‘That’ Side Character Chapter 25: Life Is Daijoubu (Good) 

After spending a little more time there, you decided to head home and left, walking down the street slowly towards your place- the boot was a lot heavier by the end of the day and you wondered if you were going to have a really big leg by the time the boot came off.

You were just coming up to a game shop when you saw a group of students, about your age, standing around looking at a poster there.

“Nah, but it’s gonna be awesome,” one of the guys standing there, said.

“Are you gonna cosplay?” one of the girls asked him.

“Uh… Nah. I’m manning the stall. What if Taya turns up? I don’t want her to see me in some lame costume.”

“You and Taya, man, she doesn’t even know you exist,” the second girl snorted.

“Yeah. She’s already got the hots for Brice,” the other guy there commented, “I’m gonna cosplay. You can’t go to a game convention and not cosplay.”

“Who are you going as?” the first girl asked him, leaning forward to ask her question.

As she leaned forward to ask him, she saw you had stopped to listen in and her eyes fell on you- which made everyone else turn to look.

“Oh. Uh. Hi,” you said with a sheepish wave, “umm, whatcha talking about?” 

“The game convention… duh,” the first girl said with a slightly sour look on her face.

You looked at the poster, recognizing a picture that was from the game Kenma played, and your eyes lit up.

“Oh! That’s Monster Hunter,” you said with a smile of recognition.

“You play?” One of the guys asked with a sparkle in his eye.

“Not exactly, but I helped beat the boss on level 30… I think? I think it was level 30?” you mused out loud.

“Oh shit? Really? How?” he asked.

“It’s tail flashes when it’s getting close to being defeated, then you just smash the keys and hope that you beat it,” you said with a smile.

“Oh…” the guy said with a bit of a sweat dropped look, “umm, well… are you gonna go to the convention?” He pointed at the poster.

“Umm… Maybe?” you said in an unsure voice, eyeing the poster again.

“Well, if you do, you need to cosplay because you’d look good in the outfits.”

The sour girl snorted her jealousy and looked away as the guy gave you a slight ‘up and down’ look.

“Really?” you asked, unaware of him checking you out as you looked down at your body then back to the poster, “ok? How much is it to get tickets?”

You were thinking about getting tickets for you and Kenma, and after talking to the group for a little longer you left to go home and buy the tickets online.

Amazingly, they still had some. And they also had a deal to enter into the cosplay competition as well, so you grabbed that one too.

Your dad had left his credit card unattended so you made good use of it… and by unattended- I mean, it was in his wallet, in the bottom of his bag, and he had come home from a long day and had passed out, so you couldn’t ask him for money, and so you thought you might just help yourself and apologize tomorrow… that’s if he noticed. 

He rarely noticed things like that.

Happy with your purchase, as an appropriate gift for Kenma to thank him for all he had done for you, you downloaded the tickets, then put everything back and went to bed.

…………………………

The next day you raced to Kenma’s house and met him just as he was leaving, thrusting your phone into his empty hands.

“What?” he asked, looking down at your phone.

“Look!” you exclaimed.

He looked down at the black screen- as your phone had gone on standby mode and had gone dark, and you quickly reached over and tapped the screen so it would light back up again so he could see.

Once the screen had gone bright again you pointed to your phone, grinning from ear to ear and unable to contain your happiness.

Kenma looked down at the QR code and blinked.

“A QR code,” he commented.

“To the game convention! I bought us tickets!” you said brightly, “please, come with me?”

“Did you?!” he asked, showing the most excitement he had ever shown you- which didn’t look like much to the average person. But you could tell he was super excited by the look in his eye.

“Yeah! Wait… You didn’t buy tickets… did you?” you asked with a worried expression. 

In your excitement you had forgotten to double check if he had even known about the gaming convention…. and if he had known about it, that he hadn’t bought tickets.

“No. I didn’t buy them yet, but I was going to,” he said as he handed your phone back to you.

“Well, now you don’t need to buy them because we’re already going!” you said enthusiastically, bobbling up and down… as best you could with your boot on. “Damn this stupid boot,” you said, scowling down at it. “I’m getting it checked again next week. It should be ok to come off… I hope.”

Kenma nodded and you turned to walk to school together, discussing your recovery progress and the gaming convention.

You deliberately didn’t tell him you would be cosplaying there. You wanted to surprise him with that.

………………….

The following week you got the boot off your leg and you were so happy. Your foot felt a little weird, and you felt a tad unsteady on it, but it was better than lugging that giant thing around so you were stoked.

Work was great, as usual, and your pictures of Kenma the cat, to Kenma your friend, continued, although now Kenma that cat was letting you pat him and you were ecstatic with the progress.

“Hey look!” you sent to Kenma, attaching the picture of you patting the cat- that still didn’t look super impressed about being patted, but was tolerating it.

Kenma, the human, saw your picture pretty quickly and replied.

“I understand how he feels,” he sent.

“Hey. Don’t be mean, my pats are wonderful, I’ll show you tomorrow,” you replied.

“Don’t pat me,” he sent back.

“But you’ll love it,” you replied, smiling at your phone as you messaged him.

“Do not even think about it,” he replied.

“I’ll let you sit in my lap,” you replied, giggling as you hit send.

“No.”

You laughed out loud, then smacked a hand to your mouth to stop the loud noise escaping.

Lolita, front the front desk, heard you and poked her head into the cat section to see what had you so amused and saw your phone in hand.

<<< ‘That’ Side Character Chapter 24: Sweet Lolita

‘That’ Side Character Chapter 26: Gaming Convention >>>