5

It was August 8, the day that Kisaki would be running her booth at Comiket.

Last year, I’d only washed my face and brushed my teeth, never mind bothering to fix my hair before the event. Of course, this year I couldn’t be that careless.

Kokoro was probably going to drill me about all the usual stuff about meeting girls there, but that wasn’t the point; even if I did meet someone new, I didn’t really care. The only girl I cared about was Elena. I wouldn’t want her to see me and think that I was uglier than she remembered.

Yesterday, I’d shaved, plucked my eyebrows, and prepared the clothes I would wear. All that was left to do now was to change and make my hair somewhat presentable.

When the girls finally walked into the living room, it was already too late to eat breakfast. We left the house at seven and hurried to Big Sight, where Comiket awaited us. I only had a backpack with me, but Kisaki and Kokoro both dragged huge trolley bags behind them.

Wouldn’t a cool guy offer to take their bags? Yeah... but I can’t take both of them, and offering the favor to just one of them would be weird, not to mention embarrassing...

While we were on the train, Kisaki turned to Kokoro with a worried expression on her face.

“I wanted to tell you something. I’m very grateful you agreed to help me out... and you too, I guess,” she added, looking at me. “So, I’m sorry if my doujinshi doesn’t sell at all and you’re left doing nothing. You can just go and enjoy the event if that happens!”

She hadn’t shown me her Pixiv and Twitter accounts, let alone her doujinshi, so I didn’t know how good of an artist she was, or how much she could be expected to sell. But sounding so negative right before the real deal wasn’t very much like her. I couldn’t tell if she was being modest or if she really believed that.

“Awww, you know that’s never gonna happen!” Kokoro comforted her. “Look at how many people bookmark your work on Pixiv!”

Oh... So I guess she’s pretty good after all.

“But loads of those are from my friends on Twitter, and most people bookmark stuff that they don’t really plan to buy, so I don’t know how much of that will be reflected in actual sales,” Kisaki replied.

“Even if you take out all the people you just mentioned, I’m sure there’s plenty left! Oh, and I’m sorry my cosplay isn’t HypMic related...”

“Oh please, don’t worry about that! I’m actually really looking forward to seeing your Arimu cosplay!”

Right, she’s going to cosplay Arimu. I’m looking forward to seeing her cosplay too... Wait, what am I thinking?

As we reached Tokyo Big Sight Station, Kokoro’s eyes seemed to pop out of her head.

“Whoa, look at all the people!”

“Yes... It’s even more overwhelming than it looked on TV...”

Both Kokoro and Kisaki seemed to be surprised by the size of the crowd, and I remembered feeling the same way when I’d first been to Comiket. In fact, while lining up with all of them, I’d promised myself that I’d never do it ever again. Of course, as soon as I started browsing the booths and buying doujinshi, I’d gotten so excited that I entirely forgot just how painful the wait had been.

“D-Do we have to get in that line? For real?” Kokoro asked, terrified.

“No, don’t worry. People with circle tickets get in through a separate entrance,” Kisaki explained.

“Phew, I was scared for a moment there!”

Circle tickets really are wonderful, wonderful things...

“I’ll go change as fast as possible and then meet you at the booth!” Kokoro said when we got inside, before heading straight for the changing rooms.

Left alone, Kisaki and I went to the area reserved for circles—the west exhibition hall. One glance at my sister’s face was enough to see that she still looked worried.

She must be worrying about whether anyone will come to her booth...

“S-Say, Kisaki, does it even matter if people buy your manga? I mean, drawing and publishing a doujinshi is pretty impressive if you ask me. It takes a lot of effort and all that,” I said.

While it’s true that I said it to cheer her up, I wasn’t lying. As someone who consumed as much manga and doujinshi as I did oxygen, I deeply respected her for being able to actually create one.

“Uh...? What are you talking about? It’s not impressive at all. Anyone can do that, as long as they have the money...” she replied.

“Oh, right...”

I guess my words didn’t really reach her...

“But maybe you do have a point,” she said. “When you make a doujinshi, you’re just drawing stuff you like and publishing it for fun, so worrying about how many people come to buy it doesn’t make that much sense, I guess...”

She sighed, but at least she seemed to have relaxed a bit.

We shortly reached the right hall, asked for the number of the lot reserved for Kisaki, and made our way there while looking at a map.

“This should be it,” I said when I finally found the spot we were looking for. Inside was a table with several pamphlets, folding chairs, and some other stuff on it.

“The new copies are here! Perfect!” Kisaki rejoiced. The printing company often delivers doujinshi directly to the client’s lot, saving them the hassle of carrying all that manga themselves.

“I have to check them to see if everything is okay! But first, we have to move those chairs out of the way,” she said.

We took the three folding chairs down from on top of the table, but since there wasn’t enough space to put all of them side by side, we placed two of them closer to the table and the third one behind them.

Most of the pamphlets looked like useless junk, but Kisaki put all of them in her bag anyway. Then, she took out a box cutter, used it to open a box under the table, and took a look at the doujinshi inside.

“Wow...” she whispered, staring with sparkling eyes at the cover of the manga she was now holding in her hands.

Her first printed manga... No wonder she’s getting emotional.

I was finally able to take a peek at the cover. It surprised me for a variety of reasons. First of all, the art was incredibly good. I had no idea that Kisaki was such a talented artist. Of course, the subject was a couple of men making out with each other, but I decided not to pass any judgment on that. My main point of concern was the red “R15” icon on one corner.

“Fifteen plus?! Is there porn in that story?!” I asked Kisaki, whose face turned a deep shade of red as she hid the doujinshi behind her back.

“Wh-What do you care?! And I told you not to look at my manga!”

“How am I supposed to help you sell them without even seeing the cover?”

“Ugh...”

“Can I take a look inside?”

“Absolutely no way!”

She could at least let me see them, sheesh! I normally don’t care for BL, but who wouldn’t be curious about a 15+ manga drawn by his own sister?

Kisaki, taking great care to hold the book so that I couldn’t see its contents, flipped through the pages, carefully checking for any printing mistakes.

Her reaction didn’t really leave room for objections, so I silently waited for her to finish. When she had, she took more stuff out of her bag: a tablecloth, price tags, a coin holder with some change in it, a board listing the items for sale, those copybooks, and a bunch of pens.

While she was laying the tablecloth over our half of the table, the circle that would be using the other half arrived. They were two girls, probably in their twenties. Both of them looked like the serious, meek types.

“Are you... Queen?!” one of the girls asked Kisaki.

“Ah, yes! Ringo?!”

“Yes! I’m so happy to meet you in person!”

“Me too! I hope today’s going to be fun!”

“Wow, I didn’t think you’d be so young! I imagined you were around our age...”

I figured that “Queen” was probably Kisaki’s pen name, and that the girl she called “Ringo”—most likely also a pen name—was an online friend of hers.

“This is Tokita; she’s going to help me out today,” Ringo said, introducing the other girl.

After they were done greeting Kisaki, the two girls’ gazes shifted toward me. Kisaki followed suit, looking somewhat embarrassed.

“Oh, he’s... helping me out with the booth. This is my older brother,” she explained, struggling for words.

“Your brother?! That’s amazing!”

I forced a smile and said hello to the two surprised girls, who returned the favor. There were no other men in the spaces around ours, so seeing one in what was clearly a BL-only zone must have been surprising in itself, not to mention the fact that I was there to help sell the homosexual softcore erotica that my little sister had drawn. I was suddenly beginning to feel... rather awkward.

Kisaki and I continued preparing the booth, taking the books out and lining them up on the table with the price labels in front of them. While we were doing so, I could hear the girls next to us whispering to each other.

“Can you believe two young siblings that are so good-looking are selling doujinshi together?” one of them was saying to the other.

Two siblings... Are they talking about us?! I’ll admit that Kisaki is so fashionable that you’d never take her for an otaku, and, even if it is weird to say so as her brother, she’s far from ugly... Heck, I guess she’s outright cute. But they’re talking about both of us... What?!

Granted, I’d put a lot of effort into myself that day, since I was half expecting to run into Elena. That being said, I’d never thought in a thousand years that I, Otaku McOtakinson, would ever be called “good-looking.”

To be honest, I couldn’t help but be a bit thrilled about that.

“You really have some passion for this though, huh? Making these at the last minute when you already have a printed book to sell...” I said while helping Kisaki line the copybooks up next to the professionally bound ones.

“I can’t help it. I came up with the idea for the story and wanted to publish it...” she replied.

Sure, it was probably just another story about handsome men making out with each other, but I still had to respect my sister for how much creativity she poured into her hobby.

“Wait a second...” Kisaki suddenly said, freezing in place. “How do you know that I made these copybooks at the last minute?”

“W-Well, I... Uh...”

I’d overheard her conversation with Kokoro the previous night, but I obviously couldn’t tell her that. If I did, she’d accuse me of eavesdropping.

Oh no! I was so careful not to make a noise yesterday, and now I go and let my mouth run like an idiot! Great going, Kagetora!

“I mean, er... Since it’s a copybook, you know, I just imagined you must have been in a hurry, right?”

“But you said it like you knew it for certain! D-Did you... hear what I was saying last night?!”

She figured it out!

“I thought I heard something outside the living room yesterday... That was you?! You didn’t walk in and you didn’t flush the toilet at all, so I thought I’d just imagined it... I can’t believe it! You were sneaking around on purpose so we wouldn’t know you were eavesdropping!”

“N-No! I didn’t mean to hear you, I swear!”

“So you did eavesdrop on us!” she shouted, her face completely red.

Lying won’t do me any good at this point...

“Look, I couldn’t help it! I meant to go to the toilet, but then I heard you two talking and I figured it’d be awkward to go to the toilet, so I just went back! What’s so bad about that?!”

“H-How much did you hear?”

“I... don’t know. I can’t remember exactly.”

Ah, what the hell. Might as well tell her what’s been on my mind.

“I might have heard you say that I was avoiding you...”

“You heard that?! Y-You...!”

“I just wanted to say that it was a misunderstanding...”

“You creep—huh?”

“I think you definitely get it now, but... you know what anime and games can be like, right? There’s ones that you don’t want your family to see. I was just shutting myself in my room to check out that sort of stuff. I wasn’t avoiding you at all. To be honest, I thought you were the one who was avoiding me...”

“You can’t be serious,” she murmured. “What kind of stupid reason is that?!”

“What...?”

“‘Ones that you don’t want your family to see’? You’re telling me you were holed up in your room watching porn all that time?!”

“Huh?!”

“And you were still in middle school! Ack! That’s the last thing I wanted to hear from my brother!”

“W-Wait!” I stammered, trying to stop her from getting any louder. The people from circles nearby had started staring at us.

“I went through that because of your weird addiction to porn? I-I can’t believe it...” Kisaki said. “I was so lonely and anxious all this time all because of that. I feel like an idiot...”

Lonely? Anxious? She really felt like that because she thought I was avoiding her?

“Sorry to keep you waiting!”

A familiar voice made both of us snap out of it. It was Kokoro, dressed as Arimu Yumemi. Her pink wig and blue maid outfit were on point, as were the makeup and the colored contact lenses. It looked like Arimu herself had been transported into the third dimension to spread the news of BL at Comiket.

Did she... pad her bra or something? If my memory serves me right, Arimu’s chest circumference is supposed to be around 90 cm. Nishina might have quite the pair herself, but today they’re on a totally different level... Wait, why am I staring at her chest?! I’m going to creep her out! I quickly averted my eyes from the danger zone.

“K-Kokoro! You’re sooo cute!” Kisaki said.

“Thanks! I’m sorry it took me so long. Am I too late to help with anything?”

“Not at all!”

Kokoro came to join us behind the table and took a seat.

“Is this your latest work?! It looks incredible! Can I read it?!”

“Of course!”

Heeey! Why do you let her read it and not me?!

“Awaaah! I can’t take it! This is too hot!” Kokoro screeched as she flipped through the pages.

“If you’d like, I can give you a copy. I know it’s not enough to thank you, but...”

“Really?! Thank you so much!”

“I’m helping out too, you know?” I said, unprompted.

“L-Like I’d give you a copy! You wouldn’t even want one, would you?!”

“To be honest, I’m really curious about the contents, so...”

“Absolutely no way!”

Kokoro’s arrival had put an abrupt end to my conversation with Kisaki. I was shocked to know she’d felt so bad because of me, and I wanted to talk more about that. Unfortunately, even if we did end up alone later on, it wasn’t exactly the easiest subject to bring up.

I can hardly believe it... I was sad too because I thought I was the one being avoided...

With the three of us at the booth together, we decided that Kisaki and Kokoro would sit at the front, and I would stay in the back—that would probably make female clients more comfortable buying.

Just as we’d finished getting ready, an announcement blared from the speakers in the hall. It was time.

“Good morning, everyone. The 96th Comic Market summer event is now open!”

Before now, I’d only ever heard that announcement while waiting in line. I certainly never imagined that I’d one day be able to hear it from the circles’ area... while sitting next to my sister.

We joined in as everyone in the hall started clapping.

“Whoooa! I’m getting all shaky!” Kokoro grinned in excitement, offering the perfect contrast to my sister, who could barely muster a nervous whisper. I could only see her small back, but that was enough to tell that the pressure was getting to her.

“I-It started... It’s open... I hope we get at least a couple of customers,” she said, more to herself than to us.

She’s still worrying about that...

“Don’t worry! We’ll get tons!” Kokoro said, slapping her on the shoulder.

The guests finally began pouring through the doors. As expected, most of the ones making their way over to this area were girls. Before today, I’d only visited the parts of Comiket where guys tended to congregate, so this was a very strange sight.

Eventually, some even started walking closer to our table. Every time one of them seemed to be approaching it, I felt a rush of excitement run through my body. I hadn’t read it, but it was still Kisaki’s doujinshi, so I really hoped it would do well.

Finally! I thought when a girl stopped in front of our table.

“One copy of the latest issue, please,” the girl said, without even checking inside it.

“O-Of course! Thank you very much!” Kisaki quickly replied, standing up from her seat.

Kokoro picked up a copy and informed the customer that it would be five hundred yen. The customer happily handed the money to Kokoro and left with a smile on her face.

“You already sold a copy!” Kokoro squealed.

“Y-Yes! I did!” my sister replied, looking a bit surprised. “I didn’t expect a customer this fast, and she didn’t even bother to see what was inside...”

“See? What did I tell you? That’s totally someone who bookmarked your work on Pixiv and was planning to come here and get one!”

Oh, that’d explain why she didn’t think twice before buying it.

“So... there really are people who’ll pay actual money to buy the things I’ve drawn. I was really happy when my drawings were liked or bookmarked and all that, but this makes it feel so much more real... I’m so happy I could cry.”

Thinking about it, since this was her first time bringing her doujinshi to an in-person event, it was also the first time Kisaki had met any of her readers.

And the first person to come over bought it right away. Way to go, Kisaki!

“Th-That’s cool!” I said—praising her any further would have been too awkward.

“Y-Yeah...” she replied.

I couldn’t see her face, but I imagined she was blushing.

“Oh, by the way!” my sister then said, looking at Kokoro, mostly, but also glancing at me for a brief moment. “If you want to go and look around, feel free! The earlier you get there, the more likely you are to find the things you want to buy!”

I had a few doujinshi on my shopping list, and I’d also checked Pixiv to find out where the circles’ booths were. But that was far from my top priority. I’d mostly come to help Kisaki sell her books, to help Kokoro meet up with the cosplayer she had a crush on, and to see Elena for the first time in weeks. If the doujinshi I wanted were all sold out by the time I went looking for them, then so be it. I could always buy them online after Comiket was over.

“I was gonna go to the cosplay area around lunchtime,” Kokoro replied, “but I can go buy my doujinshi whenever. Like, if you tell me the ones you want, I can get them for you while I’m at it. Is there anything you’re worried could be sold out soon?”

“Hmm... There is one.”

“I’ll go buy it right now then!”

“Thank you so much!” Kisaki replied, before giving Kokoro all the details she needed to identify the doujinshi she wanted.

After serving another customer, Kokoro left to go shopping by herself, leaving me alone with my sister.

“Um... do you want to go shopping too?” Kisaki asked me.

“Yeah, but I can go do that later.”

“Oh. You can go now if you want too, you know?”

“I can’t leave you here all by yourself.”

After a moment of surprise, Kisaki, suddenly annoyed, turned away from me.

“I’ll be fine running the booth on my own! That was the plan to begin with,” she said.

“I know, but you’re still just a middle school girl...”

“Stop treating me like a child!”

She’d raised her voice, but I could tell that she wasn’t really angry—this had always been her way of showing she was embarrassed.

More and more attendees bought Kisaki’s doujinshi—both the store-bound and the hand-bound ones. She wasn’t gathering a crowd or anything like that, but the stream of customers was pretty constant. Kisaki handed the copies to the customers, and I kept the table stocked with fresh ones from the cardboard box.

I’ve got to give it to her. She may still be a schoolgirl, but she’s got talent. Uploading her stuff on the web has gotten her so many customers already! I wish I could read it.

It didn’t take long for Kokoro to come back.

“Every single one of the doujinshi you wanted were still in stock!” she proudly announced to Kisaki.

“Really?! That’s great news! Thank you so much!”

“And I found all the ones I was looking for too! It’s all thanks to you and the circle tickets!” She seemed to be overjoyed about getting all the books that were on her shopping list.

“You can go next then,” Kisaki told me.

“Ah... right. Be right back then,” I said, getting up from my chair.

I headed over toward the booths that interested me, and I somehow managed to buy everything I was looking for. Walking through the hot event hall was tiring, but it was nothing in comparison to standing in line in the scorching heat.

Kokoro was right—we had Kisaki and the circle tickets to thank for making doujinshi-shopping at Comiket a bearable feat. Some authors even sold their extra tickets to strangers, and, while I couldn’t really get behind that, I definitely understood why someone would be ready to pay good money to get their hands on one.

“I’m back!”

“How did it go?” Kokoro asked me.

“Even better than I expected. I found all the doujinshi I was looking for.”

“Oh, that’s a relief,” Kisaki said.

“Yeah... Circle tickets really are amazing. Thanks, Kisaki.”

“S-Sure...”

All of a sudden, a couple of familiar faces showed up in front of our table.

“There she is!”

“Hello, everyone!”

They were Iroha and Mikoto, my former maid café colleagues. Kokoro had probably texted them the location of our booth.

“You’re cosplaying Arimu? You look amazing!” Iroha commented.

“It’s certainly not easy to pull something like that off. You have a gift,” Mikoto agreed. Unlike Kokoro, neither of our friends were cosplaying this time.

“Awww, you’re too kind, both of you! Oh, right, Kisaki, this is Iroha and this is Mikoto. Ichigaya and I met them while working at a maid café together.”

“Nice to meet you. I’m Ichigaya Kisaki,” my sister introduced herself.

“I-Ichigaya?! You’re Ichi’s sister?! But you look nothing like him! You’re so cute!”

“I-Iroha!” I protested, shocked by the ease with which she was able to insult me.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you too,” Mikoto said. “Your brother used to help us at the café. Well, usually it was the rest of us helping him out...”

“M-Mikoto!” I protested again, although she definitely had a point.

Kisaki looked shocked for a moment before hurriedly bowing her head and saying, “My pleasure!”

Hm? What’s she so surprised about?

“Oh my, you’re so polite. You really are nothing like your brother,” Mikoto told her.

“Hey! I’m polite too!”

Iroha, meanwhile, was staring in awe at Kisaki’s doujinshi.

“Whoa, I was already surprised that you were selling your art so young, but you’re great at this!” she said.

“Oh, but we’re getting in the way. We should get going now,” Mikoto said as another customer approached us and picked up a copy from the table. “We’ll text you later on. It was lovely meeting you, Kisaki.”

“Thanks! That sounds awesome!” Kokoro replied, and the two left.

They swept in from nowhere, dealt a ton of damage, and left just as quickly. Those two are like a summer storm.

“Unbelievable...” Kisaki muttered to herself.

“Hm?”

“I can’t believe you’re friends not just with Kokoro, but with other pretty girls too,” she said, looking at me with a slight frown. She seemed genuinely confused.

“What do you want me to say?” I shrugged.

I must look way too popular and extroverted to her... I thought, but then I remembered that I’d never been friends with a girl before meeting Kokoro, and that Kisaki had every reason to be surprised.

“Oh!” Kokoro exclaimed, looking at her phone. “Minami said she’s coming!”

I felt my whole body tense from head to toe.

“Is that another friend of yours?” Kisaki asked.

“Yep!” Kokoro replied. “She goes to our school. She’s a voice actress, and she’s one hundred percent the prettiest girl ever!”

“Whoa, you’re friends with a voice actress?! That’s amazing!”

Minami’s coming here?! Oh damn, I’m so nervous... Is my hair okay? I need to take a look in a mirror, but I don’t want these two seeing that...

“Hello.”

I barely had the time to worry before Elena’s arrival.

“Minami! Thanks for coming!” Kokoro welcomed her.

Our blonde friend was wearing a mask and hat to hide her identity, but there was no disguising how beautiful she was. Elena looked amazing in her gingham dress. It was still hard to believe that a girl that looked like this would like me, as a friend or otherwise.

“Oh, hello... I’m Minami. It’s nice to meet you. You’re Ichigaya’s sister, right?”

“Yes! I’m Kisaki! Nice to meet you too!”

After they’d exchanged greetings, Kokoro began showing Elena the doujinshi, leaving me an outsider to their three-way conversation.

I missed the timing to join in... I should’ve said hello! But I was way too nervous...

“It’s nice to see you here, Ichigaya.” Elena addressed me all of a sudden, right when I was worrying that I wouldn’t be able to speak with her at all.

She’s smiling at me like she always does...

“O-Oh! M-Minami! Have you been enjoying the event? Did you... m-manage to buy some doujinshi?” I asked, stumbling over my words so much that I must have looked like an idiot.

“Yes, thankfully the ones I wanted were still available. Though I wouldn’t want to be a nuisance loitering around your booth, so I’ll take my leave.”

I wanted to chat with her a bit more though...

“Th-Thank you for stopping by!”

She casually waved at us all and then walked away. I was surprised by how calm she was acting, as if our last meeting had never happened. On the other hand though, I felt like she was trying to avoid me.

I did my best to tidy up just for her and then she left after a few seconds...

“Wow... That girl was beautiful! She can’t be Japanese, can she?” Kisaki asked.

“She’s half-Japanese, half-English,” I explained.

“You were trying pretty hard to talk with her, but she wasn’t having any of it, huh? It looked like she was trying to avoid you,” my sister said, giving me a look of pure pity.

“Wh-What?! You’re just imagining things!”

“Did you do something to upset Minami?” Kokoro then asked me. There was no pity in my roommate’s gaze—just suspicion.

“N-No, I didn’t do anything!”

Maybe she sounded a bit cold toward me, but that must be because she felt awkward after what she said last time... I think. Either way, it’s a shame that I got to spend so little time with her.

Kisaki’s booth continued attracting a lot of visitors, including some of the online friends that she’d promised to meet.

“Ah!” Kokoro suddenly exclaimed, checking her phone. “Do you mind if I leave for a while?”

“Of course! No problem!”

It was pretty clear from the way that she started fixing her wig and looking into the mirror on her phone case that she’d heard about the whereabouts of a certain someone.

“Are you going to see that cosplayer guy?” I asked her.

“Y-Yeah. He just tweeted that he’s done shopping and that he’ll be in the cosplay area, so...”

“Oh?!” Kisaki chipped in. “Are you talking about that handsome Toppo cosplayer?!”

“Y-Yes. That one...” Kokoro replied, blushing. “But wouldn’t it be annoying if I just showed up? He’s cosplaying with some friends, and what if he doesn’t remember me? He might be all like, ‘Who the heck are you?’ and that’d be a bummer...”

“Don’t tell me you’re going to chicken out now!” I cried. I was about to remind her of how she’d decided on her Arimu cosplay just to make a good impression on the guy, but I decided to keep my mouth shut. Kisaki was listening, and maybe Kokoro wouldn’t want her to think that she was so desperate.

“I-I’m just a bit nervous! That’s all!” she replied. “I’ll see ya later then...”

Kokoro slowly stood up from her seat, with such a worried look that I considered accompanying her.

But would I be of any help...? Nah, I’d probably just be a nuisance. I’m more worried about leaving Kisaki here alone, anyway. Ninety-nine percent of the artists and attendees in this area are girls, but I can’t be sure she wouldn’t be approached by some weird guy while I’m away...

“Good luck!” Kisaki said as my roommate waved and headed to the cosplay area.

Yeah, good luck indeed...

“I wonder if she’s into him,” Kisaki said once Kokoro was out of earshot.

“Wh-Who knows? They’ve only met once, and they haven’t even talked that much... but he does look like the kind of otaku guy she’d go for.”

“Oh...” she replied, sounding strangely disappointed. “I guess I can see why. He’s cosplaying her favorite character, and he’s doing it so well it’s like Toppo himself jumped out of the screen. It figures that she’d be all over that.”

As a fellow fujoshi, Kisaki probably understood better than anyone how Kokoro would be affected by someone like that.

Right as yet another customer came over to buy Kisaki’s doujinshi, I got a LINE notification—it was Kokoro.

“So many people around! I can’t find him!”

Sheesh... I’d better help her out.

“Did you even ask where he was?”

“I did, but now that I’m here I can’t find him! And it’s so crowded I can’t stand it! Maybe I should just come back...”

“You can’t give up after all that!”

Come on, where’s your fighting spirit?! I thought, but I also remembered how exhausting my first time at Comiket had felt with all those people surrounding me.

“Did Kokoro text you?” Kisaki asked.

“Yeah. She says it’s so crowded she’s thinking of giving up.”

“Awww, that’d be such a shame! Why don’t you go there to help her out?”

“What...?”

I’d considered that option myself, but I certainly hadn’t expected my sister to suggest it.

“I can’t leave you all by yourse—”

“You’re still worrying about that?! I said I’m fine! There’s not that many customers anymore anyway!”

I honestly didn’t know whether going over to the cosplay area would help or hinder Kokoro... but it was better than sitting around doing nothing.

“O-Okay... I’m going! I’ll be back as soon as I can!” I said as I rushed away from the table.

I thought I heard Kisaki say something along the lines of “Do take your time,” but I still didn’t want to leave her by herself any longer than necessary.

I headed toward the west wing and texted Kokoro to ask where she was, but I didn’t get a reply. The message wasn’t even marked as read. Maybe there were so many people around that messages were taking longer to arrive.

Since Kokoro had said that she was near where the cosplayer was supposed to be, I realized I could try to find him first. I know it sounds a bit stalkery, but I’d actually added his account to a private Twitter List so that I could check his tweets without him finding out.

It was my responsibility to make sure that he wasn’t weird or dangerous, since Kokoro had the tendency to overlook all the flaws in the guys she fell for. That being said, I’d never found anything remotely suspicious on this one’s timeline.

I checked it again, this time to see if he’d posted anything about where he was, and sure enough, he’d tweeted a cosplay selfie with the caption “Here I am at the cosplay area!” about thirty minutes ago.

He was wearing a blond wig, and, from what I’d been forced to learn about HypMic, I could tell he was cosplaying that one character who was shy around girls. This character was also part of an unofficial gay pairing that Kisaki and Kokoro shipped.

I didn’t know whether the guy would still be there after a whole thirty minutes, but going there would at least give me a good chance at finding Kokoro.

I somehow managed to reach the spot shown in the selfie, but the crowd was so dense that I couldn’t hope to find anyone without literally bumping into them. In a corner, there were several groups of cosplayers having their pictures taken. Some of them were so cute and/or sexy that I’d have liked to take a picture or two myself, but I had a more important issue to deal with.

That Arimu cosplayer is even cuter than the rest though... Huh? Wait. Isn’t that Nishina?!

It was—and right next to her was a certain handsome cosplayer that she’d been looking for.

So she managed to find him...

They seemed to be having fun chatting with each other, but I couldn’t hear what they were talking about from this distance. I actually walked even further away, lest Kokoro see me. At this point, since she’d already found him, I’d have just been a complete nuisance.

Huh, and she did it all by herself. She isn’t even the only one smiling... That guy’s smiling too. I guess I wasn’t needed after all.

Kokoro had taken things into her own hands and taken a huge step toward finding her perfect otaku boyfriend. I should’ve been happy for her.

But for some reason... I wasn’t. I felt a little bit sad.

“Huh? You’re back already?” Kisaki asked when I returned to the booth. “Where’s Kokoro?!”

“She’d already found the guy by the time I got there, so I came back before she could see me.”

“What? Why’d you leave instead of going to talk to her?!”

“I’d have just gotten in the way, you know?”

Kisaki looked at me as if she had more to say, but she didn’t speak.

“What have I done now?” I asked.

“Nothing... I... I just wanted to see that guy’s cosplay! Yes, that’s all!”

“Huh? Well I’m sure she’ll show you herself later.”

“Y-Yeah... But I was just wondering...” Kisaki continued in a quiet voice. “Are you okay with that?”

“Okay with what?”

Before my sister could answer, another customer walked up to the booth.

“Oh, welcome! Here’s your copy! Thank you very much!”

“Kisaki,” I said once the customer was gone. “What were you talking about?”

“Nothing. It’s fine.”

“It wasn’t nothing! What did you mean?!”

“Just forget about it,” she said, turning to another customer. “Thank you very much! Have a nice day!”

In the end, she didn’t explain at all.

Am I fine with that? Fine with what? You know I’m trying to help Nishina find a boyfriend... What is there not to be fine with?

I checked my phone and noticed that Kokoro had finally managed to reply.

“I’m in the cosplay area, just right of the entrance! Are you coming?”

“I thought I would, but I’ve changed my mind.”

“God, the cosplay area is like a sauna! It’s so hot and crowded!”

After a short while, Kokoro returned. She sounded exhausted and was wiping the sweat off her forehead with a handkerchief, but no amount of wiping was going to take that grin off her face. She was clearly happy about the way things had gone.

“How was it?! Did you manage to meet him?” Kisaki asked.

“Awaaah, yes! The cosplayer! I met him! I even got a picture with him! Look!” she exclaimed between breaths, showing her phone to Kisaki.

She isn’t even trying to hide how excited she is...

“Wow! He looks so hot in that cosplay!”

“Right? Right?!”

“Did you talk to him?” I asked. I already knew that she had, but I didn’t want her to know that I’d seen them together.

“Y-Yeah! He complimented me so much! He said he loves Arimu and that I look great as her!” She replied so euphorically that I feared she’d start foaming at the mouth. “I’m so glad I took your advice and went with this cosplay! Thanks sooo much!”

“Oh, don’t mention it...”

“And then, he was like, ‘Do you cosplay other characters too?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, this and that,’ and he was like, ‘We should totally cosplay together sometime!’ And we even exchanged LINE contacts!”

They got so far in so little time?!

“Really? Th-That’s incredible. At this rate, you’ll end up dating in no time...” Kisaki said, sneaking a quick glance at me.

What’s that look for?! I mean, I agree with her. Things seem to be going great between those two.

“But then we both got asked for pictures and had to split up,” Kokoro said.

“I-I imagine you got asked quite a lot with that cosplay of yours,” I commented, remembering how much she’d stood out among all the other cute cosplayers.

“Yeah, but I turned everyone down. I wanted to come back here as soon as I was done. And you said you wanted to come but then changed your mind. Why?”

“I-I thought I could help you find him, but you weren’t replying, so I figured you’d already met up with him.”

“Really? Aww, I wish you’d come! Finding him was super hard and approaching him was even harder!”

“But you managed it in the end.”

If I’d been there, maybe they wouldn’t have talked so much. Maybe they wouldn’t have exchanged LINE contacts at all. Coming back was definitely the right decision.

“Seriously though, his cosplay looked amazing! It was like seeing a real HypMic character right in front of my eyes!”

While I half listened to her rave about how handsome the guy was, my mind wandered. Kokoro’s quest for romance was going well, and since I’d been helping her out, I thought I’d be happy about it too. Then why did I feel so anxious... and sad, even?

I bet it’s because we’re rivals and I’m scared she’ll reach her goal before me... That’s it, yeah. That’s what I’m scared of.