Story 1: Jann Lee

July 10-11, 2014, Story 1: Jann Lee
The first story that started the anthology and the first story to start the first of the Video Game Fighters Arc: Dead or Alive.

Kimberly dreams she channels her late grandmother's ever-giving spirit and allows Jann Lee, a relative stranger to her parents to crash for the night at her house.

Story
On a clear night, I was able to see the moon. It was full and had a yellow-green glow to it. I then heard trumpet music of the song “Prison of Passion” as performed by Missing Heart, coming from outside. I put on my flip-flops and my red sweatjacket, then grabbed my keys. I carefully went downstairs, carefully disabled the alarm and went outside. I found Jann Lee, who was a character from the Dead or Alive series in my video games collection, practicing outside. He stopped his practicing and said “Hey…” calmly. I said “What are you doing here?” and his retort was “I don’t know, you tell me. I need a place to crash before the next tournament.” I said “No way! My parents are traditionalists, who’d rather see you off to a hotel down the highway than have you get me in trouble.” Jann Lee said “I’ll treat you to lunch tomorrow if you take me in tonight.” I buckled and said “Okay…But you’re sleeping on the couch!” I let him in and offered him a pair of my father’s pajama bottoms. Once he changed, he lie down on the couch and covered himself with the blankets. As I’m the type to hug out rough spots and try to kiss things to make them all better, I did the kiss, hug and tuck routine my parents did on me, which went “a kiss, a hug and a tuck-tuck-tuck.”, but instead of it being three tucks at the end, I did “a kiss, a hug and a tuck and rub.” Where I tuck once and rubbed his forehead. Jann Lee said “You really have an affectionate side.” I said “Thank you…Get up by 4:30AM. My father wakes up first at 4:50AM.”

Jann Lee fell asleep and I decided to do the same. I went to bed, worrying if I may have come on too strong in my attempt to show comfort to him. I worry of driving away men. For those wondering about my pansexuality, someone ought to come up with charts to better explain the attraction. Granted, I usually go after men 50% of the time in my quest for love, romance and sex, but women have a 30% share, and like any guy, I’d go after ones I deem cute. Those who do not meet either end of the gender binary spectrum take up the remaining 20%. My point in that issue is, you must appeal to my heart before using any more of your sex appeal. My brain was still racing on the subject of how I ended up being a host to a Bruce Lee idolizer.

At 4:00AM, I got up and did my morning routine. It was enough to wake Jann Lee and get him out the door. We exchanged cell numbers while at the door.

I went to my room to work on a comic where Japanese equivalents of our family consisting of my mother’s and father’s families interact in Japan.

Hours later, around noon, I got a text message from Jann Lee. It said “Burgers @ Five Guys?” I said in the reply “Order EXTRA fries…I’ve got the need to feed!” (Seriously, all they serve is burgers and fries and I’m not a sandwich person.) I got dressed in my American flag t-shirt, my white nylon shorts and white slip-on sneakers and grabbed my purse, with my important cards, keys, iPod (they make quite a din in Five Guys to the point you’re better off drowning them out) and cell phone.

While at Five Guys, we chatted about the fact I could be perceived by Leifang as a threat. I admitted in detail to him that she wants to make him hers. However, Jann Lee and I broke even on that issue and came to an amicable agreement that we’re just only the kind to meet for a meal, in a term, dining partners.

After being walked home, he reciprocated with a kiss. I said with little exuberance “Thank you” and went inside to play a game on my console setup. It has an XBOX Original, XBOX 360, Nintendo GameCube, Nintendo Wii, Sony PlayStation 2 and it had a functioning VCR, which was in serious need of cleaning as it was never cleaned in the past 17 years since my parents bought it. I took ownership of the VCR around the time DVD was the burgeoning format, so during the time I was spending my final 9th grade junior high semester in video editing. Of course, I was none too happy of filming myself as I was about 100 overweight at the time. I had made a compilation of clips from “Alice in Wonderland”, “Kim Possible”, “Sword in the Stone”, “The Simpsons” and “Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie”. I never turned it in and had worried of the fact of fact because it was illegal art. That was the reason I never got the passing grade.

As I played with my games, I felt proud to know that Jann Lee will train hard for Dead or Alive 6. I also felt relieved of the guilt for letting him stay the night and the probable backlash from Leifang.

“Then I woke up and realized I need to start getting back to normal gaming habits”

Trivia
• At the time, Kimberly lived in the Seattle area and seeing as Jann Lee is a Bruce Lee idolizer, this is more of a local joke as Bruce Lee was sent to live in Seattle as a teenager after fighting on roof tops in Hong Kong. Bruce Lee's likeness can be found on a mural in Seattle's International District and is a former alumnus of the University of Washington.

• The song in the story, "Prison of Passion" by Missing Heart, is repurposed onto Apanachee's discography. The song originally came from the Missing Heart CD "Mystery", one of the rarest CDs in the Eurodance scene, fetching hundreds of dollars at auction for new and used copies.

• Five Guys is a real restaurant that serves burgers and fries only for food. For soda, the two fountains at the location near Kimberly are not the same: one is a Coca-Cola Freestyle Vending machine, which she admits she like for the technological wonder factor.

• The ending in big bold letters would mark a tradition of pointing out the obvious of her problems, in which case, she needed to play game after spending 9 months not playing games.

• The "kiss, hug, tuck, tuck, tuck" was an actual bedtime tradition that Kimberly had done to her when she was little. Her improvised version "kiss, hug, tuck, rub" incorporates a bedtime tradition from Adventure Time, seen at the last minute or two of "Storytelling", when Jake ordered Finn to find a story with action, romance, suspense and it had to have a happy ending.

• The kiss from Jann Lee and Kimberly's reaction is based on the last 30 seconds of Adventure Time's "Thank You" when Finn kisses the Ice King on the cheek. He flatly says "Thank You..."