Pt. 4

Penny dreamed she was already back in her hometown and exploring a pet store. She was by herself, going from cage to cage as she looked at the animals, imagining what it would be like to have a pet. Eventually she made her way to the aquariums, expecting some colourful but otherwise uninteresting fish, but near the end of the row she stopped at the largest tank in the store.

Inside the glass box, completely submerged in water, was a fluffy grey Nebelung cat. The cat was comfortably floating in the middle of the water, apparently able to breathe without issue. Penny looked at the information sheet stuck to the glass to learn more: the sheet called the cat something other than a cat, even though it very clearly was one.

She then watched the small TV that was set up beside the tank. Looping onscreen was a video explaining how to care for the water cat, in particular how to prepare one’s home for it. This included keeping the home in a semi-flooded state, so that the water cat could swim through it to access its food and little box, as well as to play.

Penny wished she could take the water cat home with her, but knew her mother would never allow their home to be flooded. She touched the glass with the tips of her fingers, and then groggily opened her eyes, having awakened back in Japan.

Penny looked up at Eve, who was sitting up in bed and typing on her phone with a focused expression.

“Don’t tell me what time it is,” Penny said to her.

Eve then looked at Penny, clearly struggling not to tell her what time it was.

“Tell me what time it is,” Penny relented.

“6:30,” Eve said with a smile, as if glad to no longer be by herself. “Good morning.”

Penny sat up, the hood of her pajamas falling from her head. Despite being groggy, she knew she wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep. The 5-6 hours of sleep she did manage to get would need to be enough to see her through the day.

“I know you don’t drink coffee, but . . .”

Penny thought about it. She looked past Eve and over at her mother, who was still sleeping in the other bed. She might have been snoring as well, but Penny didn’t want to appear rude by commenting on it.

“Yeah, I think I need some.”

“Okay!” Eve said excitedly, but with a hushed enough voice so that she wouldn’t wake Penny’s mother.

Eve hopped out of the bed and Penny slid out after untangling her leg from the blanket, the two entering the living room where they could talk more freely.

“If we start our day early – like, if we go out right now – and don’t come back until night, then that should be enough to reset our internal clocks. We want to avoid coming back during the day so we’re not tempted by naps.”

Penny groggily listened and nodded.

“If you try to go back to bed, I’ll have to fight you,” Eve added, and Penny wanted to believe she was joking.

Penny slowly nodded again.

The girls got dressed, Eve in a blouse and skirt that looked like they were purchased from a fairy tale mall, and Penny in a graphic tee of Lloyd’s wanted poster from Tales of Symphonia. Penny decided to get the shirt after playing through the latest remaster of Symphonia with Edith and Jill.

“I’ll write a note for Mom,” Penny said. She used the room’s complimentary stationary to write GONE FISHING onto a small notepad, with a doodle of her and Eve holding fishing rods at the bottom. She knew it didn’t matter what they wrote, just as long as they did write something.

They looked out the balcony window and were pleased to see it was no longer raining.

“Coffee,” Penny said to Eve after they put their shoes on.

They exited the room and took the elevator down to the lobby.

* * *

The early morning light was just bright enough to cut through the thin veil of grey covering the sky. Instead of going to a café or store for the coffee, which ran the risk of being more expensive, Penny and Eve decided to make use of a vending machine – which were everywhere. No matter where they looked, at least one vending machine was within eyeshot, with bright, eye-catching colours and designs, and lights lit up under the drinks like thirst-quenching Christmas trees.

So plentiful were the vending machines that Penny and Eve only just then realised they were standing directly in front of one, and this BOSS-branded machine happened to sell hot cans of coffee.

The coffee cans were half the size of pop cans, each made from different varieties of beans and with varying levels of blackness. Penny went with a rainbow blend (whatever that meant – all Penny knew was that she liked the vibrant rainbow design on the can), and Eve picked the can that had BLACK printed on it in massive sideways letters.

“Your tastes are so mature,” Penny said after they had plucked their cans from the dispenser.

“Maybe that’s why I like Maaya so much,” Eve said with a smile while looking down at her can. “You know, since she’s a year older than me.”

They opened their cans at the same time; Penny took a couple gulps from hers, and Eve took a few sips.

“You can marry Maaya, and I’ll marry BOSS,” Penny said, referring to the pipe-smoking mascot on their coffee cans.

“He does look handsome,” Eve said. “And he looks really proud of his coffee.”

“It tastes good,” Penny said. “Better than whatever I’ve tried at home.”

Penny downed her can in a few more gulps.

“We’ll survive on these,” Penny said with a grin, the caffeine already jolting her awake and making her feel less inhibited.

“When we need to,” Eve said carefully, knowing how easily Penny could get addicted to unhealthy drinks and snacks.

“Where should we go?” Penny asked, eager to go everywhere at once now that BOSS was coursing through her veins.

“I was texting with Maaya earlier, and she suggested a store called Mandarake.”

“‘Mandrake’?”

“Man-da-ra-ke. It’s like a department store but for used manga, games, figures, stuff like that. It’s supposed to have 8 floors.”

Penny’s jaw dropped lower and lower as Eve’s description went on.

“Mandarake it is!” Eve then said happily.

Before they left, however, Eve made a point of finishing her coffee. Trash receptacles were apparently nonexistent in the streets of Tokyo, forcing pedestrians to walk with their garbage and dispose of it at home. The result was the cleanest streets Penny and Eve had ever seen in a big city, though the only other big city they had been to was Toronto.

Some vending machines had small recycling bins beside them, but only some. The BOSS machine was one of them, and Eve didn’t want to risk an indefinite search for the next one.

“Take some pictures of me,” Eve said after popping her empty can into the bin, the caffeine now hitting her as well. “I’m feeling inspired.”

Eve cycled through different poses beside the vending machine as Penny snapped some photos, treating the machine like a dance partner at an elegant ball. Eve then posted the pictures on her Instagram, and would later add them to her modelling portfolio.

She thought about submitting the photos directly to BOSS, along with her résumé. Eve’s mother currently acted as her agent, which would make finding a gig in Japan a challenge for her. But she could see it happening, just as she could see anything happening. Positivity was the key she used to unlock most doors.

Penny didn’t mention to Eve that passersby had been staring at them during the shoot; she would keep that tiny amount of embarrassment to herself. Penny did notice that she cared a lot less about doing something potentially embarrassing and drawing attention to themselves while they were in Japan – perhaps because she knew that the people who saw them might never see them again, while back home they were always surrounded by the same groups of people, including people who would never let them live certain things down.

The flyer girls were already lining the sidewalks as Penny and Eve followed the GPS on Eve’s phone to the Mandarake location. Every once in a while, Penny would accept one of the flyers for the small thrill of the interaction, though that meant she now had a thin stack of flyers she was holding onto.

“I’ll need a bag,” Penny said as she walked beside Eve, who was looking down at the map on her phone. “A cool reusable one, for all the random stuff I find.”

Eve was wearing her shoulder bag with a star on it.

“You can just put things in mine,” she said.

Penny slipped the flyers into Eve’s bag as they waited at a stoplight.

“I still want a cool bag.”

“I know.”

Penny and Eve walked past a man handing out packs of tissues with advertisements for his company on the wrappers. The man was wearing a tailored business suit, which made him look slightly out-of-place in Akihabara. If the tissues had a cute character on them, Penny would have taken one, but they were covered in kanji instead.

The man took a couple quick steps to catch up to Penny and pushed a pack towards her.

“Here, you’ll need this,” he said in practiced English. He had a polite smile and appeared somewhat apologetic for invading her personal space.

Penny took the tissues in slight confusion and the man returned to his spot on the sidewalk.

“Can I put these in your bag?” she asked Eve.

Eve looked at Penny and then pointed to her own right nostril, indicating that Penny should use the tissues first. It was a gesture that Eve had gotten used to ever since she had become friends with Penny.

Penny touched the spot under her right nostril, felt a slight dampness, and then looked at the bright-yet-dark red blood on her finger. She then opened up the pack of tissues and held one under her nostril.

Penny’s previous nosebleeds had been caused by the presence of aliens, so this was concerning to her. She couldn’t remember the last time she had picked her nose, and it wasn’t like the air was dry.

By the time they reached Mandarake, her nosebleed had stopped, and, with no garbage nearby, Penny folded up the used tissue and slipped it into her pocket.

A black-and-white flyer to the right of the entrance showed Haruo Yaguchi from Hi Score Girl in white-eyed crazy mode. The text on the flyer was all in kanji, so Penny could only imagine that Haruo had just discovered his dream store, just like all the other otaku filtering in. Hi Score Girl was one of Penny’s favourite anime, a show about a game-obsessed kids growing up in the 90s and experiencing each major shift in arcade game technology, along with home consoles.

Penny had Eve take a picture of her beside the flyer as she made a peace sign; she had never thought of herself as a peace sign kind of girl before, but it was something to do with her hands as they took all these photos in Japan.

Penny took a look at the photo after Eve snapped it and noticed a hint of red beneath her nostril, which she then proceeded to wipe away with her thumb.

The girls entered the building, the first floor mainly made up of conveyor belts leading to cash registers and Mandarake-branded merch, including shirts and bags with exclusive artwork by Oshikiri Rensuke, the creator of Hi Score Girl. The conveyor belts with the cash registers were the buy-back counters, where customers could unload their used goods in exchange for cash they would inevitably spend on other anime, manga and videogame merch. The used goods that Mandarake purchased would in turn be stocked in the store.

Penny stopped at the section with the bags, already knowing she would buy one, but struggling to pick which design she desired most: the one where a girl was being chased out of the store by aliens, monsters and robots, or the one where the girl had successfully shopped at the store and was leaving with bags in tow – along with one of the robots strapped to her back. The artwork was black & white, printed on black bags.

Eve pointed at the design where the girl was being chased.

“That’s the most like you,” she said somewhat teasingly.

Penny picked up the bag, silently acknowledging the truth behind her friend’s words. A sign in English read that merchandise must be paid for on the floor it’s found on, so Penny went ahead and bought the bag, happy with her first real souvenir.

Dismissive by Clark was being played over the PA.

The staircase leading up the building was located outside, with the doors to each floor accessible from the landings. Penny and Eve took the stairs up to the second floor, Penny carrying her bag. She looked at the building across the street, which had a glowing neon I (HEART) AKIHABARA sign. Penny felt like she was seeing her own heart light up.

The girls entered the second floor, which was filled with rare dolls protected by brightly-lit glass cases, magical girl and shoujo anime toys, and cosplay accessories for dressing up as the magical girl and shoujo anime characters.

They took their time admiring the dolls, which had an uneasy mix of realism and exaggerated anime qualities, their wide, colourful eyes seeming to gaze directly into Penny and Eve’s souls. When they came to the penultimate case, they stopped, and tried to find words that wouldn’t creep each other out.

The dolls in the case were dressed like the maids from the café where Maaya worked, including a maid that looked eerily like Maaya. The heads of the dolls nearest the Maaya doll were turned ever-so-slightly towards her, as if to ensure attention was drawn to her.

After sucking in their breath, Penny and Eve stepped over to the final case, which had more maid dolls, only these ones were dressed entirely in black, without the splashes of pink of the previous dolls. Five dolls were lined up in a row on each shelf – except for the empty middle row, where all that remained were five price stickers.

“At least none of them look like us,” Eve said.

“Yeah,” Penny said. “That would be creepy.”

As they exited back onto the staircase, Penny and Eve did pass by two dolls on an unlit shelf that shared some resemblances with them, from their mismatched heights and hair colours to Penny’s glasses, though they failed to notice them.