“Oh, by the way, I’ll show you something cool! It’ll be the first time I show this to anyone, actually!” she said, suddenly beaming with excitement. I had to admit, the way she changed expressions so fast was pretty cute.
Something she hasn’t shown to anyone? What could that be?
She opened a drawer, took out a key, and used it to unlock a closet.
Why would anyone keep their closet locked?
She opened it. I saw what was inside, and could no longer speak.
Stacks of manga. Manga magazines. Anime magazines. Game magazines. Anime Blu-Ray boxes. Voice actor concert DVDs. CDs. Character keychains. Rolled up posters and tapestries. Hoards of male character plushies. Figures of all shapes and sizes.
“Wh-What is this?!” I exclaimed, unable to believe my eyes at some of the figures inside. They were mostly blushing, handsome male characters, but the one that had caught my eye was pretty much buck naked.
“Oh, this one? This is the preorder bonus for Dramatic Mayday, a super-popular BL game! He’s so detailed, isn’t he?! Ryokuha is kind of the uke to all the other boys. He’s sooo hot, right? His face is the cutest, and the way his abs cut into his crotch is to die for! The figure was so limited that I had to line up in front of the store for hours!”
Kokoro was rambling as I’ve never heard her before. Her voice, much faster than usual, was dripping with lust and pride.
Is she okay? Do girls really say things like that?!
She was much more of an otaku than I gave her credit for. Her slurred ramble was a perfect example of creepy otaku talk. The girl in front of me was like an entirely different person from the Kokoro at school.
“You buy BL games at a store?!” I said.
“Isn’t that normal?”
“And what is this?!” I’d noticed something even weirder than the lewd figure.
There was a bag hanging from the wall of the closet. It was covered in so many pin badges and keychains that I couldn’t even guess what color it was supposed to be. All those accessories pictured the same handsome blond guy from a boy idol game, or something. I didn’t know enough about girls’ games to recognize him.
“Is that... an ita-bag?!” I asked. Ita-bags: bags entirely covered in otaku merchandise. I’d seen them on Twitter before, but never in real life.
I could understand having several pieces of merchandise of the same character, but having dozens of copies of the same pin badge was just insane.
“Why do you have all these pins?”
“I unconditionally collect all Kaoru Hashimoto merchandise,” she said.
“Unconditionally collect...” I repeated, scared by the implication of those words. Does she just hoard anything she finds with that character on it?
In the span of a few seconds, I had to come to terms with the fact that Kokoro was probably even more of an otaku than I was.
“And then, I’ve also got—” she started saying, excitedly reaching to open a drawer.
“Enough! I got the point!” I interrupted her, desperately getting her to stop. It was for my own safety. “Now I understand why you keep your closet locked.”
“Yeah, if my parents found all this, I’d die on the spot!”
“But,” I said, recalling what she’d said about her parents, “you have to hide your power level both at school and at home. Isn’t that tiring?”
“Is it? I’m so used to it that I don’t even notice. Do your parents know about you being an otaku?” she asked, locking the closet and perching on a cushion. She gestured toward another for me to sit on, so I joined her.
“Yeah. I’ve never hidden it, even when we lived together.”
“You mean you don’t live with your parents anymore?” she asked.
“Uh-huh. I live by myself now.”
“Living by yourself while you’re still in high school? Is your life an anime or something?”
“My dad was transferred overseas for work, but I didn’t want to move away from Japan, so I convinced him to let me stay here.”
It had been half a year since both of my parents, together with my little sister, had moved abroad. They’d tried to make me go with them, but that would mean I’d have to move to India.
If I moved there, there’s no way I could watch Japanese television anymore. I’d have to stream anime, but apparently internet speeds in India aren’t that good. There’d be no guarantee that I’d find all the anime I wanted to watch online, and I didn’t like watching it illegally to begin with. And if my connection was that poor, I wouldn’t even be able to talk to my friends or play gacha games. Not to mention that, in India, I can’t get my hands on the latest manga.
Since becoming an otaku during grade school, I’ve surrounded myself with anime, manga, and games. I loved the Japanese otaku culture with all my heart, and I couldn’t imagine moving away from it. Without it, what would I have to live for?
I was so desperate to stay that I talked my parents into leaving me behind. I’ll do all the housework and study at the same time, but I don’t want to live somewhere where I can’t enjoy my hobbies. Let me stay in Japan by myself, is what I’d told them.
At first, of course, they disagreed. They said that I was too young to live by myself, since I was still in high school. So I continued bothering them any chance I could get, and showing them that I could take care of myself. Eventually, they gave in.
Dad told me that, if I really felt so strongly about it, I’d be free to try living by myself. If everything went as planned with his job, they’d be back in Japan in around two years, after my high school graduation.
I had to promise that if my grades dropped drastically, or that if, when they came back on vacation, he saw that I’d let myself go too much, I’d have to follow them to India. That was how I started living alone while my parents sent me money to get by.
On top of my studies, keeping up with the housework was tough at first, but the idea of being able to retain my otaku lifestyle kept me motivated until I was used to it.
Even now, I didn’t cook all my own meals, mostly eating premade stuff from supermarkets, convenience stores, and bento shops. The stuff I did end up cooking wasn’t particularly fancy. Mom told me that, even if I didn’t want to cook every day, I should eat nutritious meals and avoid unhealthy food. I was managing to do that much at least.
I usually took care of cleaning and doing the laundry on the weekends. It all worked out surprisingly well. After all, I hadn’t joined an after-school club, which would rob me of my precious free time.
“You’re tougher than I thought, huh. And you’re super serious about being an otaku,” Kokoro commented, impressed by my explanation. “But I guess I’d do the same. I don’t want to live abroad! Like, I can’t even imagine not having access to the internet. I want to watch anime as soon as they come out. And I need to buy character merchandise and cosplay items...”
“I guess that’s true for all otaku,” I said.
“Yeah... Oh, we’ve been wasting too much time! We should get started!” she said, turning on her laptop.
“I need to find a place to search for otaku guys. What should I Google? ‘Where to find otaku boys’?”
Just as we were looking up our first spot to seek otaku romance, we heard the front door opening.
“I think Mom came back,” Kokoro said, opening her door to check downstairs.
“Ah!” she said, immediately closing it.
“What’s wrong?”
“Dad’s back too! Why now?! If he sees you here, I’m in trouble...” she said, her eyes wide with dread.
“I don’t care if Mom knows you’re here, but Dad... He’s always asking me whether I have a boyfriend or a crush or something, so he’d probably get the wrong idea.”
“Like, an ‘I’ll kill you for trying to touch my daughter’ kind of idea?!”
“No, not like that. He’s kind of a hopeless romantic, you see. He said that if I get a boyfriend, I have to introduce him...” Her words trailed off as we heard footsteps getting closer.
“Oh no! They’re coming up! Quick, hide!” she told me.
“Hide?! Where?”
She grabbed my arm and pulled me to my feet.
“Quick! Get inside!” she said, opening another closet. This one was packed with clothes, but there was just enough space for someone to hide, although uncomfortably.
There was a knock at the door, and my heart skipped a beat.
“Kokoro! Are you home?”
“W-Wait! I’m changing!”
I squeezed into the closet as Kokoro closed it from the outside. It felt weird being there, in the darkness, surrounded by the smell of her clothes.
“I’m done!” she called, after making sure the closet was shut.
I heard the door opening and more footsteps.
“D-Dad, what’s up? I thought you had work...”
“Oh, I had compensatory leave today. Anyway, do you have a moment? There’s something important we should discuss.”
“Hm? Didn’t you say you’d have a friend over today, Kokoro?”
“Ah, that’s, uh, she said she couldn’t come last minute! Anyway, what’s the important thing?”
Kokoro’s parents paused for a moment, their tone suddenly serious.
“Darling, tell her...”
“Yes. Kokoro, I know it’s sudden, but next month I’ll be transferred overseas.”
“What?”
Even I, eavesdropping from inside of a closet, was surprised.
“I’ll be working in England for a while... and I want you and your mother to come with me.”
“To England?!”
Transferred to England starting next month? They’re going to move overseas... That’s exactly what happened to me! What are the chances?
“It’ll only be for a year and a half, so we should be able to come back to Japan in time for you to graduate high school.”
“N-No...” Kokoro stammered, as if she were about to cry. “I-I don’t want to be away from you, but even more than that, I don’t want to be away from Japan!”
“Kokoro! What are you talking about?!”
“I want to stay in Japan by myself!”
“Are you serious? Whatever for?”
“Because... I have my friends and hobbies here...”