Chapter Text
“C’mon, you can do this. It’s just two hallways and an elevator.”
A flamboyantly dressed young man, fiddled with his purse, whilst sternly staring at his reflection. He couldn’t quite decide whether or not he should lay the strap across his left or right shoulder. Eventually, deciding on both.
“Okay… let's do this”, the man surreptitiously untucked his hoodie from his skinny jeans, carefully caressed his hair, and forgot to zip his fly, before swiftly leaving the confines of the surgically lit bathroom. He had to make sure he kept up his appearance; he was Ichiro Yamada after all.
The confines of the harshly illuminated halls of the New Jersey Talent Academy was a true far cry from the bustling streets of Ikebukuro. Though, Ichiro was happy bunking in a glorified dog-pound as long as he got his hands on this month’s 17th edition of ‘That time I got reincarnated as a Slime’. The facility provided personalised amenities free of charge for all students, after all, so why would he not take advantage.
The journey was arduous, Ichiro thought, as he passed the first hallway junction, the only thing keeping him going was the image of the other 16 lonely volumes that sat haphazardly in his dorm room. A bead of sweat dripped from his brow, as he crowned the end of the second corridor and attentively avoided all eye contact with the other students actually spending their free periods being social.
Everyone here was so intimidating. Suddenly Samatoki didn’t seem so bad, after all. Ichiro’s gaze briefly left the floor and scanned the busy corridor seeing a snapshot of familiar and unfamiliar faces. Despite some being familiar, Ichiro had not gotten all that acquainted with any of them in the three long weeks he had been here. Though some voices were louder than others and you would have no choice in noticing some of the more unique individuals’ faces (much to our protagonist’s chagrin).
For example, there was Dwayne - the most popular kid in school. If he even was a student, that is as he was almost 7 foot and possessed a body sculpted by the gods themselves, one could easily question the validity of his studentship. His name was Dwayne and he wanted you to know it. So, despite the towering piece of man-meat’s expansive wingspan causing Ichiro to slightly press his body against the wall as he passed, as Ichiro had heard all those times from those folks at the 7/11, ‘real recognises real’ and he did not despise or disrespect Dwayne in any shape or form. Although, he could certainly write a killer diss track on the guy if the situation called for it. But now, and for the sake of self-preservation, Ichiro kept his rhythmically rambunctious words to himself.
Not too far behind, were two smaller and identical twin men sporting matching Madoka Magica tank tops. Ichiro could barely hold in his expert-blend of excitement, passion, and fangirling when he spotted the merchandise. He loved Madoka Magica! Ichiro pondered whether or not he could ever befriend these guys, for the purpose of geeking out with some fellow ‘madokers’. Could he finally have someone to talk about what happened to Mami?? Regardless, the two men still possessed an air of intimidation to them, like Dwayne, due to their still sculpted, but to a lesser extent than Dwayne's, bodies and marvellous matching hairstyles.
To add on to the superb branding these two twins flourished, they hollered to a couple of extremely fashionable women in an adjacent classroom.
"Hey! Come here, you two rascals!” they both miraculously said in unison, almost harmonising with each other.
The two beautiful girls exchanged glances and giggled before dashing to their respective twins. Their arms soon wrapped around the dashing gentleman’s vascular bicep like an aggressive snake.
‘Well there goes that,’ Ichiro grumbled to himself. Ichiro was famously and ashamedly intimidated by romantically successful men. Again, not because he was jealous or anything! He was just mortally terrified of the judging sneer of a cute girl when gushing about light novels and Madoka business. Bitches be scary, after all ! Or at least that’s what Ichiro’s best friend told him once - he had never really talked to a girl in that way before, after all.
Disregarding the thoughts of friendship from his mind, Ichiro returned his gaze to the intersect between purely looking at his feet and the path forward, a hyper specific angle he had perfected that allows him to avoid benign social communication but also as a prophylactic against embarrassingly walking into someone.
He had now reached the elevator and pressed the button for the lower floor. He fiddled with his drawstrings as he stood patiently in the elevator. Each ding of the elevator caused Ichiro’s breath to flutter in anticipation and caused him to squirm and fidget giddily.
Ichiro practically ran out of the elevator as soon as the door partly opened. Making the sharp right turn to the mailroom, causing a high pitch squeak as his Red October Nike Air Yeezy 2 shoes scraped against the tiled floor.
“You got the goods, ma’am?”
“Yes Ichiro. One copy of ’That time I got reincarnated as a Slime’ just like you asked the other 16 times,” the receptionist replied, flippantly.
‘Thanks,’ Ichiro replied, “Here’s something for all your trouble. How about you buy yourself something nice.” Ichiro tossed a crisp, juicy quarter at the woman as he walked out of the room gripping the wrapped package, missing her completely. Missing so substantially he actually chipped a considerable chunk of plaster out of the edge of the wall - not like Ichiro noticed, however, he had his bible and that’s all that mattered now.
Ichiro whistled the Kaikai Kitan theme to Jujutsu Kaisen as he sauntered back the way he came. His smile so wide and head so high he forgot to make sure his head was at his special angle.
CRASH!
Ichiro dropped his package and himself to the ground as he collided with someone excitedly entering the mailroom like he did minutes ago.
“Oh my god, I am so sorry Ichiro! Are you alright?”.
“Y-yeah sorry about that man. W-wait… how do you know my name? Who are you?”
Ichiro looked up to see a lanky man dressed in bright green.
“My name is Buddy! Nice to meet you!,” The man said handing Ichiro his package, “I have an encyclopaedic knowledge of the names of all the students here due in part to my volunteering at this here mailroom. Something my old pal Santa taught me how to be prettyyyy good at. And you do come here a lot, looking all handsomely put together and all!”
As Ichiro collected himself, and for the second time today adjusted his purse strap, he got a better look at the man in question. What stood before him was a man dressed from head to toe in very authentic looking elf attire. Could he be a real deal elf? Like the ones mentioned in the lyrics to all those group rap videos he was commissioned to produce such as the 2016 Christmas Cypher or the 2017 Christmas Cypher or the 2018 Christmas Cypher?
ZIIIIIIIP
“Don’t forget this now!” Buddy implored as he zipped up Ichiro’s fly.
“Hey yo! What do you think you’re doing?!” Ichiro yelled as he swatted Buddy’s hand away, “Yuh! Oh! You’re gonna die if you think you’re gonna’ just touch my fly!”. Ichiro was clearly revving up some fire disses.
“Oh I’m sorry,” Buddy said, “I forget you can’t just do that. Ya see I don’t have many friends and I struggle with knowing what IS and ISN’T acceptable socially. Y’know being raised by elves has its downsides.”
“Pft, It’s whatever,” Ichiro scoffed bashfully, “Just don’t do it again fool! Anyways you’re one to talk!”
“Oh Whoopsie-doodles! You’re right,” Buddy said as he quickly zipped up his fly, concealing the unwarranted package just like a young Ted Kaczynski would.
Ichiro prepared to leave before Buddy grabbed his arm.
“Hey… maybe we could be friends?” Buddy said, “Here, take this. It’s my number. Text me sometime!”
“Pft. I’ll consider it,” Ichiro replied, trying to play it cool, “See ya around buddy.”
Ichiro walked off clutching his parcel to his chest with a slight pep to his step. His mind a flutter. Eventually making it back into the elevator from whence he came. He thought to himself:
Had he finally made himself a friend?