Selfie

Kritvik Bhatt

“Damn, man! It was great!” I commented.

“Yeah, it was really really cool,” Sana commented with a smile.

Both of us were walking away from that group of people surrounding the cosplay stage, for some reason. We were still in that shed filled with sharp white lights and air-conditioners on top, with the group a couple steps away from us. There were no windows or stuff like that, which kinda made it feel like it was nighttime, obviously. Both of us were smiling as we walked, and my hands were in my pockets, for some reason.

“It was the first time I saw something like this, man,” I said. “And I’m kinda interested in this stuff now.”

“Like, you wanna cosplay too?” She asked as she turned her head to me.

I turned to her and replied, “Huh? No. I meant that I’d like to watch more cosplay stuff like that. Obviously, I didn’t mean to cosplay it myself!”

“Well, that’s sad. Like, you should cosplay too.”

I shook my head. “I don’t have the guts it takes, man.” I turned my head to the front, still shaking it. “I don’t have the guts.”

“Whatever.” She turned her head to the front too.

Then, on the left, we both noticed a couple of guys standing with some form of headsets in front of their eyes with some thin pen-like device in their right hands. They were turning their heads right and left, completely blinded by the headset, for some reason. Maybe, they were VR headsets.

“See, they’re VR headsets,” Sana told me as we walked toward them.

“Damn, what are they doing with VR headsets?”

“Probably streaming online, you see.”

I nodded. “Streaming comes with its own benefits, maybe.”

“Sure does,” She said with a smile as she turned her head to the front. “Anyway, it’s been about half an hour here, you see. We should go out again.”

I turned my head to the front too as we walked from their side. “Yeah. What time is it?”

She turned her left fist up and looked at her black thin wristwatch on her right wrist. “One-thirty.”

I nodded. “There are some events going on too, right?”

She turned her head to the front. “Yeah. Some announcements and some interviews are going to take place, you see. And, there’s one event I’m particularly interested in.”

“Huh? Which one?”

“Well, there’s this really cool voice actress who’s going to be interviewed and she might perform some voice scripts on stage too. She’s also voiced some cool characters in Jenshin and I like her voice. I’ve been following her social media where she does some little comedy sketches with her changing voice sometimes. I wanna see her interview.”

I nodded as we both turned left from the edge. “That seems great. When is it happening?”

“Around five.”

I nodded.

She suddenly turned her head to her right at me and said, “Anyway, we’re now finding matching tees and clicking some photos.”

I turned to her and smiled. “Yeah, man. Let’s buy some posters and key-chains too. We’re gonna show-off a lot on Campfire.”

“Really,” She said.

***

We were beneath the scorching sun again, on the ground outside. We were walking in one of the aisles of the booths on both sides, talking about some stuff.

“And, then she showed her the sword she had found, you see, and the battle between the two characters began. And, it was the best fight I’ve ever had in Jenshin!”

I then turned my head rightward in between the conversation, noticing the same manga booth still filled with so many people, but this time, for some reason, there was no line in front of the booth.

“It was a serious one, you see. And, there were stakes.”

I smiled and turned my head to the front, continuing to listen to her story about some videogame.

“Damn. That seems great, man. Now I wanna play Jenshin too,” I commented as I turned my head to my left at her.

Her eyes widened as she stressed, “You should! Like, it’s also coming to mobile phones too, you see, so you’d be able to play it then.”

“Damn, really?”

She smiled as she nodded. “Yeah.” She turned her head to the front and continued, “Well, I’d switch to a mobile phone when it does. It’d be better to play on a smartphone, because you can then play it anytime anywhere.”

“Yeah, man.”

She again turned to me and looked into my eyes with a smile. “And, we’d play it together sometime!”

“Huh? It’s multiplayer?” I frowned in doubt as I smiled at her.

Her eyes narrowed for a second before they lit up again, for some reason. “Every game today has a multiplayer feature nowadays, you see.”

“That’s great, man.”

She then turned her head to the front. “Anyway, there’s another girl that I met on Campfire and used to play Jenshin with. And, well, you see, she… Like, we had been playing for a long time already.”

“Mm-hmm,” I nodded.

“Well, so she kinda got attracted to me, you see. And, soon, she confessed to me!”

My eyes widened as I continued to look at her. “Huh?”

She laughed as she covered her lips with her right palm. “That’s sad. I had to say no, because I’m not a lesbian, but she then blocked me and we never talked again. But she was a really cool friend, you see. And a really cool player too. Like, her fighting skills were just on another level! Her movements were really quick!”

“Damn, that’s great, man. No doubt, it would have taken her a lot of practice.”

“Obviously,” She nodded as she turned to me. “And, she had about a hundred thousand followers on a streaming platform, you see. So she was famous too. And she looked so cool too. Like, if you look at her social media, you’d think that she looks more like a social media influencer or a model.” She turned her head to the front. “We’d have been perfect.”

My eyes widened. “Huh? You wanted to be together with that girl?”

“Kinda,” She shrugged.

I continued to glare at her, shocked by that fact, man. Obviously.

She chuckled as she turned her eyeballs to me and said, “What?! She really looks cool!”

“It’s… still not worth turning gay, man. It’s… never worth it. No doubt—it’s never worth it.”

“Ahahahaha.”

I chuckled too as we turned our heads to the front.

We had come quite far from the entrance of JenCon, man. Behind our backs, it would have been about some twenty or thirty steps away. For some reason, there were still a couple of stalls and booths in front of us. But, after that, there was a big stage, for some reason. And there was a large group of seats in the front, all facing the stage. From the speakers, one could hear the cracking voices of a couple of middle-aged men talking to each other in English, for some reason. They had mikes in their hands, and the speakers were throwing out their cracking old voices. “And then… we built that character, and it kinda changed the dynamics of the… of the game, and the plot as a whole as well,” One of them was saying.

Sana suddenly nudged my left arm again. I turned to her, and she pointed her finger at the end of the lane on our left. For some reason, there was a large booth without any roof, walls, or other stuff. It was just a little platform raised some inches above the ground, like the cosplay one. There was another young Asian woman at the center, with some Indian guys and girls around her, talking to her and trying to get her attention, for some reason. She wore some sort of white dress with a knee-length skirt. That Japanese woman was smiling and laughing with them as they spoke to her. She seemed to be in her late twenties, for some reason, and she had really white skin.

“She’s the one!” She whispered to me.

“Huh?!”

“I mean, the voice actress I was talking about. Well, she’s that voice actress.”

I turned my eyes to her face. She was smiling damn hard, man. But, she was suppressing it, for some reason. Not to look awkward, maybe. But she had her eyes fixed on that voice actress.

“Let’s go meet her.”

“But where will we get her autographs, man?” I asked.

“Right!” Her eyes widened as she turned to me. “Let’s get it on the same manga, you see.”

“You have mine too, right?”

“Yeah yeah. Your things are safe with me.” She turned to her left to the voice-actress and started to walk toward her. I, obviously, followed her instinctively.

She stepped onto the platform. Clomp! After her, I too stepped up and continued to walk the couple steps, standing at the end of the bunch of friends.

“Yeah, and that character was really deep,” A girl said.

“The hell?! It was so shallow, pal!” A guy suddenly said. “The night I watched the series, I stayed up the whole night wondering why Kirishima-senpai would even agree to a character like that!”

I then turned my head to my right, looking at the table on top of the platform. There was a plastic bottle of water on the table, and around it sat two men in black t-shirts and blue denim pants, the uniform of the workers of JenCon. They were talking to each other on some serious stuff, maybe.

“Yeah, bye!” I suddenly heard Kirishima say that.

“Bye!”

“Bye!”

“Sayonara, sensei!”

There erupted a blast of greetings as those guys turned to their right and started to walk away, waving at her.

As they walked away, both Sana and I walked toward her. “K-Kon’nichiwa, Kirishima-sensei,” She said.

“Kon’nichiwa!” She excitedly said.

Sana shyly told her in English, “Ma’am, I want your autograph, if you may…”

“Oh, sure!” She replied in her Japanese accent. “I’m always ready to give autographs, girl. Don’t be shy and worried!”

Sana smiled as she moved her bag hanging on her right shoulder to the front of her, opened its zip, took out the two manga volumes, and then raised them at her as she moved her bag with its open zip backward.

Kirishima took both of them, opened the cover of the first one, and said, “What’s your good name, baby girl?”

I chuckled a little at the ‘baby girl’ part, for some reason.

“Sana,” She replied with a smile.

“Sana. Alright,” She said as she started to write something on the front page. “I see that you even got the autograph of that mangaka.”

“Yeah, I love Jenshin.”

“That’s why you’re here?”

Sana chuckled and nodded. “Mm-hmm.”

She then closed the first book, moved the other book to the top, opened it, and started to write something on that too. “You see, I really liked the way you voiced Aizen.”

“Huh, really?” She said in a little astonishment. When she was done, she closed the books and the tip of her permanent market, raised the books at her, and said, “People generally dislike it.”

“Really? Why?” Sana asked as she took the books from her hands.

“Maybe they don’t like me voicing a ten-year boy.” Kirishima shrugged.

“But, well, it must have taken a lot of effort to voice a boy that sounds kinda masculine too,” She said as she rotated her bag to the front again, kept the books inside, zipped it up, and then rotated it backward again.

“Not really, baby girl. Baby boys and baby girls have the same kind of voice, and it’s feminine in a lot of ways. That’s why little boys are generally voiced by women.”

“Oh, I remember reading about this in science, but I didn’t really know that little boys are voiced by women.”

“Now you know, baby girl.”

“Wait, I should get you two a photo,” I said as I walked some steps away and started to click repetitively on the screen of my smartphone in my hands.

Sana turned her head backward and smiled at me as I stood some steps behind her, tapping some stuff on my smartphone. I then tilted it and moved it in front of me. Sana turned her body toward me and stood beside her with a damn hard smile. This time, she was not suppressing it at all. Kirishima gave a peace sign with her left hand and moved her right arm around Sana’s neck as she smiled excitedly. I bent my knees a little to get a better picture.

Click!

Kirishima suddenly turned to Sana and whispered something in her ears. “Is he your boyfriend?” She asked. She then moved her lips away from her ears.

Sana turned to her and shook her head. “No.” She chuckled too.

Kirishima then turned to me and said, “Let’s get a selfie too, little boy. Come here.”

I walked to her with a smile. She raised her left hand to me and I gave my phone to her. She then raised her left arm up in the air as I stood beside her, smiling. Sana’s face was so small in that photo because of the angle that she seemed to be in the background.

Click!