The Zoo

Itsuki wrote the entire amusement-park arc of All About My Little Sister Volume 4 the very next day. He had originally planned for his characters to go on a wider selection of rides, hugging each other for dear life in the haunted house and getting a good atmosphere going on the Ferris wheel. Your typical kind of happy, heart-racing date stereotype. Instead, they wound up riding roller coasters until they were ready to pass out.

Well, it’s better than beating that old trope into the ground yet again, at least…

It was certainly a more memorable passage than the alternative. But:

“Hmm… I dunno about this…”

He had wanted to deepen the relationship between his hero and heroine at the amusement park, but they had spent so much time screaming in coaster cars that they were still at best casual acquaintances. He had to make up for lost ground somewhere—but where?

“Mmmmm…”

Itsuki thought it over for a few seconds. Then he chose the easiest, tritest solution possible.

“Right! I’ll put ’em on another date!”

When it came to stereotypical date spots, next up was either the zoo or the aquarium, he figured. Maybe a trip to the zoo tomorrow would help with that.

“…Hey. Kanikou. Get up.”

Nayuta was sprawled out by the kotatsu table.

“Mnngh?”

“We’re going to the zoo tomorrow.”

“…! Okay!”

She was instantly wide-awake and accepted the offer immediately.

The next day, the two of them were at the zoo. The Golden Week holidays were over, and they were there on a weekday, so not too many patrons were around.

“Yep! Definitely better to go out on a weekday.”

“Mm-hmm!”

The two of them smiled at each other, in high spirits.

“I don’t think I’ve gone to the zoo in a while, either,” noted Nayuta.

“Yeah, I just went once as a kid…”

As a kid—before Chihiro became his stepbrother. Back when Itsuki’s mother was still alive.

“Well, great! Ready to look at these naked beasts, laid bare to the world, cooped up in cages and treated like the animals they are?”

“Don’t put it like that!”

The first thing they saw was the zoo’s most popular attraction—the panda enclosure. The whole area would be packed with onlookers on weekends, making it too hectic to really take your time watching them—but apart from Itsuki and Nayuta, there were only a couple of kids with their parents.

Right in the middle of the natural-looking habitat, there was a large pile of bamboo with a single panda sitting its ample butt on the ground next to it and chomping away. Its legs were spread and facing the railing, right where Itsuki was standing, so he and Nayuta had a box-seat view of what dangled between them.

“……Wow. It’s huge, isn’t it?” marveled Nayuta as she gazed at it.

“…Yep. It sure is…”

It was incomparable to anything human. The scrotum alone might have been large enough to cover a grown man’s face. You couldn’t help but stare at it.

“Mommy! Cute panda!”

“Yes, it is cute, isn’t it?”

A toddler and her mother were squealing in delight at the sight.

“…Spreading its legs in front of a preschooler like that,” Nayuta commented. “That’d totally be indecent exposure if he was human.”

“Yeah. This panda’s crazy…”

The panda kept chewing on its bamboo, oblivious to the child’s appraisal.

“You know, Itsuki, pandas kind of remind me of old men.”

“…I was thinking that, too.”

The sight of the panda expertly using its hands to munch down every bit of bamboo looked almost too much like some overweight old fogy at the bar, watching the baseball game with a beer in one hand and a yakitori skewer in the other.

“Look, Itsuki. This panda’s about thirty in people years.” Nayuta read the sign on the railing.

“The prime of its life, huh…? And how are you spending that precious time?” He looked at the animal with exasperation.

“Hey, he’s got a job. This old guy’s exposing his dick to the world all day and eating all the food he can. That’s his job. I guess he’s got a room to sleep in when it’s after hours, but it says here it’s got a pool and a heated floor and everything.”

“Talk about living the high life.”

“Plus, this is the most popular animal in the zoo.”

“Man. If I could attract people just by sitting around naked eating food, I bet the zoo would pay a fortune for me, too.”

“I’d watch you if you were naked all day.”

The toddler nearby kept squealing and going “aww” as she waved at the middle-aged man…sorry, the panda in front of her.

The pair even found it a little touching as they left the habitat.

“Zoos are a lot more fun than you’d think, huh…?”

After doing a circuit around the park and taking in all the naked beasts on display, they were each drinking a cola float in the cafeteria. Lions, giraffes, elephants, hippopotamuses, zebras—all the typical zoo animals were there, but seeing them in person still had huge impact. No wonder they were popular.

Itsuki was glad he got to see a bunch of rare birds as well. He was a fan of owls, watching them all with enough passion to make Nayuta envious. The bats were also a surprising amount of fun—it was impossible to get bored of watching them flying around, eating, fighting with one another. He appreciated how hard they worked for their meal ticket, as opposed to that pervy panda dude gnawing on his bamboo.

“…I’ve been kind of curious about kangaroos,” Nayuta said seriously as she poked at the ice cream in her float.

“Kangaroos?”

“Yeah. You know, about their balls? They kind of hang between their legs like a pendulum?”

“…Yeah?”

“I was wondering, like, wouldn’t they just rip right off whenever the kangaroo starts hopping?”

“Quit scaring me…”

“Plus, male kangaroos fight each other for the female and stuff, right? I mean, imagine someone kickboxing with you when your crotch is just open to the world like that. It makes me worry for them.”

“……You’re right. It’s like they’re exposing their weakest points to each other the whole time. It makes MMA look like a kid’s game.”

Itsuki tried to imagine what life would be like if his scrotum hung straight down, dangling like a kangaroo’s. It made him shiver.

“And the lions and the elephants and everybody else all had their junk just hanging out, too, you know? I took a lot of photos. You wanna see?”

Nayuta showed Itsuki her photo folder. It kicked off with a sampling of kangaroo testicles, followed by the privates of lions, elephants, pandas, hippos, and far too many other creatures—all in extreme close-up.

“…What are you doing?” an exasperated Itsuki finally asked.

Nayuta turned her head to the side a little. “…Hee-hee, if only I could add some human genitals to this photo collection…peek, peek…”

“Stop stealing glances at me like that.”

“Peek!”

“Stop looking at my crotch!”

“Mmmngh… Humans sure keep a tight guard on their cocks, don’t they? They could learn a thing or two from the animal kingdom.”

“Shut up.” Itsuki sighed. “…Though how can they live like that? All defenseless?”

“And all naked, too.”

“It kind of freaks me out… I mean, I guess they’re safe in a zoo, but I’m amazed any of ’em can survive in the wild…all naked.”

“Yeah, if you think about it that way, zoo animals really have it made, huh? They don’t have to worry about being attacked, they can eat all the food they want for free, they got a vet if they’re sick or injured, and sometimes the zookeepers even track down a mate for them.”

“The royal treatment,” Itsuki said with a nod. “…But I dunno if I’d be willing to live caged up, doing other people’s bidding like that. No matter how hard I have it, I wanna live on my own two feet, kind of.”

“Naked?”

“…Clothed.”

Nayuta snickered. “Then I’d love to be a piglet for a wild man like you to eat up, Itsuki. Naked.”

“Wild men like me still get to choose what they eat,” Itsuki fired back.

“Aww, that’s mean.” Nayuta pouted as she blew bubbles into her soda.