Caught My Duo in Cosplay — Episode 2: Help Me Take It Off

Two hours of highway, Kai tells himself, to see a girl who will never know he exists. Episode 2 drops him into the con: loud, bright, packed wall to wall, the vertical frame crowded until it finds Itsumi above the floor in a black cape and red devil horns. She is hunting for one guild hoodie. When she spots it, her plan cracks a little. Nobody warned her he was cute.

Backstage, the corridor narrows to just the two of them. 'Hey, you. Can you help? My zipper's stuck and I'm on in ten.' She turns, says 'Don't look,' and the screen fills with her bare back and his shaking hands wrestling the zipper inch by inch. It finally moves. She smiles over her shoulder: 'Thanks… Kaiju.' Kai goes stone still. Nobody at this con should know that name, and the episode cuts on his question: how does she?