The Novelist Is a Little-Sister-Obsessed Fk III

It was morning when I was awoken by the chirping of the little-sister bird out the window. “Tweet, tweet! It’s morning, big brother!”

As I rubbed my eyes, my little-sister mattress invited me back to bed. “…Let’s stay together just a little bit longer, my brother!” But I brushed off her temptation as I climbed out of my little-sister bed and whisked opened my little-sister curtains.

“Ooh, not so rough!” they squeaked as I enjoyed the light of the little-sister sun through the little-sister window.

“Good morning, Bro!”

“Yeah, good morning. Radiant as ever today, huh?”

It was a lovely little sister kind of day. I marveled at my luck as I opened my little-sister door and walked out of the room, taking step after step upon the soft, supple skin of the little-sister stairway.

Down in the living room, my breakfast had already been laid out upon my little-sister table.

“Breakfast is ready, dear brother!”

Fried sunny-side up little-sister eggs, little-sister sausage links, a thick slice of little-sister toast, and a small bowl of little-sister salad. Before I dug in, I stopped by the bathroom, washing my face with the chilled little-sister water that flowed from the little-sister tap.

“Are you awake?” my little-sister mirror asked.

“Yeah.” I nodded.

“In that case,” the little-sister washcloth chimed in, “hurry up and dry your face off with me! Come on, rub your big-brother liquids all over my fabric!”

“Sure,” I said, following her instructions before sitting at my dining-room little-sister chair.

“Enjoy your sisters, Bro!”

“Thank you.”

I stabbed my little-sister fork into a little-sister sausage, brought it to my mouth, and chewed.

“Oooh! I’m getting all torrrn apawt in my big bwother’s mouf!”

The sensation of my little sister’s juices melted its way into my mouth, filling it with joy. My little-sister cooking never fails to satisfy.

When I inserted my knife into the little-sister eggs, the yellow little-sister yolk waiting inside promptly oozed out onto the plate. A few slices of crisp, juicy little-sister bacon were lurking underneath. I brought both together to my lips, the mellow taste of the little-sister eggs and the saltiness of the little-sister bacon melding together in sublime harmony. It almost felt like two little sisters were engaged in a nude dance performance on the tip of my tongue.

“Aww, Bacon-chan and I are melting together inside our brother’s mouth!”

“This feels so e-lec-tri-fy-ing! Now we’re even more delicious than ever for our big brotherrrrrr!”

I enjoyed the gastronomic tryst for several moments before smearing my little-sister jam all over my little-sister toast, soaking it into all those little-sister nooks and crannies.

“Agh! Touching skin to skin with someone besides my elder brother… It is a disgrace to my very psyche!”

“Aw, hold out a little, Toast-chan! This is all so we’re tastier than ever for him!”

“Ngh! Stop this at once, Jam! I—I am positively dripping!”

The intensely flavored little-sister jam and the nicely crisped little-sister toast formed the perfect duo. In the blink of an eye, they had both disappeared into my stomach.

My little-sister-laden breakfast complete, I changed into my little-sister uniform, hoisted up my little-sister messenger bag, and left my little-sister house. “Have fun at school!!!” I heard all the little-sister-infused objects in my house thunder in unison as I pounded the little-sister pavement.

So began my day-to-day life, awash in all that little-sisterdom had to offer.

……

……And so on with this nonsensical exposition for the next thirty pages.

“…………Ugh…”

After somehow managing to wade through it all, Kenjiro Toki sighed, the fatigue clear on his face, and tossed the manuscript on the low kotatsu table. In front of him, sitting on the floor, was novelist Itsuki Hashima—owner of this apartment—eagerly gauging his editor’s reaction.

“Wellllll?” he asked, snickering as he flashed an even more shamelessly impudent smile than he usually wore.

“…I’m not sure what you mean by ‘well,’ but I think my usual response of ‘What the hell?’ is about right for this one.”

“You… You can’t be serious…”

“Why’re you acting so surprised…?”

The look of near-terror on Itsuki’s face even scared Toki a little.

He had just finished reading the introduction to Life With a Little Sister, Itsuki’s latest potential project. It was a love story, apparently, set in a world where everything’s sisters, and reading this sample, the actual text didn’t seem to make any more sense than the synopsis Itsuki had provided earlier. It was much easier to slot into the horror genre, really. Itsuki hadn’t written anything beyond this intro yet—the project hadn’t been green-lit—but in cases like this, where the description in the proposal didn’t really bring the point of the series across, publishers would occasionally ask the author to spec-write a few opening pages or some of the more climactic scenes.

“…So…is that a no for this one, too…?”

Toki solemnly nodded at Itsuki’s low semi-mumble.

“…Yeah. It’s a no.”

Over the past several months, Itsuki had been focused on putting out new spec sheets like this one, only to have none of them pass muster.

“Ugh, not again… Next time, though! Next time, I’ll come up with such an incredibly amazing little-sister novel that I’ll force you to bend to my will!”

“You’re not gonna bend me to do anything,” Toki pointed out. “You aren’t submitting this to your editor; you’re submitting it to your readers. And, I mean, it’s great that you’re coming up with new ideas, but don’t you think you should be focusing on All About right now? You got Sisterly Combat on your plate, too.”

Itsuki was currently penning two series in tandem—Sisterly Combat and All About My Little Sister—and the other day, he had been informed that an anime adaptation of the latter had been approved. There was no staff in place yet; it’d be a while before the public announcement. But Itsuki had a lot to do before the anime-related work started to really come in. The quality of his writing couldn’t afford to drop, of course, but he also had to consider future plotlines to keep things exciting, flesh out parts of the world that he had kept vague up to now, and get ahead on his writing (for Sisterly Combat, too) so his publishing pace didn’t slacken when it mattered most.

“What’re you talking about?” Itsuki lashed back. “I want to announce something new while we’ve got that momentum from the anime, and of course I’m gonna make Sisterly more exciting than ever, too. I want the world to know more than just All About. I want ’em to know there’s this guy Itsuki Hashima out there, conjuring up all this stuff!”

“Yeah…”

He had a point. Launching a new series right when another series from the same author was enjoying hype from its anime version was an effective business strategy.

“…I guess you actually do think, huh?”

Itsuki winced at Toki. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Toki sighed. “Well, if that’s your line of thought, I’m not gonna stop you from brainstorming new ideas…but are you sure you got this? Because I know you’re aware, but moving three different series along while handling all the work for the adaptations isn’t exactly easy.”

“Hah! I’ve totally got this!” shouted Itsuki with a self-confident smile. “As long as my love for my little sister keeps burning, there’s no such thing as impossible!”

“Except you don’t have one.” Toki rolled his eyes. “But you’re not wrong. As long as you’ve got your crazy yen for that trope, maybe there really is nothing stopping you.”

As much as Itsuki’s obsession made even his own editor take a step back, he was an established novelist with a following dedicated enough to finally score him an anime adaptation, and Toki had to admit it: He was really something.

Plus, Toki was truly glad for one other thing.

Thank heavens he doesn’t really have a little sister.