Chapter 13: Hobbies for men
We pull up next to a Japanese-style house in a quiet neighbourhood. Yamada leads me into the house.
Yamada's house is smaller and less well-furnished than mine, with a simple 2-bedroom design. One bedroom has been converted into a "workshop" where he does his "art", which is assembling and painting those plastic models. Transparent display cases line the sides of the rooms filled with robots big and small. I can't recognise most of them but there appears to be a few too well-known for even the likes of myself, iconic machines from well-known franchises such as Gundam and Macross. Against the back wall are back-lit display stands of "model scenarios", or "diorama" as he calls them, which are basically robots placed into various poses on a display base that mimics a geographical setting, like robots doing battle in a war-torn city, robots half-buried in a field of snow, or robots suspended in midair by near-invisible string against the backdrop of outer space.
"Impressive, eh?" Yamada seems full of himself, like a priest who has just shown a potential convertee a miracle of God, "although I must admit that I cheated a bit using transformation magic, since I transformed paint into real dust and ash, and some of the plastic into real metal to make a scratched or worn-out effect more realistic."
While I marvel at the displays, Yamada flicked a switch on the wall, and suddenly the entire back wall begins to rotate, along with the display stands. Soon, a new row of display stands, once hidden behind the wall, is shifted to the front.
Man, what is with Assassins and building gimmicks?
The new array of displays is even more impressive than the last, being generally larger and having more robots in them. In the very centre of the array is a large "hill", with a white warrior-looking robot standing on top. There are a large number of black, identical-looking robots strewn across the hilltop, cannon-fodder mooks probably, broken and defeated. But still many more appear to be charging up the hilltop, probably out for the head of the warrior on top. The warrior's pearly white armour is charred and tattered, with a few panels missing and the rest broken in one way or another. Its left arm is missing, sliced off at the shoulder joint, exposing some wiring and inner mechanisms. The katana it wields in its right hand is worn out and burnt like its armor. Numerous weapons impale the warrior in its torso, arm and legs. But still, the warrior stands strong and upright, defending his place on the hilltop from the onslaught of enemies.
"Last Stand of the Gundam! How do you like it?" Yamada detects my interest in it.
I can't answer right away.
Is this a good death that Yamada spoke about?
Fighting endlessly and ultimately die? Is this the path for me if I become a superhero? Will I end up just like her?
No, I can't end up like that, and I will do my best to make sure she doesn't either.
"Ah, but there is more to this, than meets the eye!" Yamada suddenly taps me on the shoulder and broke my chain of thoughts. He then points at the foot of the warrior robot, or Gundam, as he called it. I stared at it hard, and managed to make out a tiny yellow flower, growing on a small patch of green grass.
"You see, the Gundam fights for a purpose: to defend Green Earth, and all things good in the world, from evil! What is more-" he turns the display 180 degrees around to show me the back.
On the reverse of the hill are 13 more robots. They appear in many shapes and sizes but all have a white primary colour. Some have wings, some have rather large weapons and some look skinny and agile. All of them are running, or flying for the winged ones, up the hill.
"The 13 other titular Gundams from the 13 other series that followed the first," Yamada explains, "One does not fight evil alone, and one cannot hope to defeat evil alone! Only with one's true comrades, can one defeat evil and save Green Earth! Man, this one took me ages to make, and those mass-production units were outsourced to other guys in the club to build because I can't hope to build a hundred of them by myself! See, the process is just like the finished thing itself!"
On our way back to the hotel, I am thinking of what Yamada said back then.
Must we really give our lives to protect something that is important to us? Would it matter that we are dead? The tiny flower that the 'Gundam' protected kept coming up in my mind.
Is she like the flower that I must save?
"Hey! We're here! Don't forget to meet me in the lobby at 10 tomorrow!" Yamada snaps me out of my pondering. "Understood? Get out!"
He ungraciously shoved me out of the car and sped off. I didn't complain as he probably has something important on after this is he is in a rush.
Well, I guess I'll go have dinner somewhere by myself then.
British food is not as good as Fuji-Nee has described it.
I had decided to have dinner at a restaurant near the hotel, overlooking the river Thames. Everything on the menu were either boiled, baked or deep-fried so I didn't really have much of a choice. I have ordered something called 'Haggis' and hoped that it won't be so bad.
Oh, here it comes.
As it turns out, the 'Haggis' is one of the most disgusting things that I've eaten in my entire life. It seems to be made of some animal's internal organs all meshed up, contained in the animal's stomach, all baked together into a disgusting whole.
I pay the bill and stand up in my seat, ready to leave.
Then something catches my eye. A familiar person, all the way at the other end of the restaurant, is also standing up, her black hair resting on her shoulders and her red shirt being all too noticeable.
"Toh-Tohsaka!"
Oh damn, I thought out loud. I think she heard me because she is turning this way. I didn't even tell her about this so I'd better get out of here before-
"Oh Shiroooou!" Too late. She calls for me in a tone usually reserved for lovers. Her devilish personality hasn't changed one bit. She walks over to my table.
"Why don't we go talk somewhere private?" She suggests, in English with a loud enough voice so people around us can hear her perfectly. Crap, now everyone is staring. I think my face is redder than a Tomato right now, which seems to please her all the more.
She grabs my hand and starts dragging me out of the door.
"Tohsaka! Stop!" I yell at her, in Japanese to minimise the harm caused.
"No, Shirou, we're spending the night together, remember?" She says in a playful voice, again in English. I don't remember anything and I don't want to remember anything, but to stop this awkward situation I follow her out of the restaurant quickly.