Muse

Chapter 6

Walking through the crowds of people in Akihabara, I was starting to rethink my choice to come here on a weekend. It was so crowded on Saturdays, but it wasn't like I had any other days to go. My only real free day during the week was Sunday, and that ended up being eaten up by laundry, church, drawing, and lightsaber practice, so I had taken off work at my part-time job at Enterprise for today just to make the trip and give myself a full recreational weekend to enjoy. After the fallout between my mother and I this morning when she did her self-mandated check to see if I was awake and saw the aftermath of Hurricane Alyssa, that had been the only saving grace to leave the house. If Jo-Elle hadn't asked off for an art show, I would probably wouldn't have gotten away with a day off and escape my mother's wrath. Of course, as a result, I now had dozens of hours to kill before I could go back home. Lucky for me, there were a ton of ways for me to kill time in Akihabara.

I had spent the first the first couple of hours camped out in the foreign books section inside Tsutaya Books, the Barnes & Nobles of Japan, indulging in a box of green tea mochi while reading manga and a few books written in English to pass the time. Yet another plus from skipping out on work, as this place was usually closed by 2pm, well past the point in time I normally left either of my jobs. After inevitably adding another Hero Academy volume to my growing collection, I walked down the road of maid and butler cafes on my way to the otaku center hub. I reasoned that if I was hungry later, I would stop by one of them and finally see what all the fuss was about.

I'd loitered outside them way beyond the socially acceptable amount, trying to convince myself to go inside one for months, though I had never fully mustered the courage to do so. Thoughts of my embarrassing high school weeaboo phase gave me such intense feelings of chuunibyo that echoes of it in the present caused me to pull the drawstrings of my Oswald the Lucky Rabbit hoodie closed out of utter shame. Even if it was more socially acceptable to go to one in this country and I was free to let my freak-flag fly by being alone and away from the judging eyes of my peers, the moment I was approached on the street by a young man in a tailcoat, I froze like a deer in headlights.

"Care to join us for tea? We've been expecting you, my lady," a smooth talking Sebastian Michaelis type character asked with a soft baritone to match. My one true weakness: a confident boy with bass. I felt my face grow hot while my inner goddess purred at the enticing voice and fancy butler get up, melting into a puddle of goo with every word. Somehow the street vendors and salesmen always targeted me for some reason and I, being the polite, confrontationally-challenged person that I was, had struggled greatly when it came to saying no, not wanting to impolite by ignoring them. Why did this always have to happen to me?

"Uh- umm (n-no thank you!)," I choked on the guilt, accidentally slipping back into my native tongue before I repeated it back in Japanese. "I mean, sorry! Not today! I'm meeting someone soon!"

I feel insane, I think there's something wrong inside my brain, I can't explain, I just want to run away, my iPod sang in my ears as I lied through my teeth, deciding I would try and muster up my courage again another day. I took the specials flier from him anyways, feeling the urge to bury myself inside my hoodie like a turtle and disappear forever, and started cranking up the volume to muffle the sound of outside world. At least this time, I would have a legitimate excuse for walking past them and not hearing them. That's what I told myself, anyways. Anything to silence the nagging guilt.

Once the Akihabara Radio Kaikan building came into view, a sense of calm and an excited rush of nostalgia fell over me as I was greeted by familiar sights as seen on Steins;Gate, an anime slash visual novel based in Akihabara, one that I had played slash watched most ardently- for research purposes, of course, though a small part of me would be lying in saying that I didn't love the creative writing, drama, and suspense. It was fun experiencing the real life places seen on TV. It made it more real and less like a fantasy, and made me feel a part of their world rather than a spectator behind a glass screen. Furthermore, what really brought out my inner fan-girl was what it contained inside.