An avid weeaboo, Josh knew many anime girls of various personalities and powers, but his true love was Katou Megumi of Saenai Heroine no Sodatekata.
Among all those queers, follies, the overpowered and the overrated, Megumi is the most modest of all, possessing little attractiveness compared to anyone else, yet she had won the heart of Josh by simply being mundane, and exemplary at the same time:
While there are lolis and grown-ups with oversized breasts or minimal breasts, in Josh’s eyes, only Megumin (as many affectionately call her) embodies the best size; her body shape, mature but not entirely, is also what made Kashima popular in comparison with her child-like face; Megumin had only plain black hair and amber eyes, not any other colors that blinded Josh.
The icing on it all is certainly the famous but simple outfit (you can see in the preview picture), the one Megumin was seen on the street, that made Josh attracted to her.
He surrounded himself with Megumin posters, figures of Megumin, and the official dakimakura, besides other anime collectibles that made his room seem close to Melonpan, the famous Swiss otaku, but Josh treated his collection in a saner way, only imagining Megumin to be his girlfriend and lived with her. In his mind he never wanted to disappoint Megumin for she was his love and she was his life.
When the Megumin chatting app was out, many rushed to download it, and Josh was no exception to chase the chance of dating her. In the app there was a 3D model of Megumin which you can chat with. While others ditched the app after some time and out of their fading eagerness, Josh kept on playing to interact with his love.
Megumin was someone he wanted to be real: Not just cosplay level real, but a real person with the identical personality and mind. Something many had dreamt, but no one had realized for it being impossible to break the 4th wall. Only if she could travel to this world or I could get there, Josh fantasised.
As he fantasied of Katou Megumi being real at night, a notification from his phone broke his flow of thought.
“Messenge: do you want me be real?”
It was from Katou_Megumi, someone who he had never heard of expect being of the same name. While those messages are usually dubious and unreal, overwhelmed with love, Josh picked up his phone and typed, “How?”
“Do you have a boy friend?”
Josh was no gay, so she must meant a normal male friend, Josh thought. And at this time he pictured his soulmate, Bran, who had been watching anime with him since 14 or 15.
“Yes?”
“Bring him to me so I can know him”
Josh noted, “Megumin couldn’t be like that, she is too soft to be eager. It must be someone playing on me… Bran?” He called Bran, who worked in the gas station often in night shifts, so there was a good chance he was up, and he knew of his devotion of Megumin. Those might be ways Bran used to spend the night without being bored.
“Hey Bran, did you send that Katou_Megumi message?”
“What Katou Megumi message?”
“That one, ‘do you want me be real?’”
“No chance, I’ll come later and let you check my phone.”
The reply was absurd to him, and there were already apps to fake message senders. Josh didn’t know if it was Bran, or some other people, but he wished in his heart that Megumin could be real.
The next day Bran went over and gave Josh his phone. “You say I sent those stuff? I don’t know how to do that.” Bran wanted to clear his name. As Josh inspected the phone, he found all messages being sent normally without the 2 mysterious ones, and no apps that remotely modify messages to appear to be sent elsewhere. There were just normal apps and games. “Bran, it wasn’t you? Then who was it...”
Another notification hit Josh’s phone, and the 2 friends looked at the phone…
The 2 previously misunderstood friends hurdled to see what was wrong with the phone when Bran was not the culprit behind the messages. Josh unlocked the phone to reveal a few new messages:
“Your friend is here”
“Let us start”
“Start what?” Bran was dumbfounded looking at the messages. Josh was starting to understand the situation he was in, and urged Bran to move away from the phone. The chat app opened abruptly, and a few abnormal dialogs popped up:
“You want me to be real”
“So I will take away your dearest friend”
“And replace him”
Josh suspected that the one in the app was no longer Megumin, but some intruder using her identity. But realization aside, the phone flew out of Josh’s hand and towards Bran, knocking him on the head and onto the ground. Without a pause the phone emitted a bright ray to cover the unfortunate guy, until it appeared to Josh that Bran was a shape of light, the skin replaced by white radiance. Now terrified, Josh leaped to Bran’s shape, he wasn’t sure if he had a body by then, and tried to snatch the phone; but a force repelled him and he fell back on the ground, immobilized and left there to witness what happened next…
The shape started to morph, becoming shorter and most proportionally feminine by every passing second, and he could saw slimmer limbs replacing the old ones. A good pair of breasts was inflated as well as the perfect shape Josh had envisioned; and the hair grew until the hairstyle matched Megumin’s. And to add more insult to a frustrated Josh, who was already destroying everything Megumin in his room, the simple outfit was forming with the characteristic beret hat now visible as an outline.
The transformation was complete, as well as Josh’s new bitter distaste with Megumin and the ruin of his room. Posters were torn into pieces, while the dakimakura cover was removed from the pillow and stamped upon. Figures were scattered on the ground, dismembered, in contrast to the body of Katou Megumi on the ground, unharmed, unscratched, and completely real as an Asian high school girl. Everything on the body was not unlike the best cosplays, save that there was an authentic touch to them.
Josh picked up the phone, and to his dismay, the chat app had disappeared.
Without any clue to do with the body of “Megumin”, he decided to do a bold thing: he could enter the back alley of the block he was in and dump her there without many knowing. To his luck, no one noticed and the body was quickly disposed of.
However, With the incident, Josh no longer saw Megumin as his true love and instead as terrifying, since she took his good pal away. From then he shunned all his collections of Megumin, destroyed ones dumped and others sold. While Josh remained interested in anime, Megumin was to him a black history of some kind.
He was reminded of that when he got in touch of a hit called Konosuba, featuring the stupid heroine Aqua and the chuuni magician, the name was of course, Megumin. But Josh knew that, Megumin was another character from Katou Megumi since Megumin (the one from Konosuba from now on) was a chuuni magician yelling “explosion!” and practising explosive magic every day. She was not the everygirl that was Katou Megumi. This way, Josh would learn no to disdain her.
Megumin was much different from from the old Katou Megumi, being a younger magician in an epic chuuni garb, characteristic of her clan. With or without the hat, or the chuuni eyepaych, Josh was sure her greatest attraction was her insanity in casting explosion magic around. The sight was stupid but really entertaining, much like the rest of Konosuba. That set her apart from Katou Megumi, and by Megumin Josh could finally let his memories of Katou Megumi go.
It was the time of the year that a great anime convention came by, and Josh went there. There was a lot to see there, and many cosplayers were around as with any other anime con, but one of them caught Josh’s attention.
She was a Megumin cosplayer, a rather good one with all the costume’s details being true to the real Megumin, and a real Asian. But then, Josh noticed, the breasts were a bit too big, and her age seemed to be about high school.
As Josh came close, the cosplayer noticed him, and called out softly, “Josh”, in a voice Josh was familiar, but he could not pinpoint why. The cosplayer slowly walked near Josh, and while he looked more closely, he seemed to have remembered something.
“Megumin… The voice, isn’t it Katou Megumi’s? That sounded close enough to a dub, if she was speaking good English.
Other than the voice, while the cosplayer hid it under the eyepatch and the red contact lens on the other eye, her eyes were like Megumi’s. And though the hairstyle was now shaped in Megumin’s fashion, the hair length seemed to be like Megumi’s.
If she had Megumi’s voice and looks, then how was it possible?
Josh knew he himself brought her to life with that incident. While the cosplayer called out to him, “Josh, remember me?”, Josh wanted to leave the place and not to see her again. Not that she could stalk her, but he wanted a distance as far as possible.
Running out, Josh was sure that if the cosplayer- the real Megumi- had left the convention she have little chance of returning, for his apartment was hours away. He was right, and as he looked back, the cosplayer turned back into the hall the convention was in.
To escape her, he had to leave the convention, but as Josh thought, if she had known him, she would have found him out sooner or later, and he couldn’t escape for long. He didn’t know if he should face his fear and find out the cosplayer, or went as far as possible. He wanted the latter of course, but then, it was almost impossible.
So, where should he go?
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