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AnimeCon Harem 1: Before the Convention
🕑 Added 2018-05-17 17:56:47 +0000 UTCHalf the drawers on the dresser hung open and empty, the bed was stripped bare of its sheets, and the mattress sat askew atop the box spring frame. The shelves beside the desk had been rummaged through and what remained was cluttered in small piles here and there. In this disheveled, half-furnished room a young man slumped in his computer chair wearing a vacant expression, chin resting on his knuckle.
A break-in? That would've been messy. But a break-up can turn out to be so much messier.
Brian had lived together with Chloe for two years, so coming home from his shift to find all of her things gone from his apartment had been a little jarring. To be honest, their relationship had taken a rather sour turn for the past.. well, quite some time now. Tumblr had opened her eyes to just how oppressed and victimized women actually were, and she had thrown herself into the post-modern feminist revolution with ardent enthusiasm.
Things had become difficult between them. "Strained" may be too lenient a word for the frustrating struggle that terminated in.. this. Brian's brow furrowed and he rubbed his face slowly, trying to will himself to feel nothing at all about this turn of events.
He was generally a good looking guy. Brian had wide shoulders and a trim waist - despite his geeky interests he had neither the stereotypical geek goatee nor a chubby paunch forming along his midsection. Jogging wasn't his first hobby, but it was among them, and though a far cry from athletic he was in fair shape.
His brown hair was downy-soft and usually kept styled in a side-parted taper cut that looked professional, if a bit old-fashioned. His eyebrows were dark, his eyes a mottled shade of green that made him look intelligent and engaging... well, at least they did under more forgiving circumstances.
Where exactly had everything gone wrong, then? He'd always tried his best to treat her nice and to make her happy. Somehow along the way, she'd begun to classify his actions into his gender role, into a gender culture. Being attracted to her meant he was objectifying her. Disagreeing with her was oppression. Hurting her feelings was tantamount to abuse, whether or not it was intentional.
He could more easily picture Chloe for her frowns and crossed arms rather than her sweet smiles. For her cold shoulder and her special coffee mug with the words "male tears" emblazoned across it. How had this distance crept between him and the cute geek girl he'd fallen for, and how hadn't he been able to do a thing about it?
A knock on the apartment door woke him from his reverie. Swearing under his breath, Brian stumbled up out of his seat and into the small living room, overturning a small stack of old textbooks in the process.
"Gimme a sec," he called, looking around. His flat-screen was leaning against the wall, unplugged and trailing video cables across the floor. Indentations in the carpet and stray candy wrappers were all the remained of his missing couch, and a haphazard pile of his DVDs were heaped in front of the pillaged DVD rack. The giant bookcase had stood empty, and those books that hadn't ascended with Chloe in her great journey was strewn about the purgatorial malaise of Brian's apartment.
Nope. Total loss, no point in even trying to tidy anything. Sighing, he swung the front door open.
A pale, dark-haired cutie of vaguely hispanic descent stood, her fist poised to knock again. It was Emily, one of his best friends whom he'd known all the way back through high school. Her petite, somewhat underdeveloped body was often the subject of her self-depreciating humor, she dressed in stylish clothes containing anime references, and she usually sported an infectiously adorable grin. Today she wore an uncharacteristic expression of concern that really drove home the gravity of his situation.
"Heeey," Emily said, stepping forward for one of her trademark exceptionally awkward hugs - she was short, the top of her tousled pixie-haircut only just reaching Brian's shoulder. "How're you doing? Are you okay?"
"...I'll be okay."
"You'd better," she affirmed, squeezing him tightly.
"Um. Oh, wow," Emily muttered, looking past him into the ransacked and half-emptied apartment. "She sent me to make sure she didn't miss anything. I kiiinda doubt that she did."
Ah. Here on Chloe's behalf, then. Well, they did all share the same basic circle of friends, this was bound to get all kinds of awkward. He slowly stepped aside to let her into the apartment.
"Is she okay?" he asked in a detached tone.
"Yeah. Yeah, she's doing.. she's doing great," she said, nodding her head as she glanced around in awe at the aftermath of the once well-decorated apartment. "She's doing really well."
Emily turned and centered her brandy-brown eyes on Brian. "That's what I was told to tell you; that she's doing great. Buuut she's not. She's a mess. Can't stop crying. Freaking out. Mental breakdown, that whole deal."
Brian stared at her blankly. "That, uh," he said, scratching his face, "Kinda doesn't sound like the Chloe I knew at all."
"Haaaah," Emily breathed, looking around nervously. "About that. It's like, the part of her that got all... you know, crazy? With the turbo-feminist thing, doesn't accept that most of us are pissed at her for the way she's treated you. Don't get me wrong, there's still some of the old Chloe in there, and I love her to death, but.. she needs to chill for a while."
He couldn't help but feel relieved at hearing that their mutual friends, especially Emily, acknowledge Chloe's irrational behavior. And there really was some tiny part of the old Chloe still in existence, maybe there might still be a chance after all.
"What's she going to do? Is she going to come back?"
"Oooh, well, uh," Emily said, trying to think of a nice way to phrase it. "A part of her wants to? Like, tiny part. Very tiny." She used her fingers to show roughly how much, and it didn't look promising.
She paused, rubbing her arm and looking down at the linoleum. "And we told her not to."
"You told her not to."
"Yes. Leaving you is the only thing she's done right lately. Now wait, hear me out. She really needs to sort her shit out, okay? Her coming back right now is not a good idea for you two."
Brian took a deep breath, nodding. "So I wait for her."
"Brian..." Emily sighed, putting her hand on his shoulder. "...I don't think that's a great idea either, champ. You gotta move on. Here, lemme show you."
She tugged a dangling lanyard out of her open purse, revealing a laminated badge for the upcoming AnimeCon, and held it out to him. It was the one he had pre-ordered for Chloe.
"She actually wanted to keep it, you know? Even though she wasn't gonna go. We told her that was a fuckin' waste of your sixty bucks and she needed to either man up- er excuse me, woman up and attend the con, sort shit out with you or... give it back to you. And... so yeah, here it is. Her decision."
She dropped the convention pass into his hand. "Sorry."
The convention plans. Some of the best times Chloe and him had spent together were their yearly excursions to the giant Animecon across the state. This time he'd booked the hotel room with his money, he'd bought the pre-registration passes.
He'd also ordered a surprise for Chloe, a gorgeous gothic lolita costume commissioned in her measurements. Petticoat, corset, an elegant layered dress decorated in bows and ribbons, fishnet stockings, shoes, the whole outfit. At the time he had ordered it, they'd been on much better terms. When it had arrived, months later, he even still hoped it would help reconcile their differences and he'd stashed the package behind shoe boxes in the top of his closet. Now it was just another painful reminder and waste of money.
But there was certainly no need to tell anyone about the outfit now. He swallowed, looking back up at her. "Well, I already have my pass. You want this one?"
"I couldn't get Friday and Saturday off... it'd be a waste to take a full pass for just Sunday. Give it to a cutie who didn't pre-register, pick some hot little chica right outta the line for convention passes. They'll be all over you."
"Yeah... right," he said, rolling his eyes. "'Cause that's just what I need right now."
"Maybe it is?" Emily said, pouting and jabbing his chest with her finger. "You're a good-looking guy on the rebound. Hell, if we weren't like brother and sister by now I'd be into you. Don't you remember back in high school? That night after Homecoming?"
He grimaced at the memory. "You were drunk. Beyond drunk, it wasn't even you anymore. Ninety-five pounds of Tequila disguised as you tried to make out with me. And possibly wet the couch."
"I did not wet the couch," she said sharply, slapping his arm. "I spilled my drink."
"Yes. Spilled something you drank. Out of your body." He was playfully slapped again, and it actually stung quite a bit. Apparently her wiry little latina arms were stronger than they looked. "And anyways Emily, nothing happened between us."
"Uh yeah, 'cause you're a fuckin' gentleman that respects women," she retorted. "That's why you and Chloe lasted so long. Waaay longer than you two should have. Well, jig's up now."
She began to dig through her purse again, finally pulling out a familiar-looking Japanese charm. It was half the size of the convention pass, a thin slat of wood with strips of red and white thread woven around it in an intricate pattern. An ornate series of Japanese kanji had been carved into it.
"Oh no."
"Ohhh yeaaah," she mimed in her low-pitched fruit drink pitcher bursting through a wall impression.
The charm had been given to Emily by her cousin Samantha as a good luck charm, but when Brian had looked up the kanji, it had humorously turned out to read "Harem charm," and became an inside joke around their circle of friends.
"Here, take it. As you know, Sammie got this from Japan. From a shrine or something, but it's legit from Japan so you just know it's the real deal."
"Emily, I heard Sam got that from a vending machine."
"Okay, she got it at a vending machine... in a shrine. Then a forever-alone otaku neet lost his yen to the machine and tried to tip it over, but was crushed under the machine. But when the shrine priests righted the machine... his body was gone. Now his vengeful spirit works in the charm, giving it mysterious power."
"That's... did you just think all that up?"
Emily rolled her eyes. "Sammie and me have been running with that gag for years now, the story keeps snowballing. Something something devouring the minds of innocent women.. and ends in tentacle rape, as it should. Would ya just take it?"
She shoved the charm into his open hand atop the convention pass. As her fingers brushed against his, something like static electricity zapped her and for a fleeting moment tiny blue sparkles danced through the back of her head. Felt... kinda nice.
"Whoa, you zapped me, jerk."
"I what?"
She rubbed her fingertips together absent-mindedly. "A-anyways, collect yourself a harem of sexy little things at Animecon and forget about Chloe, 'kay? We're gonna make sure she's fine."
"Yeah.. a little too soon for me to be forming my harem. I didn't even realize I was single today until I got home from work."
"...Really. When's the last time you talked to Chloe? Wait, no, lemme rephrase that. When's the last time you had a talk with her that didn't end with a fight?" Emily leaned back, crossing her arms.
"Okay. Yeah. We have problems. Guilty. But?"
"Had problems, past tense, champ," Emily interrupted, "I realize this seems sudden for you, but you two haven't actually really been together in... months? And I'm not blaming you! She's gotten weird as hell. But really. It's over between you."
"Did she send you here to tell me that?"
Emily looked agitated. "Fuck. No, she didn't. She's caught up in her own little oppressed feminist reality where you're the bad guy, and I know most of it, fuck maybe all of that is bullshit. The things she told me to tell you... aren't things I could ever say to you. I'm here stuck in the middle between you two translating; It's over between you and Chloe. I'm sorry."
Well, that's not easy to digest. He stood with his jaw set for a long, tense moment before nodding. "No, thank you." This was all too much to think about at once, and he honestly didn't know what to say about any of it yet.
"Totally not taking sides on all this, since you're both my friends and all," she said, enveloping him in another of her awkward hugs. "But, she's being a cunt, and I hope you get yourself laid at the con just to spite her." An errant blue spark flitted through her mind, and she wet her lips with her tongue.
( AnimeCon Harem | Next: Gijinka Capture )
