The warm sun shone brightly.
Outside the Tokyo International Exhibition Center, Nanase Mayumi, dressed in a cream-colored sweater, black long skirt, and black boots, with a black beret and a black shoulder bag, looked at the sea of people around her and couldn't help but sigh. "Why does it feel like more and more people are coming to Comic Market?"
She had attended the previous Comic Market and it hadn't seemed nearly as crowded. This time, the crowd was truly overwhelming.
Although this wasn't Lin Zhiyan's first time at such an event, it was his first time attending as a visitor. Since they had arrived late, they had missed the peak queuing hours, so the flow of people at the entrance wasn't too bad.
The crowd seemed larger primarily because some cosplayers outside had attracted a large number of perverts.
To avoid being recognized, Lin Zhiyan wore a very ordinary casual outfit: a pair of non-prescription glasses, a mask covering half his face, and a black baseball cap.
Even though his casual attire couldn't completely hide his good looks, people still occasionally glanced at him and Nanase Mayumi, but thankfully, it didn't cause a commotion.
The primary reason Lin Zhiyan attended this Comic Market was at Nanase Mayumi's invitation, but he also had something else in mind.
The doujin circle Type-Moon, also known as "Type-Moon," released the full version of their debut work, Tsukihime, at the Winter 2000 Comic Market. The game became so popular that it became one of the three great miracles of the doujin world, even allowing the circle to earn enough money to commercialize their work.
If he had time, he definitely wanted to see it. Otherwise, the cosplay outside the Tokyo International Exhibition Center might have been the only thing to pique his interest.
Cosplay, of course, usually featured characters from popular anime.
Lin Zhiyan and Nanase Mayumi didn't immediately enter the convention center. Instead, they first wandered through the outdoor cosplay area.
There were cosplayers dressed as Inuyasha and Kikyo, Kinamoto Sakura, and even Ryuk from Death Note.
Suddenly, a cosplayer dressed as Misa Amane from Death Note caught Lin Zhiyan's attention.
He watched the person for a moment, then turned to Nanase Mayumi beside him and asked, "Mayumi, doesn't that Misa Amane cosplayer look a bit familiar?"
Mayumi followed Lin Zhiyan's gaze. After a few seconds, she nodded vigorously, like a chick pecking at rice. "Yeah, she does look a bit familiar."
She paused, then added, "Maybe she's some kind of internet celebrity from the cosplay community?"
"No way," Lin Zhiyan shook his head slightly. "I don't usually follow the cosplay community, let alone its internet celebrities. This feels more like someone I know in real life... Come on, let's get closer and take a look."
"Okay," Mayumi agreed, and they walked toward the Misa Amane cosplayer.
As they got closer and Lin Zhiyan got a better look, he nearly blurted out, "Holy shit!"
It was actually someone he knew—someone from their company, no less—Hakuba Yūki, the future head of the online marketing department.
Hakuba Yūki was rather short, only about 1.6 meters tall, and appeared quite thin, likely weighing around 50 kilograms. His skin was passably fair, and his Adam's apple was barely noticeable. Perhaps due to his exceptional makeup skills, he had also added fake breasts. At first glance, he looked strikingly similar to Misa Amane, which explained why Lin Zhiyan hadn't recognized him from a distance.
Now that he recognized him, Lin Zhiyan felt his worldview had been shattered.
Who would have thought?
The future head of the online marketing department actually had such a peculiar hobby.
When he assigned Hakuba Yūki the task of posing as a girl online to promote the Death Note animation, Lin Zhiyan had only considered the animation's primary audience and the fact that most users in chat rooms were male.
That was all.
He had never instructed Hakuba Yūki to specifically cosplay as Misa Amane for the promotion.
If he had actually assigned Misa Amane cosplay, it would have been a humiliating act. Who knew, Hakuba Yūki might have invited the Detective Conan production team to his house to film a couple of episodes or even bought a Death Note and written Lin Zhiyan's name in it.
But now, here it was: Lin Zhiyan hadn't arranged it, yet Hakuba Yūki had taken it upon himself to cosplay anyway.
So damn hot! he thought, Young people really know how to have fun!
Just then, he heard a sharp intake of breath. Clearly, Nanase Mayumi had also recognized the person cosplaying Misa Amane.
"Senior, did you figure out who it is?" Nanase Mayumi whispered to Lin Zhiyan, turning her head.
"Mmm-hmm, it's Hakuba from our company," Lin Zhiyan whispered back in her ear.
The proximity made Nanase Mayumi's ear tingle slightly, but she ignored her shyness. Instead, she grabbed Lin Zhiyan's hand and urged, "Let's go, Senior! Let's get out of here before he sees us. I'm afraid he'll kill us to silence us."
Lin Zhiyan paused for a moment, then nodded. "Makes sense."
With that, he turned and hurried away with Nanase Mayumi.
Once they were far enough away, Nanase Mayumi sighed. "Senior, it's my fault," she said with a hint of guilt. "He was complaining to me about not being able to attend an offline gathering. I casually suggested he could cosplay Misa Amane, just as a joke. I never thought he'd actually do it."
"It's not your fault," Lin Zhiyan reassured her. "He must have his own interests."
While comforting her, Lin Zhiyan added, "We should respect people's interests. As long as he doesn't claim to be from our company, we'll just pretend we didn't see anything. Don't mention this to anyone when we get back."
"Mm, I understand," Nanase Mayumi nodded seriously.
After this incident, Lin Zhiyan lost all interest in browsing the cosplay area. After all, who knew if there might be another cross-dressing expert like Hakuba Yūki lurking among the crowd?
Because he recognized Hakuba Yūki, Lin Zhiyan had been able to identify him. But if it had been a stranger, even with skilled makeup, he wasn't confident he could have determined their true gender.
The two didn't linger outside the venue and instead went inside.
The crowd outside was already large, but the interior was even more packed, swarming like ants.
Lin Zhiyan scanned the crowd, initially intending to find Takeuchi Takashi and Nasu Kinoko. But he quickly remembered he didn't even know what they looked like.
Even in the future, with its advanced internet, there were no publicly available photos of these two. This had even led some fans to speculate that Nasu Kinoko was a woman.
Not knowing their appearances didn't matter. He could simply look for the booths with the largest crowds and check them one by one.
After all, they're trapped in this convention center. They can't escape.
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