Pedro Edogawa passes by the 109 year old HUB near Kichijoji station, catching a whiff of one-of-those-deep-fried-somethings only now just reaching it’s peak from inside. It rests on a plate whose oily green leafs reflected in a lattice of beer, clutched in the palm of English teacher and New Best Friend From India. The former doesn’t mingle with the locals. The latter couldn’t if he wanted to. The palpable desperation is all quicksilver on the breeze outside until a steam cloud from Bubuka ramen from around the corner overtakes it.
Former sight of Gerotan Invasion epicenter. Now for crowded week-slide passengers who make for the JR trains above. A sad battalion of cattle-bright (androgynous, long loose-limbed garments, common to the Taishomei jidai) stand outside the Game Center, holding signs advertising “Musei” in punishment for compulsively posting fake personal ads to the Tokyo2 Classifieds. Ten of them, maybe nine. No eye contact this time.
Music leaks out a little bit whenever the doors do their dull automatic business: “My Boyfriend is a Baby Animal” the new single by Yuka Yuka (with her post-plastic surgery puppet eyes). Pedro recognizes the mistimed chord progression for what it is, a thinly disguised rewrite of the old Blue Noah theme. But the Honda-act has outlawed all ヲタク criticism, so he keeps it to himself for now.
He scans the crowd. An absolute absence of ass. Too much makeup applied too well. Ghosts to him now since the end of the jyu-pun senso. But a delirious dream of white girl gripped him last night and he can’t remember what they were doing there. A long road trip across America maybe: security checkpoints, paper plates, and tin foil wrappers. Someone there was kind to him in a giant library containing all the things ever written (he looked for his own name, couldn’t find it) and a repository of dusty laser discs that gave you nasty paper cuts if you handled them the wrong way.
And then standing by the Bayside in a Fuji-TV moment. Reverse angle goodbye and then cutaway to kendo practice. Flashback to last week’s episode and then a montage of a typical day in the office. Dramas are free now, but non-optional. And they arrive without warning.
Pedro Edogawa makes for home, monitored by silver little satellite. The initials under his Lonlon bento (never seen) read G.O.D.
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