody’d propped up there. Wasn’t a big deal, and they didn’t have to ban me from the regionals for it.”

   “Wasn’t a big deal? Wasn’t a big deal?” Mark’s voice escalated into a crescendo. “Aside from a few of us serious players, nobody knew who you were, even after you took a championship. Now, everyone won’t shut up about you. Don’t know how many times today I heard a player tell his opponent, ‘Man, I’m ‘bout to Fox you right in the fucking Loxly.’”

   “Yeah, great. Just what I always wanted, to become a meme for mouth-breather Mana players,” Foxy scowled. “Thank you for that.”

   “Well, why’d ya throw the punch, then?”

   “That fatass was way outta line,” Foxy argued. “I’m not gonna regret teaching him a lesson, it just… well, it pisses me off that I had to be the one to do it, and that I have to bear the consequences. You know, pisses me off that there’s guys like that just coasting through life, still throwing tantrums like little children, ‘cause no one’s ever gonna call them out on it.

   “Well, I will,” Foxy decided, his expression darkening. “Reality check, motherfucker.”

   “Reality check, motherfucker,” Mary repeated with a bright laugh, slipping her hand around Foxy’s. “Mark… I’m going to spend the rest of the day with Foxy. Don’t try to stop me, or I’ll have him hurt ya, okay? Reality check, motherfucker.”

   “Hah, try to stop you?” Mark guffawed in her face, slapping at the nearby Brian’s shoulder in amusement. “You ever gonna realize I’ve been trying to pawn you off on everyone else around me, since always and forever?

   “Well, fuck, Foxy, fair warning; despite her own best efforts, she’s still a virgin, and our parents are very serious Catholics. Let’s just say, you break it, you bought it, if you catch my drift?”

   “Don’t fucking talk about me, that’s disgusting,” Mary hissed in anger. “You’re the fucking virgin, you stupid little shit.”

   “I’m sorry, is that supposed to be an insult?” Mark laughed. “Like, because I’m smart enough to never get my dick caught in a money-grubbing beartrap, there’s something wrong with me? No offense, I guess, Brian.”

   “There’s no need to be crass, Mark,” Foxy said in a disapproving tone, and he pulled Mary away from the group to head down the east wing with her. She wore a bright smile, not resisting in the slightest.

   “Yeah,” Brian said, keeping a straight face. “Are you trying to say I’m not a virgin? I’ll have you know; I’ve never even kissed a girl.” Mark didn’t miss Stephanie and Kelly exchanging amused glances at that, guiding Brian away from Mark in the opposite direction from Mary and Foxy, towards the escalators leading to AnimeCon’s upper level.

   “Whatever,” Mark shrugged. “I warned you. Hey, wait—I thought you guys were gonna come back with me? I was gonna wait for them to reopen the tournament hall with everyone, so we can all hang out. Where’re you guys going? Guys? Guys?!”

•     •     •

   “...Could you beat Brian in a fight?” Mary asked, walking along alone now with Foxy while hugging the precious Korean drama box set against her chest.

   “Yeah,” Foxy answered without hesitation, twirling the tube of her rolled-up 4NE1 poster in his fingers absent-mindedly. “If I’ve got a reason to. Do I? He seemed like an alright guy, mostly. He say something to make you think otherwise?”

   “Kelly did,” Mary admitted. “I can’t fucking stand her. She needs a big fat reality check. Like, you know—reality check, motherfucker.”

   Foxy blanched. It wasn’t a question of whether he could give Kelly a reality check—it was a question of whether he would ever fight her in the first place. Even with some serious provocation, it would rarely be acceptable for him to smack around a girl, let alone that one. He’d then surely be up against Brian as well, in addition to any number of nearby guys who decided to play white knight, as well as convention security and then inevitably the police. That unspoken fact hung in the air between them, Mary obviously having already arrived at the same conclusion; to take on Brian instead.

   “Then, yeah, like I said, I could take Brian on, should we run into them again,” Foxy said. “Piece of cake… but I’d need a reason to. You’re the one with reasons—give me a reason. Give me a stake in this.”

   They walked along the hallway together in silence for a minute while Mary considered his words with a deep frown.

   “I can’t eat all of this Pocki,” Mary said abruptly, holding up the half-empty box of Pocki he’d bought her and rattling it for emphasis.

   She can’t finish… a box of Pocki? Foxy thought, suppressing a wince. An entire box was about as satiating as eating a single cookie—these tiny little sticks weren’t filling at all. What’s with that all of the sudden, did she not like them? Is she just making an excuse to throw them away, or—

   “Sooo, you can help me eat them,” Mary reasoned, sliding out one of the remaining thin sticks and holding it up to him.

   Surprised, he’d just been moving to take it when she yanked it back from him. Foxy didn’t appreciate being taunted, and his eyes flashed, darting from the withdrawn Pocki to her smiling face in annoyance. But there was something different about the way she was looking at him now—she wore a teasing expression, but not a mocking one.

   She looks almost... nervous?

   Foxy watched with growing fascination as she slowly took that stick of Pocki she was holding, placed one end between the soft cleft of her lips, and leaned back towards him.

   He dropped a hand down to rest upon her waist, steadying her, pulling her a little closer, and deftly caught the opposite end of that Pocki stick pointed towards him with his mouth. There were both still for a moment, a tacit understanding exchanged within their gaze, the couple connected by more than just the confection propped between their lips—and then, they began to close the distance with small nibbles.

   Brian... you seemed like an okay guy. You’d better just hope we don’t run into each other again for the rest of the convention.