Age Twenty-One

The evening of April 29, Miyako was on her way to Itsuki’s apartment, having been invited there five-ish days ago for a gaming session with Haruto and crew.

Today was her twenty-first birthday. The fact that Itsuki had specified a day for this meetup suggested they might be celebrating her birthday…or so she hoped, a little bit. But would Itsuki really do something that thoughtful? She hadn’t even told him her birthday. She banished the thought.

Her college buddies had held a little thing for her yesterday, however. Today was the start of Golden Week, the series of national holidays that kick off the first week of May in Japan, so they were too busy with work, dates, or visiting their families back home to meet up on the actual day.

Reaching Itsuki’s apartment, Miyako rang the doorbell. The door opened, and Itsuki stuck his head out.

“Oh, you’re here? Come on in.”

“Um, sure,” she said, noticing a sweet-smelling scent as she stepped inside. The moment she passed by the kitchen and walked into the living room, there was the pow-pow-pow of tiny crackers going off.

““““Surprise!!””””

Itsuki and the trio in the room—Nayuta Kani, Haruto Fuwa, and Chihiro Hashima—all shouted together.

“Huh…?!”

She had hoped for this, a little, but it happened so suddenly that it still made Miyako’s eyes open wide.

“Happy birthday, Myaa… Did we surprise you?” Nayuta ventured, looking up shyly.

“Um, y-yeah… You sure did…”

The girl beamed at Miyako. “Hee-hee-hee… We did it, guys!”

“It was Kanikou who suggested this,” Itsuki said, smiling a bit.

“Ohh… Well, thanks, Nayu.”

She gave Nayuta an appreciative pat on the head. “Hee-hee-hee,” came the pleased-sounding response. It made Miyako smile broadly. This girl is sooo cute!

The two men in the room, watching this exhibition of incredibly sisterly tropes, both blushed—Itsuki’s eyes on Nayuta, Haruto’s on Miyako.

“Hmm? What?” Miyako asked, noticing Haruto’s gaze.

“Oh, no, nothing! Happy birthday, Miyako. Let’s just sit you down at the seat of honor, okay?”

“Um, okay!”

Guided in, Miyako sat down on the side of the six-person kotatsu table by the window, where Haruto usually was as gamemaster for their RPG nights. Itsuki took the spot next to Nayuta, and Chihiro sat across from Miyako.

Laid out on the table was a massive dinner spread that made the diner Miyako’s friends had taken her to yesterday look like crumbs on the street. It even made her a little emotional. There were scalloped potatoes, spinach quiche, meat pies, seafood pasta, cream stew, and a big bowl of Caesar salad…

“Um, did you make all this, Chihiro?”

“Most of it… I might’ve made a bit too much,” Chihiro said with a nod, a bit bashful.

“This is just amazing… Y-you’re so much better at this girl stuff than me…”

“N-no, I’m terrible at girl stuff!!”

“Oh, um… Sorry?” said Miyako, confused at this odd overreaction.

“Here you go,” Haruto interjected, taking Miyako’s glass and pouring from a bottle with a cherry drawn on it. The liquid was deep red, imbued with tiny pink bubbles. This was Lindemans Kriek, a beer made with wild yeast found only in a certain part of Belgium, aged for one or two years, then infused with cherry juice and left to ferment for even longer. It had taken a lot of time and hard work to make this beer, and although it wasn’t intensely alcoholic, it had an amazingly full body to it.

Once all the glasses were filled:

“All right, Myaa… Happy birthday to you!”

Itsuki and Haruto joined Nayuta in the toast. “Thanks,” Miyako bashfully replied as she took a sip. The sweetness of the cherries spread across her mouth, alongside the slight acidity of the core beer. It was so easy to drink that she wound up downing half the glass in one go.

“Ooh, this is good!”

“I’m glad you like it,” a clearly relieved Haruto said.

In the midst of drinking the beer and enjoying everything Chihiro made for them, Haruto brought out a second bottle for Miyako’s glass. Like the Lindemans from before, this also had a cherry on the label.

“Another cherry beer?”

“This one’s called Boon Kriek. Give it a shot,” Haruto replied with a bit of a teasing smirk.

Miyako obliged, gulping it down. It was also a pretty shade of red, and the bottle’s design was even the same, so she figured it’d be another sweet candy of a beer. She was wrong.

“Nnh! It’s sour?! …Oh, but I like this, too.”

Lindemans was all about the fruity sweetness, but with Boon Kriek, the sourness was what came first, then just the right amount of fruit. It threw Miyako for a loop at first but still left her breathing a contented sigh.

“Well, great. I brought along a few different cherry beers for tonight, so give ’em all a shot,” a semiconcerned Haruto said.

Meanwhile, Itsuki gently whispered to him. “Cherry beer? …So you’re giving her your cherry, huh?”

“……………”

Whatever deep meaning Itsuki was implying, Haruto just averted his eyes and pretended not to hear it.

After taking a while to enjoy the sumptuous spread, it was time for presents. Each guest had brought their own along, and Itsuki had no idea what anyone else had gotten for Miyako.

“Okay, feel free to accept my present first!” he began, looking incredibly self-confident.

“Ooh! What did you get me?” Miyako tried to act calm, despite the beating of her heart.

“My present is…this!”

He whisked something out from the paper bag in his hand. It was a large white square of paper, apparently his autograph, and it had today’s date and “To Miyako Shirakawa” written small in one corner.

“Heh…”

“An autograph…? Whose autograph is it?” Miyako accepted the sheet, a bit flummoxed.

“Mine, of course!”

“Yours…?”

Even after he said it, the marker lines were so cursive and inscrutable that it was hard to make out “Itsuki Hashima” at all.

“…Did you come up with this yourself?”

“Ha! Of course I did. This is an autograph with real history behind it! I perfected it even before I began writing my first contest entry,” Itsuki announced.

“That’s kind of early on.” Haruto laughed with chagrin.

“Hmm…” Miyako looked less than convinced. “…So what is this?”

“It’s my birthday present, of course,” Itsuki replied, chest puffed out. “A handmade autograph from Itsuki Hashima, your one and only favorite author! There’s no better present than this!”

“……………”

“…What? So moved that you can’t bring yourself to speak?”

“No, I was just, like, huh…”

“Hmm?”

“Like, what kind of person gives their own autograph to someone for their birthday…?”

Miyako looked like she had well and truly had enough this time. This was definitely not bashfulness or an overwhelmed emotional response. She was 100-percent done, and that came across loud and clear to Itsuki as well.

“Um…huh…?”

“…Ugh…”

“…Am I, um, being a little too brash…?” the suddenly sweating Itsuki dared to whisper.

“Yeah,” Haruto said.

“Quite a lot, actually,” Nayuta added.

Chihiro simply pointed his eyes toward the ceiling.

“Aw, man… No way…”

“Geez… Well, I’ll take it, don’t get me wrong…but what should I do with it?”

With a sigh, Miyako placed the board in her bag.

“Hmph.” Itsuki pouted. “If you really don’t need it, you can auction it off on the Internet.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t do that. I mean, you did choose this present for me and all, so…”

She gave him a little smile.

“Um, here’s mine. Sorry it’s nothing too special.” Gingerly, Chihiro handed Miyako a small package wrapped in a cute little bow.

“Thanks, Chihiro. Can I open it?”

“Sure.” He nodded, and Miyako carefully unwrapped it.

Inside was a handkerchief. It was colorful, but not too flashy—a very delicate design in that way—perfect for Miyako’s tastes.

“Uh, I figured everyone could always use another handkerchief, and it wouldn’t matter much if someone else gave you the same thing, so…”

“Thanks so much! I really like this! I’ll take good care of it,” Miyako gushed honestly. “You sure know a woman’s heart, don’t you, Chihiro? You could teach your brother a thing or two, that’s for sure.”

“Oh, not at all! I don’t get what a woman thinks at all!”

Chihiro went red again as he protested, while Itsuki visibly soured.

“So, um… I got this for you…”

Haruto’s nervously offered present was a small bottle with a cork in it. There was a liquid inside, making Miyako wonder if it was perfume or some aromatherapy thing at first. But it also contained something long and thin, like a tree root, and there was sediment on the bottom.

It looked like a tiny aquarium, and inside, Miyako spotted three tiny creatures energetically swimming around.

“Wow, what’re these? Plankton?”

Giving a closer look, they actually looked more like impossibly tiny shrimp, each one no more than a centimeter long.

“Or…shrimp?”

“Yep. That they are.”

“Ooh! They’re so tiny and cute!” Miyako smiled. The sight of the shrimp darting to and fro was oddly soothing to her. The other three in the room leaned in to get a closer look.

“Whoa!”

“Hey, you’re right, they are cute!”

“Hohh… Shrimp, huh? Nice.”

“These are called pixie shrimp,” Haruto explained. “They’re part of the shrimp family. They eat algae that’s latched on to seaweed, along with their own skin that they shed, so there’s no real need to feed them. This writer named Yuu Shimizu gave some of these to a writer friend of his that was in the hospital, and it was such a hit with the doctors and nurses that they’d stop by the room just to see them swim around for a bit.”

Miyako was too busy beaming and exclaiming how cute the tiny creatures were to listen.

Well, this is fine, Haruto thought, starting to smile himself. He was a little concerned about giving a living thing as a present, despite the author friend he knew, but it was clearly a hit. The sight seriously relieved him.

…But it wasn’t even Miyako who was the most excited about it.

“Ooh, look at them! Those shrimp are so nice… Not only do they taste good, they’re really cute as pets, too! It’s hard to beat that…”

It was Itsuki, leaning way across the table to look into the bottle, eyes shining like stars.

“So cute… I should buy one for myself…”

“…Why are you freaking out the most?”

As Haruto grinned, Nayuta suddenly turned serious.

“Prince Manwhore! Is there a crab version of this? A really tiny crab that you don’t have to take care of and that lives a really long time?”

“Yeah, they had one that was about an inch or so long, but I don’t know any that easy to keep…”

“Aww… I wanted Itsuki to gush about my crab, too…”

“…If that’s what you want, why don’t you just change your pen name to Shrimp Girl or something?”

Once the commotion died down, it was time for Nayuta’s present.

“This is from me,” she said as she presented a cutesy-looking envelope. Inside was an SD card.

“What’s in this?”

Nayuta blushed and smiled a bit.

“…A novel.”

“A novel?”

“Yes. I wrote a novel with you as the protagonist, Myaa. I really wanted to print it out for you, but it wound up being the size of a regular light novel volume, so I’m just giving you the data.”

“Me as the protagonist…?”

Miyako was one-fifth happy, four-fifths shocked and confused. If anything, it was Itsuki and Haruto who had the more animated responses.

“A Kanikou novel?!”

“A new novel from Nayu… You publish that, it’d easily sell a few hundred thousand…”

“Dude, let me read it, too!” Itsuki badgered her, deadly serious.

Nayuta just laughed it off, looking a bit embarrassed.

“No, don’t. I wrote this novel just for Myaa. It’s also the first fantasy genre novel I wrote, so I’m a little scared to show it.”

“Th-the first Nayuta Kani fantasy novel?! Daaaamn! Now I wanna know about it even more!”

“Ch-chill out, Itsuki.”

Chihiro thought it would be wise to speak up. His brother was gritting his teeth, almost bursting with anger.

“………pffuuu………”

Itsuki took a deep breath. The sight of his anger scared Miyako even more, but now she smiled and turned to Nayuta.

“Well, thanks, Nayu. I look forward to reading it.”

“You bet!” came the reply, complete with an utterly carefree smile.

With the presents over, the five of them spent a little while drinking beer (or juice) and playing quick and easy games like Pickomino and Skull & Roses. After that, there was one more ritual left: the birthday cake. This wasn’t from Chihiro’s kitchen, for a change—they bought it from a store, and it had a little chocolate plate in the middle reading “HAPPY BIRTHDAY MIYAKO.” Twenty-one candles ringed the edge, all quickly lit once the lights were turned out. Itsuki, Haruto, Nayuta, and Chihiro all sang “Happy Birthday” for Miyako, who then blew the whole thing out in one breath. Soon, Chihiro had it cut into fifths.

“By the way,” Nayuta asked as they ate, “what do you think, Myaa? How’s it feel being the big two-one?”

“How’s it feel…?”

Miyako’s cheeks were a bit red from all the cherry beer, but her fork still stopped in midair at the question.

“Hmm… Let me think…” Her expression slipped into a naturally wry grin. “You know, I thought being in my twenties would feel a lot more…adult.”

“Ahhh,” Itsuki and Haruto both replied, eagerly nodding. Itsuki, clearly drunk, picked up the topic.

“Yeah, I thought the exact same thing when I turned twenty! That and, like, when I graduated from high school, too!”

“Yeah, me too,” interjected Haruto. “Like, it makes you think—I graduated from high school, then graduated from college; I’m totally a grown-up by anybody’s standard, but it doesn’t feel like it at all.”

“…You think so, too, Fuwa?” Miyako asked, eyes lazily turning toward Haruto.

“Pretty much. Maybe it’s because I don’t have an office job. I spend all day writing novels, watching anime, playing games, reading manga and light novels… On the weekdays, I go drinking and play board games with my friends… It doesn’t really feel like I’m putting anything together at all. I’m paying my taxes and stuff, but…”

“Yeah, totally,” laughed Itsuki. “I mean, twenty-one… That’s supposed to be older than Azusa Miura from The Idolmaster or Nanoha from the third season of Lyrical Nanoha, you know? In novels and anime, you’d have the chattier young characters calling them old grannies and writing them off entirely… Not that I’m saying you’re an old granny, Miyako.”

“Yeah. I think Char was supposed to be twenty during the One Year War. Him and Haman during the Gryps War…”

“Pretty funny to think voice actors like Shuichi Ikeda and Ryouko Sakakibara were both playing twenty-year-olds, huh? Like, maybe some people get real low, gravelly voices when they’re young, too, but…”

“…We’re older than most of the characters we have saving the world or the universe in manga and novels or having whirlwind romances and stuff. I hate to admit it, but from an impartial perspective, we don’t have it together at all, do we?”

“No… But hang on,” Haruto said. “I still think we’re among the lucky ones, actually. I know an older writer who built this entire RC-car racetrack in his apartment, and he’d go race on it whenever he had writer’s block. Like, in his mid-thirties!”

“A full racetrack?! I’m kind of jealous!”

“Yeah, you see? I was totally jealous, too! Once I live by myself, I am so building one.”

“Okay, Haruto! You get a place and build that track, and I’ll come over to race you every afternoon!”

As the two carried on with each other, Miyako softly whispered to herself:

“…Writers have it so good. That kind of…I don’t know, childishness is something they can actually make money off of. You say you don’t have it together…but if you ask me, you’ve got it better put together than most. So don’t be too hard on yourselves…or else, I don’t know what I’d ever do with myself.”

“…………”

Sensing some real emotion from Miyako’s slurred speech, Itsuki and Haruto stopped. Miyako sighed.

“Ugh… Twenty seemed so grown-up back when I was in grade school… I had a real goal for the future, I was working hard for it…and I even had a romantic career, too…”

“You’re totally grown-up. All that sexy experience, too!” Nayuta said as Miyako’s smile turned into a smirk at her own expense.

“…I’m sorry. That was a lie.”

The revelation came all too casually.

“Huh?” Nayuta said, frozen upright.

“That whole thing about having a lot of love experience? That was a lie. I’ve never dated a guy in my life, and, of course, I’ve never…uh, done it with anyone…”

Nayuta’s reaction to this confession was pure confusion.

“Whew,” Miyako said, noting this even as she breathed a sigh of relief. “I finally came out with it.”

When talking with this girl before her—someone who adored her as an elder sister, who had hundreds of thousands of readers awaiting her latest work but wrote a novel just for her instead—this incredibly cute little-sister of a girl, Miyako just couldn’t find it in herself to lie any longer.

“Wow, Myaa, so you aren’t a slut after all?” Nayuta asked.

“…Um, I think I made that clear already…” Tears began to form in Miyako’s eyes. “…I’m sorry, Nayu. I’m sorry I lied up to now. I’m not the type of woman you should be aspiring to become.”

“Myaa…”

The sad eyes Nayuta had fixed upon her overwhelmed Miyako with crushing guilt.

“I’m sorry… I hope you don’t hate me for it. This present you gave me is totally amazing, but…I don’t know if I even deserve it—”

“How could I ever hate you for it?!” Nayuta said, voice ragged.

“Huh…?”

More like a parent scolding a child than out of pure anger, Nayuta shouted, “The reason I like you isn’t because you’re a grown-up with experience in bed. It’s because you’re a good person, Myaa!”

“Nayu…”

“Whether you’re a slut or a virgin, you’re my beloved big sister, Myaa!”

“Nayu…! Nayuuuu…”

This brought Miyako over the brink. She began crying uncontrollably and, latching on to Nayuta as her “younger sister,” buried her face in her chest.

“Ugh! You are such a nice kid! I love you! I almost want to kiss you!”

“…You can, if you want.”

“Huh?” Miyako lifted her head, surprised.

“…If it’s you, Myaa, I’ll let you kiss me anytime,” the blushing, teary-eyed Nayuta said.

The cutesy act made Miyako laugh a bit. “I can’t. Your lips belong to Itsuki, don’t they?”

“Ee-hee-hee! They sure do.”

Miyako smiled, her eyes looking a bit lonesome, as Nayuta fidgeted before her. The sight was enough to make Itsuki’s heart race as he looked on, although he couldn’t help but comment:

“…Uh, could you not decide what is and isn’t mine, please?”

After the party, Miyako was back in her room and already sticking the SD card with Nayuta’s present into her computer. It contained a series of text files, starting at “1” and going on in sequential order. It was the first Nayuta Kani novel she had ever read—and it was just for her, never before seen by anyone else.

She could feel her hand shake a little bit as she used her mouse to double-click the “1” file.

…The story was about Miyako, born the princess of a kingdom, falling in love and having remarkably gratuitous amounts of sex with a young knight.

“This isn’t really fantasy…it’s just porn!”

They had secret sex, while the royal guard, the king, and his royal ministers were in the same room. They had prison sex—when the knight got found out and thrown in the dungeon, the princess came down to save him, and they screwed before making good their escape. Acrobatic sex on horseback while they fled their pursuers. At the inn, in the stables, in the forest, in a cave, at the lip of an active volcano, submerged in a lake, caught in a surging torrent, atop a flying broom, atop an iceberg (using a polar bear as a bed), in front of a sleeping dragon, inside the dragon’s stomach, inside the monster king’s castle, in the spirit world—it was bang, bang, bang everywhere! Every possible situation, every possible position, sex, sex, and more sex!

At the very end, the two of them—now mere concepts, floating in a faraway dimension—engaged in weird philosophical sex that was honestly hard to figure out, and wound up creating a new world as a result.

…Miyako had thought it was porn, but it was actually an entire mythology.

The core story line was simple enough, but between the cavalcade of shocking revelations and the sheer imaginativeness of the constant sex, this was smut, pure and simple. Still, Nayuta Kani’s heavily lauded, “magical” storytelling skills made it all overwhelmingly convincing, dragging Miyako into its world before she even realized it. “Whoa, whoa, whoa!” she occasionally shouted, blushing deeply and squirming in her chair. “What the hell am I doing here?” But she never stopped.

To make matters worse, the knight who served as the male lead was clearly modeled after Nayuta’s own interests—in other words, Itsuki. She even named him “Ikki” in the novel. It was someone deeply resembling Itsuki, having near-constant sex with Miyako, in a world-creation myth penned by Nayuta Kani, literary genius of our time.

N-now I feel weird…after reading that…

It enthralled her so much with its attractions that she read through the whole thing in one sitting. Even when she was done, she wound up squirming in bed for a while afterward, unable to free herself from the deep, immersive world she had just experienced.