Exiting from the first-floor's M.C. Remy fashion boutique, which rested opposite a virtual reality boutique, Valerie and Jessica heard a loud thud. Looking back, they caught a man in a black leotard lying beside a three-sixty treadmill.

Due east on the sidewalk, past Trixie, the sun peaked. A series of intersections colored their view of the outer city. Chavez and Seventh: Fruit and art vendors, paintings and meticulously crafted fruit cups carried bananas, apples, and oranges.

Holly and Seventh: Rap battles between chefs. A man in a beret relayed lyrical rhymes as he grilled the perfect burger in record time, against a man sporting a Korean flag bandana, patient for the moment he would drop his tortillas and chicken on the portable grill top.

"I'm like Jack in the crack with my lyrical smack, pushin' the limits of my craft, stackin' patties and schoolin' baddies..."

Every lyric came with an overexcited hypeman in the background. "AAAAAWWWWW SHIEEEEEEEEEET!" Entire villages stood in attendance, huddling around talented rapper-chefs who fed lines while dropping rhymes.

"I can never do that," said Valerie as they reached signs for Akira and 7th.

"I would look like an idiot," Jess replied. "Shannon, on the other hand..."

"Okay, Shannon doesn't count. She's a fuggen art smith, mmkay? If Botticelli and Walt Whitman had a love child, and Confucius and Buddha had a love child, and their children had a love child, and then Ezra Pound and Frederick Douglas had a love child, and Virginia Woolf and Will Smith had a love child, and their children had a love child, and both descendants of every random name I've pulled out of my ass had a love child, you'd get Shannon."

Jess blinked slowly. "That's a very elaborate and surprisingly informed list of people. You don't think you're exaggerating, even a little bit?"

"It's the truth!"

New Sumer's Tokyo Town fell on the fringe of future sprawl, where superstructure surrendered to old-fashioned brick. It began where 7th Street met Akira, then ran a few blocks of flea markets, mini-markets, and restaurants until Akiba: a neon lane filled with storefront after storefront of manga, anime, arcade, and hobby stores. Over brick, bright signs and every color of the rainbow lined the shelves and exterior windows.

Beep. Beep. The girls checked their messengers. "Directions to a place called Yaoi Yuri Joy Joy," said Jess. "Ever been there?"

"Nope, but it sounds hilarious. Vamonos."

Then they saw red lamps hooked on the overhead canopy of curvaceous rooftops. They were oriental and antiquated, the kind of adornments typically found nowhere but their place of origin. Even unlit, their distinct red illuminated, like spitfire rails, over Tokyo Town.

"Scary, isn't it?" remarked Valerie. "You have a home, you call it yours, somebody shows you a different part of it—all of a sudden, it's like you never really knew it."

Jessica had to steer from her trance. "Hmm?"

"You're distracted af."

"What? I haven't been here, either! Well, maybe one time. It was just in passing, but I've been all over the city. Most of it doesn't look this retro, is all."

They immersed themselves in a lack of chaos, trodding down the color palette of shoppers: parents, children, singles, and so forth—every ethnicity retrieving their piece of Japanese art, entertainment, or Ramen. Polychromatic coats, kimonos, suits, and shorts filled every corner as Jessica and Valerie crossed the narrow tarmac. Eventually, they found their destination. Complete awkwardness, and morbid confusion, curved their lips as they beheld the sign and window displays. Red Kanji followed the big yellow letters Yaoi Yuri Joy Joy.

Jessica shuttered. "I would like to understand. I need to understand."

"She's just screwing with us, right?" Valerie tensed up. "Right?"

"Unless she's actually into that sort—no..."

They took their time processing the posters underneath the entrance sign. From behind the neon letters on the windows, the posters illustrated at least one form of homoerotic relations between animated characters in immodest clothing.

"What the hell does 'Yaoi Yuri Joy Joy' mean?" snapped Valerie.

"Welp, judging from the exchange of fluids, like this one where they're—"

"That was rhetorical, pendeja!"

"I knew that," said Jessica, half-joking.

"You know what it means, don't you?"

"No..."

Both girls suddenly jerked forward, and a pair of arms slouched around their necks. "Gotcha, muthafuckas!" The arms belonged to a young woman, a forward combed bob under a spiral-patterned hat, white WWJD emblazoned above its bill. Her small T-shirt bore a blonde woman's silhouette against a white sun. And her black backpack, which added to the weight of her elbows, sported a Yin-Yang emblem.