Shimatta! Wrong Line!

“Say no more,” Saber said, sitting up straight. She slammed her hand on the table, and shouted in the heroic voice of the girl-king, a voice that could command armies, “Waitress, two cases of beer!”

In an instant, even the diners in the distance who hadn’t noticed us before turned to look, drawn by her extraordinary voice and bold words. When they saw that the one ordering a case of beer was a stunningly beautiful girl with blonde hair, green eyes, and fair skin, their breathing quickened. They guessed she must be an exchange student from Russia, probably with a pet bear waiting outside.

I quickly tried to reason with her, leaning in to whisper frantically. “Don’t forget we have a livestream at midnight tonight. A ghost-hunting mission! We need to be at peak performance! Drink less!”

“It’s fine, just this much beer~” she said with a confident smile. Paired with her exquisite, gorgeous face, the smile seemed to glow with its own light source.

But having slept in the same room with her for so long, I wasn’t fooled. Her confidence was a known debuff. “Did you forget last time? You said the same thing then!”

Last time, before our transformation, when the four of us brothers still possessed our ‘murder weapons,’ we had also come here to drink. At that time, we said we had to play DOTA when we got back to the dorm, telling Saber not to drink too much. She had confidently said it was fine, chugged a ton of beer, and then, as soon as she got in-game back at the dorm, she started weaving around like a snake. Her hero pathing looked like a toddler’s crayon scribble, tracing S-shapes across the map as she fed the enemy team kill after kill. The poor random who got matched with us and the five lucky opponents on the other team were all dumbfounded, suspecting Saber was high on drugs. You never know if the person on the other side of the computer is a recovering addict who has relapsed.

Hearing me say this, Saber hesitated, probably afraid of getting drunk and stripping during the livestream, which would get our channel banned into oblivion.

“Waitress, just one case for now!” she said, cutting the amount in half with a pained expression.

Once the case of beer was brought over, the bottles were on the table and the caps were popped. The four of us immediately started chugging.

To the people sneaking glances at us from the neighboring tables, it was a surreal sight. Whether it was me with my delicate features and bizarrely patterned clothes, the strikingly handsome and androgynous Exusiai who looked like a fashion model, the lovely-as-a-first-love Yukino in her shirt and sweater, or the Saber in her English-style trousers and vest who looked like she had stepped out of an oil painting—none of us seemed as high-spirited as our appearances would suggest. We all had tragic expressions, chugging beer from large glasses like a group of pitiful middle-aged men who had been laid off from their jobs, whose wives had run off with pretty boys, and whose daughters had been abducted by their sons.

Can you imagine Yukinoshita Yukino, the girl who looked like your first love with her waterfall of black hair, delicate face, canvas shoes, cuffed jeans, and light-colored shirt and sweater, holding a large beer mug and chugging like a burly Russian man while cursing “Suka Blyat”?

Well, the girl with the ponytail at the table next to us was stunned into silence, her chopsticks frozen halfway to her mouth.

She picked up her phone from the table, aimed it at us as we were chugging from our beer mugs, and pressed the shutter button. Then she opened Tw*tter, casually came up with a long title like [Can you imagine Kiriko, Exusiai, Yukino, and Saber getting together and drinking like old men? #CosplayGods #GenderIsFluid], attached the photo of four people—impossible to tell if they were pretty boys or pretty girls—chugging beer with mournful faces, and posted it.

She didn’t have any ulterior motives. She wasn’t some kind of marketing account; most of her followers were friends in real life. Just like posting on her Moments, she just wanted to share her amazement and complicated feelings.

Soon, comments appeared below the post.

[1.8-Meter-Tall Hottie (Levi Ackerman profile pic): OMG! Which anime club’s cosplay is this? It’s too good! The quality is insane!]

[The Attack Titan (Justin Bieber profile pic): Huh? Isn’t this that shabby restaurant next to our school? Are these gods our school’s students???]

[I Will Always Love ______ (Question mark profile pic): Wow, the three Onii-chan cosplaying as Kiriko, Exusiai, and Saber, I’m so in! Quick, get their contact info for me! I need it for… research!]

The girl who posted the photo smiled and replied to her best friend:

[Happy on My Own (Pigeon profile pic): Not sure if they’re Onii-chan, they could be Nee-chan.]

[I Will Always Love ______ (Question mark profile pic): Nee-chan are fine too! I’m not picky!]

When guys see androgynous beauties, they mostly assume they’re female; whereas if girls see them, they’re more likely to think they’re pretty boys. Thus, a holy war about the gender of the three cosplaying as Kiriko, Exusiai, and Saber began under the Weibo post. Yukino, who was chugging with her pale neck tilted back, was not caught in the whirlpool of debate, as she was clearly a girl.

Most of the people who saw the post added their own opinions on our genders and reposted it. Those who saw the reposts, drawn in by the incredibly dynamic photo and the hormone-and-debate-inducing topic of gender, reposted it again. With each repost, the photo spread like a memetic hazard, weaving and expanding through countless nodes. By the time the girl at the next table had finished her meal and picked up her phone, she found that the number of comments and reposts on her post was already comparable to some internet celebrities. And those celebrities more or less had some fake bot reposts; hers was all real data.

The girl was shocked. It was the first time in her life she had received so much attention. Her first feeling wasn’t excitement, but a little fear. Countless anime fans who had seen the reposts came to her Tw*tter, asking who these cosplayers were, if they had any other cosplay works, and some even said that they were living for these cosplayers for the rest of the year.

The girl touched her ponytail. She didn’t know these cosplayers either, but she had a feeling they were students from her school. To be honest, even she felt that it would be a great loss in life if she never saw these outstandingly beautiful and super-depressed people again.

So she mustered up her courage, picked up her phone, stood up, and walked over to the next table.

Of course, the few of us had no idea that we had become a little famous on Tw*tter during our meal. We were simply immersed in the middle-aged-uncle-drowning-sorrows-in-alcohol experience.

As the case of beer emptied, we were starting to feel it. It wasn’t that we couldn’t hold our liquor; four people finishing one case of beer wasn’t a big deal. The problem was, our bladders couldn’t hold it.

In the past, when the four of us big guys drank beer, we inevitably had to take a piss midway. The school was in a remote area, and the area around this shabby restaurant was a wilderness. We could just find some woods, unzip our pants, and take care of business on the spot. No one would come to confiscate our ‘tools’ for public urination.

But now it was different. I was fine, still a man, but Exusiai, Yukino, and Artoria were girls now. Can you imagine Yukino, with her waterfall of black hair, as beautiful as a first love, finding some woods, taking off her…

I can’t say anymore. My brain refuses to render that image. In short, I couldn’t imagine it. So it was time for us to head back to the girls’ dorm to use the toilet.

I was just about to call for the bill when the neat-looking girl with the single ponytail from the next table walked over for some reason and asked me timidly, “Classmate, want to buy some… discs?”

“Huh?!”