Misbehave

The line to show our badges for the day is even longer. It’s so loud here. Even though con rules dictate drinking isn’t allowed, I see a few rowdy drunks and I hear others behind me. I don’t like drunks. Silently, I follow Shikamaru and Neji into a large auditorium filled with hundreds of seats. There is a large white sight a the far end, or one far end. It stands behind a podium and the general stage. I wonder if a movie will be shown or something. Sights are used to project film onto. I turn again to try and locate the projector, which should logically be at the other side of the room…there. Other people file loudly into the auditorium. Shikamaru, Neji and I find seats rather quickly. I think back to how long the badge lines were and wonder if there are enough seats for everyone. There are. Loud chatter fills the giant room as everyone finds seats.

People—MCs—stride onstage as the lights dim, then brighten and everyone falls silent. The MCs talk about things that happened at last year’s convention and new things happening at this one. They brag about how we’re all in the heart of downtown in this city. Japanese comic book authors (or are they artists? Both?) talk about works of theirs that are being sold in dealers’ rooms. Japanese pop singers talk about CDs of theirs also being sold in the dealers’ rooms. The authors and singers will be autographing merchandise and will be taking pictures with fans after this ceremony, they explain.

Animated music videos are shown. This is taking a really long time. I glance at Shikamaru and Neji. They are riveted by the videos. Another one comes on. I don’t recognize the song, but I’m enthralled. As the video ends, I wonder what else will happen at this convention. Text on the sight welcomes us to this convention for the year 2009. It’s the twelfth anniversary. The audience cheers louder and the lights come back on. Neji, Shikamaru and I are swept into the surge of people flowing towards the exit doors. “Do we go to the dealers’ room first?” I attempt to holler over the large crowd.
“No,” Shikamaru speaks loudly next to me. “We go in the afternoon.” The crowd sorts itself into large groups, admiring brightly colored, draping costumes.

Several people, mostly women, break away from their groups and go out the large, heavy green lead doors. I notice the cigarette packs in their hands, protruding from their pockets or even in their mouths. The woman holding a pack in between her teeth is fumbling in her purse for a lighter. She looks kind of like Temari. “He’s here?” Neji asks someone. I turn. A J-rock star Neji likes is signing posters in the next room. He’s performing at a concert tonight. Two boys who can’t be older than thirteen laugh and take a photo of someone—or maybe it’s a group of people—a few yards away.
“How young are the youngest people here?” I wonder.
“Con babies.”
“What?”
“Couples bring their three-year-olds here all the time,” Shikamaru explains. Neji and I both groan. “Have you seen one yet?” Neji asks as I grumble, “You guys promised me there would be no crying babies.” Shika answers us both in one breath. “No. The things we do, little kids often don’t care about.”
“Good,” Neji and I speak as one.

“Hey, can I take your picture?”
“Awesome costumes!”
Shrill beeps of digital cameras accompany the cries of excited attendees. The line moves swiftly forward. “You don’t have to go in if you don’t want, Sasuke. I’ll stay with you,” Shikamaru gallantly offers. “You make it sound like they’re swallowing ice in there or something.” Neji smiles at that and disappears into the room. Shikamaru crosses his arms as he stands next to me. There is an endless parade of people all dressed in outfits I’m sure they wouldn’t wear to work. Shikamaru and I watch them. Several of them randomly pause, turn towards each other and act out scenes from movies. After this happens a couple of times and I realize I don’t recognize any of the movie scenes they’re acting out, I ask.

“Hey Shika, what movie scenes are these?”
Languidly, he turns towards me. “Those aren’t movie scenes. It’s LARPing.”
“Which is…”
“Live Action Role Playing. They’re playing pretend, acting as the characters they’re dressed as.”
The word ‘nerds’ flashes through my mind. “Do you and Neji—Live Action Role Play?”
“No, it’s boring.”
I nod and ask about his costume.
“I’m a terrorist.”
“You look like a mob boss.” He’s wearing a long black trench coat and a black fedora.

He chuckles. Neji appears silently at his elbow, a tightly rolled and bound poster clutched in his left hand. “That was fast.” Neji nods and hides the poster in his jacket, which resembles a trench coat with the lower half shoddily cut off. “How many pockets are in that thing?” They are the type that zip securely shut. I like them. “A lot.” The pockets line the inside of his jacket. There has to be at least twenty. “Are you dressed as a terrorist, too, Neji? Wait, are you two one of those couples that always has to dress the same?”

“Hey, hot stuff, how about we take a photo together and then some more?”
I whirl around, shouting phrases at the man that I would never say in front of my parents, as Shikamaru struggles to restrain me. The beeping to my left and subsequent flash of light don’t really register because I’m paying attention to the man, whose only articulate phrases are “Holy shit, she’s a guy?!” and “She fucking—” repeated a few times as he backs away and flees. I calm down. “What the fuck was that?” I huff. “Oh, I forgot to tell you,” Neji has tucked his camera safely into one of his many jacket pockets. “Total strangers will come up to you and ask to take your picture if they like your costume.”
“Is it normal for complete strangers to come on to one another so strongly here, too? Is this some giant meat market in disguise?”
“No, but it does happen.”
“Itachi’s going to like the photo.”
I glare at them as they tease me for a few minutes. “Assholes.” They both laugh.

Self-consciously, I touch the waist of the dress. It is a black dress whose waist is pink acetate with ribbons twisted to look like little flowers, and there are beads in the middle of the little flowers. I readjust the stiff, tight layer of acetate that serves as the first layer of the lower part of the dress. I only learned what the dress was made of upon reading the tag: the lining is acetate, the rest of the dress is rayon and polyester. The polyester and rayon mix is probably the soft pink lining at the bottom of the skirt. The acetate as the lower part makes the dress puff out. “I have to say I like the Gothic Lolita look on you, Sasuke,” Neji chortles. His eyes settle on the soft, pink polyester straps that go down from my shoulders to mid-armpit. I grumble some more as we walk on, into another line. The dress zipper starts past my shoulder blades because of how the dress is cut, and the zipper goes down to my butt.

Three men—young men—friends who are jabbering animatedly, soon gather behind us, and people behind them. One of them has bright blue eyes and blond hair done up into thin spikes. I sometimes put the back of my hair into thin spikes, and I know how much styling glue it takes. Does he, too, lie upside down on the couch, feverishly waving the blow-dryer while worrying about being late to his monthly visit to his strict, cold parents? The young man next to him has one of those “Bowl Cuts” from the fifties. Does his mother fuss over him as she places the metal mixing bowl on his head? His eyes are big and brown. The third man has bright blue hair and fidgets, looking down so I can’t see his eyes. He mutters something about a cigarette.

The blond guy has painted his fingernails a frosty purple and—I wonder if those scars are real. His jeans look like they were torn apart by pissed off working-breed dogs. The fishnet top, however, looks brand new. The guy with the bowl cut is wearing bondage pants and a crisp white polo shirt. His eyelids are dusted with neon-green shadow. The quiet cigarette smoker is wearing black eyeliner and army fatigues. They’re talking about soccer.

“Shika, what’s this line for?”
“We’ll find out when we get to the front of it.”
Wo-ow. “Is this frequent, standing in lines that you don’t know—that lead to something you don’t know about?”
“Uh huh.”
It inches forward. “They didn’t win.” Shikamaru and I turn. Neji has interrupted the young men’s conversation. “Yes they did,” Bowl Cut responds. His hair is black and heavily gelled. “No, they didn’t. You’re thinking of the 2004 game.”
“I told you,” Blue Hair looks at Bowl Cut accusingly. Brown eyes. “Well—fine,” he falters. “To be fair, England has won the cup before.”
“Yeah.”
“England got close to winning this year,” I offer. Blond Spikes grins. “We watched all the games!”
“So did we,” Shikamaru has uncrossed his arms.
“You were asleep during half of them and cloud-gazing instead of watching the others, except for the final five,” Neji points out.

The strangers laugh. “Hey, since we’ll be standing in this line for at least twenty more minutes, we may as well introduce ourselves,” Blue Hair ventures. “I’m Yuguri.”
“Shikamaru.”
“Neji.”
“I’m Lee,” Bowl Cut smiles very, very widely and speaks almost as loudly as Blond Spikes.
“Sasuke.”
“I’m Naruto,” Blond Spikes looks mighty pleased with himself. Great, he probably has an ego.

“Hey, cutie.” We all turn towards the feminine voice to see who she’s talking to. She walks up behind Yuguri and places her arms around his chest. “When did you serve?”
“Uh…I’m in the Army Reserves…I’m serving.”
“The correct answer to that, then, would be ‘now.’” Neji points out. The laughter eases Yuguri’s nervousness but does not disguise Lee’s loud whisper. “Dude, she wants you. Make your move!” He looks at us, then at her. “You can uh, stay with us.” She grins. “Well, thank you.” I think the deep purple of her lips is face paint. I’ve never seen a shade of lipstick of that color—then again, I’ve only really seen various shades of red and pink. Hinata doesn’t wear makeup a lot, but Sakura and Ino do. “You look good, Sasuke,” Naruto checks me out. Neji’s and Shikamaru’s faces split into identical amused grins.

“I’m a guy,” I inform him, mortified.
“I know,” he drapes his arms around me and hugs me tightly, quickly.
“By the way, people do that at cons a lot.”
I nod at Shikamaru, not really know what else to say in response to the information.
“Oh hey, is this your first time? It’s our first time staying all weekend. Except for Naruto. This is only his second con, but he stays all weekend.”
“This is my first time, but Shika and Neji always go for the entire weekend.”
“So you’re staying,” Naruto sounds almost relieved. “Cool.”

The line turns out to be for a movie. Naruto sits next to me, I’m near Shikamaru and Neji, and on the other side are Lee, Yuguri and the woman with the purple face paint on her lips. “Hey, you might want to skip the movie,” Lee suggests.
“Why?”
“You can’t give or receive blow-jobs in this theater.”
Before Yuguri’s—date, I guess--can fully pout, Yuguri asks, “What about hand-jobs?” and looks shocked at his own words. “No! Just—stay still during the movie.” Shikamaru and Neji hold hands. Yuguri and his date start necking five minutes into the movie. The anime feature goes on for two hours and it’s boring. Yuguri dashes out for a cigarette. We ask his date her name. “Rosalind.” Yuguri returns and they do go to his hotel room.

“What time is it?”
“Three.”
“I’m hungry!” Naruto looks around, ostensibly for a restaurant. “Hey, you guys want to come with us?” He looks me right in the eye as he says this. “No, thanks,” Neji looks suspiciously at Naruto. “Hey, well—do you want to meet up later?”
“Sure,” I shrug. We depart.

“I’m glad to see you again!” Zrina calls to us. “The same?”
“Sure.”
She wanders over to our table during her break.
"I didn’t know you liked soccer. Who’s your team?” Shikamaru places the last bite of his sandwich in his mouth.
“Iran.”
“Are you Iranian?” Stupid question.
“Yeah, Persian.” She pauses. “Soccer is…really important, very serious in Iran.”
We nod. “Are your coworkers Persian, too?” She nods.
“What language do you speak?” Neji continues. “I can kind of recognize it, but I don’t know the name.”
“Farsi. That’s the name of the written form, too. It’s related to Arabic.”

Naruto runs eagerly up to me. “I found you! C’mon, Lee wants to go to this thing…” It’s an origami class. Neither Naruto nor I are dexterous, but everyone else—Neji and Lee in particular—does well. I watch in amazement as Neji folds a crane and Lee folds an elephant.

The crowds in this Center are huge. People randomly break into song and there’s more LARPing. “Yuguri’s still with his date?”
“Yeah. Tonight we’ll have to put up with his bragging…if she’s not staying the night. That’ll be worse.”