Pt. 3

“Did the elevator take us to the basement by mistake?” Eve asked as they peered into the hallway through the opened doors.

“No,” Maaya stated matter-of-factly. “Most buildings don’t have basements in Japan.”

What they could make out of the floral wallpaper through the shadows had been faded with time, and the wooden doors lining the walls were chipped and scratched; the hallway not only felt lived-in but also somewhat poorly maintained, like people lived here but didn’t care that they did.

“If this is street-level, the exit must be close,” Maaya added, taking the role of leader.

“Should we record a video?” Eve asked Penny.

“I think we should just get out of here,” Penny said anxiously, still staring ahead.

Penny and Eve followed Maaya down the hallway, Maaya using her phone’s flashlight to light their way. Penny kept checking the spots where the walls met the floor for cockroaches and rats, but the lack of them did nothing to alleviate her fears.

The muffled sounds of a first-person shooter videogame emanated from one of the apartments on the right (if they were apartments), the door vibrating with bass-heavy blasts.

“It smells like milk that’s been left on the counter,” noted Eve.

Penny didn’t want to note anything. She felt less like she was in Tokyo and more like she was back home in Southwestern Ontario, or at least some nightmare version of it.

The hallway seemed to go on for fifteen minutes, far longer than any hallway should, though the girls wondered if it was simply their fear slowing down their perception of time. Finally, and thankfully, they came upon the green light of an exit sign, its arrow pointing to a large metal door. Penny couldn’t help but look at the silhouette of a green figure exiting through a white rectangle and think of a shadow person escaping into the light.

Maaya turned off her light and opened the door, which creaked loudly. They were immediately greeted by a bustling, still-rainy pedestrian street somewhere in Akihabara. The girls exited and fully breathed in the cool night air.

“What a strange exit,” Eve commented. “It’d be better to just take the stairs.”

“Do you know where we are?” Penny asked Maaya, feeling like she just wanted to be back with her mother at this point.

Maaya looked around. A seemingly-unending stream of pedestrians passed in front of them, each holding an umbrella. Penny and Eve tried to follow Maaya’s gaze despite being totally disoriented.

Maaya pointed out a three-storey building she recognised with a different maid café on each floor, and then she pointed out the Hard-Off located at the intersection where their pedestrian street met another. The moment Penny opened her mouth to ask what “Hard-Off” was, Maaya explained that it was a used electronics store.

“The thing is,” Maaya said, confused, “we’re not near the Super Potato. I know where we are, but not how we ended up here.”

“Should we go back to the Super Potato, to talk to the police about the arcade?” Penny asked.

“No, don’t worry about that. We reported the situation, which is the main thing,” Maaya reassured her. “If they need to reach me, they can call me back.”

Penny’s own phone vibrated with an incoming message. She read the text from her mother, suggesting she not stay out too much longer.

“Can you point us in the direction of our hotel?” she asked Maaya.

“I’ll lead you there,” Maaya responded with a smile.

Eve smiled as well, happy to spend more time with their new friend. On their way back to the hotel they took notice of a green commuter train running along a high bridge in the distance, the bright lights of the train cars visible through its windows. The way the city felt so alive at night was a massive change from their hometown, which would shut down completely by 8PM, and it made Eve wish she could stay out even later.

When they reached the front doors of the hotel, Eve turned to Maaya, her heart racing as she worked up the courage to ask her to hang out again.

“If you’re free sometime, it’d be so cool if you could show us around some more,” Eve said, the words stumbling out of her.

Maaya looked at Eve happily, as if those were the exact words she had been hoping to hear.

“How about tomorrow?” Maaya offered. “We could meet for lunch, and I can show you a couple more places for your videos.”

“Yes, that would be great!” Eve exclaimed, her eyes nearly tearing up with happiness.

“I’ll text you the directions tomorrow morning,” Maaya said.

The girls then said goodbye to each other, and Maaya disappeared back into Akiba, her transparent umbrella joining a group of others as if they were a school of jellyfish. Penny and Eve entered the hotel lobby, Penny struggling to process everything she had witnessed that night and Eve mulling over what she should wear tomorrow.

Shunka Ryougen by Haru Nemuri was playing over the PA in the hotel lobby, and followed Penny and Eve into the elevator as they rose back up to the 20^th floor.

They re-entered their room, and in the living room Penny’s mother was sitting in a chair with even more work papers spread out across the table. A variety show was playing on the TV, the panelists presented in circles onscreen as they reacted to various meme videos from around the world. For anyone else this might’ve been incredibly distracting, but Penny’s mother often worked with the TV on, typically setting it to the news. Since Penny’s mother was always working, this was her main way of experiencing entertainment.

“How was it?” Penny’s mother asked without looking up from her laptop, typing as she talked. “Did you have fun?”

“It’s amazing!” Eve excitedly answered first, as if the strange occurrences with the arcade cabinets weren’t worth mentioning. “There are so many wonderful stores and restaurants, like the cafés with dancing maids.”

“You actually went to a maid café?” Penny’s mother asked with a raised eyebrow, though her eyes remained on her work.

“It was cute,” Penny said, not wanting to bring up the arcades, either, lest her mother keep them from going out again. “I wouldn’t’ve gone by myself, but going with Eve made it fun.”

“We met a maid,” Eve added. “She handed us a flyer for a café, and she ended up dancing there, and then she showed us a cool game store.”

“We’re going to meet up with her tomorrow,” Penny said. “She’s our age, and wants to help with Girls Mode. I think we’ll get a lot of views with her.”

“How nice,” Penny’s mother said. “Could you share her contact info with me, in case I have trouble reaching you?”

Penny knew this was her mother’s way of saying her daughter should be wary of strangers she just met in a new city. Eve passed along Maaya’s number to Penny’s mother, and Penny added it to her own phone as well.

“And the melon bread?” Penny’s mother asked, clearly sensing Penny had forgotten.

“I forgot!” Penny said. “I’m so sorry.”

Penny felt genuinely bad about it, since her mother had handled everything to do with bringing them to Japan, and here Penny had failed to do such a small thing for her in return.

“There are several konbini right next to the hotel, if you don’t mind going back down,” Penny’s mother said while comparing a pale blue work paper with a document on her laptop screen.

Penny got the message: her mother really wanted this bread.

“Get yourself some snacks as well,” her mother suggested. “We don’t have anything here, and you’ll likely have trouble sleeping due to jet lag.”

Penny looked to Eve, expecting her to appear exhausted after their first night out, but Eve was smiling back excitedly, if anything with even more energy than before. Perhaps it was an effect of the coffee she had at the maid café – Penny didn’t drink coffee, herself, so she was unsure how long the caffeine lasted.

Before they headed back out, Penny’s mother mentioned to them that the umbrellas in the black holder outside their room was for every guest’s use, and that they should take a couple.

Penny and Eve left the hotel room, and pulled out a pair of transparent umbrellas that were still slightly wet from previous use. It made them wonder what other guests were staying on their floor, and if they were foreigners like them.

“What if I stayed here and became a café maid?” Eve asked Penny on the elevator ride down.

Even if Eve was half-joking, as she sometimes was, the question took Penny aback.

“What about your family and school?”

“I’d still have a family, and I’d still go to school,” Eve responded with a thumbs-up.

Penny sighed in relief, now that it was clear her friend wasn’t totally serious.

“You’d be a great maid,” Penny told her honestly. “Everyone would love you, and you’d get requests all the time.”

“And it’s sort of like being in the entertainment industry,” Eve said enthusiastically. “Especially with the stage performance.”

Eve’s ultimate career goal was to be in “the entertainment industry”, whether that meant being a model, an actor, a YouTuber, or now a café maid.

“We’ll have to ask Maaya about it,” Penny said helpfully.

The elevator door opened, and for a brief moment Penny was fearful they would find themselves back in the dark hallway with the floral wallpaper. The lobby was thankfully as it should be, and the girls got off as a Japanese woman got on.

Penny and Eve cut across the lobby, the aging security guard now pacing down the middle with his hands held behind his back. He was checking the seats of the black lounge chairs as he walked, as if keeping an eye out for items that might’ve been left behind.

At the hotel entrance Penny and Eve readied their umbrellas, and popped them open as they exited back into the rainy night. They tilted their umbrellas to look up at the neon signs as they headed left; last time they had gone right, and this was a fine enough excuse to see a tiny fraction more of the city.

There was something comforting about all the stores still being open, all the flyer girls still handing out flyers and checking texts from their significant others, and all the pedestrians still passing back and forth while carrying bags containing anime, manga, and videogame-related goods. It felt safe and alive and filled with endless possibilities – in particular, endless possibilities to find something to buy. Penny wondered about living in Akihabara, herself, but knew she’d have trouble stopping herself from spending money every day.

The girls passed by other foreigners who were huddled together in a group in full cosplay, each checking their phones as if wondering where they’re supposed to go. Penny couldn’t determine what they were cosplaying as, but when she made eye contact with the one dressed as a kind of martial arts lizard, she smiled knowingly, as if to silently shout “I can’t believe we’re here!”

“Oh, look!” Eve said, and Penny turned to look at what had caught Eve’s attention.

The pair stopped and gazed up at the 7-Eleven sign lit brightly above the 7-Eleven they were now standing in front of.