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 Posted: Fri Jul 20, 2012 8:41 pm
Beep. "Hi Allan, this is Sean back from our AX group, I think you remember, long time no hear right? I don't even know if you even check your phone at all, hopefully you haven't actually disappeared off the face of the planet. Anyway, I'm headed to Anime Expo again this year, not sure if you'll arrive and when really... "
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Posted: Fri Jul 20, 2012 8:42 pm
"Okay okay okay, everyone gather up." The voice holding the camcorder held out a hand, half-covering the screen. "Right here, so I can get a shot of all of you - Jim look, put away that wig, no, you can do your costume later, look just come over here - just - someone pull Jim over here seriously."
A few figures appeared on screen, two laughing girls decked out in sharp, contrasting colours, two guys, one of them dragging someone who kept on yelling something about a wig and then-
- The screen whirled around a bit to focus on the ground and then a blotch of red. "Allan, what are you doing?" A pause as the camera showed very clearly what he was doing. "Is that a- is that a you know what I don't even want to know how you made a life-sized robot entirely out of lego, look just come here and- Jim what are you doing, get back here!"
One of the girls started giggling, the other one rolling her eyes as she returned to fixing the mismatched stitches on her outfit. The screen turned black, there was a beep and then-
- Miraculously, the whole group gathered together, including what seemed like the cameramen. Four guys, two girls, all around the ages of eighteen to twenty-five, wearing the nerdiest assortment of graphic t-shirts, glo-stick bracelets, and in Jim's instance, a red cape.
"And this is Anime Expo 2006, cut!"
*
After what seemed like hours lining up, the crowds of people milling around everywhere did not help.
"Okay so," Sean, camcorder guy, pulled out the brochure. "There's a costume contest showing in fifteen minutes, everyone got your passes?"
The brunette girl, decked in rainbow bangles put up one hand, as if they were in a classroom.
Sean rolled his eyes. "Sara, did you forget your pass. I told you guys five times that-"
"- Um no," She gave Sean a sort of winning smile. "I think you forgot Allan."
*
"Of course it's me, oh go find Allan, oh go fetch a lost puppy, I was just trying to be helpful geez." Fifteen minutes later Sara finally found the missing person in questions at a weapons and props booth. Rolling her eyes, Sara tapped him on the shoulder. After no reaction, she kicked him. That got almost no reaction from the scraggly adolescent as well until he finally picked up the keyblade and waved it in the air. "Look at me, I'm a keyblade master!"
Thankfully this was a convention, and not like that one time they had gone to Chinatown and he had done this and all the asian people had stared at them.
"Allan put that down-" She startled as he swung the item - "You're gonna get us kicked out of the place and- give me that!"
A few moments later found gloating brunette leading a resigned red-head out of the Dealer's room. "Seriously, stay with the crowd Allan, we can view that stuff later, there's a showing in fifteen minutes and-"
"- Wow they have Bleach manga on sale!"
And then he was gone. Sara cursed rather colourfully.
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Posted: Fri Jul 20, 2012 8:44 pm
"Guys guys guys. Guys. Guys. Guys." The hand waving again in front of the camcorder, the screen projecting the same group chatting pleasantly with each other. "Okay, okay, one sec, got it!"
There was a soft thunk as the camcorder was placed on a more even surface - screen no longer shaking so often, as Sean scurried to join the group. "Smile everybody!"
The group gave their best half-hearted grin.
"All right, this is Anime Expo 2007!"
*
"So, at work, Marcel was like, 'we should hang out some time', and I was like really Marcel? You want to hang out with me after all you put me through and-" The rainbow-haired girl paused in her diatribe. "Oh yeah, how's things going with you and Allan are you guys still-"
-"What?" Sara stopped halfway, nearly dropping the manga she was picking out from the booth. "We never were- I mean - well, you know how he is."
"Yeah, its been what, a year now?" Laura snorted. "That guy never grows up. I don't even think he knows what a girl is. I don't think he realizes that there exists, surprise surprise, a world outside of freaking anime. Head up in a cloud-"
-"He's just been having a hard time okay? He doesn't even have a computer at home-"
-"I know. I'm just saying. God. Defensive much?"
Sara suddenly seemed very interested in whatever manga she was picking out. "No, I'm just- I'm just saying too okay it's not a huge deal, he'll get over it. Whatever it is."
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Posted: Fri Jul 20, 2012 8:45 pm
"Chips?" The screen ran again through the camcorder, though the image quality was thankfully a lot better and less wobbly. "Pocky - did someone forget the pocky again - oh wait, thanks Allan, of course you would bring the pocky. Um, what else are we missing, oh yeah, ramune? Any other drinks? Anything non carbonated and extremely sugary for the dieting anorexic ladies over there?"
Sara and Laura both flipped the screen the bird.
"Oookay then. Well, that's all of us." There was some shuffling as a considerably chubbier Sean ran across the screen to join the older group. "This is Anime Expo 2008!"
*
"Hey!"
"Oh," Sara turned around, quickly, away from the vending machine. "Hey Allan, um, what are you-"
-"Jim asked me to fetch you, is Laura still in the washroom?" The red-head incidentally, seemed to age the least out of them all, still extremely tall and lean, though perhaps over the years...
"Um, no, it's just me. I just wanted something to drink and, its stuck in the machine," She pointed stupidly to the drink wedged between the coils. "It's not a big deal. I'll scrounge up a dollar and fifty."
"- Here I got this." Allan eyed the machine, put both hands against the side and-
WHAM.
"Er, oops. I got your um, drink though." He at least had the decency to look sheepish.
At first it looked like Sara was about to throttle Allan, but as she looked from the collapsed vending machine back to Allan, back to the vending machine, she couldn't help but snicker. A snicker turned into barely contained laughter that was just - did Allan just -
- Yes, he just destroyed a freaking vending machine. Allan, the gimpy guy who she met once a year who seemed to only live off pocky and ramune and empty his bank account on hundreds of Bleach swag.
"I am so sorry." Looking extremely crestfallen, the redhead leaned over, kicked the machine casually as if it would come back to life itself, and then stared helplessly back at Sara.
Those goddamn puppy dog eyes. She sucked in a breath, sharply, and then turned around. "Let's just- let's just go back okay." A stern expression. "Not a word."
"...Yes'm."
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Posted: Fri Jul 20, 2012 8:47 pm
Beep.
"Well, I guess its just the three of us then, better than nothing." Sean sighed, placed the camera on the tripod and walked in front of the screen to the other two. "Well this is it, Anime Expo 2009. Let's make it count."
*
"Sara, hey, hey, guess what?" A tall mess of red hair bounded in, holding three bags of paraphernalia. "I talked to the guy at the booth and we're totally nakama now, he offered to give me a discount for-"
- "Allan." Sara sighed as the red-head continued to talk, and talk, and talk past her original request. "Allan, Allan!"
He finally stopped mid-sentence. "Yeah?!"
She didn't know why she had done that. All she had wanted to say was he was scaring the people around her, but then the train of thought had lead to how odd his behaviour was now, the little quirks that made him different, everything threatened to spill out and she had a feeling that this was it. She grabbed his arm, and pulled him away. "Not here, can we- can I get a breath of fresh air?"
"Oh huh? Sure!" Like the aimless puppy he was, he simply followed.
Thanks to some nameless card game franchise promotion event, the booths around the room were practically empty. Sara sighed, paced in circles, and then finally turned to look at Allan. "Look, I don't know where to start."
"Oh here, how about this one?" Missing the gesture entirely, the he pulled out two boxes of Strawberry pocky followed by two bottles of Ramune, and then a DVD box-set of Princess Tutu. "I found a collector's edition for this, it was in the sale bin too, and the guy was-"
"-Is this a joke?"
"-willing to give to me for twenty bucks, huh?"
"Is this." Sara repeated, grinding her teeth. "A joke?" She pointed at everything around her and then at his bags of junk. "Allan, when are you going to grow up, seriously. It's been five years, five years Allan, and you're still the same- the same - look, what I'm trying to say is, do you even know where you want to go from here?"
Allan scratched his head. "I dunno, I was thinking maybe next year we could get costumes that matched and-"
-"That's not what I'm trying to say." A couple of lingering card game players stared in Allan and Sara's general direction. Awkward. She sighed again, heavily. "What I'm trying to say is, are you ever going to grow up Allan? You know, get a job? You come here, unexplainably, once a year, but you never change. Everyone else is moving but you aren't going anywhere. Have you actually thought about it, about really starting a life, you know-" She had to stop herself. Stop explaining the reason why she even showed up to this convention, about why she even still hung out with the remnants of their teenage dreams. It was the way she stared right up at him, annoyed, angry, a little frustrated-
"We're not children any more Allan. We can't continue on like this any more. What I'm trying to say is, are you going to really, really, get past this?" She pointed at the bags, the junk on the ground. "You know, actually see what life is beyond video games, and anime, and little things, it's cute as a hobby but it's not your life."
Thankfully, while Allan could be painfully ignorant, at least he wasn't stupid. "Is this about the um, computer thing, because I meant to get to that eventually I just uh-" He put one hand behind his head: he had always been a horrible liar.
"Look. I don't care about the internet or your lack of it or whatever, that's fine you don't wanna talk to me I get it. You just can't keep going on like this. You know what I mean, Allan- no look at me. Are you going to stay forever like this or actually grow up?"
"What-" He just did not understand. It was not a matter of not respecting Sara, or Sean, or anyone, he just simply could not figure out what he was doing wrong in this situation. "But I do have a job and I-"
"-Yeah I know. You job. Banking. Whatever."
-"Well, I thought we were having fun and-"
"-We are having fun. But not like this. When was the last time you actually went somewhere outside of a convention and did something with normal people. You know, a movie, somewhere nice, a dinner maybe, do you get what I'm getting at?" God, she sounded desperate but god help her.
A pause. Awkward shuffling of overly-worn sneakers. "Not really."
And there it was. The straw on the camel's back. "Yeah. I didn't think so. You know what, that's fine that's- that's exactly what I thought any way. Well, good luck to you and your banking I'm just - I'm done. I'm done here, this is just, a waste of money and time and-"
"Sara look-" Allan moved to grab her wrist, and for a second perhaps say something, something important-
- "No. I'm done."
That was it. He didn't follow her any further because he didn't understand. Sara would come back eventually right, it wasn't that bad. They both still loved manga, and they still liked to watch the same anime and play games right? They could just meet up next year, and then he'd buy more pocky as apologies for everyone.
He sat down, pulled the bags next to him, and opened up a box of Strawberry pocky to quietly munch on.
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