Comic Fiesta 2014

Murali invited me to be his cosplay partner for Comic Fiesta 2014 and I, as a person who likes to try something new and different every now and then agreed.

He then told me that he planned to cosplay Wolverine and wished for me to cosplay Yukio, the female ninja who acted as Wolverine's bodyguard, which I did not quite agreed to initially because I don't like Yukio's appearance. I don't like the red and white long sleeved top she wore, it looked clownish. I don't like her fringe, it looked comical.

But Murali was a very nice and sporting cosplayer, and I'm not just saying it because he loaned me his katana and his student's boots, even though I must admit that had contributed to my gratitude. I told him about my concerns and he said he was okay if I do not want to trim my wig because for him, cosplay is supposed to be fun, and if I think trimming the wig kills the fun, then what's the point of cosplaying?

Which I agreed wholeheartedly to. Of course it later saddened me because no one recognised who I was cosplaying - some thought I was Black Widow, which is not a bad thing actually since that was initially what Murali and I planned - and I wished I had trimmed my wig no matter how much I hate that hairstyle but when I look at the picture I was glad that I didn't.

I like what I see in the picture. A little improvisation (well, maybe not that little) in the name of fun.

And now that I have a red wig, maybe I should consider cosplaying all the redheaded characters that I like : Sally from Nightmare before Christmas, Ranma Saotome (female version) from Ranma 1/2, Ariel from The Little Mermaid (maybe not in mermaid form even though the idea is tempting) and Jessica Rabbit from Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

Photo

"Oh Dom, how can I ever repay you-"

"Tony Roma's," Dom said dully without lifting his head. Oh well, that's Dom, a huge fans of magic and good food. He often wave a long stick at us while shouting nonsensical phrases like "Accio" and "Wingardium Leviosa." If I could I would send him to mental hospital but he scored straight A in both SPM and STPM so technically, there's nothing wrong with his brain, and most importantly, he is a fantastic mechanic and my second-hand Myvi breaks down most of the time, so having him around really helped me save lots of money.

He also repairs my toilet, smartphone, laptop and now, he's going to repair my relationship. Hopefully.

You see, I recently started dating this poor Malay boy called Arif and my Chinese Christian parents were obviously not too happy about it.

"No pork? That's terrible!" Mother wailed as she ate bak kut teh. "And I don't raise you to starve thirty days every year!"

"Dieting from time to time seems like a good idea," I said as I squeezed my belly fat. "Detox, you know."

"And he's only earning RM 1200 per month?" Father looked at me as if I just told him that our country had been recognised as the safest country in the world. "Can he afford to buy a house in KL? No - wait - can he even afford to buy a motorcycle?"

"I like to walk. Good exercise."

"And you have to wear hijab for your wedding, right? Hijab clashes with any elegant wedding gown that I can think of!" Sister looked like BayMax had died for second time with his microchip gone.

"You know how I hate it when my hair gets stuck on my face because of the stupid wind? Hijab solves that problem."

"And you're going to convert and in case if you forgot Muslim can have four wives and if I am not mistaken you get jealous easily don't you?"

"I don't think he can afford to have more than one wife. I'm a shopaholic, remember?"

I knew my persuasions failed when I noticed my family members exchanging a "she's nuts" look.
I had to try harder.

"He's really nice, and soft spoken, and he's a gentleman, and very humorous, and he's romantic, you don's see many romantic guys these days, we waltz in the rain and that was the most romantic moment in my lif-"

"HE HAS THE HEART TO GET MY PRECIOUS LITTLE PRINCESS DRENCHED IN THE RAIN?" My mother screamed and she looked like Christmas had been cancelled.

"I can't accept this poor, inconsiderate Malay boy as my son-in-law. You break up with him the first thing tomorrow morning and that's an order."

*

The first thing I did the next day was to see Arif, as per my family's order; to figure out how to persuade my family to accept him, not as per my family's order.

I was thinking about elope or playing Romeo and Juliet as I drove when I realised that I had a flat tyre.

"Hi Galaxy. Call Dom, mobile," I spoke to my smartphone after pressing Home button twice and hung up immediately when Dom picked up my call. It means I'm in trouble and I forgot to reload my phone's credit and he should call me back immediately.

"Jalan Loke Yew, near Viva," I said when he called back.

*

"You don't have to start researching on poisons, you know," Dom said as he changed my car's tyre. "All you need is Polyjuice Potion."

"Polly has a cracker?"

"Polyjuice Potion, dummy. Hermione used it in Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets. It allows you to take the appearance of another person. All you have to do is to ask you boyfriend to drink it and he can look like a Chinese guy."

"You're asking me to believe in magic and you're calling me dummy?"

"Look, I have been researching and studying about Polyjuice Potion and while it is impossible to get ingredients like Boomslang skin in Muggle world, I managed to find other substitute ingredients. Don't give me that disgusted look - they are all edible. You just get me photos of the guy you want your boyfriend to turn into and I'll do the rest."

I was not sure if I should believe a potential mental patient who won a scholarship to study chemistry in UK.

*

The next evening Arif and I drove to Dom's place to "add the photo to Polyjuice Potion and make Arif drink it."

"I hope it tastes like strawberry milkshake," Arif said excitedly.

Mother's right. I should ditch this guy. Here I was worrying about him getting poisoned and all he could think about was how would the weird concoction taste like?

Dom opened the door when we pressed the doorbell. He was shiny-faced and sweaty and looking like a panda.

"Up all night stirring the potion. You have the photo with you?"

I nodded.

"Drop it in, then. Drink quickly. I really need some sleep."

Hand trembling, I dropped the photo into the pot. The potion hissed loudly and frothed and turned yellow.

"Oh, mango milkshake," Arif said as I ladled the potion into a glass and handed it to him.

I looked at Arif anxiously as he gulped down the potion. What if this weird stuff actually works and Arif really transforms into the man of my dreams? Oh boy, I'm going to hug him and kiss him and caress him at every opportunity I get and holy macaroons, our kids would look so charmin-

Arif's screams and Dom's thunderous laughter pulled me back to reality.

"Of all the men in the world, you have to turn your boyfriend into Justin Bieber?"

Anniversary

I am excited. So excited. So excited that I pluck all the dandelion I see on the field opposite our house.

Sometimes I wish Belle likes red roses like other girls. It is not easy to pluck dandelions without letting any floret fall.

But that’s what makes Belle special. One of the many things that make Belle special, I mean. And that’s why I’m still excited at our seventh wedding anniversary.

“Honey, I’m home!”

I shout as I turn on the lights.

Wait a minute. Turn on the lights?

Belle told me that she is on leave today and she is so scared of the darkness that she never remembers to switch off the lights.

Something doesn’t feel right and that’s when I hear a quiet sobbing from our bedroom.

Something is not right.

“Honey?” She is sitting at the corner of our room. The corner under the window where sunshine fails to brighten.

She does not answer.

“What’s wrong?” I hug her gently, wondering what can be wrong. Neighbour’s dog is still alive, there are no dark clouds in the sky and I can’t detect the smell of any kind of burned food.  

I try to lift her head to see if there are any pimple on her face.

“I’m sorry, Zac.”

She looks up, tears streaming down her smooth, clean face.

No pimples, no dark eye circles.

Maybe she can’t fit into her new XS body hugging dress?

“What happened?”

“I… I… I’m sorry… “

“Calm down. Take a deep breath, honey. Tell me. What happened?”

“I let him in this afternoon… I’m sorry… I know I shouldn’t… ”

Something in me exploded and died.

“Who?”

“I couldn’t say no to him… I’m sorry… “

“Who, honey? Who?”

“You have not met him… You don’t know him… And… Actually... I have only met him a few times… But… He entered today… I couldn’t say no… I couldn’t… “

“Where did you let him in? Where?”

Belle covers her face with her hands and starts crying again.

My head is a mess. A terrible mess.

“Calm down,” I say to Belle and to myself as well. “Please, Belle. I beg you. Calm down and tell me what happened.”

“He… He made me lie down and… and… and he entered... And… and… I let him in me… “

I feel disgusted and angry. I can’t believe what I’m hearing. I love her so much, and she cheated on me?

Why?

I take a deep breath. A very deep breath.

“I’m not mad.”

Bullshit. Of course I’m mad. But before I get mad, I need to know what happened and how it happened, and most importantly, who is that bastard.

“You had sex with someone else?”

Belle continues crying. I take it as a yes.

I don’t know what to say and I don’t know what to do.

“It was painful and I felt numb and…  I… I can’t go on.”

I notice that Belle is trembling and all of a sudden I am ashamed at myself for feeling angry.

Maybe, maybe she was raped.

She must have been raped. Belle would never cheat on me. She would never.

I hug her tighter. I’m not sure how to help her but I will always be with her no matter what happens. When life gives you a lemon you make lemonade and all that nonsense.

Suddenly she bursts out in laughter.

“I let the dentist’s fingers and dental instruments entered my mouth.”

Sometimes I wish Belle can be a little less abnormal, but then again, like I said, that’s what makes her special.

And once I stop feeling worried and angry, I get even more excited than before.

Playing a prank on me builds up Belle’s sexual desire.

Laughed

At the train station he kissed her. First the lips, then the tongue, followed by her neck and finally his lips and his tongue and his hands found their ways to her bosom. She was shocked and tried to push him away.

“Are you scared?”

He laughed.

*

She wore a mini skirt to the cinema. He suggested that they watch Annabelle.

It was a horror story, yes it was. Not because of the ugly doll, but because he placed his hand inside her skirt, up her thighs, up her panties, into her panties, with his long fingers exploring what was within.

She tried to escape but there was no way to run.

His eyes were still fixed on the screen.

“What kind of idiot would accept an ugly doll like this for a gift?”

He laughed.

*

Maybe it was a coincidence. Maybe it was planned.

After a night out with Klang’s seafood where a friend’s car conveniently broke down, she ended up spending the night in his room.

At 4.00am, the white bed sheet turned red.

“Gosh! You are… ?”

He laughed.

*

She was drying her hair in the public bathroom all alone after a relaxing night swimming, covered in nothing except a short white towel that was only long enough to cover her private parts when he barged in, removed her towel, kissed her, touched her, aggressively attempting to penetrate her.

She resisted, but she was just a girl.

“I checked. No one here.”

“But this is a public - ” she begged and stopped in the middle of the sentence as she heard him moaned.

“Do you want anything for supper?” He asked when it was all over.

She shook her head.

“Tired from our little exercise?” She did not respond.

He laughed.

*

It was the time of the month when nothing was right for a girl, and to make things worse, the crimson liquid oozing out of her did not discourage him from wanting her.

She said no.

“But you’re my girlfriend,” he begged. “You’re the only one I want. Give me. Please?”

She wanted to escape but he pinned her down.

“You know you can’t run.”

He laughed.

*

"You're not wearing it," she pointed out in a small voice as he undressed her, crying a little.

"It doesn't feel good."

"But I might get pregnant. Please?" She pleaded.

"Nah, that's harder than winning lottery. Don't worry."

"But..."

He bit her lips to shut her up. She winced.

"Don't pretend. You like it, don't you?"

He laughed.

*

He pulled and pushed her head as he moaned, louder and louder, finally releasing him in her mouth.

She wanted to spit it out but he made her swallow it.

"You look pathetic."

He laughed.

*

He didn’t tell her anything, but she heard.

Everyone in school talked about it. How they had been sleeping together. And if she didn’t say a word…

She wanted to ask him.

Why would he tell others about the colors of her bras and panties? Why would he tell others about how often they did it? Why would he tell others about how she behaved on bed?

Why?

She wanted to ask him. She took a deep breath and walked towards him, anger boiling in her. He noticed her, smiled a little, and continued looking at his phone.

He was watching the video where he was in her mouth.

She opened her mouth, but before she could say a word…

He laughed.

*

New city, new friends, new phone number.

She was exhausted after hours of unpacking in her new room.

Her phone rang. It was her sister.

“How’s everything?”

“Good.”

“And so the chapter ends.”

“And so a new chapter begins.”

Feeling a little cheerful, a little relieved, she laughed.

Ghost-Writing

Being a ghost writer means that no one would know that I'm the creative soul behind the story or article that they are reading.

*cries in a corner*

On the other hand, it also means that if they don't enjoy what they're reading, they won't complain to me.

*jumps in joy*

Anyway, lately I've ghost-written these:

1. Old Wine, Old Wife

2. A LUCYd Experience

3. Tale As Old As Wine

4. Wine Investment : Profit or Pleasure?

Also very happy to say that The Fem published my short story, Eyes, which I had shared with The Writer's Tower previously.

Seasonal Purchase

From the corner of my eye I saw Gustave walking towards me. Fast.

I continued reading newspapers while sipping coffee. Not an uncommon scene.

“Chester! I need help!”

“What is it this time? You found eyeballs in your sweet soup?”

His girlfriend probably asked him out for a Chinese meal and he thought the sesame glutinous rice balls were eyeballs.

Gustave had been residing in Malaysia for two years but somehow he still behaved like an alien at times. Sure, he could say “boleh boleh”, “tak boleh tahan lah” and “jom balik” in perfectly localised accent but he also got disgusted when we had something as normal as tomyam steamboat together, or wearing slacks that were too tight and too short for him because unfortunately, it was incredibly hard to find European size here, or talking to female colleagues as if he was trying to flirt with them, totally unaware of the cultural difference between European and Asian.

“Nah, I figured out that was something called tongue yen,” he replied, failing to notice my sarcasm as usual. “I need help to buy summer.”

“Buy summer?”

Eyes widened, I put down my cup of coffee at last.

“Yes. How do I buy summer in Malaysia?”

“You mean, you’ve bought summer in your country before?”

Gustave shook his head.

“What makes you think you can buy summer in Malaysia then?”

He shrugged nonchalantly.

“Everywhere I go, people always say Malaysia boleh. So I suppose everything is possible here.”

I can’t believe it is possible for a person so naive to exist.

“So, Chester. Where can I buy summer? Petaling Street? Brickfields?”

Life was getting a little boring. My wife prohibited me from drinking but I live to drink so I was feeling pretty dead.

I decided to humour him. Add spice to life, you know.

“Dude, you’re talking about summer, not fake Prada! Show summer some respect!” I pretended to look angry.

“Whoa Chester, chill, chill. I didn’t mean to offend you. Okay, so where can I buy summer?”

“Where? You should start with how!”

Gustave looked puzzled.

“How? What do you mean, how?”

I looked annoyed.

“You’re buying summer. You have to check with Malaysian Meteorological Department first, obviously.”

“Oh, I see! What’s next?” Gustave looked enlightened as he started scribbling on his writing pad.

I tried not to laugh.

“There are some forms you need to fill up. I don’t know which since I’ve never needed to buy summer before. You have to check with the department yourself.”

“Alright, I’ll check.”

“Oh, and I almost forgot! There’s a column in the form requiring you to choose eight countries from which you would like to buy summer from since we don’t have summer here.”

Gustave thought long and hard before he opened his mouth to speak again. Looking at him being so serious about the nonsense I had just made up was rather entertaining.

“I think I’ll choose Australia, Brazil, New Zealand, UK - “

I raised my hand to interrupt. I had absolutely no interest in what he was saying.

“I also forgot to ask you. Do you have the currency needed to buy summer?”

He looked at me as if my IQ was 50. I was delighted to know that he finally realised I was kidding.

“I’ve been staying here for quite some time. Of course I have Ringgit with me.”

He was dumber than I thought. I took a deep breath.

“Look. You’re buying summer. Ringgit won’t do. You need to buy summer with winter.”

Gustave looked disappointed.

“But I don’t have winter with me.”

“Then you won’t be able to buy summer.”

“How can I buy winter?”

“Same process as buying summer. But winter is a little special because most Malaysians have never seen snow in their lives, and the weather is super hot here - we want to stay in air-conditioned room all the time. You need to impress the department with something cold like ice cream truck or ice bucket so they are willing to consider your application. And the currency used to buy winter is summer.”

“But I don’t have summer!”

“Too bad, then.”

Gustave looked frustrated.

“This is ridiculous! It’s a vicious cycle! How can such impossible rules exist?”

“You said yourself. Malaysia boleh,” I sighed, both at his stupidity and at the way my country was capable of achieving the impossible. Not in a good way, of course. “Why do you want to buy summer anyway?”

“I saw a sundress that I wanted to buy for my girlfriend. I asked the seller for the price. I was going to buy it, but then I saw another sundress which was even more stunning than the first. So I asked for the price again, and the seller told me the price was summer.”

Summer Thoughts

I've always wanted to live in a country with four seasons. Winter is horrible and autumn is boring. Spring is the season of sneezing but I really want summer. That's the season for bikini and I wonder if it will be easier to get you to fall in love with me while we play volleyball at the beach. Or, even better, we can go to nude beaches. But then I remember how you often taunt me for being flat-chested. That hurts. It really does.

Lying on the beach with tummy facing down soaking up the vitamins of the sun seems like a perfect excuse to ask you to apply sunscreen on my back. I can not stop myself from imagining your big warm hands touching every inch of my back. The thought of it makes me blush. But then I remember how you noticed the pimple on my back the last time we tango while I was wearing a black bare back dress. Why can't you ever notice anything nice about me?

Ice cream is the saviour of summer's heat and I read in some female magazine that boys always find girls licking ice cream sexy. I've been eating ice cream in front of you for years but all you ever did was to laugh when the melted ice cream dripped onto my shoes.

Kissing under mistletoe is so old-fashioned. I want to kiss you on the yacht after we watch sunset together. If only you like sunset.

Emerald green swimming trunk. You'll look good in it. It matches your skin color. Too bad you don't care about fashion at all.

You and I are like winter and summer. We just don't belong to each other. I hate the fact that I'm attracted to you. How could I be so blind to fall for you?

Oh you son of a bitch. Why should I care about a person who does not care about me? I am like a piece of over-chewed chewing gum to you. Tasteless. I vow to stop caring for you from this moment onwards.

Uhh. But still. The first letter of each paragraph will always represent my truest feeling for you.

Frankie and I

  Hi, my name is Elaine, 24 this year. My father is Chinese but my mother is Brazilian. Well, that's what my dad told me. My mother died when I was a baby.

  My father left me when I was 8. He realized having another mouth to feed was too troublesome. I would never forget the rainy night when we slept by the roadside, cold and starving. I fell asleep listening to my father telling me the story of the boy who cried wolf. When I woke up I was alone. 

  

 I met Frankie when I was chased out of an eatery while begging for leftover food. He handed me a sausage roll which I wolfed down within seconds.

"Begging won't work. Just steal," he laughed as he wiped away the mustard at the corner of my mouth.

Bread and sausage are the best thing in the world. Second best thing. First would be Frankie.

Frankie taught me how to steal so I won't starve to death. He also taught me how to perform on streets so we could get more money for sausage rolls - for days when stealing was too difficult. 

If I remember correctly, it was a Friday. A bad Friday when we didn't manage to steal any food and no one paid for our performances. 

We were sitting on the roadside when two actors in fancy outfits passed by, arguing. The woman was shouting at the man, saying that he was responsible for her blisters because he won't carry her, and how he won't help her with the chores. 

"Why don't you hire someone to do the chores for you?"

"How am I supposed to find a person who's willing to work for free? We don't have much money, we can only afford to pay them bread and sausages."

Frankie and I volunteered ourselves and we spent a few years sweeping floors and washing clothes for Royce and Jennifer. Jennifer yelled at me all the time for the smallest mistake I did; so I was really happy when the audience shooed her in the middle of Romeo and Juliet, complaining that Royce and her were too old for the roles.

The next day Frankie and I took over the performance. After we successfully caused Royce and Jennifer to suffer from a mild case of food poisoning that was severe enough for them to stay away from the stage for a couple of hours, of course.

  Royce and Jennifer never had a say in anything since then; and as we performed more we found two more young servants, Wendy and Bobby, like how we were once found.

*

Andrew came to us uninvited. He said he would make our performances better. More people would watch us. More money for us.

 That was interesting. 

  He said he would be our new leader. I had to pull Frankie hard to stop him from punching Andrew.

  Frankie chased him away but every now and then he would appear out of nowhere to interrupt our plays. I noticed that whenever he appeared we sold more tickets.

 Having performed solo for so many years, I suppose he had figure out a way to command audience's attention.

 I persuaded Frankie to let him stay.

*

Frankie and Andrew disagree with each other all the time. From where to go to where to perform to how to adapt Odette into a comedy.

I shouted at Andrew while standing behind Frankie; though secretly agreeing with Andrew that Frankie's idea would never work. No one wanted to watch ballerinas doing something disgracefully ridiculous on stage.

Andrew was right. Audience wanted to see cleavage. Sexy women. Like the roles I had been doing all these while - breaking the fourth wall to do lap dance for the male audience.

  That was the only way to make money. Male performers were only needed to carry props.

  I wanted to laugh when I saw Frankie practicing hard. He missed the point completely.

  His heart was in the right place, I thought as we kissed. But he's losing it.

  Andrew, on the other hand...

*

For what happened next come watch Seringgit @ DPAC:

http://www.dpac.com.my/page/ticket/bookTicket/view/271.html

Me and You and the Doggie

A fictional piece inspired by real life conversation written for The Writer's Tower, August 2014, Theme : Name.

*

Sometimes you fall in a bucket of shit and come out smelling like a rose.

I can’t remember which friend tells me that. Maybe it’s Iman. Or maybe it is something I read online. You know, when I’m so bored and start googling everything and anything under the sun like “sex”, resulting in a sarcastic remark from Urban Dictionary “What kind of moron are you that you look up sex in the urban dictionary?”

(and yes, I actually googled shit and was very entertained by the resulting list.)

Anyway, it sounds like something Iman will say. After all, he is the one who talk dirty to me all the time - literally.

We usually start our dirty talks in the morning over breakfast.

“Eh, my shit looks like the curry you’re eating now. I name it Curry,” he’ll say.

“Thank you for helping me to cut down fitness and gym expenses,” I lost my appetite for my favorite Japanese curry rice completely. Lelouch, our pug will be getting second serving for breakfast as usual.

“You’re welcome,” in total contrast to his actual personality, Iman bows elegantly and sits down opposite me to gobble down the portion I reserved for Lelouch before attacking his own plate.

Iman is my house mate. Initially I was uncomfortable over the fact that I have to sleep under the same roof with a guy. I later learned that he felt the same (of course I didn’t realise it back then. Any guy looks like a potential rapist to a small town girl) but we did not have a choice - we needed jobs in KL and this was the only cheap apartment unit we could find.

I feared of being violently assaulted, molested and raped whenever I walked out of my room, imagining Iman’s long hands tightly around me and that no matter how hard I struggled I just couldn’t break free. I made sure I locked my door all the time and I became a very religious atheist. I prayed to Jesus in the morning, Buddha during my lunch time and Allah before I slept, hoping that the combined power of three Gods would be greater than the power of one. I also prayed that the Gods I prayed to would not end up ignoring my prayers because they were too busy fighting with each other over who has the righter right to protect me.

For the first few months I didn’t think we had talked at all, except exchanging quick scared smiles and barely audible “hi” when we occasionally bumped into each other while leaving for work or walking to the kitchen or the toilet.

The ice was broken when we met each other at Batman 75th Anniversary at Pavillion. I was cosplaying Catwoman and Iman - Two Face.

“I don’t know that you cosplay!” we exclaimed and took off our masks simultaneously.

“Cosplayers are the awesomest bunch,” we laughed and high-fived, finally becoming friends after living together with zero conversation for three or four months.

Having a mutual interest is a great way to start off a friendship. We spent nights watching movies, debating over whether Emma Watson or Taylor Swift is sexier but usually ended up deciding that Angelina Jolie will always be the one (be it before or after the surgery that removed the greatest gift to mankind) no matter how many long-legged female K-pop singers emerge, crying over matters of utmost importance that greatly affects human race such as the death of our favourite actor Robin Williams, making costumes for the next cosplay event, talking excitedly about how our next cosplay will make us the center of attention before concluding that we would not like the trouble of having to apply tons of makeup and wearing fashionable clothing just to grab a Ramli burger downstairs when we become too famous and popular, but still dreamed about how our pictures will appear in newspapers and magazines and of course, as we got more comfortable and more used to each other’s presence, we learned of each other’s bad habits, like all the smelly fart, loud burping, breasts rubbing, loin scratching and shit naming.

Iman has a peculiar habit of naming and examining shit.

“I used to have constipation,” he explained to an uninterested audience, namely me. “So now I am very grateful that I can shit every day. So grateful that I have to name them.”

“How did you end up with constipation?” he eats plenty of fruits and vegetables, and he’s a yogurt lover. Like all other Malaysian, he also eats roti canai and keropok lekor between proper meals of nasi lemak and but that bears no relevance to what I’m trying to say here.

“I used to find shitting really disgusting and I refuse to go to the toilet because it is so smelly…” His voice got softer and softer and by the time he reached the word “smelly”, he was looking at me like how a kindergarten kid who forgot to do his homework would look at his displeased teacher.

“Oh. So you have shitzophrenia,” his shit-naming habit is infectious.

“Please, there is a proper name for it. It’s called toilet phobia.”

Also, Iman’s habit of shit-naming and irrational enthusiasm for shit was the reason how we ended up with Lelouch. Somewhat.

We hate pugs. That muzzled face is just too unnerving to look at. I rather watch Silent Hill than to look at a pug for more than three seconds, and I am a coward who vowed to never watch horror film.

We love dogs. We just don’t consider pug as a species of dog.

The story of Lelouch starts with our bi-weekly volunteering at SPCA. We feed the dogs, clean them, and after two or three tiring hours, I will be chilling indoors with 100 Plus while Iman investigates the shape, colour and odour of different dogs’ poo.

“Look Serina! That giant Golden Retriever just came up with this. I call it Lincoln Log,” he said excitedly, showing me a long, thick, dark brown log-shaped poo placed on layers of tissue paper while I was eating chocolate Swiss roll.

Was it too much to ask for a normal house mate?

One day Lelouch came to SPCA. It looked scared. It was shitting when it arrived, and when we placed it in a cage, it got so scared at the unfamiliar surrounding that it stopped shitting. The shit ended up dangling at its butt like its second tail and we spent so much time wiping and washing its butts (and its shit-tainted tail) because every time we cleaned what was dangling outside, Lelouch would shit more and we had to start cleaning again.

“I’m calling this pendulum,” I detected frustration in Iman’s voice but I was not sure if he was actually frustrated, because with his gloved hand he playfully pushed that poo dangling from Lelouch’s butts slightly to make it sway like a pendulum even though he was wearing an annoyed expression.

That night Lelouch followed us home. We wanted to send it back to SPCA but it was a smart dog - it came to us on a rainy, stormy night.

Lelouch was not just smart. It was a genius. When we woke up to a sunny morning it ran back to SPCA on its own and only returned to our apartment on rainy nights. It even had enough intelligence to never ask for food from us; but it would always leave some poo at our doorstep in the morning for Iman’s pleasure.

“This is bad, Serina. Lelouch left us some pebbles,” Iman said one morning as he knocked the hard and brittle poo with a plastic spoon while I was enjoying Choco balls.

That night it rained so we took Lelouch to a vet and it never went back to SPCA after that.

Lelouch would watch movies with us and sit quietly while we sew our costumes; only barking loudly when we accidentally prick ourselves. At first it’s sudden barking frightened us so much that it caused us to prick ourselves even more but eventually we got used to it. Lelouch practises yoga with me and I always laugh at Iman for being less flexible than Lelouch.

We sometimes think that we insulted the animation series, Code Geass by naming a pug Lelouch but we always come to the conclusion that for pug haters like us to take in a pug, this pug must be really good at hypnotizing like the charming, intellectual fictional Lelouch Lamperouge.

Minus the charm.

*

“Call me Kaito Kid,” Iman speaks in a voice he deems cool and aloof as he tries his costume for Animangaki.

“Shut up and fight,” I clench my fists and aim a kick at him with my Tifa Lockhart’s costume on.

This year we started our costume making for Animangaki in August 2014 a little too early that by the time we were done with the final touch up for our Comic Fiesta’s costume which commences in December 2014, there were still two weeks to go before Animangaki officially kick starts.

Out of boredom we decided to make a little Lelouch-style costume for Lelouch, which was a grave mistake. All cameras focus on Lelouch the moment we enter the hall. Photographers and Liui Aquino’s fans run from the other side of the hall to us just to pat Lelouch’s head.

That’s when Lelouch expresses its decision of not wanting to be a superstar by shitting. Mustard coloured, watery shit.

The next day, Lelouch’s cosplay photo (with Iman’s left hand and three fingers of mine) appears in a local newspapers with a headline:

“A Shitty Pug-rty : Animangaki 2014”