AN: You kids are hilarious. Thanks for the lulz.

Love, VK

Friday nights are always good because I can put off homework assignments for a later time, granted that they get finished and are of decent quality. I managed to burn a significant amount of hours by playing online checkers, and because I felt like a lazy bum today, I ordered a pizza for my sister and me instead of cooking that new brand of stir-fry noodles that I've always wanted to try making.

School was pretty fun this week, minus the thought of an impending event that is soon to take place. My friends seriously thought that I had developed some kind of disorder overnight, because I would jump up and shudder every time someone would mention something about anime. (I have been blessed with some really cool friends, haven't I?)

Exactly one week from now, I will be going to an anime convention called with my sister and her best friend-a first for all three of us. We will be staying at a hotel and plan on spending Friday night, plus an entire weekend there. THIS has been the main focus of everything lately.

Two months ago, when we pre-ordered our tickets, I was so excited that I easily burnt calories while attempting to bounce from wall to wall. I didn't really know why I was acting that way, because my interest in comics and animation goes as far as a graphic adaptation of the Tale of Genji.

Oh, wait. No, it doesn't. I almost forgot. Nobody knows that I am a hardcore Wataru Hibiki fanboy.

Earlier this year, my sister had left her volume one of Wataru's Shounen Dolls lying around on the coffee table while she was staying after school for fencing practice, and I got home from university pretty early, because my English Literature professor accidentally tripped on an eraser and ended up going straight to the emergency room. (He's all right though.)

Instead of opening up a new word document to start my homework, I reach over to the book and begin flipping through it. The story tells of an orphaned girl whose family has been making dolls around the same time mine started to become heavily involved in the local politics. Not only does she run a doll shop, but can also hear their voices and rid them of evil spirits. She has two guardian dolls that turn into humans at night with a kiss. Not only do I find the story adorably amusing, but the art style is so elaborately consistent throughout the course of the volumes.

Light footsteps shuffle from the kitchen.

"Gakupo, you busy?"

"No…I-" Apparently, it's difficult to tell that I'm busy fantasizing about my favorite comic. Hmph.

"Oh, cool. Then can you fix the seam on my Grell Sutcliff cosplay? It's starting to fall apart a little."

"Where on it? And I thought you told me that you had already retired this one, didn't you?"

"Iunno. I forget what I say sometimes; I'm too busy to remember anything," she shrugged, nonchalantly, plopping herself next to me on the sofa. "I wanna' wear it just in case something happens to my Decepticon suit," she says, passing the jacket to me. I fold it neatly and place it on my lap.

To have her Decepticon suit destroyed would be my nightmare. It's safe to say that Gumi almost died while trying to make it. I remember delivering The Best Tirade Ever once when I caught her coming home from the junkyard at night, dragging along a bag full of scrap metal. After that incident, I convinced my friend Tonio to come to our apartment and assist Gumi, since he's very experienced in wielding metal. (He gets commissioned to build steel sculptures regularly.) My efforts failed massively when I introduced him to her and she completely ignored it.

Shortly, Tonio yelled at me for interrupting his oh-so precious schedule and started referring to me by my given name in front of our classmates and professors the following week. It confused the fishcakes out of so many people, because I do not normally go as "Gakupo" outside the house, so there was a lot of "'Gakupo?' Who's that? That's Jack, isn't it?" flying around the place.

"Oh, I never actually thought about that."

"You haven't? And why did it take you so long to find an answer?"

"Sorry, sorry, I guess I'm just…distracted. Yes, distracted. And no, no I haven't yet. I'm not too worried about myself, so honestly, I could care less if some random guy who doesn't know what a napkin is happens to decide to use my costume to wipe his greasy face. But if someone does that to you and Sonika-"

"Pshh…when would that ever happen? I don't think anyone's stupid enough to do that."

"But you never know. All kinds of um…unique people attend these events. Listen, I was doing some er…research, if you will on this and I read all kinds of horror stories about like, people stealing merchandise from other people that was already purchased, stalkers, fifty-year old basement dwellers, for lack of better words, 'creeping' up on people dressed as their favorite characters, I don't know, just social deviants in general."

"Social deviants? Oh, like Tonio and Al, right? Which one of them is the one with the insane foot fetish again?"

I quickly buried my face in my hands and shake my head. Gumi chuckles and pats my head.

"Awww, it's okay…" she says in a mockingly sweet tone. "You know, I think I'll fix it myself." Gumi reaches for the folded jacket and flies into her room with it.

"Are you sure, because I-"

Darn, she left before I could respond. Shows how well my reflexes work.

I don't know. I'm just worried. Extremely worried. She and Sonika have been planning this for months, and I, trying to be a good older brother, decided to let them go, but on the condition that I have to be there at all times to supervise. After recently reading many horror stories on the internet and hearing them from some of my friends who have gone to anime conventions, I'm afraid of even putting one foot near the building(s) that are to house it.

A story that gave me the willies just from reading it off of a random forum while in the safety of my room told of a young man who went with his best friend. The two were dressed up as characters from a video game called Amnesia, I think it was. Anyway, the friend was apparently seen as attractive to a crowd of people that the original poster described as "large, unwashed, and looked AND smelled as if they lived in a sewer", so they began to pull him towards them and proceeded to carry the poor young man away and run off. The poster went on to say that he spent four entire hours trying to relocate his friend in vain, and when he finally found him, he was covered in chocolate pudding and marshmallows. That, and most of his costume was gone as well.

I also read about a voice actor who got booted out of his own panel by security because he was making lewd remarks to those who attended, and was touching them rather strangely, but no other convention horror story strikes as much horror as the story my friend Miriam told me after school one day, right after I started freaking out over seeing someone with a Pikachu keychain walk past us.

Miriam, when she's not poking my stomach or making fun of my height or accent, is such a sweet and artistically-inclined lady, so last year, she decided that she would try a hand at selling her art at an anime convention, since she is very popular for drawing insanely detailed and unique fan art of popular characters on the internet. She told me that on the first day, nothing particularly note-worthy took place; she spent most of the day eating potato chips and talking to Piko (a mutual friend of ours who is an Artist Alley veteran) about vintage aircraft.

However, the next day, a girl with a shrill, parrot-like voice approached her table, claiming to have recognized her. The girl enthusiastically showed Miriam her own sketchbook, which I was told was "full of scribbly disproportionate figures that appeared to have been rendered with crayon and cheap marker" before requesting a rather reasonably-priced drawing of her original character kissing Naruto and holding his hand. Apparently, the girl was dressed as said original character and had Miriam take a picture of her to use as a reference for the drawing. Miriam, being the kind person she is, tried her best not to laugh or cringe, so she agreed to do it and told the girl to come back in about an hour.

An hour passes by, and Miriam adds the finishing touches to the drawing, expecting the girl to arrive shortly. Two hours. Three hours. By this time, Miriam had finished five drawings and sold at least fifteen prints, but the Naruto girl has yet to return with her money and claim her artwork. She later decides to go grab a snack and asks Piko to watch her table while she's gone, in case the Naruto girl would show up. Naturally, the Naruto girl arrives right after Miriam went to go get her food. Piko hands her the picture and informs her that Miriam left for a while, but would accept her money. Instead of paying, the girl stared at the picture in disgust and complained that Miriam didn't "draw the breasts large enough." Pretty ridiculous. Although Naruto girl did take the picture, she walked away from the table without paying.

Miriam's face when she found out what happened; I have a difficult time trying to picture it.

I know that I'm not going to the convention to sell my artwork, (my art style is a poor attempt at something that on good days, can be called Utamaro-inspired) but that story is still pretty scary, in my opinion. It shows that there are many strange situations that could happen there…perhaps it serves as some kind of foreshadowing? Oh, I certainly hope not!

AN: Samurai Jack, lolololol.

Gakupo is too cute for such a name; he just wants to fit in. |:C