Ore no Imōto ga Konna ni Kawaii Wake ga Nai:Volume 2 Chapter 3

Chapter 3

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Summer vacation. The break that all students waited for, the longest break of the school year.

Going to the beach, the pool, summer festivals, fireworks displays, roadtrips… it was a time filled with events that made my heart dance.

Yes, there were also short summer classes and summer homework, so there still things about summer break that weren’t perfect, but even then I don’t think any high schoolers or junior high schoolers would go so far to say that they hated summer break.

Of course, that applied to me as well.

It was my beloved summer holiday. Viva the bright spring of youth! Come hither, wonderful free time!

I didn’t have any particularly important plans for the break, but I did plan to sleep until noon everyday. Woohoo!!

I was in a great mood.

While working diligently to study for my exams, I planned to pass each day slowly and peacefully.

But…

“… Come on… they’re not even open yet, so what’s with this damn crowd…? Hey, come on, do something.”

“… Don’t look at me. It’s not like I can’t do anything about it.”

It was the Sunday right after Obon. I was with my conceited little sister, and can you guess where I’ve been ever since the early morning?

“Ugh. Ughhhhhhh. Even though this is my precious summer break… if I knew it was going to be like this, I would have preferred just going shopping with my school friends a hundred times over this.”

I’ll give you a hint. I was being crowded by a large number of people, and I was in the city. Also, from our house, we rode a train for two hours, and at Shin-Kiba we switched to the Rinkai line. And that’s how we finally got here.

For those people who have gotten the hint, you can probably roughly guess where I am. Well, everything will be gradually revealed anyways.

“Ugh, I’m so bored. Why is it that I had to get up so early in the morning just to come to such a swelteringly hot place? Hey, are you listening?”

But. Even though she had nagged and nagged and finally got me to go here with here, all she’s been doing since we’ve gotten here is complain. Just shut up and go play your PSP, geez.

In the middle of this disgusting crowd, I sighed and looked up at the sky.

It was cloudy today. It wouldn’t rain, but the midsummer sun was masked by heavy, thick clouds.

It was almost as if the weather reflected my own feelings, but thinking about how long I’ve had to wait here, maybe the clouds were a godsend instead.

If the sun were shining completely through, I wouldn’t be surprised if I collapsed from heatstroke. Just the thick heat emanating from this crowd was enough to make me feel ill.

“Ugh…”

Wiping the sticky sweat from my forehead, I gave a glance to my side. As if she had lost interest in complaining to me, she was quietly fiddling with her PSP.

PSP…. PSP… I sort of wanted to play a bit with one too.

As someone who never got games bought for him as a child, seeing my little sister like this made me a bit jealous, but because my sister spent her own money to buy her PSP, I can’t really say anything against her… dammit, maybe I should get a part-time job and buy one too…

Today, Kirino was wearing a pink camisole with a miniskirt, and had on a stylish pair of sunglasses. She was also wearing plenty of accessories, such as bracelets, earrings, and rings on her fingers.

She was cheeky and arrogant, but even so, I would be lying if I didn’t say she was also really cute.

It’s not like I’m saying that bitterly or anything. And it’s not like we’re dating or anything.

No matter how much I say my little sister is beautiful, I’m honestly not trying to say anything in particular.

Kirino and I have been squatting in this line for over an hour… and this may be the first time in my life I’ve stood in line this long.

“…. Dammit, I can’t do this.”

I muttered to nobody in particular. But, no matter where I looked, my vision was filled with other people. People people people.

Ugh… geez… it seemed like such a long time ago when we just got here, and I had mentioned with a wry smile that these people seemed way too excited to be getting here three hours before the event opened. When we had arrived, there had already been so many people crowded around… why the hell were there already so many people?! There must have been thousands of people here!!

I thought I already knew what otaku were capable of, but I obviously completely underestimated these people!

I probably don’t have to tell you anymore, but right now, I was at a large-scale otaku summer event, having come with my sister (and her otaku friends) to the Tokyo Big Sight Convention Center.

A lot had happened before I got to this point…

Well, just listen.

If I recall correctly… it happened on the same night when I had made up with Manami.

Feeling refreshed after realizing that my troubles with Manami were a complete misunderstanding, I returned home, and went to return the laptop I had been always borrowing from my sister back to her.

It was because I was facing the end-of-term exams soon, and I knew I had to focus. And laptops… especially the Internet… would probably lead me to wasting way too much time and not studying.

So, because I was aware how bad it would be for me to have this computer, I thought it would be wise to get rid of it before the sun rose. At least, I wanted to get rid of it for this period when time was precious.

Hehe. I’m being pretty responsible, aren’t I?

Furthermore, talking with my sister also helped me out a lot with the Manami situation.

So it was only reasonable that I would want to go and properly thank her for that.

Knock knock. I knocked on the door to my little sister’s room. After waiting for a little while, the door opened a smidgen and Kirino peeked out, looking annoyed.

“… What?”

“Well…. I finished the game so… I thought I would give this back to you…”

For some reason, I had a strange feeling that something like this had happened last month too…

While instinctively feeling nervous, I responded.

“Umm… before that. I have something I wanted to say… uhh…. umm… thank you.”

I gave my thanks for her advice the other day.

“Because of you, I was able to make up with Manami. She also seemed to really like my present.”

These were words I finally managed to spurt out through my blushing face after getting over my own terrible nervousness, but…

“……….. Hmph. I see.”

With those curt words, Kirino shut the door with a bang.

W-what the hell?! I had tried so hard to give her my thanks sincerely, shouldn’t she give me a bit longer of a response than that?! … And of all things, she chose to slam the door. I can’t believe this.

My mood darkening, I began to harshly beat on the door.

“Hey, Kirino… didn’t you hear me? I came to give you back these games.”

The door opened once again, and my sister’s annoyed face appeared.

“Tch… you’re so annoying. So… what? Did you clear the campaign?”

“Hmph, yeah I guess. Here, I’m giving you back the laptop.”

“Hmmm.. so that means that you can battle with me now.”

Taking the notebook from me, Kirino’s expression seemed to lighten.

I had no idea what she was thinking.

“Yeah, eventually, we’ll play each other.”

“Hmph. If you put it like that, I’ll just play by myself…”

“I have to study for my tests, so I’ll play with you after they’re over.”

“Studying for tests? What? You’re still cramming this late for your tests?”

Shut up. You might say that I’m “still cramming,” but the reality is that I haven’t studied for them at all.

… Ugh. For some reason, it felt like someone was laughing at me, saying something like “Well isn’t it nice that you’ve been playing eroge all this time even though you should have been studying for your exams!”

But no. That’s not it. Seriously, there’s just been a lot on my mind recently, so I haven’t been in the mood to study… Manami also hasn’t been offering to study with me… and so I haven’t been playing anything other than eroge. Right? You understand how miserable my situation has been, right?

Ugh, even I knew that this way of thinking was pretty disgusting. It really wasn’t a good excuse.

W-well… anyways! At the very least, I would start studying for my tests from today, so I would return the laptop and all the eroge back to my sister!

Kirino was also giving me just as much of a scornful look as she always did, but because I had progressed a good deal in the game, she didn’t have much to complain about on this matter. And so the day ended without incident.

… What does this story have to do with where I am now, you ask? Well, just be patient.

It wasn’t until the next day that Kirino came at me. That day, I had finally gotten a chance to study with Manami, and feeling refreshed, I returned home humming happily. I opened the door to our house.

Suddenly, my sister appeared, looking ferocious.

She looked absolutely furious. Her face was bright red right up to her ears. But for some reason there were tears in her eyes.

“… K-Kirino? … W-what’s wrong…?”

First, I was worried that her eroge habit had been accidentally exposed to our father. I mean, she seemed the same way last month right after she was scolded by our father.

With intense anger, Kirino began to stutter.

“D-d-don’t ask me… w-what’s wrong!! Y-y-you… y-you….”

Me? …Huh…? What did I do to make her so angry…?

I felt nervous and almost wanted to run away, and Kirino began to yell with an even more terrifying voice. While teardrops flew from her eyes,

“You used my laptop to look at ero sites, didn’t you?!”

“Wha-“

For a second, my face went completely white, but…

“N-n-no I didn’t! W-what the hell are you saying so suddenly?! Don’t accuse me of weird things!”

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Waving both my hands in front of me, I denied her accusation with all my might. But Kirino showed no signs of calming down. Rather, the minute I denied the charges, she got even more violently fired up.

“Don’t lie to me!! I have proof!!”

“… Huh? What…?”

Don’t call me an idiot just yet. I was sure I had erased all the sample images from the computer.

There wasn’t any reason any evidence should be left, right? I had definitely cleared out the recycle bin on the computer. Even though I’m a complete beginner when it comes to PCs, I at least knew how to do that much.

I boldly held up my nose. But if I thought about it, if I had really gotten rid of all the evidence, there really wasn’t any reason Kirino would be this mad…

“Y-you didn’t clear the cache…! Don’t try to play dumb!”

“… What’s a cache?”

Upon hearing a word I wasn’t familiar with, my attitude suddenly weakened.

Kirino stared right at me, and began to explain while veins throbbed in her forehead.

“… In the browser… it’s a place that records what sites you go to… what words you search for… that kind of information!!”

“… A-ahhh… that’s the first time I’ve heard of that…”

What?! Dammit, was that really true…?

This must be how murderers feel like when they’re cornered by the police with their high tech gadgets…

As I desperately tried to avoid my sister’s gaze, Kirino’s voice became ominously quiet.

“Eheh, ehehehe…. Ah, I was surprised. You know, I was trying to save some images of kitty nabe-pots, and I saw that there was still some image data in there… ‘what could it be?’ I wondered… so I took a look…”

… Crap, this is the end for me…

I could hear my sister’s fury thundering in the background, and along with the most furious thunderclap, she yelled the following.

“What. The. Hell. Are you showing me?!?! Aaaaaaghhhhhhhh you’re the worst!! I can’t believe you! Hurry up and go die!!”

“D-don’t cry! I’m sorry!”

“I’m not crying!”

Swish. Kirino wiped her tears away with the back of her hand.

She really seemed shocked by all of this… I don’t think she was this distressed even back when she was being ignored during the offline meeting…

Ugh… even though she dresses so suggestively, maybe she’s just weak with this kind of stuff…

What the hell. Isn’t this weird at all? She plays so much eroge…

Was she angry because the images were of real people? Or maybe, that she could only stand little sister ero stuff?

… no, this wasn’t the time to be thinking about this stuff.

W-what should I do… well, it wasn’t like I could do anything… I began sweating profusely.

“I-I won’t look at it again… I apologize… alright?”

Regret and self-loathing churned in my chest. Ugh… why is it that of all things, I would be standing here being accused by my sister of looking at ero sites? I knew I was getting what I deserved, but…

Dammit… what has become of my life…? I really want to just die right here…

Taking ragged breaths, Kirino suddenly became expressionless and murmured absent-mindedly.

“From now on, I’m going to call you Ka Biankomu.”

“T-that’s not funny! And also, don’t you seem just a bit too familiar with all this stuff?!”

“I-I don’t know that much about it!”

Flushing completely red, Kirino shouted and seemed completely serious. Her eyes never wavered from mine… like my father, she was a girl who would never go back on her word.

Without hesitating, I fell to my knees and begged for forgiveness.

“I’m sorry. Please forgive me.”

“Definitely not.”

“W-what do I have to do… for you to forgive me…?”

“I already said I wouldn’t forgive you, didn’t I? I already said something like that before too.”

That’s certainly true. Having no other option, I decided to make a stand. Clicking my tongue loudly, I raised my head.

“I mean, I already apologized properly to you… so do whatever you want. Call me whatever you want. Honestly, I only took a quick look at that site… tch, but that nickname, keep in mind that you’ll be embarrassed if you call me that anyways.”

“Uh huh. But don’t you know? When you double-click the search engine window, all the words you’ve searched for up until now are shown. So I know all the words you did a search for! So, what the hell is up with this ‘childhood friend, mending relationship, what to say’ stuff? No matter how many times you search, there’s no way Google would give you anything useful for that, you know?!”

“… S-shut up!”

As I blushed, Kirino faced me with a blush of her own on her cheeks for some odd reason.

“A-also! That stuff about ‘girls with glasses…’”

“Sooooooooooooorry!!! It was my baaaaaaaaaaaaad!!”

Changing my attitude on a dime, I threw myself before my sister.

N-not good! Those were definitely not words that junior high school girls should be saying!!

Uwaaaaaaah!! I really regretted this situation now!

It was definitely not a good idea to go off and do bad things with a machine I didn’t really understand!!

Kirino calmly looked down at me as I was sprawled before her.

“… Hey, do you really like glasses that much?”

“Please don’t tease me like that…! Seriously! I’ll do anything…!”

But, you know? Don’t tell anyone I told you this, but… you what do you think happens when you give a junior high or high school guy a computer, and let him search the Internet? Within a few hours, he would definitely be able to find what he’s looking for! The ero world! Even if he doesn’t try to search for it, while he’s going around normal sites he’ll naturally just be sucked in!

This was unavoidable! There was nothing that could be done about it! Even if nobody teaches him how to do it, if it’s a guy, he would be able to find this stuff as if it were an inborn instinct!

You understand, don’t you?!

There was no reason Kirino could hear these thoughts as they were being shouted in my head, but after I had told her I would do anything, she seemed to begin hatching a plan.

“… Anything? Really?”

“I-If it’s something I can do…!”

“I see. Then…”

Kirino looked down at me while I was still prostrated before her, and made a proud declaration.

“You, take responsibility for making me unhappy.”

“You want me to dance naked or something?”

“A-Are you an idiot?! Why the hell would I want to see something dirty like that?!”

“So, what do you want to do?”

“I mean… it’s not that… this is about summer vacation! I’ll be really busy with club activities this summer… so I won’t be able to have much fun.”

In summary, it was like this. Because of Kirino’s performance in some prefectural track-and-field meets, she was invited to participate in a track-and-field training camp.

You could say that I didn’t know about any of this, or you could say I just didn’t care. It really didn’t matter to me how my prefecture’s track-and-field team was doing, or how my sister was doing in the events… hm, although I guess it is pretty impressive.

But well, the upcoming summer vacation… especially from mid-August onwards, Kirino would be very busy. She would be up to her neck in training camp and practices, and wouldn’t have time to have fun.

She even would have to take a break from modeling.

But before that, before she wouldn’t have any free time anymore, she wanted to make some fond summer memories.

It’s not like she said any of this to me directly, but this is what I guessed she wanted to say.

I’m not sure why she was telling me all of this, but if she told me to help her with this, then I really had no choice but to obey.

Even putting aside the whole nickname business with the Ka Biankomu, I’m her older brother, so I should help… pretty admirable of me, right?

But she really still hasn’t told me what exactly she wants me to do.

“So… what do you want from me?”

“…. Like I said, take responsibility.”

Kirino quickly turned the other way.

Hey, you know, I’ve realized something lately. My interactions with my sister would often end up like this. It was extremely annoying, but when it came to this point, I would have to piece together what she wanted from me, make a guess, and then on top of that grant her wishes, or else she would get angry with me. But what made the situation more bothersome was that I wasn’t in any position to tell her “How the hell should I know what I’m supposed to do, dumbas?!”

Ugh… looking up at Kirino from my position on the floor, I knit my eyebrows.

What in the world does she want to make me do? Even if she tells me to “take responsibility for making her unhappy,” it’s not that easy…

Does she mean I should try to make her happy or something?

Bravely, I decided to somehow guess what my sister wanted, and my brain began turning.

“The mountains….. or the beach….. or the movies…. do you want me to take you somewhere like that?”

“Huh? Why do I have to go on a date with you? That would be torture, it would embarrass me to death…. If you think about it just a bit more, you should know, right? If I wanted to go to places like that, I would go with Ayase.”

Well that was pretty harsh. Dammit, does she really think being with me is torture?

“Ayase?”

“Yes, the black-haired, stylish girl who came over recently. That’s Ayase. We’ve been in the same class since last year, and we also often work together, so she’s the one I talk to the most out of my friends at school.”

When I mentioned her friend’s name, Kirino began to sing her praises even though I had never asked. She had the same proud expression on her face as when she would talk about eroge…. so that’s how it was…

“You said you worked with her… so she’s a model too?”

Now that I think about it, Ayase had said something like that before.

“Unlike me though, Ayase is attached to a modeling agency. I helped her out a lot when she was doing her first job, and from there we got pretty close. And now, well, we’re close friends… fufu.”

Ahh… until now, I really haven’t seen Kirino talk about any of her friends so candidly.

I was certainly surprised, but at the same time it was quite a pleasant sight.

“I see. Close friends, huh?”

“Yeah. So you would never be able to take her place. It’s ridiculous to even compare you two. Understand?”

“Yeah yeah… so what exactly do you want me to do then?”

“Why don’t you think a bit harder? After all there isn’t exactly a long list of things you would be able to do for me.”

Leaving off with that statement, Kirino slammed the door shut., leaving me alone in the hallway.

This asshole… she was never planning to actually tell me what she wants, was she?

But given how she was acting, there was probably something she wanted to do this summer.

However, she just didn’t want to say it out loud… hm, I wonder what it could be…

For a little while, I stood in that place and thought about it… and then suddenly hit my palm with my fist.

I remembered that I had the phone number for someone that I could depend on in a situation like this.

Taking out my cell phone, I stared at the two phone numbers I had recently entered into my phone.

First, Kirino’s classmate and close friend, the one we had just been talking about now, Aragaki Ayase.

Next, Kirino’s otaku friend, Saori Bajeena.

Well, which one should I call? Both of them were good-natured people, so whichever one I chose to call, I’m sure that they would help me think about what Kirino wanted.

Hm… but, Kirino had already said it.

The list of things that I could do for her wasn’t very long.

Well, that was true. It’s not like I can really do anything important for her.

So then…

“Hahaha. If that’s the case, I’m glad. I really wanted to invite Kiririn-shi and Kyousuke-shi to the Summer Comiket .”

“Summer Comiket? What’s that?”

After a bit of thought, the one I chose to call was Kirino’s Otaku friend, Saori.

Saori was the administrator for an otaku community, and might have some good idea as to how to get Kirino to make some good memories for the summer… at least, that’s what I thought.

And I mean, when it came to what I could do for Kirino, this really was the only option, right? So, I don’t think I was mistaken in giving Saori a call.

And then, Saori listened to my question cheerfully and with an “I’m glad,” told me about Summer Comiket.

“Ah, Comiket is…”

According to Saori, Summer Comiket was a three-day international exhibition that happened in the middle of August. It was held in the Tokyo Big Sight convention center, and was a large-scale otaku event. It was a bit hard to imagine what it was like without actually seeing it though…

“I also wish that Kiririn-shi and Kyousuke-shi can create some fond memories this summer, so please come!”

If she puts it like that, there’s no reason for me to say no.

Well, she really is a pretty dependable person, isn’t she?

Even though I was asking only about Kirino, she just naturally tacked my name onto the list of “people to give fond memories to.”

Being able to meet Saori could have been a Godsend, for me and for Kirino.

In any case, I was thankful. I smile wryly.

“… Well, can I ask you to take us there, then? I’ll tell Kirino about this. Thanks a lot for your help. Umm… can I ask you a few more questions? If we want to go to this event, can we go at any time during the three days? My dad’s vacation pretty much is at the same time as the event. So when he comes home, we have to go visit a few graves, and so I don’t think we’ll be free on any day except Sunday…”

“Ahh, I see. If you can only go on the third day, that’s perfectly fine. Well, I’ll also go invite Kuroneko-shi now, so we’ll settle on the particulars at a later day.”

And so…

Right now, bringing Kirino along, I had come to the Summer Comiket.

It was still nine in the morning.

The weather was cloudy. The temperature was pretty low for summer, but because of the crowd, a sultry heat was lingering about.

The crowd of otaku milling about were all tidily standing in line, waiting for the doors to open at ten o’clock.

I mean, Saori had warned me that there was going to be a crowd, but I had no idea it was going to be this bad…

“Agh… dammit, why did I have to come here on a holiday? Hey come on, when is the line going to move? My legs are starting to get sore…”

While still staring at the screen of her PSP, Kirino flexed her elbows behind me.

“… I don’t know. Seriously, all you’ve been doing for a while now is complaining.”

“Hmph.”

Kirino faced the other way and scowled. What a bad attitude.

Don’t you think that’s rude to Saori, who went through the trouble of inviting us?

But my choice to take Kirino to the Summer Comiket seems to not have been a bad one.

Because if Kirino really thought this was all so annoying and that she didn’t want to come, then she definitely wouldn’t be sitting here obediently like this.

If she didn’t want to come, she wouldn’t have accepted the invitation, and the minute she began to regret it, she could just go home.

So she was probably just spouting foul language to hide her embarrassment, and that was as much abuse as I was going to get from her.

… Hey. For some reason, it seems that I’m gradually beginning to be able to understand my uncooperative little sister.

Dammit, not good… this wasn’t the time to be accumulating experience with my sister as if I were her manservant.

As I impatiently thought of these things, I scratched my head and began to talk with Saori, who was sitting next to me.

“Ah…. Umm….. again, thank you. Honestly, you’ve been a great help… I wouldn’t have been able to come up with any good ideas about how to get Kirino to ‘make good memories’ by myself.”

“Fufufu… why are you being so shy, Kyousuke-shi? I’m the one who invited you two, right? It’s natural that Kiririn-shi and Kuroneko-shi, and of course, Kyousuke-shi would want to try to have a lot of fun, isn’t it? And I also have more fun this way. So really…”

In other words, she didn’t need to be thanked. After saying all that, Saori smiled happily. As always, her mouth curved upwards in her characteristic ω shape…. this person is seriously… seriously… I really couldn’t put it into words.

“Hey hey, why are you staring at me like that? Haha, I see, so you were just admiring my beautiful face, hm?”

“… Your face is pretty much all hidden behind those swirly glasses.”

I’m really not admiring her… wait, also, beautiful face? She really is pretty cocky, isn’t she…

She was a huge person, standing at 180 cm tall.

She wore swirly glasses and her head was wrapped in a bandana. Her shirt was tucked into her trousers.

On top of that, she was carrying a boorish looking rucksack, from which a few rolled up posters peeked out. Her look screamed lack of sophistication.

Yes. Saori’s appearance was possibly even stranger than her words and actions.

Saori would probably call this disgusting otaku fashion “appropriate for an otaku leader” or something. And honestly, she seemed to really hit it off with the other members of her fan community at the offline meeting, so maybe she’s not wrong here.

As I sat in amazement at this huge aloof girl’s attitude…

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh!!!!! What the hell are you doing?!?!”

I heard a shriek come from my little sister next to me.

It was already pretty hot and humid outside, but somehow her yelling out so loudly made it seem even hotter and even more humid.

Feeling annoyed and turning around, I saw Kirino glaring at her PSP screen with an angry expression.

“… Don’t be so loud. What happened? Have you lost your mind or something?”

“No! S-s-s-she… s-s-she…”

Kirino was pointing at a goth loli girl dressed completely in black.

She was sitting opposite Kirino, and also was holding onto a PSP.

This goth loli’s nickname was “Kuroneko,” and was one of Kirino’s otaku friends.

As Kirino pointed accusingly at Kuroneko, Kuroneko gave a curt, condescending response without any emotion in her voice.

“… Hmph. All I did was shoot a bit at your character for fun. A lot of people do that as a joke during cooperative play, you know? Don’t get so angry about it. It’s just Monster Hunter. Stop raising such a fuss about it. It’s embarrassing if you yell like that.”

“Huuh?! Every single time I kill an enemy and try to loot it, you shoot at me and stop me from getting the loot! What kind of excuse is that?! I spent thirty minutes killing that monster, but in the end I couldn’t get anything from it!!”

“… Well, I already have all the loot from that boss. So I have to look for other ways to have fun or I’ll be bored to death.”

“Wha-… this is fun?! Shooting at your allies is fun?!”

“… You heard me wrong… but in general, you should be thanking me for being so kind as to play with an idiot like you who lets her guard down like a Lao or something .”

“… B-but I died because of you, didn’t I…?”

“How rude, blaming things on other people.”

“Nooo!! Right after I set that huge bomb, you casually went over and set it off and the explosion killed me! And then every time I tried to heal, you got in the way! Attack the enemy, not me!!”

“Hmph, but that was quite thrilling.”

“…?!?! I’m never playing games with you ever again!!”

………………..

There was no point in me trying to butt in here. In the first place, I had no idea what they were talking about, and also, when these two got together it pretty much always got like this. I had already given up on trying to stop them.

I had no choice but to let them continue to go at each other.

Well well, it seems that when it came to games, Kuroneko had more skill than Kirino did.

“Fufufu… what a pleasant sight, don’t you think, Kyousuke-shi?”

“It’s… pleasant…?”

Hey hey, Saori-san. Are you being serious? These two both had pretty nasty mouths and personalities, so whenever they talked with each other they couldn’t help but start spewing insults. How resistant can you be to this kind of abuse? Are you paralyzed or something?

See, look, the people standing next to us are starting to notice them, aren’t they?

Well, I guess you could say that it’s nice that they can be so frank with each other though…

Ugh, but also, I had to drag this girl with me here and now I’ll have to attend an event I know very little about… will I really be alright? I have a reaaaally bad feeling about this…

“Hey, Kyousuke-shi, where are you going?”

“… I have to use the bathroom. I’ve been thinking about a lot of things, and my stomach is starting to hurt…”

Lifting myself up off the floor, I answered Saori’s question. Saori took out a wristwatch from her rucksack, and after checking it, her expression clouded over.

“… Hm, you should hurry then.”

“Why? It’s not like there’s a bathroom that far away, is there?”

“It’s not as bad as it is in the winter, but… if you’re unlucky, you might have to wait half an hour for it. So if you don’t go quickly, you might not get back before the line starts to move.”

Wah… there was even a line for the bathroom… Summer Comiket was scary.

With a heavy heart, I looked upwards at the sky.

The line would start moving soon, in less than an hour . It was so hot that I was breaking out in sweat just by sitting here. I could feel my energy draining. And the noisy pair next to me wasn’t helping the heat.

“You cat bitch! Stop secretly setting depth charge needles in my blind spot!”

“Shut up, bitch. Did you forget that depth charge needles are effective against Ganototosu?”

As usual, the two girls were arguing with each other while playing the game.

“Hey, you two… hurry up and stop playing. The line’s beginning to move.”

I reluctantly spoke up. But Kirino and Kuroneko were determined not to listen to me.

“Don’t you understand me when I say your last lightning attack dragged me into it too?! This is why your name shows up on the xlink kai message boards !”

“… T-that’s definitely just someone else with the same name.”

“Hah, there’s nobody else with such childish naming sense. Ah, seriously, I’ve been meaning to say this for a long time, but did you seriously think it was cool to put that messed up symbol before and after your name? Seriously, stop embarrassing yourself.”

“What did you say…? … Yeah, that’s what I thought, so what? Rather, I should be the one doubting your style for not realizing how great it is. Seriously, it’s like all the other dimwit pigs who just jump on what’s trendy… saying that putting † on both sides of a username is childish, that it’s holy or that it’s dirty, that only dumbasses would use such a beautiful symbol in their name… what the hell is that? Don’t go and just label things like that so thoughtlessly. I’ll decide what’s cool or what’s not cool by myself.”

“Yes yes, I really sympathize with you. So please, put away the games and let’s start moving, alright?”

Even though we still hadn’t gotten into the building, my anxiety was already reaching its peak.

The line slowly moved forwards.

“Please move forwards as much as possible! You there! Move please, move!” came shouts of the staff all around us, but Kirino and them were still slow to respond.

The staff were already drenched in sweat, and their jobs did not seem easy.

I can very firmly say that I really dislike people who can’t follow rules or directions.

Although it’s not like I’m trying to claim that I’m that law-abiding and obedient.

More simply, I just don’t like fighting with my surroundings. I want to live a calm and quiet life.

But even more fundamentally, it’s not good to be causing such trouble for the people around you over such a trivial thing.

… Geez, I guess there’s no helping it.

Bravely picking up my sister and Kuroneko’s bags, I put myself between them while they were still arguing, and urged them both to go forwards by pushing on their backs.

“Hey, you two, come on, move. You’re holding up the line.”

“Don’t touch me!”

Hey hey… so now they choose to harmonize… I guess they are good friends after all.

While my lips thinned in annoyance, Saori faced me and laughed.

“Hahaha. You’re popular, aren’t you?”

“Go get a new pair of glasses, you!”

The crowd slowly moved forwards. With a scowl, I began to walk through the large passageway that had developed.

Finally, the line of people went up the wide stairs, and we walked towards the giant inverted pyramid building – the Tokyo Big Sight convention center.

It was almost like a line of the dead walking towards Yomotsu Hirasaka .

By the way, I’m used to getting stares (from boys and girls) when I walk together with my pretty little sister, but right now there was nothing of that sort.

It’s probably because everyone was excited for the event that was right about to start.

When we had ascended the stairs, Kuroneko whispered something (probably to Saori).

“… Today, can we start from the East side?”

“Yeah. First we’ll do what we came for, to look at the doujinshi displays.”

“When we were waiting, I read through a bit of the catalogue, but… what do you mean doujinshi displays? I mean, there’s really one thing I don’t understand. Doujinshi is, in short, books that people make by themselves right? Books that they don’t sell at normal bookstores. So this is an event where people get together and sell these things… so it’s just like a big version of that Tora-something place we went before?”

As we walked, I asked my question and Saori nimbly gave me a response.

“You could say selling doujinshi is like that, but for me it’s a completely different feeling… hmm, how should I put it… perhaps the important thing to keep in mind is that Summer Comiket is an event that was created out of everyone’s efforts.”

“…? … Aren’t there companies behind this event?”

“Of course. In fact, there’s a corporation that’s responsible for the event. But they’re more there just to set the stage so that everyone can have fun… to the end, this event is something that’s brought to life by the staff you see, the participating doujinshi circles, and the many many general attendees who gather together.”

“… Sorry. I still don’t really get it.”

“… You came here without even figuring this stuff out?”

Kirino sent me a snide remark after hearing my remarks, and sighed in disbelief.

Hey, aren’t you the host today? If that’s true, shouldn’t you be trying harder to make me feel more comfortable?

At least, I wanted to say that.

“Shut up, you. Hmph, well, you sure know everything about this, don’t you?”

“How would I know? This is the first time I’ve come to this event too…”

This girl… she’s so arrogant… and she still hasn’t thanked me for carrying her things.

As sparks flew between Kirino and me as we stared at each other, Saori interjected.

“Come on, you two. Isn’t this a good opportunity? You can participate and then find out for yourselves.”

“Well…”

“I guess…”

Reluctantly, Kirino and I stopped glaring at each other .

After that, we continued walking until the stream of people began to branch off.

Hmm? I took out the catalogue from my hand luggage, and opened it to the page with a map on it.

I see… it seems that this was the entrance plaza, which was where you could get access to each of the buildings. Following after Saori and Kuroneko, Kirino and I turned left at the directional signs and entered into the building.

“Oog….”

“Uwah…”

Kirino and I gave out weary groans. The moment we took a step into the building, we were hit by a stifling wave of heat.

The entrance hall to the Tokyo Big Sight felt just like a fully crowded train.

There were so many people that it was difficult for me to see what was going on. All I could see was people people people, people people people.

Like this, it would be really easy to get swept away by the crowd and lost if we weren’t too careful.

“Whoa… this is… hey Kirino, are you alright…?”

“Hoooot…! And smelly…! Ugh! Do they not have air conditioning?!”

With a terribly displeased expression, Kirino grabbed my shirt.

“Ugh, that fatty got sweat on me when he walked by!”

“Hey! Don’t wipe it off on my shirt!”

Being able to see Saori’s head poke out of the crowd, I tried to follow it without getting lost in the crowd. Ooog… it must have been ten times hotter in here than it was outside! It was hard to breathe! I need oxygen!

This is serious! Ugh….. this…. this is impossible! I don’t even know how to describe this if you haven’t been in this situation before … this… this… ugh…

If I had to compare it to something… if I really had to… well…

Imagine you were on a fully crowded train in the summertime without working air conditioning, and you had to walk from the first car all the way back to the last car by foot… it’s something like that…

Crap… I really wanted to go back now… I can’t take this anymore. I seriously might start crying…

Ugh… to think that Summer Comiket would be as tough as this… if the weather were also sunny, I seriously might have collapsed! Banzai cloudy weather!

“Don’t run! Please do not run!!”

Suddenly facing the direction I heard that voice, I saw an armband wearing staff member with an almost terrifying expression, issuing warnings out of his megaphone.

At his order, a group of otaku who looked almost like they were in a speed walking race slowed down.

But even then, I could feel their impatience at wanting to move forwards.

“… What’s up with them… where are they rushing off to in such a hurry?”

“To the line of popular circles . If they don’t get there quickly, all the popular doujinshi will be be sold out.”

Looking back, I saw that the one who had answered my question was Kuroneko. Hm… so it was like that…

Kirino seemed a bit affected by the hustle and bustle around her.

“S-shouldn’t we hurry too?”

“Nah. Let’s not rush too much today. I talked with Kuroneko-shi earlier too and that’s what we agreed on. Certainly, standing in line waiting to buy doujinshi is one of the greatest pleasures of this event, but…”

Saori expertly navigated the crowded spaces and led us forwards.

Following after the dependable leader, we walked along the path to the Northern Concourse: Tokyo Hall.

“If you’re going to turn your first event into a life or death struggle, I think that would pretty tough on you. Doing that also eats up a lot of time… and I wanted you to be able to experience more of what this event is about, so I thought we wouldn’t stand in line today and would just stroll around and take a look at what’s going on… nin.”

Life or death struggle huh…? Well, certainly, it seemed fitting to compare this situation to a battlefield. Or maybe just to hell…

Earlier, while we were waiting, I had read the event catalogue in preparation for the event, and there were many fine details written on warnings and rules, as well as a page spared for information about the first aid room… so it’s no wonder I would be wondering about how exaggeratedly crazy this event was.

But no warning could have prepared me for something like this.

Looking around at the crazy crowd of people around me, I nodded, finally beginning to grasp the situation.

But this Saori… she seriously had thought a lot about our feelings, hadn’t she?

“… Hmph. Judging by what you’re saying, you planned ahead and launched a funnel , didn’t you…? If you did, make sure I get in on it too.”

“Ahh, I’m really sorry. Unfortunately, I’m really just not planning to buy very much on the third day this time around… I wasted a lot of money at the Wonder Festival too … honestly, if I stuff any more figures or doujinshi into my room, people might start getting angry at me. Ahaha.”

Saori shyly put one hand on the back of her head and looked down. I interjected in response to this exchange I didn’t really understand.

“What’s a funnel?”

“Umm, how should I explain it…? … Ooh! Kyousuke-shi! Look that way!”

When I looked in the direction Saori was pointing, I saw a middle-aged man wearing a flight jacket and with his long hair tied behind his head, zealously giving instructions into a headset.

–

“This is Skull Leader, this is Skull Leader, requesting status report, over. – - – - A28 new publication secure, acknowledged. A87 new publication secure, acknowledged. A69 battle ongoing, acknowledged. Message to Skull 2 and Skull 3, proceed with Plan B, continue to cover wall circles, and be on alert for warnings from the enemy search party. Skull 5, head towards island center, and rendezvous with me. – - – - Do you copy, Pixie Platoon? Requesting status report on the corporate booth.”

–

“….. Did the heat get to him or something? What the hell is wrong with that idiot?”

“No, no, nono! Kyousuke-shi! He’s not talking to himself!”

Saori seemed alarmed, and quickly waved both her arms back and forth.

“He’s managing his own funnel over there. He’s communicating with his partners wirelessly, see? Umm… one way to put it is that it’s an efficient way to obtain all the really popular doujinshi. And the names are based off of similar names used in Gundam to remotely control troops.”

“A… ahh… so it’s like that…”

As we were talking, we continued to walk, until finally a giant sign saying “East 4” appeared on our left.

Glancing intermittently at the map in my hand, I spoke.

“Is this where we’re going?”

“Down a level. We need to go down on the escalators.”

Kuroneko murmured her response. After that, in no time an escalator appeared before us. Two staff members were standing next to it.

“Please leave a step between you and the person in front of you when getting on the escalator!”

That and other such warnings were being yelled by the staff. As for us, Kuroneko and Kirino rode the escalator together, while I got on with Saori, and we slowly descended onto the lower flower.

While we were riding, we got a splendid bird’s eye view of the scenery down on the bottom floor.

The expansive passageway below us was completely buried under the huge amounts of people.

“You know… there was a scene like this in Dead Rising . When the zombies were rushing into the shopping mall.”

Stop it, Kirino . Don’t say “zombies.” If you say it like that, they’re going to start looking like real zombies to me.

As I wearily took in my sister’s statement, this time it was Kuroneko that started making outrageous statements.

“… Every time I come here, when I’m up here looking down at all these people crowding around, I wish I could kick them around with an AoE attack .”

“Hahaha, for me, this scene reminds me of Dynasty Warriors.”

Even you, Saori? And all their analogies seemed to be related to games… I wasn’t very knowledgeable about games, so for me this scenery reminded me more of the zombies from a George A Romero movie .

In any case…

At this point, I didn’t exactly have the best of impressions of this Summer Comiket thing.

I mean, I never had any interest in coming to this event in the first place, I’m exhausted, it’s damn hot, all my sister’s been doing is complaining… there wasn’t a single redeeming quality to be found.

Having arrived on the lower level, we entered into the hall from the entrance marked “East 4.”

“I’m thiiirstyyy… it’s hooooot… I feel groooss….. ugh, I’m feel like I’m going to die…”

For a while, Kirino had been hanging onto my shirt while we were walking, and had been ceaselessly complaining.

I felt the same way she did, so it’s not like I could fault her for complaining.

Can she really make “good memories” this way? I couldn’t help but feel uneasy.

“Oooo…”

Arriving at the sales floor, I twisted my neck to and fro, taking stock of my surroundings.

Of course, the terrible crowd was still here. The ceilings were incredibly high, and bare concrete was showing on the walls. It seemed like a factory or a warehouse, and its lack of decoration seemed unrefined.

There were tables in large quantity lined up in a row, and each one was selling some kind of doujinshi or other goods. And there were quite a number of these rows of assembled tables.

“You probably already know from reading the catalogue, but these shops are each called circles. You can use the same word to describe colleges and things like that , but in the case of doujin, the word is usually used to refer to much smaller groups. It refers to the author or authors, and those people who help them.”

Saori offered me that simple explanation. Ah, I see now.

Last month, I had gone to a doujinshi shop, but Comiket felt different.

Comiket was… well, how do I put it… this is probably a bad way to say it, but… it was much more barbaric.

“Hm. It’s like a huge, blown up version of a high school cultural festival.”

“Hahaha. Because everyone who comes here is a child at heart.”

… Was she trying to say something clever or something?

In any case, Kirino was gasping for breath as she followed behind me, continuing to hold onto my shirt. She began to pull on my shirt more strongly, and mumbled.

“I can’t take it anymore. I’m at my limit. Break… Let’s take a break soon. Somehow or other, quickly…”

She’s annoying, isn’t she? Even if she tells us to do that “somehow or other…”

Watching my sister who had already completely lost interest in buying doujinshi and was completely exhausted, I raised my eyebrows.

“Hey, well… for now, can we duck outside for a bit through that door over there? I’m pretty tired too.”

“Ah I see… let’s do that then.”

Going out through the door, a gentle breeze from the cloudy skies wrapped itself around us.

A long line snaked its way out from the hall, but the population density out here was not as high as it was inside.

Being able to take a small break like this definitely hit the spot.

“Ahhh… it’s so much cooler outside.”

“Ugh, I can’t believe this. My head is spinning.”

Kirino and I wiped the sweat off our faces, our energy drained.

“How pathetic, you two… the weather wasn’t like this at all yesterday or the day before yesterday, you know?”

Kuroneko, who had come to the event all three days, sent Kirino and me a scornful look.

Well, even if you put it like that, it’s not like I can do anything about it. It was really sunny the day before yesterday, and it was raining yesterday… so today’s weather was probably actually more agreeable. But even so, to beginners like us, this was definitely tough.

By the way… and this might be a stupid question…

This event… was it actually supposed to be fun? Frankly, wasn’t it just tiring?

As I began to regret ever having come, Saori handed me a bottle of cold tea.

“Come on, everyone, if you don’t keep hydrated you won’t last very long . For now, let’s rehydrate, shall we?”

… Could it be that she actually froze plastic bottles to make these drinks…?

Ahh, I’m grateful. Downing around half of the tea I was given, I let out a single breath. Saori, almost seeming like she could read my mind, spoke.

“Well, you two… what do you think? Any thoughts on Summer Comiket?”

“It’s really boring. It’s hot, gross, and I want to go home.”

Kirino spoke sulkily.

It was a pretty inappropriate thing to say to the person who had gone through so much trouble to invite her…

But unfortunately, I felt the same way. But, in spite of Kirino’s abusive words, Saori did not seem hurt at all. Rather, she looked as if she was expecting a reaction like this.

“Fufufu… so it’s like that, hm? Well, there’s no helping that. Because at the start, you have to deal with all the troublesome parts of Comiket at once.”

“Huh? What’s with that attitude? It’s like you were expecting me to react this way or something… annoying.”

Seeming very irritated that Comiket turned out to be much more boring than she was expecting, Kirino once again began to tug on my shirt.

“Hey, you’re the host, aren’t you? So entertain me.”

“I did say I would, but…”

Well, what exactly do you want me to do? Feeling lost, I put on a stiff smile and turned towards Saori.

“H-hey… Saori. Is there anything here that she might enjoy…?”

“Well…”

Saori slowly shook her head, and then turned the edges of her lips upwards.

“That depends on Kiririn-shi.”

“… What do you mean?”

“Hm…. well…. how do I put it…”

Carefully choosing her words, Saori began to explain it to me.

“Well, in my opinion, Summer Comiket is a festival where the attendees have to be actively participating to enjoy themselves. So, for example, it’s not like an amusement park, where they deliberately prepare things for the guests to enjoy. Taking this to the extreme, I could say that if you don’t like manga or anime or games, even if you came here you would definitely not find a single thing that you would enjoy. In the same way, if you come to this event treating it like some leisurely excursion and think that you’ll be able to find something entertaining here, then in the end you won’t be able to have fun at all.”

“… In other words, nobody forced you to come.”

Kuroneko summed up the situation in a short sentence. So, if you’re not already an otaku, or if you have a casual attitude about this event, you really shouldn’t have come in the first place… that’s what I got from their explanations.

But…

“Hah hah hah… but well, in this case, such worry is unnecessary! It’ll be alright! For me, this place is a mountain of treasure! Leave it to me to navigate your way through this thing with a bang!”

And as she said, she hit her chest with a bang.

“… Well, Kirino’s one thing, but I’m not an otaku.”

“I’m not an otaku either.”

Kirino was a shameless liar. Hearing her statement, Saori began to laugh uproariously.

“Hahaha. Well, if you can last the entire day without enjoying yourself a bit, then you two are certainly not otaku.”

Ohoh, how interesting. I’ll accept that challenge.

Spurred on by Saori’s words, my mood improved a bit. (In retrospect, this might have been part of Saori’s plan all along, but I’m not sure.)

Kirino also seemed to have decided on something, and suddenly stopped her complaints.

Continuing to pull on my shirt, Kirino spoke with an arrogant attitude.

“We’ve rested enough. Hey, stop talking so much and guide us.”

“… Yeah. Thanks, we’ll leave it to you.”

Geez… As the princess’s humble servant, I had to communicate the princess’s intentions to her navigator.

“Leave it to me!”

Holding her chin with her hand, Saori laughed heartily. Right after, Kuroneko snorted with a “hmph.”

And so…

Taking a single breath outside the convention center, we once again headed into the hall.

While skillfully finding her way through the crowd, Saori began to talk with Kirino.

“By the way, Kiririn-shi, did you take a look at the doujinshi I sent you?”

“Eh? Well… of course I read them all… why do you ask?”

“Well… did you like any of the authors in particular?”

The minute she was asked, Kirino let loose the joyful expression that had been waiting just below the surface… and then barely managed to push it back down, making her expression stiff again.

“W-well… none in particular… b-but, if I had to pick any… there’s Yamanashi Ganma-san’s Meru-chan book, and QQQ-san’s Reika book… and then, oh right! That art collection… that one by Sakura G Sakura-san, the one that made Meruru into a manga! Ehehe! That one was reaaaally cuteSaganatsu!”

… She really gets pretty excited when she talks about stuff she likes, doesn’t she?

What the hell is up with that “ehehe”? When you do that, it’s really pretty sickening.

Geez, I seriously can’t see how you’re the same person as that one who up to now had been groaning nonstop about how super boring everything was.

As these pleasant thoughts made the edges of my lips turn upwards, Saori said something that got Kirino even more excited.

“To be honest, all the doujinshi I sent you that day were made by people I know.”

“Huh?! R-really?!”

“Yes, really. I was going to go around to say hello to them right now… does Kiririn-shi want to come along?”

“I-I…. I-I-I….”

Kirino repeated that sound intermittently quite a few times, and then painfully spit out her next words.

“I-I guess I’ll keep you company…! If you say so!”

Her breathing labored and her posture stiff, Kirino looked like she was going to go meet an Idol or something.

“Oh no…! But! What should I do?! EhhhSaganatsu?! I’m so nervous…!”

“Ha ha ha, you seem to be pleased by this surprise I planned for you. Kuroneko-shi, Kyousuke-shi, how about you two? If you want, you are more than welcome to-“

“I’ll pass.”

Speaking in a tone of voice that ruined the happy mood instantly, Kuroneko turned her back towards us.

“Unfortunately, I have noble plans to go collect the decent looking Maschera doujin from the center island circles that do not consign their books to bookstores.”

“I’m fine too. It would be strange for me to go meet with the authors of books I don’t know… I’ll just stroll around here and look around. You two just go by yourselves.”

“Huh?! W-wait just a second, you, what irresponsible things are you saying?!”

“… Saori is going to be your guide, so it’s not like you need me to follow you around, right?”

Why is she angry?

“Or rather, do you have a reason why you need me to follow you?”

“No, but…! That’s not the issue…! Are you an idiot?!”

“Hey, hey,” went Saori, trying to calm down Kirino, who had suddenly started looking quite menacing for some reason. With that, Kirino obediently quieted, but began to rapidly click her tongue in what appeared to be annoyance.

What the hell… why is she acting that way…? Is there really something that disagreeable about this situation…?

Sparks flew as Kirino and I stared at each other. Whether or not she was trying to diffuse this dangerous situation, Saori raised her voice.

“Well! For now, let’s split up! Umm… when we’re all done doing what we need to do, let’s meet back here, wherever Kyousuke-shi is strolling around! If you can’t find him, then at eleven thirty, let’s meet in front of that bathroom over there.”

That’s a pretty ridiculous meeting place… well, certainly, the bathroom was very easy to find.

“So with that settled… let’s go!”

Well, and that was that. For a little while after that, just like I had said before, I stayed around that area and casually strolled around while watching the buying and selling of doujinshi around me.

As I thought, the closest analogy I could make for Comiket was a culture festival. Occasoinally, I would pass someone dressed in a strange costume and my eyes would widen, and then I might find a doujinshi from a manga I knew, and with a “ohh, so they have stuff like this too…” would casually pick it up and flip through it. Even long after the event ended, I remained surprised that such a majority of these books featured girls. Wiping the sweat off my face with a towel, I continued to walk around.

Hm. Occasionally I would find a really terrible book, but… I guess this was pretty fun.

As I browsed like that, one of the shop sellers called out to me.

“Hey, that cool oniisan over there!”

“Eh… me?”

Pointing at myself, I turned around. Ohoh! This was the first time anybody other than my childhood friend has called me cool! Getting complimented like that made me happy.

“Definitely, definitely take a look at our new publication!”

Smiling, she held out a book to me… it was a voice that I could have sworn I heard before.

You could definitely say that this girl in a maid outfit was cute (and she called me cool too!), so while I was being swept away by her, I opened the doujinshi she probably drew without even taking a look at the title or the front cover.

It was an ero book in which a maid was doing H things.

“…. Wha…..”

Nervous sweat erupted on my face. I wonder if I’ve ever been so lost for reaction before in my seventeen years of life.

I mean, this book… the author of this book (who’s also a maid too, right? She’s wearing the same outfit as the character in the book. And what’s more, she even looks like the character) is standing right next to me while I look at pictures of this maid with her breasts exposed and her legs spread.

“How is it?”

That’s besides the point. Rather, I should be thinking about what I should do.

And also, she really looks like that maid at the maid café last month who brought me the “Little sister’s handmade curry, zaraki flavor” or whatever.

Although, she looked slightly younger than that other maid, so it might just be an accidental resemblance…

If she really was the same person, you could call it an unexpected meeting, or rather, an unwanted second encounter.

“Do you not like it~?”

“No… it’s not… well… the drawings are pretty good…”

“Thank you~. Ehehe… ah, I was pretty happy with how that position turned out~.”

“…. A-ahh….”

… I felt sick.

Of all things, why did I have to be here having this conversation with this cute maid?

This is unbelievable… I feel so dirty…

Damn it all. Right now, in my head, I was trying with all my might to keep myself from saying that.

I wanted to quickly run away from that place, but the pervy maid girl in front of me was smiling at me with upturned eyes, and staring at me as if she was expecting something, so I was rooted to the spot.

… W-what? What do you want? Exactly what are you expecting from me?

… I know, I know. “Please buy this for 500 yen” is what you want to say, right? I know. I know all too well.

But, I mean… right now I was seeeeriously close to blowing a fuse.

Could it be that she wanted more of my impressions…? I couldn’t help but thinking that.

Ugh… I was in agony, and I creased my brow.

“?”

The shy maid leaned her neck to the side. Quit it with that cute expression, dammit.

Ah, crap… I can’t come up with anything else to tell her. Tch, well, I might as well ask the thing I’ve been meaning to ask.

Getting desperate, I steeled myself and summoned up the courage to make my comment.

“Umm… T-this maid in this manga, could it be that you were the model for her?”

“What the hell are you asking her?!”

Bang! A staggering interjection came from behind me. A kick landed squarely on my ass, and I toppled onto the ground. As I lay there painfully in that pathetic position, I looked up towards my attacker.

“Gwaaaaaaah…?! K-Kirino, you… when did you get here?! And why the hell did you kick your brother with those hard boots?! That really hurts!!”

“I-It was you who was sexually harassing that shopkeeper over there! I can’t believe you! Even here, how could you be such a pervert?!”

You’ve got it all wrong! She’s the one who first started sexually harassing me!! Right?! Don’t you think so?!

Completely flustered, I turned back towards the maid.

“Stop sketching us!”

“Eh? A, ahaha… it’s just… suddenly… I thought this would make a great drawing… ehehe.”

Hugging her sketchbook to her chest, the maid looked quite embarrassed.

What the hell… so this is what doujinshi creators are like…? I sent a puzzled expression her way, and the doujinshi author happily clapper her hands together.

“Ah, yes! For my next publication… let’s make an incest SM themed book~!”

I vowed to myself that I would never come near this circle ever, ever again.

It was five minutes later. Having left the doujinshi marketplace area and feeling pretty peeved, I walked while carrying the maid’s ero book under my arm. Soon after that event, we had met up with Kuroneko and Saori and once again were a group of four.

And… in the end, I was forced to buy a doujinshi…

But why the hell did my first doujinshi have to be a maid ero book? Or rather, I should be asking, why the hell were there so many ero books being sold in the doujinshi marketplace? I mean, of course there were non-ero things being sold as well, but clearly the ratio of ero books to non-ero books was pretty large.

Well, in the first place, if I had to say it… it’s a fan event, so why exactly did they have to draw all their favorite characters naked? It didn’t feel like they loved the characters… instead it felt rather dirty.

Was it because that kind of stuff sells? Was that really the reason?

Geez, ero stuff is everywhere, isn’t it? And of course, in this world, guys who didn’t think so and who weren’t into this stuff didn’t exist. This commonality was a shared system of values whose power exceeded that of even the Christian church.

Even now, even though I had been pushed to buy an ero book, I didn’t really feel that bad about it!

As these thoughts were running through my head, I spoke up to Saori.

“Hey… having this book out in the open like this while walking… I don’t think my heart can handle this for much longer…”

“Hm. Why don’t we go over there and buy a paper bag?”

I see. That was a good idea. I turned in the direction Saori was pointing.

“Saori-san… can I ask you one thing?”

“Ah, what is it?”

As Saori leaned her head to one side, I calmly muttered my question.

“… Do you seriously expect me to walk around with a paper bag that has a huge picture of a half-naked girl printed on it?”

“I thought you meant that you didn’t want the people around us to think that you were into maid moe.”

A b s o l u t e l y n o t. How strange… why is it that I seem to fail at communicating with these people so often?

“Don’t they sell normal paper bags somewhere? Something I can bring with me on the train.”

“On the train, hmm… well, how about that one over there?”

“Hoho, which one, which one… didn’t I say I didn’t want a perverted drawing?! Do you really think I have the guts to bring something with a pervy drawing on it with me on the train?! Seriously, I’ll be arrested!”

Do you seriously think that Japan is by nature that liberal of a country?

Abandoning all attempts at asking the girl with the swirly glasses who didn’t seem to understand what I was saying, I saw big official Comiket paper bags being sold over in a corner (300 yen each), and I bought one. On this one too there were many summer-like color illustrations, but at least I could go on a train with this one without feeling self-conscious.

Returning to where the rest of my party was waiting, I walked in while Saori was talking with Kuroneko.

“By the way, Kuroneko-shi, you didn’t participate in a circle this time around, did you?”

“If I did, I wouldn’t be standing here right now, would I?”

It was an impatient, brusque tone of voice, as if she was trying to ask “Why are you asking me that now?”

Hm. From the flow of the conversation, it seems that Kuroneko also was involved in that kind of thing.

And then, misunderstanding some part of the conversation, Kirino interjected happily.

“Whaaat? You wanted to hang out with me that badly?”

“Don’t say such disgusting things, please… hmph, it was simply because I applied but they didn’t accept my application.”

“Hmph. Well, why didn’t you just give your doujin to another circle to sell? Ah, I’m so sorry! I forgot that you don’t have any friends! How rude of me to ask that!”

Even though I was pretty dimwitted, even I could understand that Kirino said that on purpose.

Don’t clap your hands so happily like that. Are you a toy monkey or something?

“Oog…”

Kuroneko bit her lip while remaining expressionless. As if Kirino had hit the bulls-eye, she unhappily turned the other way.

“N-not really…? I don’t exactly have that much money to spend either, so… if my own circle can’t put out anything, then I didn’t want to try entrusting a new publication to another circle.“

“Huh. What kind of stupid excuse is that, you id–mpph!”

Clapping my hands over my sister’s mouth which was just about to spit out more poison, I tried to change the subject.

“Hey, so as I thought, it costs a lot to publish a doujinshi, doesn’t it?”

“… It depends on how you make it too. If all you’re doing is copying a manuscript and stapling it together, which is what’s called a ‘copy-book,’ then all you really have to pay for are the paper and the copies… that’s fine if all you want to do is print something.”

Kuroneko faced towards the circle booth right next to her, and pointed towards the doujinshi on the table.

“But if you want to make a genuine ‘offset book’ like that, in the end you’ll end up spending a lot more.”

“Offset?”

“It’s a way of printing the books.”

“Oh…? Around how much would it cost?”

Perhaps she was trying to tactfully prevent Kirino from interrupting our conversation, but with a casual “Kiririn-shi, Kiririn-shi, look at that Meruru book over there-,” Saori led Kirino to a nearby booth. Kuroneko seemed to be choosing her words carefully, and slowly opened her mouth.

“Depending on the method of printing, the ratio of color pages to uncolored pages, and additional options, it can really vary… for me personally, it’s relatively expensive, and for fifty copies I would have to spend around thirty thousand yen.”

“… That… is definitely pretty expensive…”

For me, thirty thousand yen was an amount I could at least imagine , so my response was quite genuine. But if I calculated it, at a rate of five hundred yen per book, even if she sold everything, she would still lose five thousand yen, wouldn’t she? Furthermore, if she really were to put out a real book, there would be various other expenses as well.

Of course, there were the travel and food expenses… she would also have to buy the tools she needed to draw the original copy.

But Kuroneko didn’t seem to be as nonchalant about money as Kirino was.

“… Yes it is. So in many ways, it is very difficult to make doujinshi as a junior high student. In my case, I also spend quite a bit of money for other hobbies as well…”

“Yeah… and there’s not much you can do about not having enough money…”

It’s not like anyone could just go be a model and earn money like Kirino.

Having a part-time job was also forbidden by quite a few school rules, so junior high students really had it tough handling their finances.

“I help around the house… and I also secretly get part-time jobs. It’s enough for me if I can put out one or two books every half year.”

“… You’d go that far just for this? Just to put out this kind of ‘offset book’?”

Looking at me with a stare that said “well, it’s not like I expect you to understand,” Kuroneko nodded deeply.

“Doujinshi authors each have their own motivations for making doujinshi. It could be for networking purposes, or simply because they want other people to see their work… or rather, it could be some mix of reasons like that. For me, I just really want to create a book by myself. So, I pick the higher price options and put out an offset book. Even if they don’t sell well. So even though for me this is about self-satisfaction, there’s no meaning to making anything if you don’t approve of what you’re doing, right?”

“Ahh.”

I thought she was a pretty introverted, reticent person, but like Kirino, whenever she started talking about her own interests she became quite talkative. I had recently come to understand that the minute you flipped the right switch in otaku, they would start talking. I mean, everyone likes talking about their own hobbies after all.

It almost seemed like I was talking with my sister. I continued my questioning.

“So, do you get any feedback? After you make your books and sell them. Do people tell you what they think about them?”

“… Occasionally. After I distribute the books… at the following event, people who come to buy my books sometimes give me their opinions. Well… yeah, there’s also the internet…”

“Internet?”

“Yeah. There are a few blogs that have posted their impressions about my books. I’ve also sometimes gone on search sites after events… and looked up how well-received my books are.”

… How unexpected. She didn’t seem like the type to care about what other people thought about her books.

I was surprised, and Kuroneko continued to talk expressionlessly.

“But, it’s really awkward when I search for my book’s titles on SNS and I find some article flaming it. Because, from that article, people track down and come to my site. Hmph, I wonder what they would think if they knew that author herself was reading their insults.”

As if I would know! I didn’t even say anything, so why was she turning the topic onto something so disagreeable?!

Damnit… she’s just as difficult to deal with as Kirino, but in a different way…

“B-but, I mean! When you see that people like your work, you’re happy, right?”

“… I guess.”

And then, Kuroneko, ever so slightly, ever so faintly, turned the corner of her lips upwards.

It wasn’t exactly what I would call a smile… but I thought it was certainly an expression filled with no small amount of emotion.

“Being happy when something you make is praised… that’s a motivation shared by all creators, I think…”

“I… see…”

I breathed deeply. I was speaking from the bottom of my heart, after all.

“… Wait… are you making fun of me? I’ll curse you.”

“No, I really think it’s quite a meaningful thing.”

Personally, I didn’t have anything that I could put my heart and soul into like her. And I wouldn’t be able to find anything like that.

So, I was envious of people like her who could find something to be so passionate about.

It really wasn’t a bad thing… I had thought exactly the same thing last month.

“…….. Hmph.”

As if thinking about how exactly to interpret my words, Kuroneko suddenly turned the other way.

“If you think that, then maybe I’ll show you a few of my books later.”

Sure. But if you could, show me a few that aren’t ecchi please.

Perhaps as a result of Saori’s guidance, Kirino bought a huge pile of doujinshi.

She seemed like she was in a good mood as she held her paper bag.

“… Hey. Don’t you think you bought a bit too much? That’s more than ten books you bought…”

And all of them were ero ones. We’re probably way past this point already, but people under 18 really shouldn’t be buying these things.

“Not really. I got a lot of them as we were going around and saying hello to people, and a lot of the people we met recommended books to me, so I couldn’t just not buy them. And also, what business is it of yours how many books I buy? Why do you even have to ask me that question?”

Hmph. That level of abusive language already had no more effect on me.

… At this rate, sooner or later I’ll be just like Saori, completely numb to these attacks.

Hmph… well, whatever. Even though Kirino was spitting these hateful words towards me, it did seem that she had fun at the event.

Scrambling to and fro, she seemed just like a happy child at a festival. Heh… well, that’s a relief, even though I initially had my doubts… it seemed like this would really become a fond summer memory for her. I really have to thank Saori for this.

And then…

After more or less covering the entire doujinshi sales floor, we temporarily exited the building, returning back to the entrance plaza, and then headed towards the Western hall.

While we walked beside the outdoor exhibition area, Saori, as usual, began to explain things to me.

“This year, the cosplay area was split into two parts, and one of those parts is the outdoor exhibition area over there.”

“Hm?”

I watched with a forced smile as Kirino and Kuroneko both sped up, and gave a half-hearted response. I mean, cosplay was, in short, people dressing up in costumes, and having fun becoming anime or game characters, right?

Honestly, from what I could see looking at it from the side, it didn’t seem like something I would be all too interested in.

Having finally arrived at the exhibition area, I looked forwards with cold eyes… but…

“Wha-?!”

“Hey, hey, what’s wrong, Kyousuke-shi? I thought you didn’t have any interest in cosplay.”

Fu fu fu fu…. Saori sent me a big smile as I stood there speechless.

She probably assumed that I had gotten sight of some cosplay that had attracted my interest… but that wasn’t it.

What I had found was much, much more outrageous.

“… T-that… that’s…”

I was nervously pointing at a certain green warrior who was standing near the entrance of the plaza.

Wait wait wait wait… seriously? Seriously seriously? There was stuff like this too?

“Isn’t that Cell ?! Cell is getting his picture taken!!”

“Yeah, that does appear to be Cell. Hmm… that’s quite a good costume…”

“H-how can you be so calm about it? It’s Cell!!”

“… You know it’s a cosplay, right?”

“Idiot! Of course I know that!”

Crap… I’m getting way too excited about this! But it’s Cell! Cell is right there, in the real world! And in his first form no less! The coolest, most terrifying form!

There are no guys in existence that could look at this and not be moved! Whoaaaaaaa! Amaaaaaaaaaazing!!!

Filled with an excessive amount of happy surprise, I rushed over to Cell.

Imitating the others in the crowd, I set up my cell phone camera. Click. Click click.

“Umm… thanks a lot!”

Bowing my head multiple times towards Cell, I returned back to where Saori was standing.

“Hahaha! Look! He was doing the Kamehameha pose!”

“Umm… Kyousuke-shi? You realize that right now, you look exactly like a natural-born otaku, right…?”

“Ah! ……………”

Showing off my cell phone photo to Saori, I finally came to my senses, and felt a wave of embarrassment wash over me.

…………… Well………. how do I put it…………. I guess it isn’t impossible to understand how people feel when they get really entranced by cosplay. It actually was something even ordinary people could understand… it wasn’t really that strange of a feeling… and Dragonball is a special case, so this doesn’t make me an otaku. Understand?

While staring at my cell phone, I desperately made excuses for myself.

… Dammit… it just wasn’t fair to throw Cell at me like that…

“A-anyways, where did the other two go?”

When I forcibly changed the subject, Saori quickly pointed with her finger. Looking where she was pointing, I saw Kuroneko expertly handling a serious-looking camera, taking pictures.

The subject of her photos was a character donning a black mantle and a mask. Btshh! Btshh! Swish! Every few seconds the rather impressive cosplayer chose a different super cool pose.

“… Hm? Where exactly did my little sister run off to?”

I continued to look around. Beneath the cloudy skies, the outside exhibition area had been transformed into a strange place dominated by manga and video game characters. To my left and to my right, I saw many very strange costumed people (or should I say, inhuman existences) standing about.

There were also many people who, like Kuroneko, had prepared serious-looking cameras and were taking photos of the cosplayers who had donned their finest costumes. As I stared at this scene around me, soon I was able to catch sight of the restless Kirino who was wandering around the plaza.

Perhaps it was because of the trendy clothes she was wearing, but she looked like she could have been window shopping in Shibuya . Of course, my little sister was looking at cosplayers, not clothing.

Kirino focused her gaze on the many many cosplayers standing around her, sincerely revealing her excitement with a “whoaaa” here and a “waaaah” there.

It was an appearance that was so starkly different from her usual hateful attitude. It was cute, and stirred my brotherly instincts to life . As I watched her, I slowly broke out into a grin.

That’s great, Kirino. I mumbled my sincere feelings .

Saori half-ran to Kirino, and grabbed her shoulders.

“Kiririn-shi. How do you like it, seeing all this genuine cosplay?”

“Well, isn’t that obvi-“

Looking back with a full smile, Kirino forcibly stiffened her expression the minute she saw Saori’s smile.

“… W-well, it’s o-okay…”

“I’m glad, then. Seeing you have fun is my first priority.”

Shying away from Saori’s knowing smile, Kirino’s lips thinned and she restlessly looked around. She really wanted to show how excited she was, but she was too embarrassed. That was the complicated mental state that was being revealed by her facial expression.

Honestly, my little sister wasn’t a very open person. As I tried to hold in my laughter, Kirino blushed and glared in my direction.

“Hey, what the hell are you laughing at?!”

“I’m not laughing….. eheh.”

As I stifled my laugh, I decided to casually change the subject.

As I gazed at the costumed people walking around me…

“Anyways, cosplay seems pretty rough, doesn’t it…? Today it’s cloudy, so it’s probably not too bad, but wearing costumes like this in summertime must be tough.”

“… Hm, they’re alright. They probably have cooling systems set up in their costumes.”

At some point, Kuroneko had found her way back to us, and responded to my question in a shocked tone.

Now that I think about it, she was also a cosplayer too, right?

Indeed, that’s probably why she’s so knowledgeable about these things.

“People know when they can expect the weather to be really sunny, so people can at least prepare beforehand. This doesn’t apply to just the cosplayers, but the photographers as well. Just look… everything moves so efficiently, right? It’s so the cosplayers don’t get worn down too quickly.”

“Hm… I guess this is more complex than I thought. And judging by the fact that you haven’t sweated at all and seem pretty cool, you also prepared some heat countermeasures, didn’t you?”

She had been wearing that really hot-looking gothic lolita costume all day.

“… Yes. There’s an extremely thin layer of spiritual energy surrounding me that protects my body from the sun’s rays and heat.”

“….. Um, what? Come again?”

“… You don’t understand, right? Well, please give up. There’s no point in asking. Unfortunately, those who do not possess the ‘eye’ peculiar to we who belong to the night cannot hope to ‘see’ this thin layer of energy.”

Kuroneko gazed off into the distance. Seriously, I still had no idea what she was talking about.

“… Here she goes again with the same old jakigan nonsense…”

As I stood in bewilderment at Kuroneko’s statement, Kirino came over with her eyes thinned in annoyance and joined in on the conversation.

“We already know all too well how much you like Maschera. So can you please spare us and not mix in anime lines when you talk to people in real life? It’s really pathetic and also pretty creepy in a lot of ways.”

“Stop grumbling. The likes of a mere human like you…”

I see. I couldn’t make head nor tails of what she was saying, so it would make sense to think that she was imitating an anime character. Satisfied with that explanation, I watched as Kirino looked up and down at the gothic lolita’s flashy outfit.

“Now that I think about it, today’s outfit is also of that character? Maschera’s Queen of Nightmare?”

“… Where exactly are you looking? That’s completely wrong. I’m not wearing a costume. These are my normal clothes.”

T……. Those are her…….. normal clothes…? Sorry… I can’t tell the difference at all.

Kirino lightly clicked her tongue.

“If those are your normal clothes, you should wear something cooler.”

“That’s up to me, isn’t it?”

“I feel hot just by looking at you. Come on, just take off your outer wear.”

The minute she said that, Kirino began to forcibly strip off Kuroneko’s clothing.

“W-wait a second… y-you…”

Kuroneko struggled, but Kirino was surprisingly skilled, and in the blink of an eye Kuroneko was left in a no-sleeve cut and sewn shirt. She was also wearing a flared miniskirt, and long socks.

Her outfit was exceedingly prim and tidy.

I looked at the now lightly dressed Kuroneko, and let out a sigh of admiration.

Both at Kuroneko’s very summer-like outfit, and Kirino’s little performance.

Briskly putting Kuroneko’s clothes into order, Kirino seemed just like a professional makeup artist working on the set of a film.

Perhaps this air came from the fact that during her modeling work, Kirino was always close to real makeup artists.

“Alright, much better.”

Kirino seemed proud of her work, puffing out her chest. Holding the clothes she had stripped off in one hand, Kirino spoke with a strangely mature air.

“Everyone has their own tastes in clothing, but please pay attention at least to TPO . You wear summer clothes during summer. If you don’t do that, even your health will suffer. Understand? Hm?”

“…… But as I said, I’m fine with this heat…”

“Yeah yeah, I got it I got it. But just stay like that for a little while today. Alright?”

How self-important. Even though, technically, she’s the younger one.

It’s just that, Kirino’s words and actions were… well, maybe it’s better left unsaid.

She seriously isn’t a very open person, is she?

“Wow. If you take off all the frills, you really look pretty cute.”

“… Please don’t give me the type of compliment where there’s a hidden ‘but I still look better’ implied.”

Kuroneko quickly turned her back towards us. Like that, she began to walk in the other direction.

I guess Kirino wasn’t the only one who wasn’t open with her feelings.

“What are you doing? There’s nothing left to do here, is there? Hurry up and let’s go.”

“Idiot. Why do you look so embarrassed?”

Kirino made this statement grinningly while facing Kuroneko’s back, and then thrust the clothes and paper bag she had in her hands towards me.

“Here. Hold this.”

“H-hold it yourself…”

“Do you really want me to bring up that incident with four-eyes?”

“Don’t be absurd.”

Behaving like her efficient, obedient butler, I took the clothing and luggage from Kirino.

Slipping away from the outdoor exhibition area, we arrived back at the Eastern hall, and went into the building.

“The East 3 and East 4 halls are where the corporate booths are located. Corporate booths are… well, the simplest way to put it is that it is an exhibit space used primarily by gaming companies and publishers, and other companies that deal with subculture.”

“Ahh.”

I gave a standard response to Saori’s explanation. But seriously, she’s been acting just like a tour guide for some time now.

“There are also a lot of new announcements by companies made at this event… so there are also previews which debut here.”

“Hmph.” Looking bored, Kirino began to respond.

“New information, you say. Even if you don’t come all the way over here to this event though, you have news sites like MOON PHASE that will post these things. So shouldn’t you just check for news online?”

Kuroneko snorted, seeming annoyed.

“Hmph, the things you read on the internet are so full of rumors and speculation. Of course, you can still have fun with the falsified information. But, I think there is definite meaning and value in showing up at an event to be able to see and listen to their announcements with your own eyes and ears.”

“What the hell. What’s with that tedious little speech? Are you trying to sound cool or something?”

“… Considering you’re such an imbecile, you probably can’t figure it out. These news site worshippers… they should all go drown in the sea of the Internet… Earlier too, you were talking about how you read an article on some site about some ‘HG training broom’ or something and you bought it impulsively even though you had no way of using that. Are you an idiot?”

“I-I can put that in the entranceway, and my mom can use it to clean the garden! Besides, if someone tries to burglarize our house, and someone unsheathes a sword from the broom, he might get freaked out and run away!”

Kirno and Kuroneko again began to argue. Seriously, there was never a quiet moment with these two.

As the completely useless argument began to wind down, I asked Saori a question.

“Corporate exhibits, you said… what are they exactly? There’s no reason that companies themselves should be making and selling doujinshi, right?”

“Of course not.”

My sister interjected with a curt response, but…

“Actually, that kind of thing does happen.”

Saori contradicted Kirino’s statement. With an “Eh?” of bewilderment, Kirino turned around as our Comiket guide, Saori, began her explanation.

“For example, if you’re a game company, you might make a fanbook or an illustration collection for your game, or distribute a novel based on your game. We could call these things ‘official doujinshi.’”

“Oh? And what other types of things do they do at these booths?”

“They sell character goods, or stream new game PVs , or display a huge robot model… there are a lot of things they do. At publisher booths, sometimes you can even bring them your own work for them to take a look at… of course this time, there’s also that strange ‘Manga and Doujinshi of the World’ exhibit.”

“Submitting your own work, huh…? They even do things like that? Hmm…”

As I stood there wide-mouthed in surprise, Kirino nodded next to me.

Well, of course, considering this doujinshi sales convention was a place where people very knowledgeable about manga gathered, it makes sense that there would also be scouts here.

As these thoughts ran through my head, I heard Kuroneko absent-mindedly mumble.

“When such a colorless guy talks like that, it’s almost as if I’m watching some Comiket informational video.”

“Hey, that’s a good way of putting it.”

Kirino widened her eyes in admiration. Oh, shut up, damnit.

“I was just stating the truth. Stop it already with the boring question-and-answer session. You’re here already, so just figure these things out as we go.”

“Definitely. Can’t you stop walking so slowly? I want to go to the Alice+ booth.”

Hey you two, why is it that even though normally, all you do is argue with each other, whenever you start badmouthing me you fall into harmony with each other? And honestly, isn’t the reason I’m walking so slowly that I’m holding all your things? And why do you look so happy when you’re bashing me like this?

… Dammit. Saori had also frequently said that these two are pretty compatible with each other…

Unexpectedly, that may really have been true. But if you ask me, all I can say is that this marked the birth of a terrible duo.

As all this was going on, we arrived at the corporate booths.

It was a completely different atmosphere than that of the doujinshi sales floor. The space was also quite enormous, but it didn’t feel as unrefined or disorganized, and you could say it was even a bit prim and proper.

Here and there I saw a number of female cosplayers, flashing their graceful smiles.

When I saw that they were all beautiful women, I knew that they were probably professionals .

Something else that caught my eye were the paper bags that people were carrying with them, on which were printed large illustrations of pretty girls.

“Those paper bags are based on a popular work that was turned into an anime.”

“Ah.”

Perhaps noticing where I was looking, Saori gave me a well-timed explanation.

Afterwards, we found ourselves heading towards the Alice+ booth, which Kirino had been anxiously wanting to go to for a while.

Alice+ was the same company that made the eroge I had been playing recently, “Little Sister Wars – Siscalypse.” Naturally, at their booth they would be holding Siscali related events and selling Siscali related goods.

So of course, Kirino wanted to go to their booth. And because she had forced me to play the game to completion, I would be lying if I said I wasn’t the least bit interested in taking a look at the booth.

“Ah, look, it’s over there! Let’s go, hurry! I want to get the limited edition summer Comiket disk!”

Excited, Kirino began to move quickly towards the booth.

With a bitter smile, I shrugged my shoulders and turned towards Saori.

“Limited edition disk?”

“It’s a data disk you can’t get anywhere except at this event. If you install it, you get extra costumes, things you can dress your Siscali characters with. Well, it’s not like it raises your character’s defense stat or anything… you could call it a souvenir, or a collector’s item… something like that.”

“Hm. So that’s why she’s running over so quickly to buy it.”

I was satisfied with her explanation, but for some reason Saori stuck out her lower lip and her expression clouded over.

“Yeah. But… probably…”

“Hm?”

I tried to ask for Saori to explain, but it turned out there wasn’t a need to.

“What!? Sold out!?”

Because I could hear Kirino’s loud exclamation after she had gone to buy the disk.

It wouldn’t be a good idea to just leave my super short-tempered sister over there, so we quickly hurried over to the Alice+ booth. Kirino let out an astonished sigh.

“… It’s a popular product that comes from a popular company, so it’s not surprising that they’re sold out by this time…”

“Wait a second… but it’s only a bit after noon.”

It sold out that quickly…? Wow.

Suddenly, I began to understand the feelings of the people rushing into the building at opening hours.

“Mhm. If you want to buy something like that, right after coming in you have to head straight for the booth and stand in line…”

Saori, who had planned out schedule to be much more leisurely than that, looked slightly depressed over this, so I told her “Don’t worry about it.”

She had already been such a great help, there was no reason to place blame on her for something like this.

With a gloomy air, Kirino had her shoulders dropped.

Facing her from behind, I slowly approached.

While she was probably glaring at the surrounding staff, I placed my palm on top of her head.

“That’s too bad. Oh well, there’s nothing we could have done about it.”

“Shut up. Don’t touch me. Everything’s your fault.”

She quickly brushed my hand away. Hey, why the hell is this my fault?!

… Even though you looked so happy up until a few seconds ago, you really can fall into a bad mood in an instant, can’t you? Geez, there really isn’t anything we could have done about this.

As I scratched my head, a staff member timidly spoke up.

“Umm… the limited edition disk… the portion for sale is gone, but you can still get one as a prize from one of our events… so if you would like, please try participating in one of those.”

“E-Event?!”

When Kirino asked with an immense amount of expectation, the staff member shrunk back a little, but still began to explain.

“It’s the debut of the arcade version of ‘Little Sister Wars – Siscalypse,’ which will be available to the public this fall. We will gift a copy of the limited edition disk to the first person who can perform the feat of defeating one of the staff at the game.”

The staff member pointed to the side.

“To participate, please stand in line here! But be warned that the staff members participating are masters at the arcade version of the game. Winning will not be that easy!”

There was only one winner… the fact that they had only prepared one prize made it pretty clear that they weren’t bluffing when they said it wouldn’t be that easy to win.

But without even listening to Kirino’s response, I already knew what she was going to say.

“Hmm, interesting. Let’s give it a go then.”

Yeah, that’s what I thought… ah, she’s so competitive.

Well, she can do what she wants. At any rate, it’s not like she would listen to me if I tried to stop her.

Going around to the side of the Alice+ shop, we saw a small stage constructed for the purposes of the event. There was a set of arcade machines, and one computer unit that people could get experience with, along with a few large display screens that showed the gameplay.

Kirino and Saori stood in line, while Kuroneko and I stood off to the side with the spectators.

I tried sending a light question Kuroneko’s way.

“You’re not participating?”

“……………”

Kuroneko completely ignored my words.

She stood there, stock still, while looking up at the screen expressionlessly.

… What an unsociable person. Being alone with her is so awkward…

Not being able to do anything else, I imitated my neighbor and looked up at the screen. Until Kirino’s turn came up, I watched the other participants’ battles with the staff members.

And… as I watched, I gradually came to understand the differences between the arcade and PC versions of the game.

In the arcade version of Siscali, unlike the PC version, you did not create a custom character and use her to fight. Like a normal fighting game, you had to select your character from a number of premade characters. And then, you can further choose your character’s weapons, special moves, and costumes.

In short, they got rid of the training part of the game, and just simply left the fighting part.

I really wished they had added a mode like that in the PC version too…

But that’s probably an unreasonable demand.

As I tried to listen closely to the noisy chatter around me, I heard the following conversation.

“Geez, in three days, that guy’s won fifty straight times… the staff seriously isn’t going easy on the players… the line of challengers is also thinning out.”

“By the way, that staff member is a high ranking player for the PC version, isn’t he? Going in blind against a player like that, who’s using a new character… how can you win? And without even having gotten used to the new strategies…”

No, the character the staff was using… that wasn’t a new character. It was one of the mid-bosses from the PC version, wasn’t it? The costume was a bit different, but I definitely recognized that character’s special moves.

“……………..”

How the hell did it get to be that I could correct people who were talking about eroge?

Not good. This was seriously bad… and just because the arcade version wasn’t 18+, that didn’t make me feel any better.

The “normal high school student” I wanted to be shouldn’t be doing things like this… dammit…

I began to sweat profusely, and it wasn’t from any kind of excitement.

Kuroneko, in normal Kuroneko fashion, continued to stare at the screen without moving an inch.

The staff member continued to rack up consecutive victories…

And then, it was number 55’s turn. Kirino’s number had come up.

The character Kirino selected was a lightning user that had also been available in the PC version. The character was adept at both long-range and close-range attacks, and was very easy to use. It was a character that beginners often used, according to the wiki.

At the costume select screen, she chose the fairy outfit (it was an outfit that stressed speed, it seemed), and Kirino arrived at the battle style selection screen.

A large number of weapons and special abilities groupings were shown, and the players had to choose one at their discretion.

For example, in terms of special skills…

You can completely deplete your energy gauge and bombard the enemy with the “Super Railgun” attack.

You could also shake the joystick and charge your energy, and depending on the charge time you can perform close-range attacks that multiply your power like “God’s Rumbling Fist.”

Having finished selecting her character, Kirino swung one arm around and her entire body seemed filled to the brim with fighting spirit.

It was pretty clear that she fully intended to win.

Even she should understand that her opponent was the formidable enemy (although the character looked like a childish brat) who had defeated 54 challengers in a row. Her attitude was seriously something else.

If you try, you should try to win. That was my little sister’s stance.

When it came to competition, playing to win was an extremely fundamental element of mental preparation, but when you try to put this rule into action, you would find that there is nothing more difficult in the world. Pros and beginners were separated not only by skill level, but also by this level of determination, were they not? Lately, as I watched the way Kirino presented herself, these things came to mind.

“Ah?!”

She was beaten in a second.

Hey. Even though I had led you in with such a glowing introduction as if you were going to pull out a come-from-behind victory…

There wasn’t even enough time to give commentary on the battle. The time it took for her to select her character was much longer than the actual battle.

“…….Tch. What the hell is with this bullshit game? It’s not like you can expect me to win at this. That was screwed up.”

Sulking, my sister’s excuse seemed like something a delinquent who had just gotten beaten down at an arcade would say. Sadly hanging her head and walking slowly, my sister’s form truly inspired sympathy.

“I mean… you’re not that great at Siscali in the first place. There was no way you were going to beat someone like that.”

“Saying things like that is what makes you so boring. That’s something only a loser would say.”

What’s with that arrogant attitude, even though she had just lost?!

I understood what she was trying to say, but she was clearly just lashing out in anger.

And come on, the one who’s making excuses is the loser, right?!

As I put up with my sister’s abuse, Saori also lost and came back.

Bopping herself on the back of her head with one hand, she timidly looked downwards.

“Ahh, I’m really sorry. I made it pretty far, but…”

“Ah, don’t worry about it. There’s no helping it. You can’t win against that.”

If Saori couldn’t win, and Saori was much much better at the game than Kirino was, then there really was no helping it.

There was nothing we could do but give up on getting Kirino the limited edition disk she wanted.

“Hey Kirino. Don’t worry, cheer up. You can go buy any of the other goods that you like.”

I tried to speak as kindly as possible. Kirino grumbled about being treated like a child, but it seemed she was satisfied with my statement.

“Hmph. I couldn’t win, huh…? Haah… Hey, you, go buy that then. The life-size Siscali cutout over there, the one of sorceress Reika.”

Kirino was pointing at a life-size cutout of sorceress Reika, a little sister that appeared as a mid-boss in the game but was a useable character in the arcade version of the game. She had blonde hair, was clothed in black, and looked like a magic-user, sprouting a devil’s tail. Underneath her mantle, she was wearing nothing at all.

From her mantle, several tentacles sprouted to make an attack, so she was often called the “tentacle sister.”

“… I don’t think that’s for sale.”

And even if they were selling that, there was no mistaking that I would be the one holding it.

And with that pose with her mantle fluttering… can I really walk around with that? Does she want to kill me or something?

For argument’s sake, if I had to carry that around, then it would be fine if we stayed in this area. After all, everyone around here is carrying ero goods.

But it would be impossible to do the same in my hometown. I would absolutely be against doing that.

If I met someone I knew in the middle of going home like that, what would I say?

For example, if I met Manami…

“… Siscali booth? What’s that, Kyou-chan?”

The day she asked me something like that, I seriously might dive in front of a speeding train.

“By the way, Kyousuke-shi, where did Kuroneko-shi go off to?”

“Hm? She should be right next to… ah, she’s not here.”

At some point, she had gone off somewhere. She didn’t have a large presence, so I didn’t even notice.

Searching for any sign of the Gothic Lolita girl, we looked around.

Suddenly, I heard a cheer.

It appeared that someone had defeated the staff member who had racked up so many consecutive victories.

All the eyes in the area, mine included, turned towards the victor standing at the arcade machine.

Somehow, the person sitting there was precisely the person we were currently looking for.

“H-huh? W-what is she doing over there…?”

Kirino widened her mouth in bewilderment, and her voice was in complete disarray. With pretty much the same expression, I looked up at the display which was replaying the match.

On that screen, the previously mentioned new character “sorceress Reika” was shown being used by both players in a high speed battle.

It was a match between two of the same characters.

Sorceress Reika was more or less one-sidedly destroying the other Reika.

How should I put it… that is…

I had also cleared the game once, so I understood this all a bit, but that Reika who was one-sidedly beating up on the other one… her movements were just something else. With seemingly impossible reaction times, she completely countered each and every one of her opponent’s attacks.

And then…

Whooooooooooooooaaaa!!! A cheer even louder than the one I heard before erupted.

As shown on the replay screen, the Reika Kuroneko was using had won in a perfect match against her opponent in less than thirty seconds.

Afterwards, the losing staff member, with great respect, began to applaud for Kuroneko.

“How cruel, Kuroneko-shi! I never knew you were so amazing at that game!”

Returning in silence, Kuroneko was hugged by a pleasantly surprised Saori.

“… Mrgh… W-wait… that hurts… please stop.”

“What are you saying, you… you… haha!”

Kuroneko looked seriously annoyed, but for some reason, Saori might have interpreted her annoyance as embarrassment or something, and intensified the pressure of her hands.

This continued for a short while… finally, Saori released Kuroneko, and Kuroneko muttered, seeming completely exhausted.

“… Y-you’re human, yet you don’t seem to understand human speech at all… go get cursed, please…”

I could only wholeheartedly agree that oftentimes, Saori didn’t seem to understand Japanese.

Saori didn’t seem to mind that Kuroneko had just told her to go get cursed, and just continued to clap Kuroneko on the back excitedly.

“Ahaaah, but seriously, you’re so amazing! What was with that unreasonably fast reaction speed?! It was like fighting a Level 8 Goenitz , Kuroneko-shi!

Who the hell is Goenitz? Use comparisons I can understand, damnit.

Why is it that otaku always assume that other people understand all the references they’re making? There aren’t many people who would respond to these things as calmly and kindly as I would, you know.

Well, certainly, for people who know what she’s talking about, it’s probably a pretty easy analogy to understand.

“In any case, how exactly do you know how to use the special attacks of a new character? The normal skills are one thing, but there’s no reason you should be able to so easily bring out the super special skills.”

Kirino seemed flustered. It also sounded like there was some implicit accusation in her question…

She probably couldn’t swallow the fact that Kuroneko, the girl she always argued with, had won against the opponent she couldn’t win against. This was what people called “narrow-mindedness.”

Well, anyways, I was honestly a bit curious to as to how Kuroneko knew how to use the special skills for the new characters (that is, characters that became useable just now).

Kuroneko responded expressionlessly.

“… When they were inputting their commands, the characters lean one way or the other, right? From how the characters lean, from how the player’s hand is moving, from the sounds of the buttons being pushed and the timing, I can make out how to command the character.”

Wait, what? Just by watching how the staff member was moving, she could see all of that?

Even how to use the character’s special moves, in such a short time?

What kind of crazy power of observation was that…? Was she a freak of nature ?

“What kind of crazy power of observation is that…? Are you a freak of nature?”

“Crap! Why did I say that out loud?!”

All eyes were on me. Even though I had tried so very, very hard to keep my comment from slipping out through my lips, I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. Dammit, why did I have to go and light a powder keg?!

Kuroneko was already the center of attention right now, so if an argument started it would be way too conspicuous.

A bit slow on the uptake, Kirino tried to smooth things over.

“… He means freak of nature as a compliment.”

“That’s not helping!”

Argh, it’s too late. This is definitely going to get ugly… I covered my head with my hands, and wearily prepared myself… but after waiting for a while, the counterattack I was expecting form Kuroneko never came.

Puzzled, I raised my head, and saw Kuroneko staring fixedly at Kirino.

I have no idea what she was thinking. As usual, she had no expression whatsoever on her face.

“W-what…? D-do you have a problem or something?”

“…………..”

Seemingly engulfed in the tense atmosphere, Kirino responded with an inflammatory remark, but quite expectedly Kuroneko didn’t even budge. She continued to just stare at Kirino with her red eyes.

At long last… without lowering her gaze, she began to pace.

Next, she firmly grasped her own arm.

Light creases wrinkled her brow, and it seemed like she was very troubled by something.

Standing there, it seemed that Kirino couldn’t stay silent anymore, and threw some more dangerous words Kuroneko’s way.

“Hey… stop with the silence. Say something.”

And then…

Facing Kirino, Kuroneko held something out ot her.

It was the limited edition disk she had just received as a price.

“… I’ll give this to you.”

“Huh?”

My sister’s face at this point was truly a sight to behold. Opening her eyes incredibly widely, her jaw dropped to the floor, and it seemed she was severely confused as to what had just happened.

“Eh? Ehh? What? … What do you mean?”

“… What? Do you not want it? Or do you just not understand human speech?”

Kuroneko spoke in a moody way, just like she would when she was arguing with Kirino.

Probably… probably, Kuroneko had won the limited edition disk for Kirino’s sake.

Of course, I wasn’t confident in that assertion at all, considering this girl was so socially awkward that I could not even begin to guess what she was thinking. Her speech and actions, her expression, and her attitude were all utterly disconnected.

File:Oikk v02 260.jpg

She was absurdly difficult to understand.

And Kirino… why is it that when I was holding that box of yours, you were so quick to understand your own motives and try to snatch it away from me, but you’re so slow here to respond to your friend’s goodwill?

The problem in communication here was not completely the fault of either one of them; both of them were somewhat to blame.

“Um… if you want, would you like to have this?”

“Hm? Can I? Thank you.”

Why couldn’t they just do something as simple and straightforward as that?

In reality…

“… Hmph. If you don’t need it just throw it away for me.”

“I-I never said I didn’t want it!”

“So, why don’t you just stop messing around and take it? Heh… could it be that you’re too arrogant to do even that? If that’s the case, that’s pretty pitiful. What a worthless person.”

“What the hell is up with those irritating remarks…? Why the hell do you have to go that far?!”

Well, there you go… in the end, they started arguing again.

I couldn’t stand to watch anymore, and averted my eyes.

And my line of sight settled onto Saori, who was holding her stomach and trying not to laugh.

Wiping tears from her eyes with a handkerchief, Saori turned and faced me.

“… fufu. Well well, well. I apologize, Kyousuke-shi. Ahh, how interesting. It might be a bit difficult to understand, but they’re bonding in their own style right now.”

“I know.”

Kirino had wanted to make good summer memories.

That’s what I had told them. First to Saori, and then… to Kuroneko as well.

And that’s why I’m sure that this Gothic Lolita girl had, even though she knew she was acting out of character, done something for Kirino. I knew that.

“Tch! If you put it like that, I’ll take it off your hands then. Be grateful!”

Kirino’s words were filled with fury.

Mixed with a sigh, I translated for Saori while pointing at my sister.

“’Thanks! I’m reaaaally happy ♥!’ is what she’s saying.”

“Buhahaha! You’re definitely right! As expected from an older brother, you understand her all too well!”

“Hey! What the hell are you saying?!”

Faced with my sharp-eared little sister’s remark, I shrugged my shoulders and played dumb.

Saori exploded in laughter, and for a long time her mirth rang through the room.

Translator's Notes

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