Pt. 10 (Final)

Penny woke up. She groggily – and somewhat frustratedly – untangled her phone from one of the sheets, her eyes barely capable of opening. She unlocked her phone without looking at it, and then very gradually opened her eyes until she could read the time: 6:59AM.

She rolled over to look at Eve, who was sleeping peacefully, the headband from her maid pyjamas having fallen behind her head. Penny then very carefully pushed herself up with her elbows, casting a glance over at her mother, who was sleeping with paperwork scattered across her blanket.

Penny knew she had two choices: stay in bed and stare at her phone until Eve or her mother woke up, or get out of bed and quietly watch TV while eating some bread for breakfast.

After some consideration, which included checking their social media accounts for engagement (they were getting way more Likes on their Japan trip pics and vids than anything else), Penny peeled the covers away from her and stepped down to the floor. She stealthily headed to the separate toilet room, where the very beginning of a light grey morning sky was visible through the frosted glass.

She then washed her hands and face in the bathroom, which had a large window overlooking Akihabara. She dried herself and then stared out the window, looking down at the street below. It wasn’t as busy as usual, but there was still some activity, including what must’ve been café maids heading home after working the night shift.

Penny grabbed some bread from the top of the minifridge in the living room. She pulled out some kind of chocolatey butter paste from the fridge and spread it over the bread, which she then ate while watching TV.

Children’s programming was mainly all that aired this early in the morning. Penny settled on a variety show featuring a colourful mascot that looked like a children’s art project itself, with simple shapes coloured in with primary colours stuck to its body. The mascot was teaching a group of kindergarteners a dance that made an animated sun appear.

Penny turned her head to glance at the glass door of the balcony, part of her hoping the ritual would make the sun appear in real life as well. Unsurprisingly, the sun wasn’t quite out, but the sky was just a little bit lighter.

Penny was still groggy, but didn’t want to climb back into bed. If she went out on her own, she wouldn’t get lost if she stuck to their block, right? She could just get a small can of coffee from a vending machine, and look around at her own pace, stopping to admire every well-designed flyer or absurd gachapon machine that caught her eye.

Penny finished her bread, turned off the TV and stood up.

“I’m gonna do it,” she said quietly to herself.

She got dressed in the bathroom, put on a black zippered sweater with Splatoon 3 graffiti designs on the back, and wrote a note for Eve and her mother in case they wondered where she had disappeared to. With one last glance back at the living room, Penny slipped on her sneakers and slipped out the door.

Penny felt alienated the moment she reached the hotel lobby and the security guard greeted her in Japanese. She accidentally responded with “good afternoon” in mumbled Japanese and then stumbled out of the building in embarrassment, her face red.

Outside she glanced around, and realised more than ever that she couldn’t read anything that wasn’t in English, and wouldn’t understand anything anyone said to her in Japanese. Eve had been her safety net, and Penny swore she would never take Eve’s confidence for granted ever again.

Flyer maids were beginning to line the street, and some of them called out to Penny, though Penny just kind of said “hi” in English in response as she passed by.

Caffeine would make her less inhibited, so she stopped at the next vending machine she saw, one covered in a design of a small army of Pikachus. She picked out a can of BOSS Café au lait, put in the appropriate number of yen, and the can thunked down the dispenser. Penny cracked open the can right away, a splash of brown liquid landing on her fingers.

The heat from the can felt nice in her hands on what was yet another cool grey morning. She took a few sips that quickly turned into glugs, this can much sweeter and milkier than the others, making it much easier to guzzle.

She could feel the rush of energy coursing through her veins. It was enough for her to pull out her phone and look over the list of phrases that she had screenshotted on it.

Next time, when someone spoke to her, she’d try to say the correct phrase back.

Penny finished the can by the vending machine since it had a small recycling bin beside it, and she didn’t want to risk having to carry the empty can with her until she returned to the hotel room. She tossed the can into the recycling bin and then discreetly licked off the liquid that had been drying on her fingers.

With very little that she felt she could do on her own, Penny decided to go through with the full walk around the block, expecting at least her mother to be awake and watching TV by the time she circled back to the hotel.

She took a flyer from a maid with tired eyes, and thanked her in Japanese. While turning left at the corner of the block, Penny glanced down at the flyer, which had a chibi-style drawing of a faceless maid dressed in black. Her first thought was that it was a cursed object, made even worse by the fact that there weren’t any garbage bins around. All she could do was fold it until it formed a small square that she stuffed into her pocket.

It was only after putting the flyer into her pocket that she noticed its ink had turned her fingers black.

That’s what I get for going out on my own, she thought, but then managed to shake the thought away. She could believe in things she had seen directly in front of her, such as aliens and faceless maids, but there wasn’t any proof that curses actually existed.

The sound of very pleasant acoustic guitar playing perked her ears. It sounded like a Final Fantasy song being played in a bossa nova style. She noticed a small crowd formed around the performer up ahead, though she couldn’t quite make them out.

Penny decided she would watch the performer play for a bit, as it was something she could do without having to interact with others. She reached the crowd just as the song came to an end, a smattering of applause and the jingling of yen marking it as a mighty fine performance of a song that held a special place in the hearts of otaku (at this point Penny realised it had been Melodies of Life from Final Fantasy IX).

The performer thanked the crowd, smiling a wide, confident smile. He paused for a moment, as if trying to decide which song he should play next. That was when he took notice of Penny, and gave her a small wink.

Penny could tell he wasn’t fully Japanese. Since he was playing bossa nova, did that mean he was also Brazilian?

“Any requests?”

It took Penny four full seconds to register that he had not only asked her, but that he had asked the question in English.

“Oh!” Penny said. Her mind then tried to quickly think of a song – something that would suit the Akiba crowd. “Maybe ‘Concerning Hobbits’? You know, the Shire theme from Lord of the Rings?”

Part of her actually wanted to hear it. The Fellowship of the Ring had been one of her favourite movies as a little kid, and that piece of music was one of the main reasons for it.

The performer nodded, still with a smile that kept people wanting to stay near him. He performed a bossa nova rendition of Concerning Hobbits that was one of the most joyous things Penny had ever heard – and it seemed to her that much of it was improvised.

The song ended, the performer received more applause and yen, and Penny’s heart felt a tiny bit larger, the cursed flyer already forgotten in her pocket.

The performer thanked the crowd and put his guitar back into its case. The crowd lingered just a little bit too long before finally realising he was done and dispersed. Penny was about to leave with them but the performer stopped her with a smile.

“Are you here on vacation?” he asked, clasping the guitar case shut and slinging it onto his back.

“Yeah,” Penny said. She wanted to ask him the same, but was worried about offending him.

“Same. Sort of,” the performer said, now standing casually as he talked to her. “My dad’s family is from here. We’re here for my grandfather’s funeral.”

“I’m so sorry to hear that.”

“Too much information, right?” the performer said with a playful smile. “My name’s ****. I’m from Brasilia.”

“I’m Penny. I came here from Canada.”

“Really? Hey, that’s a coincidence! I’ve been thinking of going to university in Canada. Maybe in Toronto, but I’m not sure yet.”

Penny nodded. She liked talking to the performer, but wasn’t sure what she could say that wasn’t related to videogames and anime.

“I like to play my guitar, but the place where we’re staying has strict rules about ‘noise’. I thought, why not come out here and practice? And maybe make a little money as well.

“Do you like this stuff?” he then asked, nodding in the direction of an anime figure store, its screens running ads for Evangelion toys.

“K-kinda,” Penny admitted. She wasn’t embarrassed about her hobbies, but she was worried this guy would be judgmental of them.

“I don’t know much about it,” he said. “Back home I just study, stuff like architecture and the supernatural. With that, school, and guitar, I don’t have much time for anything else.

“Not even girls,” he said, winking at her.

“That sucks,” Penny said. Why wasn’t she capable of saying anything interesting?

Well, he was just a stranger after all, albeit a very talkative one.

“You were playing that Final Fantasy song,” Penny pointed out, though she tried not to say it accusatorily. “And you know ‘Concerning Hobbits’.”

“One of my gifts is being able to play any song, even if I haven’t heard it before,” the performer said. He said it with another playful smile, but at the same time it sounded like he meant his words.

“To be honest, I took the train to Akihabara because I heard there were ghosts in the maid cafés. But the maid cafés are so expensive! I figured I’d make some money by busking, but it’s still not enough.”

“You like ghosts?” Penny asked, surprised.

The performer appeared equally surprised by her question.

“‘Like’ them?” he said, as if asking himself. “I thought I just found them interesting, but maybe . . . Maybe I do.

“How about you?”

Penny looked across the street at the anime figure store, and then looked down the street at the flyer maids, and then up at the ads for videogames, anime and manga.

“I like videogames and anime,” she said.

Then, after thinking about it for one more second: “I love Akihabara.”