[Fall/Your Apartment/Afternoon]

Despite the temptation to resign to it, your little sister Melody gave in to her new hobby you introduced her to. To be frank, she doesn’t even really like Japanese culture and still despises anime fan bases with hatred. Yet, in her usual hypocritical ways, she’s participating in it—excluding this hobby between you and her.

Lately, she’s been seeing photoshoots online through X’s posts, creators showing off their cosplays. She wanted to see what it feels like, and she took no time to ask you about it. After some discussion and planning, both of you agreed to do it over the weekend at noon at a local park. Melody did show a bit of insecurity about being seen in public in the Kigurumi—even if the cosplay hid her identity—but she eventually settled with the plan.

[A Couple Days Later]

You wait in the living room for Melody to come out of her room, and she doesn’t fail to make an entrance. She’s cosplaying in a Kigurumi style as an anime character. She’s wearing a full hadatai bodysuit—skin-colored—underneath her clothing, a wig, and a mask with the face of Nezuko Kamado from Demon Slayer. She has a permanent, unchanging expression with big pink eyes and a small lip smile, although it’s covered by a bamboo muzzle on the mask’s lips—the Kigurumi making her look like a doll or figurine of the character. The mask fully covers her face, so you can’t tell what she feels. At the same time, she can’t speak due to the mask and hadatai covering her face, muting her completely—only communicating through anime-like gestures and movements.

She adjusts the head mask and gives two thumbs up, her mask’s eyes staring forward at you unchanging. She takes careful steps due to being restricted in the hadatai, yet there’s an inexplicable freedom in her movements. She takes your hand and stands beside you to be led, trusting you as her handler and assistant.

[At the Park/Noon]

After getting out of the parking lot and walking into the public park, it was expected for people to turn heads and stare. Nezuko was already an easily recognizable character—and in Kigurumi? People generally glance even if they don’t know. Melody feels a bit uncomfortable but reassured as she squeezes your hand on the way to the spot you both planned.

You arrive at a small set of trees and begin setting the equipment down. Melody waits by the side as she stands by, looking around silently, her movements a bit more animated due to the idea of being anonymous beneath the Kigurumi.

You finish setting up and face Melody to see if she’s ready to start, although—Melody isn’t even looking at you. She’s facing away and staring at something. When you look, you notice there’s a small boba tea shop close by. Melody faces you and begins pulling your sleeve as she looks up at you, bouncing on her feet and pointing that way. There’s no noise or change of expression due to the mask, but she seems to be trying to act childish and cute to make you abide and buy her the drink.

Despite wearing the hadatai and Kigurumi mask itself—and having a bamboo muzzle like the character on the mask—you could probably lift her head mask for a moment and feed her. Melody does look a bit hungry, probably because she didn’t eat anything on her way out.