Best of both worlds 13

Entering her room was definitely eye-opening.

He gaped at the shelves filled with Present Mic merchandise. As he looked through all the little figures, cards and plushes, she dragged a large backpack onto her bed and began filling it with various things she wanted to take with her. It was gold, though you could barely tell under the huge amount of buttons on it. They overlapped, looking for all the world like scales, and every single one had his face on it. There were acrylic keychains dangling from the zippers and a plush snapped to one strap as well.

"Holy shit," he gasped.

"Yeah. I would bring one that's plain, but I don't have one big enough. Just this. Oh, on the side of that shelf are the manga."

He picked one up. "Why are they all weird numbers? Like, they're not in order." Upon opening the book, however, he saw why. One of the first panels depicted him and when he flipped through, he noticed he featured prominently in the story.

"Yeah. There's a lot of books, so I only bothered buying ones that had you in them." She flatly admitted it, not caring anymore.

<i>It's too late to save face, so why bother.</i>

"I believed you, you know," he said, dazed as he sank onto her bed holding the book loosely in one hand. "I really did. 'Cause you were so sincere. But - but seein' this... whew."

"You probably shouldn't take that back. If I know anything about science fiction television shows, it's that -"

"You don't <i>want</i> to know the future," he finished alongside her. "Yeah. Me, too. It's too creepy, anyway. I can vouch for ya."

"Great." She rubbed a hand on her brow and sighed shakily. "You can see I want to leave here, right? I mean, I've got nothing, my family is - ahh, you know..." She made a face, "and, well. Look at me. Or don't. I'd rather you didn't."

"Hey..."

"That's everything. Did you need to see more?"

"Nah. I, uh, saw more stuff on your shelves than I wanna admit. Those books..." He shook his head. "We didn't tell people those things. There's no way that could be faked, 'specially since there aren't any quirks here." He raised his voice on the last word with no effect other than a normal volume change.

"All right, then!"

"It's about the right time, I think," he said as he checked a watch he had put on for that purpose.