5. Dealer room…How hard can that be?

--

Hilde giggled soft, ‘Quiet now!’ Dorothy shot back silently, ‘you wake them…’

With talented fingers Dorothy opened the lock of the cupid suite and slid inside, followed by Hilde and Mariemaia, tiptoeing, sneaking into the room.

‘Oh my…’ Hilde whispered as she bumped into Dorothy, her eyes weren’t adjusted to the dark.

‘Hush!’

‘Hush yourself.’

A sigh escaped someone’s lips followed by movement underneath satin sheets; Wufei turned around, laying his arm around Sally’s waist and nuzzling her neck.

Carefully Hilde felt underneath Sally’s pillow; no gun underneath. Dorothy did the same when she searched underneath Wufei’s pillow; no gun either since she held his fire arms playfully in her hands.

‘PILLOWFIGHT! ATTAAAAAAAAACK!

Wufei shot up, reaching for the gun that wasn’t there. Sally grabbed instinctively the sheets and received a pillow in her face. She fell out of bed, drawing the sheets unvoluntary with her, leaving Wufei uncovered.

‘Oh my!’ Dorothy giggled, ‘I think what Sally sees in you… or rather said, attached to you.’

A little dizzy Wufei glanced at Dorothy, ‘wha?!’ and grabbed her pillow to cover himself with when reality hit him.

Sally growled something in Chinese followed by, ‘how dare you two.’

‘Three.’ Mariemaia corrected her, ‘did they ehm… do youknowwhattum?’

‘Noticing the spots in bed they certainly did.’ Dorothy grinned wide as she snapped the lights, ‘well… than we know the two of you are a couple.’

‘EVERYBODY OUT!’ Bellowed Wufei, threw the cushion away and rushed after the three women to the corridor.

Squealing with laughter they disappeared into their room, whilst the other guests left theirs to find out what was going on, looking flabbergasted at Wufei…

‘In one and a half hour we are going to be the discussion of the day.’ Smiling wide Sally wrapped herself in the sheet against the cold.

‘So what? How would Tseng be affected by that?’ Wufei moved to the showers and turned it on. Hot water rained down upon his shoulders and neck and Sally could only imagine how that would look.

‘Tseng would keep his pokerface…’ smiling she answered, ‘I should have been as Elena!’

‘Hmpf! Cosplayers!’ came from the bathroom.

It didn’t matter to Wufei what had happened and that people spoke about them. Calm as ever he moved from the room followed by a heavily blushing Sally dressed as Matsumoto Rangiku again. They joined three giggling ladies: Hilde/Zelda, Dorothy/waittress and Mariemaia/Card Captor Sakura.

‘Now I can never look at you without laughing my ass off.’ Dorothy grinned wide, her smile hiding behind her lace gloves.

‘Say that again and I’ll make sure you will never get a boyfriend.’ Wufei/Tseng readjusted his tie and gazed at her if he meaned so. Her smile disappeared and suddenly reappeared at his face, to Dorothy’s disgust.

--

Breakfast was simple and fast: bread, bread and more bread. Now it became clear that most guests were residing in the hotel, whilst even more would come from other places. It was the quietest moment of the day, whilst some young women passed their table smiling and gossiping.

‘Nice action of yours, storming outside the room naked.’ Sally growled annoyed.

‘At least they know your mine.’ Wufei growled back and dropped the napkin between them accidentally. His arm slid passed her thigh to the ground to grab the napkin and replace it on the table.

‘tease.’

‘in that case you shouldn’t be so beautiful.’

‘Okay, today the cosplay competition, the AMV-competition and the Dealer Room are scheduled…’ Hilde checked the list of articles she wanted to buy, ‘ the dealer room opens at noon precisely, at five this afternoon the AMV-competition and at seven the cosplay competition.’

‘Well, since it’s ten in the morning, there’s plenty of time to do other things.’ Wufei wanted to sit at a couch in the lounge to relax a bit.’

Mariemaia grabbed his tie and pulled him downstairs; for he minute he thought she was choking him. As he turned red by the lack of oxygen she spoke: I don’t’ think so, the Dealer Room is the most important of all. You have to be in time.’

Nodding Hilde agreed, as Wufei tried to free his tie from Mariemaia’s grasp but chocked slowly, ‘indeed, there are now only three people before us so we will standin line now.’ And she stood in line. A while later more people followed to the end of the lobby and beyond.

‘I told you so?’ said Mariemaia wisely, letting go of Wufei’s tie much to his appreciation. Annoyed he readjusted the tie once more until he could breath again.

Heavens! The girl needed to know that pulling his tie was so unwise and Wufei took greatful deep breaths of precious oxygen…

Minutes turned to hours.

Hours turned to days.

Days turned into weeks.

Weeks became months.

Months became years.

Years became centuries.

The movement of continents continued, the ice age repeated itself, a flood washed away New York, a meteorite hit and New York turned into a perfect copy of the Serengeti desert.

To Wufei it couldn’t be fast enough. He thought he stood here for days.

‘Don’t be such a baby. It’s early morning and you don’t have a schedule to follow.’ Sally stepped forward, ‘by the way, it’s almost noon and they’re only letting 30 persons in at the time. We are numbers four to eight at the list.’

‘and how long can we stay inside?’ asked Wufei whilst a Chun Li pinched his behind and giggled something about his “nice butt”.

‘As long as we want to!’ giggled Hilde and she looked as if she had seen a dealer room for the first time in her life.

It was up until that moment Wufei ahdn’t noticed the list in their hands, written full with names he couldn’t pronounce and didn’t even try to do so either, ‘what is that?’

Dorothy attempted to explain, ‘here you see the series title, followed by the titles I’m currently missing. Oh I hope that they have Naruto Shipuuden!’

‘Do you also miss numbers 3 to 40?’ Mariemaia piped up carefully as if Wufei could thing of her as nuts.

‘I hope they have a Cid Highwind action figure…’ Sighed Sally calmly to herself.

‘hopefully I’ve got enough money for ten books!’ chimed Hilde, ‘Oh my, we get to go in!’

Wufei got run over by thirty idiots rushing in, including his four ladies. Squashed and with a terrible hernia and a broken neck he got up, coughing to clear his lungs and airways dust free; he felt anime-cliché run over…

Growling the other convisitors remained behind, angered that they couldn’t enter. Wufei was happy that not everyone was allowed to enter at once; there wouldn’t be a trace left of him if thirteen hundred people would stampede over him in their quest for books, puppets and posters…

What astonished him the most was the merchandise. It looked more like a fish market, without the fish wives crying in horrible voices that you should buy their fish. From comic books you were supposed to read from right to left to angels wings and from cat bells to posters, puppets, movies, dvd-boxes and cd’s with games and music, clothing, books about Japan, Manga, Anime, travel agencies, Japanese books about whatever and so on and so on.

To him it was fairly redicolous, until he run into a poster of Motoko Kusanagi. The lady, cyborg or droid or something like that, looked very tasty…

‘move it Wufei.’ Sally growled jealous, ‘you may have it all, but not that one!’

--

Sheer torture it was, waiting for the ladies to leave the realm of buying. Wufei, who was brought here for a different purpose but guarding, carried in total seventeen bags with books, puppets, posters, dvd-boxes, cd-roms with music and games. Hilde had clasped her angels wings to the back, Mariemaia was happy with her cat bell tied around her neck and Sally had become the proud owner of ceveral Cid Highwind puppets.

‘do I look like a donkey?’ Wufei growled when Dorothy handed over her bags as well.

‘If you brawl like one you do.’ And she strapped something to his trousers, ‘look! A tail!’ and played with it.

‘Dorothy…’ Sally gave her a dark look, ‘he’s mine!’ and grabbed the tail to take Wufei along, as if it was a dogs leash.

‘At last…’ Sighed Mariemaia, ‘the AMV-contest!’ in the end, around four in the afternoon, they arrived at the great theater, the same where the opening was held and where in one hour the AMV-contest would be held. Dozens of cosplayers had already gathered together hoping for a good place in the center of it… impatient Dorothy, Sally, Mariemaia and Hilde joined them. Wufei remained behind a bit, a little awkward and feeling a bit out of place…

Continued in chapter 6: AMV-Contest