Jerome's POV
Itami managed to catch on our native blades' demonstration by 11:19 a.m. after his first diplomatic trip to the capital of Falmart, and he was awe as the other JSDF here in the Alnus Base. I wielded my Ginunting blade and sliced a stuffed dummy scarecrow smoothly, before explaining what my blade is and its interesting cultural origins from the Visayas in the Philippines. "That was amazing…" Itami whispered.
"Yup!" I chirped, and two of my NBI colleagues nodded in support for my explanation of my wonderful Ginunting.
By noon, while the JSDF cooks and MPC agents made delicious food for lunch, Itami ranted something on me when I decided to listen to him to whatever he wanted to vent out. It was…
"There's a Comicon in Kawasaki this week…" he moaned as if he was devastated on that, "...but I cannot attend when this whole geopolitical nonsense blew up…"
"I understand po," I replied sincerely and with sympathy for him, "in fact, I wanted to attend one, too. But we must wait until everything is clear and the conspiracy had been averted."
Itami blinked his eyes twice in astonishment. "You're an otaku, too?"
I nodded. "Yes, hai, I was. I wanted to cosplay as Kyo Sohma from "Fruits Basket", though I would need to purchase an orange wig for that so I wouldn't go on the trouble of dying my hair orange."
Itami looked as if I was a brother to his otaku hobby.
We shared that kinship on that hobby.
And then, Bayu chimed in and added, "Ja, Itami-san, I wanted to cosplay as Kyoichiro from "Mission: Yozakura Family", too."
We were geeks at this point and are willing to wait for the close to be cleared and attend that Kawasaki Comicon with peace.