Chihiro Hashima’s Hobby

One evening in early September, Itsuki and Chihiro were having dinner at Itsuki’s apartment. On the low kotatsu table was a large bowl of soba noodles accompanied by tempura made from shrimp, Sillago fish, squid, eggplant, shishito peppers, ginger, shiso leaves, and more. The cold noodles—perfect for summer—were an excellent match for the crisp fried tempura, and they were making rapid progress through the bowl.

Itsuki paused only just long enough from his single-minded quest to destroy the noodles to speak up.

“Oh, hey, Chihiro…”

“Yeah?”

“What do you want for your birthday?”

Chihiro arched his eyebrows up high. His seventeenth birthday was on September 6, just a few days away. “Oh, are you sure?”

“Uh-huh. You gave me a present.”

The owl T-shirt Chihiro had given Itsuki was now a regular part of his closet rotation. He took a moment to think.

“Hmm, I dunno…”

“Don’t worry about it being expensive. I’m an accomplished, anime-adapted writer, ha-ha-ha!”

“…Really? …Well, um………maybe a carving knife or something.”

“Huh?”

It wasn’t what Itsuki pictured. He gave him a look.

“A carving knife. The one you have here is like you bought the cheapest one we could find just so you’d have one, right? It doesn’t really cut very well. I try to sharpen it, but there’s only so much quality I can get out of it.”

“…Oh.” Itsuki had no idea. He never cooked at all. “Wait. If you put it that way, pretty much every cooking utensil in the kitchen was taken from some cheap cookware set, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah… A lot of it might be worn down by now. I’ve been using them for over two years…” Chihiro looked almost guilty about it.

“Okay, perfect! How about we replace all the cookware with good stuff? I wouldn’t know what to buy, so you can choose for me!”

“Really?!” Chihiro’s eyes lit up. “Oh, wow… Are you sure it’s okay to give me something like that?”

“No. What’re you talking about?”

“Huh?”

“That’s just me replacing my kitchen stuff. Your present needs to be something else.”

“Oh, really? Because that’s perfectly fine as a present.”

“Nope. Pick something for yourself.”

“Hmm… How about some fancy shrimp, then, or some meat?”

“For you to cook?”

“Yeah. I’ll eat it, too, so it’ll kind of be for me.”

He was technically correct, Itsuki thought, but it didn’t sit well with him.

“…No, how about something that’s one hundred percent going to be yours? Like a game system or a music player or something?”

“Hmm… I can just use whatever you’ve got here, though.”

“Okay, how about a CD or a game or a Blu-ray anime box set, or… Oh! How about some porn games?!”

Itsuki made it sound like a brilliant idea. Chihiro just stared reproachfully at him.

“What kind of person gives his younger brother a bunch of porn games?”

“…A lot of people, wouldn’t they? I remember back in middle or high school, people sometimes brought in porno mags or DVDs they found in their older brother’s stash…”

“Well, all right, maybe!” Chihiro blushed. “But I, um—it’s not like seeing naked women makes me happy or anything…”

Itsuki had the impression that Chihiro openly was speaking his mind, not just demurring out of politeness. He had a lot of female friends, it felt like. Maybe he was so used to seeing naked girls in person, porn didn’t interest him any longer.

“Um… Are you thinking about something?”

He waved his hands at the quizzical Chihiro. “Oh, um, no! Okay, uh, do you have any hobbies, then? What do you do when you have free time at home?”

“Oh, I read, I play games…and, um…build GunPla…”

“Whoa, maybe you can tackle the stack of unbuilt ones I got!”

GunPla was the brand name for model kits sold in Japan depicting robots and vehicles from the Mobile Suit Gundam anime franchise. Chihiro seemed a little embarrassed about admitting to be a fan. Itsuki’s room back at the family house had a large stack of GunPla he purchased and never got around to building. This was common among hobbyists—purchasing a set because the box art looked cool but being too butterfingered to actually put it together well. Itsuki thought he’d told Chihiro to take them, but…

“Yeah, I already did. I think I’ve done around thirty?”

“Wow, that’s…just about all of them, isn’t it? Are they bare [i.e. simply put together following the instructions, without applying paint or other extras]?”

“No. At first, I just added lining [using a pen or other tool to paint in the gaps in the model parts, adding to the realism] and applied a matte finish, but lately I’ve started doing the whole painting and weathering thing. I haven’t done much modding apart from stuff to improve durability, but…”

“…For real?”

Compared to Itsuki—who usually just glued them together, filled in the lines, and called it a day—Chihiro’s skill level was astronomically higher.

“…You know, I think there are some more unbuilt GunPla in my closet here. You want ’em?”

“Really?” Chihiro asked, eyes aglow again.

“Yep. I can handle up to HG [High Grade standard 144:1 models], pretty much. The RGs [Real Grade, a line released several years ago on the same scale as HG but with a huge difference in realism and moving parts; the pinnacle of Bandai’s GunPla technology] have so many parts to them, I just opened the box and said nope.”

“Ohhhh? Aw, you’re so kind, big bro! ”

Chihiro immediately took an excited look inside the closet. Itsuki couldn’t help but smile as he did. If he was that enraptured with GunPla, he was definitely a guy.

(By the way, Chihiro’s birthday present wound up being a [really huge] Neo Zeong.)