Chapter 5 – The Warmth of Her Hand
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We drove two cars that day going to the convention grounds. On one car, Greg drove with Vivien and Shirley as his passengers. On the other car, I drove with Chris and Nick tagging along. It was a fairly short ride getting there, but as it turns out the parking become our major bottleneck.

The place where the convention was held was actually part of a greater mall area, and seeing as that day was a Sunday, there was a lot of people coming and going to the mall. This meant that parking became pretty full fast, and the queue to the parking grew by the minute.

So as not to waste too much time, we decided to have Vivien, Shirley, Chris and Nick go to the convention ahead of us, while Greg and I tried our luck looking for parking slots. Greg got pretty lucky, as within five minutes he managed to find a parking spot. On the other hand, I wasn’t as fortunate, as it took me almost 30 minutes to park my car.

By the time I managed to reach the convention area, which was early-to-mid afternoon, the event was already very much underway. The place was already packed with people. While the event itself was only held inside the convention halls, people have already spilled outside towards the corridors and open areas. It was quite an understatement to say that it was crowded.

Sensing that finding my friends among the sea of people would be quite the task, I braced myself to swim through the crowds.

* * * * *

It was a good thing that I already bought tickets in advance the day prior, as the line for tickets had reached a ridiculous length by then, folding multiple times and extending even as far as the floor below. I quickly passed through the crowds, intending to enter the hall to look for my friends.

But along the way, some of the con-goers began to notice me. I suppose it was fairly reasonable, as pretty much anyone in costume would get spotted pretty naturally. There were a couple of curious gazes here and there, some pointing out from afar with exclamations of “Zero” or “Lelouch” or “Code Geass”. Still, quite a few dared to approach me and ask for a picture. Naturally, I obliged.

It was a surreal experience. For the past several years I had been in their place, going to conventions as a casual con-goer and taking pictures here and there of cosplayers in the event. Who would have thought that on that particular day, I would be the one on the other side of the camera?

There wasn’t much small talk that happened between me and the people who asked for my pictures. The interactions I had with them pretty much only involved several pictures taken. I suppose the fact that I had a face mask on kind of made me look less welcoming, aside from the fact that I never really exuded a friendly aura ever in my life anyway. Moreover, small talk mostly just happens between male photographers and attractive cosplayers, with just a few exceptions. Seeing as I was just this lanky cosplaying guy on that day, it was to be expected.

But because of that, I was able to get inside the halls without much fuss and start looking for anyone among my friends inside.

* * * * *

The inside of the halls were pretty much as crowded as outside, if not more. After several minutes of randomly going around, with a few stops here and there to accommodate people taking pictures, I managed to spot Shirley among the crowd. I quickly approached her.

“Jude! You’re finally here!” she greeted me.

“Hey! Where are the others?” I asked her after noticing that she was alone.

“Nick and Chris split from us before coming in. They said they wanted to start taking pictures of cosplayers outside. Something about better lighting. We kind of lost Vivien after we entered so Greg and I split up to look for her.”

“Okay, I’ll help look for her. Let’s meet up over there later.” I pointed towards the back of a booth that had a wall with lots of large posters hanging from it.

Shirley nodded in agreement as we went in separate directions.

* * * * *

It might be that Shirley and Greg were not very good at finding people in a large crowd. Or maybe I was just too used to this crowd. Or perhaps one might even call it fate. But I was able to quickly find Vivien.

I saw her near the merchandise sellers section talking to this fairly large guy. He wasn’t particularly large in terms of height, but it was more towards heft, the pudgy kind of heft. From afar, he seemed like he was telling Vivien something rather passionately, and Vivien was just there listening and nodding. In that sense, it might be more accurate to say that the guy was the one trying to talk to her.

It didn’t seem like Vivien was in any particular danger, and ever since I’ve known her she had always carried herself in a way that suggested she knew how to take care of herself. But it did feel like that at that moment, she wasn’t particularly interested in speaking to the said guy. It was as though she’d rather be elsewhere than there.

There was not much I could do in that situation. I wasn’t particularly effective in any kind of confrontation, as I do not particularly inspire fear in the hearts of men. I also did not want to cause any kind of commotion there. But I figured that at the very least I should do something. Perhaps being just there in the vicinity might help.

I approached the two from the side and gave Vivien a tap on the shoulder.

“Jude!” Vivien turned and greeted me with a slight sense of relief in her eyes.

“Shirley’s looking for you,” I remarked.

I turned to look at the guy to see his reaction at my sudden appearance. It didn’t seem like he was bothered at all; In fact, he quickly included me in his conversation. He proceeded to tell me various things, mostly surrounding his complaints about Sunrise, the studio behind Code Geass. To be honest, I could hardly understand what he wanted to say, partially due to the fact that I arrived midway through his rant as well as due to fact that he wasn’t particularly skilled at delivering his point across.

Thankfully, though, this ordeal soon came to an end when several teenagers walked up to us and asked for a picture of me and Vivien. We agreed and promptly took our poses. But as it frequently goes in anime conventions, once cosplayers start posing for a camera, several photographers quickly pop up out of nowhere forming a wall to take pictures. This was true as well for our situation, as even after the initial group of teenagers had left, there were still a couple of other people taking our pictures.

Once the dust settled and the photographers dispersed, the guy we were talking to earlier was no longer in the vicinity. Perhaps he got fed up waiting for us. Regardless, everything seemed to have worked out well.

* * * * *

After explaining to Vivien what Shirley and I agreed upon earlier, we decided to go straight to the meeting place and simply wait for the others there. But the problem was that we effectively hit the peak hours of the convention then, and we had to go through an even denser crowd to get to our destination.

If you’ve ever been to a local convention, you would know that trying to navigate through tight walkways amidst a very dense crowd is sheer madness, especially if you’re wearing a costume. You see, in order to maximize the space, the event organizers usually try to fit as many booths in the area as possible. This leaves little to no space for people to walk through.

In theory, though, there should have been enough space. But the problem is that in practice, people frequently stop along the booth to browse the merchandise. This means that on both sides of the walkway, there would be a layer of people unmoving while looking over some goods. This leaves only a shoulder wide path in between which people going in both directions need to share.

In years prior, this probably would not have been a major problem as conventions had not been as widely advertised. But during the time of the event we went to, the convention layout was not able to scale properly with the booming number of con-goers. This meant that in order to move around in certain parts of the hall, one had to physically but gently carve out one’s own path.

I was worried about how Vivien would fare against the crowd in her costume. Thus, I decided to walk in front of her, hoping that she’d follow through whatever space I managed to occupy earlier. She seemed to have picked up on my intention, as she keenly followed me as I darted through the hall.

From time to time I’d look back to check whether she was able to follow me, stopping here and there if ever the distance between us grew. For the most part, we were able to keep a pretty good pace until we reached one of the major intersections of walkways.

As expected, the flux of people going here and there was ridiculous. The intersection was mixed with people taking pictures, groups standing still chatting with each other, and even more people trying to navigate around each other. The worst part, though, was the large incoming flow of people going against the direction we were headed.

Sensing the difficulty of keeping together in such a situation, I looked back to Vivien and inexplicably reached out to hold her hand.

Her hand was warm. That was the only thing that occurred to me at that moment.

It’s amazing how humans can do things far beyond what they could normally do when placed in extreme situations. That was how that moment felt for me, seeing as I would have never imagined myself capable of doing something like that before, or even after that day.

* * * * *

We walked the rest of the way with me still clinging on to her hand. My grasp on her hand was rather light, as though an adult holding the hand of a child leading him while walking. I was conscious enough not to look back to her the rest of the way, as well as not to put too much pressure on my grip and squeeze her hand. After all, I was afraid to suggest too much meaning into my action. I did not want to be misinterpreted.

Or perhaps maybe I was more afraid to know what her reaction would be had I indicated some meaning in what I did.

Nevertheless, as soon as our destination was within my vision, I quickly let go of my hand and pointed towards where Shirley was standing at. We met up with Shirley, and soon Greg, Chris and Nick, all of whom Shirley contacted via phone, showed up as well.

The rest of the afternoon proceeded without much of a hitch. Vivien and I were asked several more times for pictures throughout that afternoon. There was also a moment where we crossed paths with a few more Code Geass cosplayers in the event and had our pictures taken together.

We encountered our fair share of interesting characters in the event as well, most notably one photographer who kept asking Vivien why she was so cute. On one hand, it might have appeared rather creepy, but on the other hand, we found it far too humorous at that moment. To this day we still sometimes make fun of that situation at Vivien’s expense.

We called it quits shortly before dinner and both Vivien and I changed back into our casual clothes. After having a quick dinner, we all went our separate ways.

* * * * *

That evening, I found it rather hard to fall asleep. The memories of that day all came back to me as I was lying in bed trying to sleep. The moments were still rather vivid to me that night: the look in her face as she was staring intently at me; the sensation of her finger running across my lip; and most of all, the warmth of her hand in mine.

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