Editing NouCome: Volume 1 Chapter 3 (section)

===Part 2===

“Sigh...”

My mood once again fell a few notches as I remembered my task, even though I was already emotionally devastated by being called a gay the first thing in the morning.

“Look at her panties? No matter how you think about it, it’s impossible...wait?”

In the midst of my mumbling, I noticed someone familiar near the entrance to our school dormitories. It was Yukihira.

Since I didn’t know how she would react after what happened on the roof yesterday, I greeted her with a tinge of nervousness.

“...Oh, good morning, Yukihira.”

Yukihira turned around, meeting my gaze, and after a brief silence -

“Good morning, you useless trash with only an attack power of five.”

She was her usual self.

“You sure are energetic first thing in the morning, huh.”

“Good morning, Dodoria-san.”

“Why are you suddenly imitating Frieza...” (TL note: Dodoria is an underling of Frieza in Dragon Ball.)

“I’ll mention this as well, my bounty is fifty-three thousand Beris.” (TL note: Beris/belis/bellies are a currency used in the One Piece universe.)

“I have a feeling we’re in the wrong manga.”

And that bounty would probably only be befitting of a group of mountain bandits.

“From your looks, you don’t seem to know how large of an amount fifty-three thousand Beris is.”

Of course not, who would know with you mixing together all those universes like that.

“With that much money you could buy an entire mountain of empty capsules.”

“Why would you want that much?”

“So we can fill them with water and use them to save Namu’s village.” (TL note: Namu is another character from Dragon Ball.)

“You’ve been reading too much manga!”

Yep, it was definitely the usual Yukihira.

“Right, Amakusa-san, I apologize for showing you my embarrassing side yesterday.”

Yesterday...she must be talking about how I slipped on that banana peel and caused her to laugh. The very subject matter I was trying to avoid was brought up by her instead.

“Since young I’ve been prone to laughing extremely hard easily. Normally this doesn’t happen but once someone manages to tickle my funny bone - especially with an overused punchline - I just explode.”

Her tone was completely calmed, and she didn’t seem to be embarrassed in the slightest.

“I guess this is what they call contrast moe.” (TL note: Contrast moe - if that’s what you call it - is a trait where someone exhibits a personality trait completely opposite from his/her usual behavior and appearing moe in the process, for example where Yukihira’s contrast moe is her laughing which she doesn’t usually do.)

She even personally explained the entire thing, putting whether it was moe or not aside, her current actions were completely different from her usual self -

Wait, contrast?

This term gave me a strange feeling. What was it? It felt like something was creeping about in the dark corners of my mind.

That was probably related to Yukihira using her traditional memory-erasing methods on me when I was still emotionally scarred from stumbling upon those X-rated boy-on-boy scenes. Leaving that aside for now, I seem to have witnessed something with an immense contrast...

“Ah, I remember a little of it now. Yukihira, weren’t you kneeling down on the roof back then?”

“!”

Yukihira’s eyes suddenly shot wide open.

“Right, right, you seemed to have said something weird - eh?”

“...That’s strange, Yukihira?”

When I opened my eyes I saw Yukihira’s head appearing diagonally upwards within my field of vision. Why am I on the floor with my back against the wall? What happened? I felt the back of my head in an attempt to remember the events of the past few moments.

“Ouch!”

I felt a massive bump, what the hell had happened earlier? I stood up while massaging that sore, all the while attempting to regroup my thoughts.

I remembered that Chocolat called my a gay which made me briefly emotionally devastated, after which i went to school where I met Yukihira at the entrance to our school dormitories...what happened after that?

Suddenly Yukihira’s voice cut through my thoughts, and what she said was:

“Good morning, you useless trash with only an attack power of five.”

“You’ve been reading too much manga!”

Our conversation ended just after she mentioned something about Namu and punchlines, but just as I was about to ask her what happened -

“It’s too dangerous for me to say any more...I’ll be on my way first, Amakusa-san.”

As she left behind this mysterious last line, she turned around and rushed upstairs.

“Ah, wait!”

She suddenly stopped in her tracks and turned around.

“Oh right, if you could just stay away from me for this period of time, I’ll be very happy.”

“What? Why?”

“Because you might spray out some weird stuff to make me pregnant.”

“Do you take me as some sort of wild beast!?”

Having spoken her mind, Yukihira disappeared from my sight at the end of the stairway.

Well, I knew that Yukihira has always been an oddball from the very start, but she seemed to be especially weird earlier.

Judging from the situation alone, it seemed that Yukihira had erased my memories once again...unless she said something that she didn’t want me to remember?

“?”

I felt a presence behind me, so I turned around.

It was a girl.

She walked straight towards me, as if she was thinking about something so hard that she was in her own world, not noticing me at all.

It would have probably been fine if I had just dodged a little to the side, but in the very instant that I saw her face and recognized who she was, my brain froze.

With my frozen body, and her state of aloofness, it was a foregone conclusion that we would crash into each other.

With a loud thump, she walked straight into my chest.

“Ouch, ouch...huh? What?”

She finally noticed my presence.

“Ah, I-I-I-I-I-I’m sorry!”

The color of her face instantly turned into a virulent shade of red, and she began retreating in rather exaggerated steps.

“Huh? Aahhhhh!”

She then managed to magically lose her balance on the flat surface of the corridor.

“Woah, be careful!”

She began wobbling from side-to-side.

“Waaaaaah!”

At long last, she collapsed onto the ground.

“Ugh...ouch.”

She actually managed to fall in such a position where her body was on the ground and her butt was pointing up to the air. It was the first time I saw such a manga-like scenario happen in real life.

“You are...Yawakaze Konagi, right?”

Undoubtedly, she was the very Yawakaze Konagi who was ranked third among Seiko Academy’s Popular Five.

Which means she is the person whose panties I absolutely must peek at.

“Um, do I...do I have something on my face?”

Crap, I stared too long.

“Ah, it’s nothing, I was just going to ask you a question. Are you hurt?”

“Oh, no, it’s fine.”

Yawakaze stood up and straightened out her skirt. Her voice was sweet, without any modulations or accents, making it extremely calming to hear.

“I’m sorry for bumping into you. I was thinking about what I want to eat later, so I forgot to pay attention to my surroundings...haha.”

She smiled shyly.

Her body seemed to emanate a gentle aura like a calm breeze, and her smile seemed as if it could calm any heart.

Yawakaze Konagi really lives up to her name. (TL note: This is referring to the Kanji of her name, 柔風小凪. The first two characters, 柔風, mean ‘gentle breeze’, while the last two characters, 小凪 mean ‘calming’.)

“I’m fine, but are you really alright? That fall seemed pretty heavy.”

“Don’t worry, I’m fine, I’m used to this - ah!”

Halfway through her sentence, a loud rumbling came from Yawakaze’s stomach.

Although that sound was rather cute, there was no doubt that it was her stomach growling.

“Ah, this, um...it-it’s nothing, it’s just that I kinda overslept, so I came to school without eating breakfast, so...ah, n-no! That wasn’t my stomach!”

I was going to pretend that I hadn’t heard anything, but since she said it herself, I guess it can’t be helped. Her face was completely red, and she swung her arms about flusteredly.

W...what kind of moe creature is this? (TL note: Moe is the typical otaku term for something that is cute.)

I see, so this is the true power of the Popular Five. I realized something else during this first encounter with Yawakaze.

Yes, it was that a cute girl with a normal personality like her could be this cute.

Judging by appearances alone, Yuuouji, Yukihira and Yawakaze are all extreme beauties with hardly any slivers of differences between them, hence any attempt to judge the three would be up to personal preference alone.

Personality-wise, however, is a different story.

Anything that comes out of Yukihira’s mouth is either insults or lame jokes, while Yuuouji is in essence nothing but an immature grade-schooler.

Compared to those two weirdos, Yawakaze Konagi would seem to be an unbelievably pure young girl, even more so that she actually is.

“Oh, what am I still thinking about.”

This isn’t the time to be comparing. I still had the dilemma of peeking at Yawakaze’s panties within the next three days to think about.

“Um, are you Amakusa Kanade-san?”

Having snapped out of her previous embarrassed state, she asked me an unexpected question.

“Huh, yeah, that’s me.”

Considering how famous (for the wrong reasons) I am, there was no surprise that she would know my name and reputation. However, her tone seemed to be implying other things.

“I see. Ouka mentions you a lot.”

“Ouka? Right, you mean Yuuouji. You know her?”

“I don’t just know her, we’re pretty good friends too. We were classmates in first grade.”

Yawakaze smiled.

“Hmm?”

A strange feeling suddenly came over me. Although this should be the first time I’m getting in close contact with Yawakaze, her smile seemed somewhat familiar.

Do I know anyone like her?If I knew someone with such a dazzling smile, I definitely would not have forgotten that person...nope, I can’t think of anyone.

Forget it, these questions aren’t important, I should be concentrating on the mission at hand.

The fact that Yuuouji and Ouka are friends with each other would be a hugely beneficial piece of information for my mission.

Having a mutual friend would definitely help out in conversations or small talk. This might be the first time that Yuuouji left a positive impact on my life. First the coincidental meeting, then this unexpected discovery should give me a rather large head start. It may be impossible to just talk her into showing me her panties, but I guess it still helps in a way.

Sadly -

“W...what?”

My personal Grim Reaper, the Absolute Choices, bared its fangs and blew out the flickering candle of hope that had just been lit within my heart.

As I read the choices over again and again, the only thought I was able to muster was, **** you, you **** God.

“Amakusa-san, is something wrong?”

Yawakaze looked at me and asked. Her large and beady eyes were incredibly cute. They were seriously, dangerously cute.

I looked into those eyes and said blatantly to her:

“Cut the crap, could you let me see your panties?”