Crossplay = crossdressing cosplay = when the gender of the cosplayed character doesn't match the gender of the cosplayer. This is a sub-type within cosplaying. Sometimes people try to match the gender and look of the character being cosplayed as closely as possible, but other times it's done within the confinements of what the cosplayers themselves are comfortable with. For example, not all men crossplaying female characters will put on fake breasts and not all women with larger breasts will bind their breasts when they crossplay a male character. For my first time, I'm not doing any of that. I just wanted to be as comfortable as possible while trying something new.

As I looked at the row of people standing in line to sign up for the cosplay competition, I decided against joining them for the moment. It's too early in the day to wait like that, and Mya is way too impatient to wait for anything right now. She wants to visit the stand she's been talking about the whole time. I get it. I've been like that before, though I don't know if I was ever this annoying about it to be honest. Maybe I'm just a little grumpy because I'm still not that comfortable being dressed up like Aoi, and Mya is way too comfortable being her fangirl self right now.

"Aoi! O-M-G!" A girl comes rushing over to me. "Ah! Can I take a picture?"

I open my mouth to answer, but then decide against it. Instead, I nod. I grab my staff with two hands and pull one of Aoi's signature poses. At least, one of her signature poses that doesn't take up too much space, since it's kinda busy and I don't want to hit anyone accidentally.

The girl takes a few pictures, grinning constantly. "Thank you so much! You look great!" She steps closer. "Can I hug you?" Her eyes shine from seeing someone cosplaying a character that she likes. But apparently my answer doesn't come fast enough. I froze up a little, not sure what to do. So she shrugs her shoulders, still smiling. "That's okay, don't want to invade. Have fun today! I bet I'll see you at the cosplay competition, right?"

I nod again, smiling now. That was easy.

"Cool! See you there!" And she's off again, waving at me for a moment.

Mya bumps her shoulder into mine. "You've got fans." She winks. "It really doesn't matter who you cosplay as, you always have fans in like no-time flat." She keeps grinning, shaking her head a little.

"Should I..." I look around, now even more self-aware about my voice. "Like... not speak? Doesn't that break the illusion?"

Mya shrugs, thinking. "I don't know if it matters, really. And you get very far with just that smile of yours." She turns around. "We should be close to the stand now." She checks her map again.

"Let's go, before I get photo-bushed again."

"Photo-bushed?" She raises an eyebrow at me.

"Ambushed for more photos?" I grin.

Mya now rolls her eyes at me, shaking her head. "Yeah, let's find the stand first. Maybe I can buy some manga or something to entertain myself as you get fawned over by fangirls and fanboys." She grins, looking decidedly... evil.

I follow Mya through the crowd until we get to a stand filled with fan items. Art, key chains, doujinshi, cards, t-shirts, plushies, basically anything that you can imagine. Some of it is official swag, but a lot of it is fan made. I let out a squeal as I find the one item I've been trying to get my hands on for months.

"Deimos plushie!" I can't believe they'd have one here. I've been trying to find one online for months, after I saw one on Twitter.

Mya rubs her hand over her ear. "You've got the fangirl squealing down. Now, next time, please make sure you're at least three steps away from me before you do it again." She grumbles a little, but still smiles.

"Do you like it?" The girl behind the stand leans over. "He's pretty popular. That's the last one I've got, I already sold five today."

"Already?" My mouth falls open. The con opened not even an hour ago.

"Yeah." The girl grins. "He goes pretty quickly, but takes a while to make, so I don't usually have many of him."

'Takes a while to make.' I need to give myself a moment to let that sink in. "You make these yourself?"

"Yeah."

"Wow." I look at the little guy in my hands. "I'm buying him now. I don't want to miss out. I cosplayed him last year, so I kind of need to have him."

"Last year?" The girl thinks. "I may have seen you, then."

"I was with a Phobos, Athena and this girl." I point at Mia. "I don't think I've got pics of the cosplay with me right now, though."

"That's okay. I think I remember you." She smiles. "You looked very cool. And this cosplay is super cute." She looks me up and down and I totally forgot about being Aoi for a few moments. But it totally doesn't seem to phase the girl.

"Thanks. I'm Elliot, you are?"

"I'm Emma. Nice meeting you." She looks over to the side, there are other people looking at her stand again.

"I'll just pay for him and then I'll stop distracting you." I hold out Deimos.

"Thanks." Emma lets out a laugh. "Cash or card?"

"Card." I turn to Mya for my wallet.

Mya sighs as she takes my wallet from her bag. "I'm going to have to carry him around all day, won't I?"

"You love him too." I grin. I take out my card and pay for Deimos. "And we can always dump him in the hotel room." I shrug as I take the bag with Deimos in it from Emma. "Thanks."

"Have fun!" She smiles, then she turns to another customer.

Mya moves a little down the side of the stand, digging through a box full of magazines, fanzines and other paper things. She's really focused and I'm pretty sure that I know what she's looking for. There is this sports anime, ice skating one, and she really wants some slash doujinshi of the two main characters. I keep forgetting the name of the anime, but she's been obsessed with it, especially since they announced that there would be a movie made too. I'm not into sports anime, so apart from seeing memes and screenshots of it on Twitter and stuff, I don't really know anything about it.

I step a little to the side, letting other people get to Emma's stand and just scroll through my phone, watching the pictures of the event being uploaded on social media. So many people. The event organizers are calling it their biggest edition of AmAnime yet, which is pretty cool because we don't get many of these around here. So as long as the event keeps growing, I'm happy, because it also means that they'll probably keep running it.

Then I stop scrolling. I look at the picture, and then again. That's... Someone is here as Sakura from Magical Princess Club!

I make the picture bigger, looking at the details of her dress, of her hair. She looks... Wow. Sakura doesn't really fit my personality, and her outfit is more complicated to make than Aoi's outfit, so I never really considered cosplaying Sakura. But this girl. Wow. She really looks like a real-life copy of her!

"What are you gaping at?" Mya tries to look into my phone from the top. "Show me."

"Sakura." I turn my phone to Mya. "Someone's here as Sakura."

Mya's eyes grow and she starts to smile. "That's impressive." She looks up at me. "And now you want to go find her?"

I hadn't even thought about that part yet. Meeting someone who is cosplaying the character who is Aoi's best friend in the anime? While, as a fan of the anime, I totally want to meet the girl, but as someone who isn't really sure if he can really show up in his own cosplay... I'm too scared. "Maybe? I don't know." I shrug. Any other day, I would have immediately tried to find Sakura and hoped to take a picture with her as soon as I'd seen her. But next to her, my crossplaying will be so obvious, and what about just... I don't know.

"Come on." Mya grabs my hand.

"Where are we going?" I stumble after her, trying to not fall flat on my face or lose my staff or Deimos.

"The cosplay competition sign-up table."

"Why?"

"Because that's where the picture was taken?" Mya looks at me for a moment, like I'm being slow.

I was too busy looking at the cosplay and the girl that I hadn't even realised where the picture was taken. I slow Mya down as we reach the table. "I don't know if I should do this."

"Why not? At least go and take a picture with her? You always do that of cosplayers who cosplay the characters you like. Why should this be different?"

"But... I'm in a dress." Why isn't that obvious?

"Yes." Mya nods. "Has someone crossplaying ever stopped you from taking a picture with them?"

"No."

"Has it ever stopped you from taking a picture with someone who liked your cosplay?"

"No..." I sigh. "Just... I'm scared."

"I know." Mya smiles a little, her eyes softer. "But the best way to go through that is by doing the things that scare you. Plus, I'd really like a picture of you two, just to have the first picture of the Magical Princess Club together at AmAnime." She grins now.

"Fine." I take a deep breath. She's right, the only way I can stop being so self-aware is to do things that I always would do, like taking pictures with people. "I'll try to find her."

Mya looks over my shoulder, her eyes growing. "That won't be hard." She takes a step back, carefully.

"Aoi!" Another girl calls my name, but there is an accent to her voice, like she's trying to copy someone else.

I turn around to the voice, not sure what to expect. Then I spot Sakura, in all her pink and poofy glory. She's eyeing me, her eyes shining, then she opens her arms, tilting her head a little, raising an eyebrow.

She's beautiful.

I open my arms too, well aware of what that means.

Sakura jumps up a little, then sprints towards me and jumps into a hug. I spin her around, catching her weight, and keep my arms around her a moment longer.

I'm holding Sakura. I'm really holding an almost perfect copy of Sakura in my arms.

Then the girl steps back a little, grinning. "I knew I was right. I knew I saw you."

"What?" I blink.

"While I was waiting to sign up for the cosplay competition. I was waiting in line and I was sure that I saw you, Aoi, just walking off."

"Ah." I lift my arm up, wanting to rub it over my other arm, but put it down again, awkward. "Yeah. The line was just too long and my friend wanted to see one of the stands first, before they sold out of the cool stuff."

Mya steps next to us. "Hi." She grins, way too satisfied.

"Hey. Do you hug?" Sakura looks at her.

"With a princess? Always." Mya opens her arms and Sakura takes her in a hug too. Then Mya looks at us side by side. "I thought that E... the Aoi cosplay was good, but yours is super pretty! It has to be really hot in there, though."

Sakura shrugs. "A little. But... it's worth it for the third number one spot at the yearly competition in line." She grins, and I totally get why she would play Sakura, she has the same competitiveness.

"Really?"

"Yep. Champion two years running." She puts two fingers up, her eyes shining.

Wow. That means I totally met her before, because I've participated in the competition for the last couple of years too. Oh. That means that she would also know that I'm crossplaying right now.

"Izzy!" Another voice behind me, a guy this time, at least, it's a pretty low voice. "There you are." Footsteps, and then a guy stands next to her, but his eyes are on me. "Wow. You were right."

But all I can do is stare at him. He's crossdressing or crossplaying, I don't know, the style is too generic to really figure it out in two seconds, especially since I don't know how to react.

Sakura, no, the guy called her Izzy, totally didn't react when she hugged me and must have realised that I wasn't a girl, at least, I'm missing the whole filling at the top of the front of my dress that most girls have. But I guess that makes more sense when you're used to guys crossdressing...

It makes me a little nervous, but at the same time, something relaxes in me, at least she won't push me away just for crossdressing. At least she's used to that.

Right?