“So yeah, that’s kinda what I do for a living now,” Ruse said, as a way to finalize the story of how she and Kevin met. “I design and create these cosplay items.” She tapped the eraser end of her mechanical pencil against the open page of her sketchbook. Her dress drawing was nearly complete now; an up-sized version of Rainbow Brite’s dress from the 80s cartoon, with a puffer jacket on top, all decked out in shooting star patches and pins. “I mean, I wear them too, sometimes… When I’m in cosplay gear, I feel like I can really be me.”

“Kinky,” Astra teased.

“She means she’s a lot more outgoing when she’s dressed up, you pervert,” Kevin said, stomping that flame out instantly.

And he was right. Day-to-day, Ruse was a shy, introverted girl with not much to say. But when she was in that zone with the frills and bows, she owned her audience.

“I mean, I’ve always had this knack for sewing and costumery, even before I moved here. I made my bag when I was still dating Henry,” Ruse chuckled. “He didn’t know I was making art behind his back; he thought it was Vera Bradley.” She shook her head and laughed a little bit more. “Oh man, and you wouldn’t believe the weirdos out there who have fuck-you money. Cosplayers go hard, man. Especially the furries. Sometimes I’ll get a really big order, and I’ll be set for weeks.” She added some final touches to her drawing. “And when I’m between orders I just hang out with Kevin at the shop. It’s kinda like my second home.”

“Oh Ruse, remember the time that guy was hitting on you when you were putting out that shipment of DVDs for me?” Kevin asked, the soft sounds of his banjo-playing accompanying his words.

“You grabbed his whole-ass face,” Ruse replied with gusto. “His whole-ass face! With one hand, and threw him the fuck out!” She sounded so proud of Kevin. “Never saw that guy again, thank god.”

The two besties shared a laugh, then looked back at their host. Astra had been listening to their story of how they had become friends very intently.

“Astra,” Kevin said, “what’s your fave anime?”

He wasn’t quizzing her with good intentions though; he knew he was more knowledgeable on the subject than she would ever be. Nobody could out-weeb him.

“Hmmm…” Astra tapped the handle of her ramen fork against her chin. “To be honest, I haven’t watched a lotta anime. It’s not really my thing. All I know is that Sailor Uranus was right to get with Sailor Neptune.” And with that, she nodded to herself.

Kevin stopped playing his banjo. How could Astra be so unenlightened and aloof about something so integral to the town’s culture?! Even Ruse appeared to be baffled by Astra’s lack of interest in anime; her pencil had slipped out of her fingers and rolled off the edge of her sketchbook. The silent shock Astra’s response caused was only vaguely accented by the soft sizzling of the nearly-dead fire the three encircled.

“How can you not be into anime? You live in Japantown! Everybody knows about Sailor Moon, that doesn’t count!” Kevin accused her. She was just one layer of undesirable after another, firstly with her freakish hermaphroditism and now this!

“Look, dude, my parents are missionaries. They came here when I was little to teach all these ‘Asian religion’ folks the ‘word of God,’” Astra said, strongly utilizing sarcasm and air quotes to show she didn’t agree with what her parents had been doing. “They think it’s a sin to watch anime, so I was never allowed.” She grabbed the now empty cooking pot, pressed a finger against it to make sure it wasn’t too hot, then wiped the remaining droplets of broth out of it with a small paper towel she retrieved from her backpack. She then tossed the paper towel over her shoulder and shoved the pot back inside the pack. Bristling, she continued. “We never even had a television in my house, man. All I ever had as a kid was a Discman. And they monitored what I listened to on that too. You’ll never guess the only non-Christian stuff they allowed me to listen to—yeah, only the classics. I don’t even know any modern day music!” She was breathing heavily now, exasperated by how insensitive Kevin was being. “They never even let me have a phone. Almost every practical thing I’ve ever learned was from staying late at school in the library computer lab, shit. I was sheltered and blocked off as hell from learning any sort of life skills because they thought if I knew how to do anything for myself, I’d leave their stupid cult. So here I am, trying my fucking best to make do with what I have.”

“Damn,” Ruse replied to Astra’s explanation. Tell us what you really think! “My mom’s pretty religious too, but not like that.” She put away her sketchbook and pencil and scooched the small gap between herself and Astra. The girl needed some physical affection in order to calm down after that outburst. “Maybe after this whole mess is over, we can watch some of my faves together, if you want, that is. I will warn you though: I am weeb trash.”

“I would love that, Ruse.” Astra still sounded exasperated, but Ruse’s offer somewhat appeased her. She leaned her weary head to the side so her temple brushed Ruse’s. “If you’ll have me.”

Ruse nodded, eyes closed. “And you can share your favorite songs with me. All the Frankie and Elvis and stuff, and, I dunno, we’ll see where that leads…”

But the ordeal regarding Astra’s otherness was not over; the least subtle throat clearing snapped them out of their snuggle.

Kevin was holding out his fork to her, a nasty smirk on his face. She quickly stuffed it in back into the front pouch of her pack. As soon as she zipped it back up, however, he was holding out his empty Mountain Dew can to her. “Don’t forget to recycle, I’m collecting interest on what you owe me,” he taunted.

She snatched it and thrust it into the bag, jostling Ruse from her comfortable position. Then, with a heavy dosage of lip, she said, “so, Kev—is it okay I call you Kev?” She didn’t give him time to answer, though he was obviously not in favor of any nicknames by the sour look on his face. “You got any waifus on your phone?”

“Excuse me?”

“It’s okay, I think everybody has a stash. I would if I had a phone. I mean, it’s normal, right? To have some porn saved on there? Or should I say hentai? That seems more your thing, which I’m totally not judging you for.” Her tone relayed otherwise. “You never know when you need a pick-me-up after a hard day, am I right?” She raised an eyebrow and kept strong eye contact with him, very well-aware of the bright, warm color filling his face.

How did she of all people know what hentai was!? “That is wildly inappropriate!” Kevin argued, looking at Ruse to back him up. Ruse looked away, clearly not wanting to get involved.

“Oh, by the way,” Astra continued, ignoring him, “that creep stalking you guys probably has access to some specialized equipment that allows him to track your phone regardless of if the data’s on or off. Isn’t that a fun fact?”

So she had heard Ruse scolding Kevin when they first entered the courthouse.

“Really?” Ruse asked, the fear in her voice palpable. It was clear she had hoped Astra was just saying that to mess with Kevin.

“Yeah,” Astra said, her sardonic tone fading. Ruse had become collateral damage in her threats against Kevin, and she definitely didn’t mean for that to happen. “You ever heard of the cops hunting down a murderer who disposed of his victim’s phone on the side of the road, and they find the phone in a ditch and it’s all beat up and stuff? They use fancy cop GPS or something. Happens all the time. It don’t matter if it’s on or off. Still pings.”

Ruse swore quietly, then went haphazardly tearing through her bag for her phone. When she found it, she immediately started pressing buttons. Kevin tilted his head at her curiously, and she gave him a quick glare. Yeah, she had her own phone still on too, but her reasons were better.

“Whatcha doin’?” Astra asked, leaning over to eye Ruse’s phone screen.

“Saving everything to the cloud. I’m getting rid of it. It’s dying anyways, I don’t have a power bank…”

“Good idea. What about you?” she asked Kevin.

Kevin stood up, his weight causing the floor to squeak. He gave Astra a mean look instead of dignifying her with a verbal response, then walked off towards the courtroom doorway, where a metal trash can still containing a black liner bag sat.

He stood over the trash can, facing away from the girls, then pulled his phone from his shorts pocket. The background he had set was of a teenage girl from a notorious visual novel game called Doki Doki Literature Club, and she was posing very suggestively and in very little clothing for such a young girl. He opened his photos folder. There were indeed ‘waifus’ saved to his device. So many little hentai waifus. Little ones with dark skin and flat chests, just like his bestie… Of course, regardless of how young and dainty they looked, they were all supposedly over eighteen. Kevin adored that loophole about fictional characters; they could look so very young, yet their creators and the people who drew and animated them could just say that they were legal, and that would make it so. He was the furthest thing from a predator. He scrolled through the photos and videos of soft girls being pleasured by tentacles, vines, and other various phallic objects for as long as he could without thinking Ruse and Astra were on to him, then he powered the phone off and threw it into the trash.

A hand gently touched him on his back and he turned to face Ruse.

“This sucks,” she said, sounding a little weepy. She threw her own phone into the trash and it landed at the bottom of the bin right next to his with a thud and a rattle from the cutesy pastel charm cord.

Their two phones were as visually different as they themselves were, with Kevin’s phone being solid black and worn, without a case, and Ruse’s being bright, well taken care of, and decorative.

“Yeah. But it’s more important to keep you safe right now.”

“I know…”

Ruse nervously switched her weight between each foot for a moment, then continued. “Kevin, you know I’m very grateful to you for going through with all of this, right? It means a lot to me that you’d protect me…”

“But?”

“You gotta stop being mean to Astra,” she said with a sudden change of tone. A sharp whisper. She was still looking into the trash can, but now she had a frustrated scowl on her face. She didn’t want to look at him because she knew he wouldn’t react well to having his feelings hurt. “I like her, okay? I haven’t gone after any girls for years because I knew you wouldn’t be okay with it.” Well, that, and the crippling PTSD Henry so graciously bestowed on her… She knew Kevin would react one of two ways if that ever was the situation: he would either throw a huge fit over not securing her hand, like he was now, or creep extra hard on her and her potential lover like they were animals in a zoo. Fucking straight men and their inability to just behave.

“I know you worry about me,” Ruse told her bestie, “but let me have this one thing, please.”

“She’s being mean to me too!” Kevin whispered back. “She’s already treating me like she thinks I’m a child—she doesn’t even know me!”

“This is a disproportional amount of animosity for how little you know,” Ruse insisted, even though she herself was on the opposite end of that spectrum with a disproportional amount of favor towards Astra. “She has a lot to compete against, okay?” She looked back to see Astra watching them. Thankfully, she was too many feet away to eavesdrop. “She can tell that we’re close, so she’s trying hard to win me from you. But it’s not like that. It’ll be okay if I’m close to you and Astra.”

Kevin sighed. He didn’t want to share Ruse. If there was competition, it meant there was less of a chance he would win her in the end. But he begrudgingly nodded and said “fine.”

Ruse leaned up against him, so much smaller in stature, and nuzzled her cheek against his shoulder. “Thank you. I knew you’d understand. You always have.”

Kevin wrapped his arm around her and locked her in a side hug for a second, then released her. He certainly had her thinking he understood… He wasn’t foolish though; he would respect her until he could find a clever way to separate her from the menace of Astra.