>>1781834Former frequenter of these threads. Been away for a while; saw this post and decided to step up. Let's see how this turns out.
"Toothbrush?"
"Check"
"Spare contacts?"
"Check."
"Swimsuit?"
"actually... no" I responded, "thanks."
"No problem" Chiaki grinned, "I swear I forget mine every year."
"As if!" I retorted, "half of your cosplays are just swimsuits to begin with."
"Chyeah, but I couldn't swim in them, I'd smell like pool and chlorine for the whole convention." She joked back.
I smiled back at her. This would be our third con together, and neither of us could wait. I haphazardly tossed a one-piece swimsuit into my suitcase, zipped it up, and turned back to the chipper girl sitting on my bed. "You ready?"
"Since last year! Let's go!"
After five hours on the road, four bathroom breaks, entirely too many bottles of beer on the wall, and entirely too few Taylor Swift songs loudly and poorly sang along to, the two of us arrived at the convention center hotel. They assigned us our room and loaded our many overflowing suitcases, mannequin heads clad in brightly coloured wigs, and enormous hand-made props and weapons onto the bellhop cart.
Chiaka wore a puzzled expression, turned to me and asked "I think we're missing one, Is your red suitcase still in the car?"
"I can check" I responded, only vaguely nervous that it wouldn't be. "I'll be right back."
After exhaustively checking the trunk, back seat, driver's and passenger's seat, and even the glovebox, my heart sank. I could perfectly picture the solitary red suitcase, standing alone in my room. Filled to bursting with all my costumes for the weekend. Defeated, I returned to the hotel and headed to our room.
