"The Intelligentsia"

Zipper kept nervously glancing at the two suited women at the other table. The doe-eyed chef, recognizing her plight, stepped out from behind the counter and urged the Dime Boys to join her. Zipper twiddled her fingers as the chef walked them to the table. The chef motioned for the two women, then returned behind the counter.

The apparent leader, a petite woman wearing a beret over short brown hair, was reading something called Antigone. Next to her, a wide-smiling girl with dark hair assembled a model of Osaka Castle on the table. She spoke first.

“Yaho, yaho!” she greeted. “Are you guys Do-Nothings?”

Her English tripped up Zipper for a second since she rarely had need for her real-time translator before arriving in Japan. During Zipper's hesitation, Sue took over.

“Sugoi!” Sue exclaimed. “It’s like we’re speaking in dubbed to each other!” She pulled up a chair and forced the beret girl to scooch over. “And yes, we’re Do-Nothings! I’m Magenta Sue, and can I just say that I have a great deal of admiration for Japan and the Japanese? I don’t think there’s a word in English that adequately expresses the love I have. There must be a Japanese word for that kind of love since you guys have a word for everything.”

Beret slowly opened her mouth.

“I got it!” Sue interrupted. “You know that phrase, throw me to the wolves and I’ll come back leading the pack? Well, if you were to throw me to Japanese wolves, I’ll come back a mother!”

Zipper spat out her sake onto Nat’s face. It was getting bad over there. (Un)fortunately, this wasn’t the first time Sue had gotten the Dime Boys into an awkward situation, so Zipper and Nat already had a contingency plan in place.

Wordlessly, Nat knew the assignment. After wiping the sake off her face, she scooped up Sue, turned around, and punted her out of the izakaya. Sue rolled across the street and ended up in a heap on the sidewalk, her eyes spinning.

Nat wiped her hands and took Sue’s seat. Zipper arrived and stood behind her.

“Sorry for my friend,” Zipper said. “She gets, uh…yeah. Is this the intellectual scene?”

The hyper girl nodded. “My name’s Kyoko, yaho!”

Beret spoke in a detached, aloof tone. “Fujiwara Kaede.”

“I’m Zipper Chute and this is Nat Cool."

Kaede leaned back in her seat, one leg folded over the other, Osaka Castle stretching before her. “So, you think you’re intellectuals, do ya? You can walk, talk, and dress like Do-Nothings, but that don’t mean you are.”

“Oh, trust me, I know about the Do-Nothings,” Zipper said proudly. “I’m best friends with Joe and the other members of the band.”

Kyoko let out an amazed, “Yaho!” 

The chef perked her ears up.

Kaede frowned, obviously not believing such a claim. 

“It’s true,” Zipper said, though she was used to people not believing her by now. “But the Do-Nothing movement is more than just the band. It’s about the rejection of unregulated galactic expansion, the willy-nilly destruction of planets led by a private operation with no oversight. It’s about getting out of your rooms and seeing people in-person. It’s about creating things rather than consuming and destroying. We say we’re Do-Nothings ironically, ‘cuz that’s what the media calls us, so we’re adopting the name. But we’re all trying to find Something. That’s the point of the movement. It’s about being a person in a community, dig?”

Kyoko and Nat both clapped. 

Kaede studied Zipper for a while, bringing a wooden nose-pipe to her nostrils. When she lowered the pipe, two trails of smoke billowed over Osaka Castle.

“Posers,” Kaede declared.

Zipper went to protest, but Kaede kept speaking. “Have you read the Do-Nothing canon? Been to the important landmarks? You talk of creating, but have you created anything?”

Zipper tugged at her collar. “Well, uh…no. But I’m here to learn. I want to know how to get started.”

Kaede smirked. “Go read the FAQ on our Hypernet forum. And get lost, while you’re at it.”

Kyoko muttered a surprised, sad, “Yaho…”

Zipper wasn’t sure what to say. Fortunately, it was at this moment that Nat stepped up. She stood, relaxed and composed, here to deal with the crisis. Cherry blossoms from a tree upstairs blooming out of season fluttered past her.

But Nat was apparently allergic to sakura, since she immediately sneezed, knocking over Osaka Castle in its entirety. The group looked at the shattered remnants in silence.

Kaede sighed. “Look, I get-"

Nat sneezed again. Kaede shot her a look. Nat slinked away.

Kaede sighed. “Look, I get it. You wanna get with the hip new trend. But if we’re all Do-Nothings, then nobody is. You can’t just say you’re a Do-Nothing. It devalues the movement.”

Then Kaede saw Kyoko’s puppy dog eyes. She sighed again. “Look, I’m not saying you can’t join. You just gotta earn your way in. Read the canon, make something, and come back in a week. And maybe you can join. Until then, across the street is the better scene for you.”

A frowning Zipper gasped. “But across the street is the…Saturday Morning Cartoon Emporium? I-I’m an intellectual!”

But all Kaede did was smirk. Zipper shook her head and collected a stuffy-nosed Nat. They paid at the robo-register and departed. Under the glow of faux neon in the narrow Tokyo streets, Zipper fumed.

“We're no Saturday Morning Cartoon kids. We're intellectuals-”

“Hey, Zipper!” Sue called out from inside the Emporium. “They got the Adventure Dan box-set in here!”

Zipper scoffed. “Yeah right, like we still care about the cartoons we watched as kids. Right, Nat?”

Nat was already standing next to Sue inside the Emporium dressed in a space captain’s outfit.

Zipper sighed. “Maybe I am just doomed to be a consumer all my life. It’s over.”

The door to the izakaya opened; the chef arrived outside, still smiling. “I have real-time English translation as well. I overheard your conversation back there.”

Zipper looked away, her face turning hot.

“I'm sorry," the chef offered. "Those two come here a lot, but I didn't realize Kaede was so snobby. Movements, fads, and trends are full of people who consider themselves authoritative experts on subject matter they only just learned about. Just like you said, to be a Do-Nothing, all you have to do is strive towards Something. Why should you look down on people who are just getting started and don’t know what they’re looking for yet?”

The chef smelled like smoky beef, fried rice, scents of the hearth. Zipper resisted the urge to sniff her any further.

“Thanks,” Zipper said, her smile returning. “I needed to hear that.”

The chef glanced at the door. “A robot’s covering my shift while I go on break. Want to take a walk with me?”

Zipper glanced at Sue and Nat. Both were mimicking the heroic poses of Adventure Dan while he fought the evil Venusian space pirates.

“They’ll be busy for a while, so sure. My name’s Zipper Chute, by the way.”

The doe-eyed chef smiled in return. “I’m Azuki. Azuki Nadeshiko.”