Pt. 2

The maids completed the routine, which encompassed all 12-and-a-half minutes of the song. The lights on the stage went out, and the customers and floor maids applauded as the stage maids held their final poses for several seconds. The maids on either side of the flyer girl then hopped off, leaving the flyer girl standing casually onstage as she looked at Penny and Eve with a curious smile.

Penny and Eve had already returned their attention to each other.

“You’d think they’d dance to like an anime theme or something,” Penny said. She looked down at her empty plate, only just now realising she had finished her pancake.

“I kept waiting for them to invite a customer up, like at a theme park,” Eve said, her eyes sparkling at the idea. “I totally would’ve gone up if they tried that!”

Penny opened her mouth to speak, but Eve spoke for her: “I know, there’s no way you would’ve danced.”

Eve took a sip of her coffee, then continued speaking with an encouraging smile: “I still would’ve rooted for you.”

The shadow of a maid who wasn’t their own fell onto their table. Penny paused in the middle of gulping down her orange drink to glance at the shadow’s owner.

The flyer girl was standing there, less like a maid in a themed restaurant, or even like a girl who handed out flyers for one, and more like a girl who had just got off work and was about to enjoy the night.

“How was it?” the flyer girl asked. “Did you like the performance?”

“It was sooo cute!” praised Eve. “When you told us this was a maid café, I was expecting way more sweeping and a lot less dancing. But now that I know what they’re like, I want to come to one everyday.”

“I’m so happy,” the flyer girl said. “I choreographed that dance myself.”

Penny and Eve were blown away – they wouldn’t have expected that from someone so close to their age, especially not from someone they had just seen handing out advertisements on a rainy street.

“You must be a higher rank of maid, then,” Eve said with a huge smile.

“S-tier, for sure,” Penny agreed.

The flyer girl smiled appreciatively at them.

“Not quite,” she said. “I’m more of a freelancer . . . I like to be able to come and go as I please.”

The flyer girl pulled out her phone, looked at it, then looked back at Penny and Eve.

“My name’s Maaya,” she told them.

“I’m Penny,” Penny said. She was secretly happy to be having a full conversation with a local in English.

“I’m Eve,” Eve said. “I know someone named Maya back in Canada.”

“Oh, are you both Canadians?” Maaya asked, genuinely interested.

“Yup! We live near Toronto.”

“The Maple Leafs, right?”

“That’s right!” Eve responded, impressed. “You know a lot.”

Maaya looked to her right. Penny and Eve’s maid had appeared as if from out of thin air. Maaya spoke to the maid in Japanese, and the maid nodded in response before heading towards the front counter.

“Your half-hour is up,” Maaya informed Penny and Eve. “You could stay here, but you’ll be charged for another 30 minutes.”

Penny and Eve looked at each other; the look said “as cool as this place is, we shouldn’t waste our money.” They made use of their napkins and stood, satisfied with the experience.

“Is this your first time in Akiba?” Maaya asked them.

“It’s our first time in Japan,” Penny explained.

“What made you decide to come here?”

“My mom came on a business trip,” Penny said. “We’re just tagging along.”

“We have a YouTube channel called Girls Mode,” Eve added proudly. “We haven’t used it in a while, but we have a thousand subscribers on it. We’d post Let’s Plays, reviews, makeup tutorials, game development tips – pretty much anything that came to mind.

“We want to revive it during our trip, and post some travelogue videos.”

Maaya smiled a knowing smile, like she was eager to share a secret with them.

“I can show you a few places, if you like,” she said. “I know Akiba like the back of my hand.”

Eve looked at the back of Maaya’s hand, and found it slender and pretty. She then looked at Penny, as if leaving the decision to her. Penny looked at Eve and could tell Eve would be glad to spend more time with Maaya. They then looked at Maaya together.

“Sure,” Penny said, slightly weirded out. Despite Maaya being close to them in age, Penny knew she shouldn’t be totally trusting of a stranger they had just met in another country, especially since Eve clearly would. She decided she would keep her guard up for both their sakes.

Yes, let’s follow the strange maid, Penny thought as she and Eve followed Maaya to the front counter. What the heck are we doing?

Eve paid for both of them with her credit card, which had been set up for her by her upper-middle-class parents. To Penny, “upper-middle-class” meant Eve’s family was fabulously rich, but she never commented on this out loud around Eve, since she knew it would make her feel bad.

“You can pay me back at the hotel room,” Eve said with a smile. During the trek from

Narita Airport to their hotel room in Akihabara, Eve had taken notice of Penny’s struggles to figure out which Japanese coins were worth which amounts of money. Covering costs for both of them was simply a way of streamlining their experience.

The counter maids bowed and thanked them, so Penny and Eve bowed and thanked the maids back, with Penny blushing as she bowed clumsily and awkwardly.

Penny felt embarrassed by her attempts at interacting with pretty much everyone, especially in comparison to how effortlessly Eve integrated into a society so unlike her own. She didn’t get it – she was the one who was 1000% into Japanese video games, 80% into manga, and 70% into anime, not Eve.

It was like the shyness she had spent her first year of high school breaking free from had come rushing back, wrapping her up in its quiet comfort.

But, also, it was just the first night. She would keep trying.

“Let’s go,” Maaya said.

The trio exited the maid café, descended the green-lit stairs, and made their way back to the slightly rainy street.

“Where are you staying?” Maaya asked them.

“It’s that really tall hotel close to where you were handing out flyers,” Penny said. “We’re staying there with my mom. I forget what it’s called.”

“Oh, that one?” Maaya said knowingly. “That’s a nice hotel. Western-style beds, modern design . . . One of my aunts stays there when she visits.”

Hearing Maaya casually reference her family made Penny feel more comfortable. The trio stuck close together as they walked, with Maaya slightly in the lead.

“We won’t venture too far from it,” Maaya assured them. “It can be fun to get lost in Akiba, but maybe not on the first night.”

“You speak English so well,” Eve complimented her.

“Thank you,” Maaya said. “I’m paid extra when I send foreigners to cafés, so I’ve been taking advanced courses online.”

She then smiled at Eve. “Would you like to practice your Japanese?”

Maaya, in Japanese, asked Eve what she was most interested in doing in Akihabara. Eve picked up on some of the words, and answered: “Penny is a huge, huge fan of games. I want her to see the coolest game store.”

“That’s easy,” Maaya told them. “It’s Super Potato.”

Eve nearly gasped. The idea of going to a place called Super Potato was all she needed to achieve perfect happiness. It didn’t matter what kind of store it was.

“I’ve heard of it,” Penny said, while Eve silently imagined a potato with magical powers. “It’s a big retro store, right?”

“That’s right. It takes up the top three floors of a building.”

It didn’t take long for the girls to arrive at Super Potato, the three sheltered from the rain by Maaya’s transparent umbrella.

Depicted on a big yellow sign was an anthropomorphic potato with a surprisingly Western design, looking more like the mascot of a Canadian chip brand than something used to promote a videogame store in Akihabara. Maaya asked if they wanted to take a picture in front of it, and used Penny’s cellphone to take a picture of Penny and Eve with the potato visible above them. Penny had managed an awkward smirk for the photo, while Eve had a big, cheesy smile.

“I can help record videos for your YouTube channel as well,” Maaya offered.

“Really?! That would be amazing!” Eve responded gratefully.

Eve passed her phone to Maaya, as hers was more advanced than Penny’s. After showing Maaya which buttons to press, Maaya began recording the pair as they climbed the steps to the first level of the store. The climb was slow as Penny and Eve kept stopping to admire the retro game posters, featuring everything from Parodius to a roster of Claymation enemies from Super Mario RPG. Penny took the time to explain all the Japan-only games being advertised, mainly for Eve’s sake but also for their modest YouTube audience.

Locals who were used to the posters had to navigate around the girls, apologising as they did so. Eventually they located the entrance to the first level, and Penny’s legs nearly buckled at the sight of all the old games within, this floor focusing on older systems like the Famicom, Super Famicom and Mega Drive. (Penny then explained that the Famicom was the NES, the Super Famicom was the Super Nintendo, and the Mega Drive was the Sega Genesis.)

Penny grabbed Eve’s arm and squeezed it, needing an outlet for the rush of retro game energy coursing through her veins.

“It’s beautiful,” Penny whisper-shouted. For a moment Eve assumed she was referring to the life-size Fox McCloud statue just past the entrance, but, no, Penny clearly meant everything.

The retro posters continued into the store itself, and CRT monitors displayed the attract modes for Final Fantasy VI and Sonic the Hedgehog 2. In addition to all the games – presented either in their original boxes on the shelves or as loose cartridges in tidy bins below – there were rare soundtrack CDs, strategy guides, artbooks and toys, including an entire row of deluxe Puyo Puyo character figures.

Penny took her time in each section, with Eve happily following, Penny pointing out rare and unique games as Maaya recorded the tour. The artwork for many of the games was quite beautiful, with hand-painted manga-style illustrations on nearly all of them. The games’ original cardboard boxes were also packaged well in clear plastic sleeves, preventing fingerprints and other damage from the many browsing customers. Penny truly believed the store should be listed as a museum in official travel guides.

“Oh, Sailor Moon!” Eve exclaimed, finally finding something she not only recognised but actively enjoyed. Apparently, Japan was treated to an entire run of Sailor Moon games that had never made their way to North America, with a tonne of them on the Super Famicom.

The Sailor Moon section gave Eve an opportunity to speak to the Girls Mode viewers, with Eve explaining that she preferred the monster-of-the-week episodes to the high stakes fever dream finales, and how she preferred the slice-of-life scenes to the actual fighting. What she liked most about the fight scenes was the Sailor Scout outfits and transformation sequences.

She then struck Sailor Moon’s iconic pose, and some other customers asked Maaya if they could have their pictures taken with the blonde girl doing the anime poses. Maaya translated for Eve, and Eve accepted despite being slightly uncomfortable – in her mind, this was the price of fame for a YouTuber.

The trio moved up to the second floor, where the rest of the games could be found, everything ranging from the PlayStation era to software for contemporary systems like the Switch 2. Eve was lucky enough to get a Switch 2 for her birthday, while Penny still had the original Switch that had released when she was a toddler. Whenever Eve visited Penny, Penny asked Eve if the Switch 2 was coming with her.

While Penny basked in the glory of the retro sections, soaking in the history that emanated from their stylish jewel cases, Eve checked out the Switch 2 section, looking at the Japanese titles with tremendous curiosity. Maaya stuck with Eve, recording her reactions.

Eve spotted a case that featured Princess Rosalina on the cover, with no one else on it other than Lumas.

“What?!” she exclaimed as she lifted up the case.

“That’s Super Princess Rosalina,” Maaya told her in amusement. “You don’t have it in Canada?”

“What? No! If we had this, then I’d have it!”

Eve stared intensely at the box art, her mouth hanging open. It was what she had always dreamed of: a Mario game with 0% Mario and 100% Rosalina. Her brain was suddenly filled with different voices, some encouraging her to buy it (would such a game even have a language barrier?) and others trying to convince her not to spend so much money on the first day (who knows what else she might find?).

Eve was sweating while frozen in place. It was the most Penny-like she had ever felt. Finally, she put the case back on the shelf.

“Maybe I’ll come back for it,” she said to the camera with a smile.

Maaya stopped recording and handed Eve’s phone back to her.

“You’re getting a low battery,” Maaya said. “But you do have enough for a few more videos, if you find something else interesting.”

“In that case, we should find Penny and see how she’s holding up,” Eve suggested. “She’s either completely energised by all the games, or all the games have sapped her energy and left her enfeebled. I can never guess which it’ll be.”