Snow Chronicles

<sub>The town of Saotomi, a quiet and dull place where nothing ever happens. In fact, the only time it ever saw visitors was when people got lost and happened upon it by accident. In the center of town was Saotomi Hospital, a small hospital where their biggest issue was calming over-concerned mothers that brought their child in with a scraped knee. Miss Weaboo was a nurse there and she was just finishing up her shift and was looking forward to her long weekend.

“Only ten minutes until quitting time” Miss Weaboo thinks, “can’t wait to go home and relax on the sofa with a glass of wine”. Miss Weaboo was in her early fifties even though she did not look it, she was a short girl with a small frame and her brown hair was cut to shoulder length, if not for the wisps of grey mixed in and her green eyes that shown with the wisdom of years, one might mistake her for a child in her teens. She has been working at Saotomi as nurse for over twenty years and the hospital was her everything, being one of the few things in life that really kept her going. She lost her husband years ago, leaving her alone to care for their young child. It was after losing her husband that she moved to Saotomi, in hopes a new start will ease her pain. And her child, now in his twenties, well, she loved him with all her heart, but she was at a lost on what to do with him. Just thinking about his problems stressed her out to point of breaking down in tears, Miss Weaboo thoughts were interrupted when the nurse that was relieving her walked in “Hey Sangrita, how the shift go today?” Haruna asked with a smile.

“Hey, Haruna, it was a good day. Only had to deal with one Tiger Mom”, using the slang to refer to the overbearing mothers, “and all you got for the night is a few people suffering from the flu, going to be an easy shift for you”. Miss Weaboo returns the smile to the younger woman, she has always enjoyed Haruna’s company ever since she started last year.

“So, any plans this weekend, or are you going to just stay at home with that son of yours?”, Haruna asks.

Miss Weaboo did not missed the sideways glance Haruna gave her when she mentioned her son. She has been asking about her son ever since she broke up with her last boyfriend. “No, no plans so far. Probably just stop at the liquor store on the way home and just relax on the couch tonight” said Miss Weaboo, trying her best to steer the conversation away from her son.

“Drinks huh, well a bunch of the nurses getting off right now are heading to The Scalpel” Haruna said, referring to the local bar they all frequented, “Maybe you could go meet up with them.”

This sounded like a great idea to Miss Weaboo, drinks always when down smoother with good company and she knew she would not find that at home. “Thanks Haruna, that actually sounds perfect.”

“Well, enjoy your weekend. Have a glass for me” Haruna says with a wink, “And say hi to your son for me, what was his name again?”.

Miss Weaboo forced a smile that never reached her eyes, the mention of her son destroyed her enthusiasm for the weekend. “Thanks, and his name in Otaku.” Haruna was not ready to give up on that yet. Miss Weaboo was very found of Haruna and would love to have her as a daughter-in-law, but she could not in good conscious set Haruna up with her son. “I’ll tell him you said hi” she continued with no intention of doing so. With that she get ups, gathers her things and leaves.

As Miss Weaboo makes her way through the parking lot, she starts talking to herself “Here I was looking forward to having a few relaxing drinks at home and she had to mention Otaku” she mutters as she considers her options “maybe I should go to The Scalpel, would be nice to hang out with some friends and forget about what is waiting at home”.

She was still unsure whether she would go or not by the time she reached her car. Getting in she reaches into the center console and checks her phone. There was twenty miss calls, five new voicemails and ten new text messages. Going through the miss calls she sees that they are all from her son’s cell phone. Her paranoia kicks in and quickly checks the voice messages to see what was wrong.

“You have five new voice messages” the automated voice goes on “Message one: “Hey Mom, it’s Otaku, just calling to see what’s for dinner” annoyed, she deletes the message and continues</sub>.

<sub>“Message one deleted, message two: “Hey Mom, its Otaku again, I’m hungry.”

Miss Weaboo shakes her head.

“Message two deleted, message three: “Mom. I’m Hungry!”

“What the fuck Otaku!” Miss Weaboo curses.

“Message three deleted, message four: “Mom. I said I’m Hungry!”

Miss Weaboo slams the delete button.

“Message four deleted, message five: “Feed Me!”.

She deletes the final message “Message five deleted, you have no new messages” and slams the phone down and grasp the steering wheel, squeezing it tight. She has been dealing with anxiety ever since getting the phone call about the death of her husband and Otaku eccentric behavior does not help with this, “Is it wrong to hate your own son” she muses to herself. Calming herself down, she picks the phone back up and checks the text messages. All ten were from Otaku, Miss Weaboo lets out a sigh of annoyance and checks them. They all said the exact same thing, “I’m hungry”. With that her decision was made and she sped off to The Scalpel.

Meanwhile, at the Weaboo’s resident.

A young man sits alone in a dimly lit room typing away at his computer. This young man is no other than Otaku Weaboo, Miss Weaboo’s son. He looks to be in is mid twenties, average in height and with unkempt shaggy brown hair. Like his mother, he was small in frame, looking as if he missed more than one meal . The glow from the computer monitor was the only source of light in the room, but it was enough to light up his “treasures”. Plastered across the walls were pictures of his Hero, The Great Tactician Tesoro, a character from his favorite manga “The Snow Chronicles”. There were also statues, action figures and comics of him scattered throughout the room. The bed-set was also of Tesoro, which included a full body pillow with the man’s image and above the bed painted on the wall was a mural of the man. It was hard to tell whether he idolized the man or was in love with him.

Hunger long forgotten, Otaku attention was now focused on the heated debate he has gotten into online with someone over Tesoro, calling him a joke tactician that is only in the novel as a comic relief character and will never be able to capture the bandit leader Nakamura. As Otaku types his response he thinks to himself “This will put him in his place, this uneducated loser, bet he never read a book on strategy in his life” the tapping of the keyboard gets quicker and louder as he gets worked up over this nobody having a negative opinion about his hero Tesoro. “If he had any knowledge he would understand how great Tesoro is!”. He finishes typing up his post and send its. “Now the waiting game, lets see how he responds to that”. And with that, Otaku just sits there and waits.

Back at The Scalpel, Miss Weaboo says goodbye to her coworkers after spending most of the night there. She’s a little tipsy at this point, but feels like she okay to drive. She gets in her car and remembers the her problem at home. “I haven’t received any more texts from Otaku, wonder if he found something to eat” she wonders “guess I can stop and grab him something on the way home.”

As she drives she reflects on here thoughts about her son “Maybe I’m too hard on Otaku, he’s not a bad son. Doesn’t get in trouble, never have to worry about where he is, he always at home in his room, on that computer. And who knows, these are different times, maybe he can make a living doing that” she knows she is lying to herself, but what mother wouldn’t in this situation. She has no one besides Otaku and she is afraid of losing him like she lost his father. “Maybe I can start encouraging him to be better, get him out of the house and start experiencing all that life has to offer.” Her mind wanders to thoughts of Haruna “A good girl might be able to help change him too”, a thought she would never have if she was sober. With this new determination, she decides to pick up dinner and sit down with her son to have a chat.

Miss Weaboo pulls up in her driveway and sees that all the lights in the house are off “Hope he hasn’t fallen asleep” she thinks. She gathers up the food and heads inside.

She enters the house expecting it to be silent, but instead she hears the sound of Otaku typing away. “He really gets into those debates” she smiles to herself and has a pleasant thought, “I’ll set the table for dinner and surprise him”. She quickly sets the table and lays out the food and then makes her way to her son’s room. As she gets closer, the tapping gets louder and she picks up a fragrance ::Sniff Sniff::, “Is that lavender I smell?”. This smell worries her now, for she remembers that last time she smelt this coming from Otaku’s room. She gets to Otaku’s door and puts a hand on the handle and stops. She’s afraid to open the door now, she does not want a repeat experience of what happen last time.

Instead of just going in, she decides to sit there for a few minutes and just listens. All she could hear was the sound of ferocious typing of the keyboard and the occasional chuckle, but that smell of lavender still gave her pause. A couple more minutes goes by with nothing changing so she decides it is safe to go in.

As she turns the handle and starts to open the door, something slams heavily into in and forces it back shut. “Mom! I asked you to knock before entering my room!” Otaku says panicky from the other side of the door.

Miss Weaboo is taken aback, her fears were justified after-all. “I should have known from the warning smell of lavender, he is so girly!” However, she tries to play it off as nothing to avoid any further awkwardness. “Sorry honey, just came to tell you I brought dinner. Hurry up and “finish” what you are doing and come eat” she added the last part in attempt to ease the situation with some humor and instantly regretted in, all she manage to do was remind herself on what she almost walked in on.

The way his mom emphasized the word was not lost on Otaku “Mom! I’m just having a debate online with some nerdy bandit loving loser about Tesoro.” which was true “I will be right out.”

“Smell of lavender, typing about Tesoro and refusing to open the door, just like last time” Miss Weaboo thinks. “Well, be quick. Dinner is on the table.” as she turns to go she thinks about what he was doing in there and feels the need to add “and make sure you wash your hands, don’t want to get Tesoro all over the food”

“MOM! Go away, Ill be right out”

With that Miss Weaboo turns to head back to the dining room. She gets to the hallway and looks back at her son’s door. “Maybe I really should set him up with Haruna, it might man him up a little bit”, and then she goes to have her dinner and another drink in an attempt to enjoy the rest of the night.</sub>