"Mommy, what is that uncle doing?" A little girl asked as she pulled her mother on her skirt and pointed at the man crouching suspiciously at the aisle, in front of a shelf, holding a doll extremely close to his body and murmuring to himself.
"Don't look!" The mother upon seeing what her daughter showed her, hurriedly cupped her daughter's eyes with her hands and pulled her away from the aisle.
"Sir, may I know what you are doing down there?"
"Eh?" I turned my head to the side to meet the gaze of a woman with a pink work apron on, she had a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. A man in a security uniform followed behind her.
"You had been in the doll aisle for quite some time, I'm just wondering if you need some help."
"Ah… Haha…. There's no need for help, I'm just trying to pick some dolls, that's all."
"Hmmm… I understand sir but I'm afraid that I'm gonna have to ask you to leave. We have been receiving complaints from other customers that they felt uncomfortable with your presence as your actions came off as suspicious to them."
"Huh? Suspicious? Me?" I looked around to find people were staring at me with vigilant eyes, while their kids kept asking them what's going on.
"Y-Yeah sure, I'll be on my way!" I quickly placed the doll back on the shelf and left the toy shop immediately with the hood of my hoodie over my head to hide my embarrassment.
----
"Why is it so hard to find clothes for you?" I sighed as I strolled along Crystal Mall after being kicked out of the store, it was the third toy store that I had gone through this afternoon. I had a shoulder sling bag across my chest with slightly open zip, a pair of bright red eyes gleamed from the inside. It was the mini Tall Lady. I had decided to carry her with me just to avoid buying the wrong size of clothes for her.
I initially thought that I just had to buy some doll and take down the clothes for the Tall Lady but it is either that some of the clothes are sewn into the doll, made with cheap and rough material that is irritating to the skin or it is non-ergonomically designed. I had to go through the trouble to let the Tall Lady choose one by one but whenever we found one that fit, it was way too expensive for my wallet.
Just as I was wondering if I should just head back home for the day, a loud commotion caught my attention from the other side of the mall.
Curious, I headed to the source of the voice to check out what was going on and along the way, I found the mall walkway was getting crowdier and plenty of people were coming and going from whatever is holding over there.
"Comic and Anime Convention?" I mumbled to myself as I caught sight of the name of the ongoing event from the huge arch at the entrance point.
With nothing much to do for the rest of the day, I decided to join the event.
Entering the convention, I was greeted by the tons of people wearing cosplay of their favorite characters and booth after booth of products being displayed by sellers, there's comic books, merchandise, cosplay material and too many for me to list out.
From the half-opened zip of my sling bag, the little Tall Lady was entranced by the sight before her. There were women with fox ears and fluffy tails on their back, men with big blades and wings and there's even some big robots walking around. She popped her head out of the bag and used her little hands to pull on my hoodie to get my attention, which she did.
I was quickly alerted by her actions and pushed her back into my bag and turned my head side to side to check if anybody saw her and luckily nobody did. Moving to a corner with nobody around, I took my hands away from the opening of my bag and whispered to the Tall Lady, "What? I thought I told you to stay inside?"
The Tall Lady simply pointed at the cosplayers with her eyes glowing with excitement.
Despite not being able to communicate verbally, I could roughly understand what she was trying to convey to me.
"Are you trying to ask if those are your people?"
"En," She nodded enthusiastically.
"No, they are just people erm… pretending to be someone else or something they like. They are humans, just like me."
"Oouu…" After hearing what I said, the glow in her eyes died down and her little hands plopped down to her side with her head down, seemingly not expecting the answer that was given to her.
I was at a loss with her sudden sadness, not knowing how I should comfort her. Has she been searching for people just like her?
After contemplating for a moment, I let out a sigh.
"You know what, I don't think anybody gonna notice you since everybody is wearing a costume, they'll probably think of you as part of my costume or bag's accessories. You could popped your head out of the bag-"
As soon as she heard my words, she held her head up with a smile. Jumping and dancing in the bag like she wasn't sad a minute ago.
"Wait… But I need you to promise me not to make noise and also you to be still like a puppet. We don't want to attract unwanted attention. Okay?"
"En!" She popped her body out of the sling bag with her hands as support and hummed happily.
Both of us went back into the crowd of people and had a look around. Exploring the convention, I bought some food and drinks to share with the Tall Lady and I had also bought a cosmetic lens as I figured that I might need it to hide my eyes from growing red if I were to ever activate my powers in public.
After exploring most of the popular booths, I made my way to the booth that was far off from the main walkway with a measly crowd. The sellers around there were mostly small-time artists trying to sell their drawings or fan made merchandise for a niche fanbase but it was nonetheless interesting to explore.
As I was looking around while sipping on my drink, my eyes were quickly drawn to a booth at the corner with tiny clothes that were placed evenly across the front row of the table and multiple miniature anime figurines placed at the back. Strangely, there's nobody at the booth.
Placing my cold drink on the floor and wiping my hands dry on the hem of my hoodie. I reached my hands out for the black and white gown resembling a gown for a waitress in a maid cafe.
"Woah, this is some stuff with real good quality." I felt the fabric of the small exquisitely made gown with my finger while placing it carefully on the palm of my hand, the little Tall Lady stretched her hand outward to give it a feel as well and she nodded in agreement.
Soon, I felt a gentle breeze of someone walking past my back before entering the booth and stood behind the table.
"Hmm? Aren't you my classmate?"
Note : After a week, our gang consists of a human, a turtle, a rat and a banana. 100% diversity.
>If you are interested in advance chapter, you can find it in my : pat*reon.*com/Kinksman (erase the *)