“Where are we going?” I asked, trudging dutifully behind Emi as she part walked, part skipped down the road. Emi had insisted today was the only day possible to meet my new perspective employer, so I had reluctantly agreed to follow her to the southern part of town. Aria was busy shopping with her aunt again for the holiday season, so I had no real reason to refuse except I was feeling far too shiftless to walk the exact opposite way from my house in the cold.

While the buildings in this part of Tottori seemed newer, the area also felt more rundown. Blank windows stared at us as we walked down the streets, dead grass lay thick in desolate planters along the sidewalk. We passed the occasional covered doorway where people peered at us curiously as they huddled for warmth. Emi was, as usual, completely oblivious to everything but the way in front of her and constantly chattering.

“So, I heard from a friend that Jun got kicked out of college again,” Emi chirped, stopping briefly to try to coax a plainly disinterested dog from the shelter it’d found in a box down a windy alley between two abandoned buildings.

“Is there anything you don’t hear about almost as soon as it happens?” I shook my head ruefully. Emi’s network of informants was vast. If anything were happening in Tottori, she’d be the first to find out. Normally even hearing Jun’s name made me want to clam up but Emi had no love for brother dearest and the nonchalant way she brought up some of the most sensitive topics put me at ease in a way I couldn’t explain.

“Probably,” Emi gave up trying to call the dog to her and bounded away like a strange little gazelle. “But I don’t know what I don’t know so who knows?”

“That was…oddly profound,” I shrugged in admiration, pulling the hood of my jacket closer to my ears as the wind whipped past the building we were walking by, rocking us both with its ferocity. “But, yes, Jun was kicked out again.”

“How many times, now? Two?”

“Three in two years,” I replied.

“Jeez, he’s on Yuto pace only for getting kicked out of school, not just into the hall,” Emi shook her head.

“Well, you know how it is with him, it’s never his fault.” Just thinking about it again was making me mad.

“It must be nice. Could you imagine what I would do if I had a ready-made excuse for everything?” Emi seemed enthused as she turned down a side street.

“Oh?” I cocked an eyebrow at her curiously. “What would you do, Miss Emi? Inquiring minds want to know.”

“Everything! I’d do all the bad things. I’d stay up all night and not go to school and eat candy for dinner and watch all the porn channels whenever I wanted and buy so many erotic magazines, they’d have to have second printings just for me.”

“You are, truly, a rebel,” I chuckled.

“Right?” Emi beamed at me. “Oh! We’re here!”

The building was as nondescript as the others in the area, painted in an innocuous shade of off white. The bottom floor was dominated by a wide glass façade with the words “Anime No Joo” written over the door in purple neon. Anime Queen? Someone was definitely not beating around the bush. Still, it seemed highly unlikely this store could be anything remotely as majestic as it claimed. This was about as far from the “fashionable” area of Tottori (such as it was) as you could get and still actually be in the city.

No one came to this part of the town to shop. Unless shopping for whatever drugs happened to be needed to forget the misery their lives had become. The neighborhood was, in short, not the place an anime shop should be located. Otakus didn’t take well to things which frightened them or forced them out of their narrow comfort zone. They seemed to be stuck in a perpetual fight or flight reflex when it came to shady people in alleys possibly wishing to do them harm and this area of town had shady people in alleys in abundance.

“Komchan!” Emi called as soon as we walked through the door and into the surprisingly spacious interior of the store, her voice nearly drowning out the ding of the bell above the door. The warmth of the shop was the first thing that struck me after the gnawing wind blowing down the street running between the shops in the southern edges of Tottori. The second thing which struck me was the distinct impression I’d been transported to a glorious paradise. My initial assessment was dead wrong, and I apologized to the owner silently in my head. This shop, truly, was royalty.

I glanced around in awe as the feeling gradually began to return to my nearly frozen fingertips. Tall glass display cases sat strategically placed to allow for optimum browsing along the center of the store, each filled with anime figures in various heroic or seductive poses. A long, low case spanned the entirety of the eastern wall while the western was dominated by tall bookshelves stuffed full of manga. The latest releases sat in shelves on either side of the cash register at the back of the store while the latest video games sat seductively against the glass window lining the front of the store. It was, in short, a mecca for people like me. Or more to the point, would be if I wasn’t tragically and perpetually dead broke. I’d had no idea this place existed, but now I needed to work here. It was no longer a want.

“Komchan! I’m going to steal your first volume signed copy of Strawberry Panic!!” Emi called again, moving to stand near one of the display cases closer to the register. “Come stop me because I don’t have any self-control and gotta get my hands on that sweet sweet Nagisa and Shizuma drama!” I had wandered over to the long display case against the southern wall and was marveling at the sheer quantity of figures stuffed inside. To think this glorious cathedral to all things otaku had been right under my nose the whole time. How had I never heard of this place? Oh, yeah, it was in the middle of the illicit drug homeland. That’s how I didn’t know.

I walked slowly in awe among the cases on the wall. Figures of all kinds populated the inside while a shelf of catgirl figurines sat above the case, filled to the brim with hundreds of the anthropomorphic figures. I had no idea they even made this many catgirl figures, let alone someone had taken the time to actually collect them. I was several meters down the wall when I stopped dead and blinked. A small black cat figure lay curled around a 30 cm tall catgirl figure with long white hair. What a realistic figure, I thought, leaning forward slightly to get a better view of the insanely detailed cat.

A collar was clasped about the cat’s fluffy neck, looking as if it were handmade. “Sora” the poorly written gold lettering declared, glinting in the ceiling lights. What amazing work! It totally looked real! Suddenly the cat figure lifted its head and opened its deep green eyes, staring at me curiously for a moment. We blinked at each other before the cat’s curiosity was quickly replaced by disinterest and it lowered its head again, tail curling protectively around the catgirl figure. I stepped back hastily, feeling foolish not only for thinking it was a figure but also for being surprised when it wasn’t.

“What are you doing, Seto?” An irritated voice said. I turned toward the sound to find a girl who looked to be in her mid-twenties with medium length black hair with purple highlights emerge from the back of the store. Her skintight black jeans hung low on her hips and a black belly shirt with jagged purple lettering looking vaguely like cat claw marks declaring she was a “Cat Girl in Training” left her thin and toned stomach in full view. A black choker completed what I could only assume was a pseudo goth girl look, though her pale pink lipstick and modest eyeshadow, while complimenting her face well, didn’t seem very goth at all. Admittedly, my knowledge about what constituted “goth” style was limited at best, but the whole look felt somewhat more individualistic than an attempt at a particular style.

“Komchan!” Emi cried, raising her arms high and rushing forward. “I missed you!” The woman stepped back a pace and scowled, holding her hand up in warning which caused Emi to reluctantly come to a stop.

“I saw you two days ago.”

“Was it two days?” Emi tapped her chin thoughtfully. “Well, I can still miss you!”

“No, you can’t. I’m busy. What do you want?”

“I found you an employee!” Emi enthused, pointing at me. I waved lamely, unsure of what else to do. Komari’s eyes found me and narrowed slightly. Without a word she strode through the shop before stopping less than a meter in front of me.

“Don’t touch the cat,” she said by way of introduction, cocking an eyebrow as she sized up my worth.

“Huh? I didn’t,” this lady plainly had some issues I seriously doubted I could help her with.

“Sora comes and goes as she sees fit. Don’t touch her.” She reiterated.

“I just said I didn’t,” I gestured to the cat and spread my arms to re-iterate my innocence.

“Good. So, what are you, some kind of school prince?” The woman sneered derisively.

“No,” I scowled. What the hell was going on? “I don’t think those things even exist outside of manga, anyway.”

“Well, pretty little normies wouldn’t know, would they?” The girl positively glared at me.

“Normie?” I gaped at her. “Did you just call me a normie?”

“Well, since you’re no prince you must be the princess, right?”

“So now I’m a normie princess?” I couldn’t believe this judgy bitch.

“You sit there and listen to that Kunoichi J Pop shit or fawn over boy bands who are prettier than you are and squeal like a vapid little twit over your bl ‘ships’. Here’s a clue for you, Princess Normie, just because two characters are in the same scene doesn’t mean they’re bumping uglies.”

“I-I- “I was at a loss for words. I’d been called many things in my life, but never a ‘normie’.

“Bumping uglies means fucking, princess,” the girl smirked at me irritatingly.

“I know what it means, you wanna be cat girl goth!” I snapped, finally finding my voice. It wasn’t a great come back but it was the best I could muster in the moment. My eyes narrowed into a death glare. “I guarantee I know more about this stuff than you do.”

“Oh?” The girl sniffed dismissively. “Is that so?”

“Yeah,” I growled. “That’s so.” Emi stared at us with wide eyes, obviously not sure what to say or do but reluctant to look away and risk missing any potential action.

“Fine, let’s just see about that, shall we? How many people did Luffy kill?”

“None.” I returned. The woman began to walk around me, arms crossed over her chest combatively.

“Whose boyfriend did Akko have sex with in ‘Girl Friends’?”

“No one’s, Kahlua milk guy couldn’t get it up.”

“What is the best part of catgirls?”

“Everything.”

“Who is Sailor Uranus?”

“Best girl.”

“What is Hitori Bocchi?”

“Cinnamon roll.”

“Who does Setsuko Iwai cheat on Yukiko with in Octave?”

“You shut your whore mouth! She never would! Yuki-ho’s the cheater.”

“Who’s the most famous hentai writer?”

“Trick question, no one writes hentai, they just throw boobs on the page.”

“When can you start?”

“Tomorrow afternoon.”

“Fine. You’re hired,” the woman turned on her heel and strode past Emi before dropping onto the chair behind the register, eyeing us both with an unfriendly gaze.

“Uh…” Emi glanced between Komari and I, a frown on her face. “What was that? What just happened?”