3

The next day, at school.

I gathered up my things to head to my next class. To my surprise, Kokoro was standing outside the room, waiting for me.

“Do you have a minute?” she asked me.

I followed her until we were out of sight next to the gym storage room.

“First of all, I want to make sure of this, but... I really can live in your house, right?” she asked nervously.

Just as I’d told her parents, I really did have a spare room in my house. Since my family wasn’t going to be back for at least two years, there was no problem with Kokoro living in it.

Well, there was one problem. The fact that a virgin like me, who had never dated, kissed, held hands, or even had a friendly conversation with a girl, was going to share a roof with a beautiful one. She wasn’t my type and she was more interested in her closet hoard than she would ever be in making moves on me, but still... It was enough to freak me out.

“If you’re fine with it? I’m not your boyfriend, and you’d be living with a boy that you don’t even like.”

Isn’t she scared that I’ll do something to her?

“So I won’t even have to hide my hobbies anymore? That already sounds better than living with my parents!” she grinned happily, showing no hint of distrust.

“And it’ll be easier for you to help me find a boyfriend if we live together! Like, I’m not really comfortable talking to guys, but you don’t count. It’s probably because you’re an otaku like me. Or... maybe I just don’t see you as a boy?”

“Excuse me?!”

She doesn’t see me as a boy?! Why is she always so rude?!

“But you’re going to tell me that you don’t want me to come to your house after all, aren’t you?”

“No, don’t worry.”

I’d come up with the idea in the heat of the moment but, even now, I didn’t regret it. As someone who’d been through similar circumstances, I could empathize with her. She was very annoying, but I still wanted to help her.

“I see. Thanks, it’s really a huge help,” she said, seriously thanking me for the first time. “I’ll still keep my half of the promise. I’ll help you find the best otaku girlfriend, you’ll see! So let’s try super hard, okay?”

“Yeah... let’s do our best!”

Around a week after that, Kokoro and her parents brought her stuff to my house. It took a while to move everything in, because between clothes and cardboard boxes—that I hoped weren’t full of lewd figures—she had a lot of baggage.

I used to use the empty room for storage, so I had to clean it out before they turned up. Thankfully, the door to that room had a lock, so when my family came back on vacation, Kokoro could just keep her stuff inside and go somewhere else. I’d just say that I kept my hentai in there and I didn’t want anyone to see. That should be enough to take care of it. Probably.

It wasn’t until now, when I was helping Kokoro carry her bags inside, that I thought about what it meant to hide a thing like this from my family.

＊　＊　＊

A few more days passed and it was finally Saturday—the day that Kokoro was going to move in with me.

She saw her parents off at the airport before getting the train to my place.

“Oh, thank you.”

I’d offered my guest some tea, still not entirely processing the fact that she was here to stay. Now that it was just the two of us, alone inside my living room, I started feeling nervous again.

“Whew! It feels great knowing I don’t have to worry about my parents wandering into my room!”

“Aren’t you sad about your parents being so far away?” I asked her (as if I was one to speak).

“I guess I am, just a little bit. Oh, you should know... Before leaving today, my dad said something really weird...”

“What did he say?”

“He said, ‘When we’re back in Japan, you’ll be close to graduating high school. So, after that, I’ll be looking forward to the wedding!’”

“W-Wedding?!” I yelped in surprise. “How are we going to lie our way through that?!”

“We’ll get out of it somehow.”

“I wish I had your optimism...”

“When they come back, I’ll just tell them that we broke up and that I actually want to marry someone else,” she said.

“Your dad would kill me!”

“If we say that you dumped me, maybe. But if we just say that I fell in love with someone else it’ll be fine. Maybe they’ll be mad at me but they’ll have to get over it.”

“Will they? If you’re so sure...”

“After all, Dad did the same thing. When he fell in love with Mom, he already had a girlfriend, so he dumped her. He thinks love is the most important thing, so he probably won’t make a fuss about it.”

I couldn’t even imagine talking about my parents like that, but her dad was a different breed.

“That’s why I have to find someone I love so much that we’ll get married in the next couple of years!”

“I see.”

I wanted to find an otaku girlfriend, but I didn’t want to be killed by her father. But since Kokoro and I had already promised to help each other, there was no going back. I could only give it my best.

“Anyway,” she said, “I was thinking that maybe, before going out of our way to meet new people, we should make ourselves more datable. You told me that I’m nothing like an otaku’s ideal girlfriend, remember? So we should get a little bit closer to what they like before putting ourselves out there.”

At the otaku party, Kokoro had told me that in my current state, I’d never get the girlfriend I wanted. It was pretty harsh, but I’d avoided getting depressed over it because she’d distracted me by moving in.

She continued, “And even if we did meet someone, we probably wouldn’t have much to talk about, right? That’s why we’d better teach each other about what’s popular first!”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

Now that I thought about it, I didn’t really know what otaku girls liked.

“But you also said that you don’t like girls who are into otome games and stuff, didn’t you? You said you’d rather date someone who likes the things that you like.”

If our tastes are totally different, dating will be no fun at all.

“I’m sure there are girls like that somewhere, but they’re probably pretty rare. Some girls enjoy all types of content, but a girl who’s only into booby female characters is kind of... iffy,” she said.

“How so?”

“I only know about them from Twitter and online forums, but most girls like that are either cosplayers who want to dress up as pretty characters or, you know... attention whores. Sketchy girls who only pretend to like them to gain followers.”

“No way! You’re making that up!” I said, offended.

“I haven’t met any girls like that. But I’ve read about boys falling in love with them and seriously regretting it. Kind of like you. You’re exactly the type who would fall for that.”

“Huh?!”

Otaku girls are only into female characters for attention?! They just want followers?! I don’t want to believe it...

But then again, if she read about it happening to other people, she must have heard it from somewhere.

“In any case, if you want an otaku girlfriend, shouldn’t you learn how to be more likeable to the kind of girl you want? That’ll probably work better than chasing after a pretty face that turns out to be a complete psycho. Anyway, as long as she’s cute and nice, does it even matter that much what kind of fandom she’s into? To me it doesn’t.”

“You do have a point.”

“Since you’d both be otaku, you could just tell her about the things you like, and maybe she’ll start to like them too. That’d be nice, wouldn’t it?”

Now that she explained it to me like that, I realized I didn’t care if a potential girlfriend was a fujoshi or not, just as long as she had the ideal looks and personality.

“Don’t worry, I’ll teach you about stuff that otaku girls are crazy for! In exchange, teach me about what’s popular with guys, okay? If I get that down, I’m sure I’ll be able to find my perfect boyfriend!”

“Ok, deal. Leave it to me!”

It all made a surprising amount of sense. If learning more about girl-aimed content was all it took to find a girlfriend, I was ready to do it.

So, we decided that we’d start by teaching each other about what was popular with otaku of the opposite sex.

“But let me start. Today I’ll teach you, if that’s okay?” I said.

“Sure! But before that... aren’t you hungry?” she asked.

It was already 7 p.m.

“I am, actually. I have some frozen rice, so we could go buy something to eat with it from the store.”

“We could just cook something. Can I look in your fridge?”

“Of course. By the way, you don’t need to ask me for permission. You’re going to live here after all.”

She opened the fridge and looked inside.

“Not much in there, right?” I asked.

“You have eggs and some veggies... So you cook sometimes. I’m kind of surprised.”

“Nothing fancy, but yeah.”

“It’s all we’d need for fried rice. Can I...?”

“Oh?! S-Sure...”

Ignoring my surprise, she picked up a knife, without even checking a recipe. She chopped the onions as if she’d done it a thousand times before.

Honestly, the fact that she could even cook was unexpected. Her always-partying gyaru looks made it difficult to imagine her doing something so homey.

“Should I... do something?” I asked.

“No, just wait.”

“Okay...”

I sat down on the couch and started playing with my phone. Kokoro Nishina, the school’s most popular gyaru, was cooking in my kitchen. This is so weird.

After a while, the delicious smell of her fried rice wafted toward me. Having someone cook for you, and a girl at that, is really nice.

“It’s ready!”

“Oh!” Kokoro put the dish on the table. It looked so good that you’d never think it was made with leftovers.

“Mom told me to cook for us as much as possible instead of buying meals, as practice for when I’ll have to cook for my husband.”

Is that why she cooked this?

“Thank you...”

“Hm? What’s wrong?” she asked me.

“No, it’s nothing.”

I had just realized how long it had been since I last ate a meal that someone had cooked just for me. Though I hadn’t really felt lonely since my family moved away, something as simple as sharing dinner with someone was more enjoyable than I remembered.

“I-It’s really good!” I said as soon as I’d swallowed my first bite. Compared to what I usually made for myself, Kokoro’s cooking was on another level.

It was moving, really. This was the first homemade meal I’d even had after months of convenience store and deli food, not to mention the edible-but-far-from-tasty things I cooked for myself.

“Really? I just threw it together.”

“No, really! It’s delicious! You’re a good cook!”

“N-Not at all! It’s just fried rice...” she answered, making me feel embarrassed for trying to compliment her.

Did I go overboard? I was so excited by eating my first girl-made dinner that I praised her too much. I was afraid that I’d creeped her out.

When I looked at her face, however, she was blushing and staring at the floor.

Wait, is she embarrassed? For being praised? I guess she can be cute sometimes...

“S-So, anyway,” she said, switching the topic, “tell me what’s popular with otaku guys! I only know about IMS.”

IMS, short for “IdolMaster Station,” was a gacha game full of cute girl idols. It was so popular there’s even an anime. I loved the franchise and I knew some girls liked it too, but I wasn’t expecting Kokoro to be one of them.

“Okay. I guess the most popular one right now would be FG0.”

“Oh! I hear about that a lot! My Twitter followers are way into it. I’ve never played it though.”

FG0 stood for “Final God 0,” a fantasy battle mobile game. I was way into it myself, joining the masses of people on Twitter. Granted, most people just tweeted about how much money they wasted on gacha rolls...

“It’s fun to play, and the characters are really cool. It’s the game that my friends and I blow the most money on.”

“I see. I guess I’ll install it then, so I can start playing later,” she said, immediately downloading the game. Seeing her behave like such a good student made me realize I was a better teacher than I thought.

“And also... This is a newer thing, but I really like VTubers.”

“Oh, right! I hear about those a lot! There’s that popular one, YS—what did it stand for? ‘Yumeno☆Saki,’ was it?”

“Exactly!” I replied.

Virtual YouTubers, VTubers for short, are digital avatars who appear in YouTube videos. Their movements are controlled by a real person, along with everything they say. Basically, YouTubers for otaku.

“My friends always talk about normal YouTubers, so I follow a few. Like Kenio. But I’ve never followed a VTuber, now that I think about it,” she said.

“In that case, it’ll be faster to just show you some. When we’re done with dinner we can go up to my room and use my computer to...” I said, and stopped.

Wait a second. Am I inviting Nishina to my room?

“Well, we’ve finished eating already! Let’s go!”

“I, uh, wait! Uhm... O-Okay...”

Is she really okay with being alone with me in my room?

Kokoro didn’t seem to mind the idea of entering a boy’s room at all, which confused me. But I couldn’t tell her I didn’t want a girl in there after being the one to suggest it. I ignored my pounding heart, tried to look as unfazed as possible, and stood up.

Even if she wasn’t my type, Kokoro was still a cute girl my age. Being alone with her in my bedroom was a bit too much...

Come on! I can’t get so worked up over every little thing! I’m supposed to be living with her!

“Wait here a second,” I told her as we reached my room.

“Huh? Okay...”

I squeezed round the door and hurried to make it presentable, sweeping the spicy manga and doujinshi off my desk and into a drawer.

Sure, she’s an otaku too, but these are for my eyes only.

“Okay, come in,” I said, and she followed me inside.

“Whoa. It’s a real otaku room!” She looked around, glancing at all the posters, figurines, and all the other merchandise that, admittedly, made for a stereotypical otaku bedroom.

Kokoro closed the door behind her, the ominous “click!” driving home the point that I was trapped inside with a girl. I tried not to think about it and turned my computer on.

“Let’s see...” I opened YouTube and found a video by the most well-known VTuber currently in existence, Yumeno☆Saki. “This one should do.”

“How’s it going, kiddos? Yumeno☆Saki here! Today I’ll be taking a peek at the game that’s been trending so much online...”

Kokoro’s eyes fixated on the screen as the VTuber began playing the game.

“Wow. Is there really a real person moving her?” she gawked, clearly impressed.

“Yeah. In Yumeno☆Saki’s case the name of the content creator isn’t public, but there’s rumors that it’s a young voice actor.”

“I can see why they’re popular with otaku boys! She’s so cute! Both her character design and her voice!”

Kokoro liked the videos more than I expected, so we went on to watch some more.

“I totally get it! These videos are hilarious, and Saki-chan is the cutest! I’ll follow her for sure,” Kokoro said after a while—but her gaze had moved to my shelves.

“I was just wondering but... are those doujinshi?”

I forgot to hide the ones on the shelves! Without taking them out, you could only see the spines, and very few people would be able to tell what they were. The possibility that she’d spot them hadn’t even crossed my mind.

“Y-Yeah, so what?” I said, with my best attempt to seem nonchalant.

“I buy a lot that are made for girls, but I’ve never read one of these. Can I see?”

“What?!”

I didn’t see that coming.

“You said you’d teach me about what’s in with boys, right? Aren’t doujinshi the in thing?” she pressed.

“Well, they are... B-But, you know, these are all for adults...”

“Well, duh! Aren’t most doujinshi?”

So she wants to look at them knowing they’re lewd?! And she even had sexy figures in her closet... Is she secretly a pervert?!

“What’s the matter? Don’t tell me you’re embarrassed or something? I showed you my figures! What’s the big deal?”

“I-I didn’t ask to see! You shoved them in my face! Fine, whatever!” I walked over to the shelf and picked out one of the more easily digestible volumes. Cute design, nice art, relatively wholesome content. I handed it to Kokoro.

“Here.”

“Oh! This is IMS! It’s super cute!” she gasped, opening it. If my memory serves me right, the story was about an idol falling in love with her manager. The art style was neat and clean, making it easy to read. However, even though it claimed to follow a pure, vanilla relationship, the main characters ended up in bed together. That was the whole point, after all.

I shouldn’t have shown it to her... I grimaced, way too late to do anything about it.

“Oh! Boys’ doujinshi just go all out...” she mumbled to herself, blushing as she read. She was taking a ridiculously long time to look at each individual page, shifting around uncomfortably as she did so.

“Th-This is so lewd!” she exclaimed. It was like watching a middle school boy read his first sexy magazine.

After she’d reached the middle of the story, she started flipping through faster. I thought that she’d had enough of it, but she suddenly shut the doujinshi and declared, “I’ll read the rest in my room!”

“In your room? You’re taking it with you?!”

“Can I just borrow a few more?”

“Do you have no sha— Sure, help yourself.”

“Then I’ll take this one... and this... Oh! This is YS! I’ll take this one too!” All in all, she’d stacked her arms with six steamy doujinshi, that pervert.

What exactly was she going to do with them in her room? I-I’m not thinking of anything inappropriate, of course...

“The bath’s ready to use, by the way. Do you want to go first?” I asked her as we walked out. I’d gone ahead and cleaned it before she arrived, so I’d rather Kokoro used it while it was still nice and shiny.

“Oh, okay! Thanks!” she said, going to her room to drop off her haul and get a change of clothes, before making for the bathroom.

I was slouching on the living room couch, attending to my usual otaku responsibilities (gacha games, VTuber videos, Twitter, and so forth), when she walked back out of the bathroom.

“I’m done!” she said.

She wore a fluffy, pink, low-cut pajama top and hotpants that showed off her pale thighs.

Her hair was still wet, of course, and her cheeks were flushed from the hot bath. With no makeup on, she had transformed into the perfect mix of sexy and cute.

Wh-What?! She looks ten times better without makeup!

I’d never seen her like this before, but she’d become dangerously close to my type.

What am I thinking? That’s still the same Nishina! A gyaru and bona fide fujoshi! I repeated inside my head, trying to drive away troubling thoughts while averting my eyes.

The entire room was now filled with the floral scent of her shampoo. It was more than I could take. I shot up and headed toward the bathroom myself.

“I’ll be taking a bath now, so just... make yourself at home.”

“Thanks!”

She was in here minutes ago... naked...

As I prepared to bathe, I noticed that the bathroom also smelled sweet, in a way it usually didn’t. There were all sorts of strange new bottles near the mirror. Shampoo, conditioner, makeup remover, face wash... Do girls need all this stuff just to take a bath?

Except for my younger sister, this was obviously the first time a girl had bathed in my house. It took every fiber of my being to keep myself under control. From now on, even though we were just pretend-dating for Kokoro’s parents, we were going to spend the night under the same roof, just the two of us. With all that had happened, I hadn’t had time to properly process it.

Even though she wasn’t my type—even if she was a fujoshi—I couldn’t deny that Kokoro was incredibly beautiful.

Please give me the strength to survive all this.

I dried my hair, put on a sweatshirt and pants, and went back to the living room, where Kokoro was playing with her phone on the couch.

Since I told her to make herself at home, I thought that she’d already be in her room.

“I-Is something wrong?” I asked.

“I just thought that we still hadn’t split chores and all that.” She was unusually nervous.

“Oh, I guess you’re right.”

We quickly decided which chores we’d each take care of. Kokoro would do the laundry (so that I wouldn’t have to see her underwear), and I would clean the living room and the stairs. We’d take it in turns to make (or buy) dinner, and the person who didn’t cook would wash the dishes. As for breakfast, we’d each sort out our own.

On our days off school, we’d also take turns to clean the bathroom, and the same went for taking out the trash.

That was enough to start with. We’d discuss other chores when and if the need arose.

“That settles it for now. I’ll be going to sleep then,” I said.

“I...” Kokoro, fidgeting shyly, stumbled for words. “I really want to thank you for letting me stay. Thanks to you, I don’t have to leave Japan. I’ll help out as much as I can, promise!”

“O-Oh, sure! No problem.”

“I just wanted to say that. Good night!”

When was the last time someone said “good night” to me?

“Yeah. Good night,” I replied, as she got up and went to her room.

Was she waiting in the living room for me just so she could thank me? I guess she does have a sweet side after all...

＊　＊　＊

The next day, Kokoro and I were talking while having breakfast.

“You should know already, but don’t tell anyone at school that I’m an otaku or say anything about me living with you! Got it?”

“I know, I know!”

“And since no one can find out, I can’t be seen going to school with you. That’d be the worst!” she said, leaving the house by herself.

Just as I was beginning to think that she wasn’t all that bad, she ruins it by saying something like that. Is living with me really that embarrassing?!

I could understand that she didn’t want anyone to misunderstand and think we were dating—I wasn’t much of a catch, after all—but since I was letting her stay in my home she could at least find a less offensive way to put it.

But then again, if people at school found out that we live together, the teachers might try to contact my parents, so maybe that’s what she meant...

That day at school, I only ran into Kokoro once.

She was walking down the hallway surrounded by other flashy gyaru. Our eyes met, but we quickly looked away.

Nobody would ever believe that we lived in the same house. To be honest, I hardly believed it myself. Had we not met during that party in Akihabara, we probably would have never even talked to each other. That’s just how different we were.

I came home slightly later than usual, and... Huh?!

“Oh! Welcome back.”

I couldn’t believe my eyes. Yumeno☆Saki, the popular VTuber, was in my living room.

This can’t be true.

It wasn’t true. Kokoro, cosplaying Yumeno☆Saki, the popular VTuber, was in my living room. She was standing in front of the mirror, clearly embarrassed at me seeing her.

She was wearing YS’s costume, the pink wig, the makeup, and even blue contact lenses. It was as if YS had jumped out of the screen as a beautiful real girl. Although I knew that it was Kokoro, it was very hard to believe.

“What exactly are you doing?!”

“There was this cosplay shop in Ikebukuro, on my way back from school, and they had this YS costume and wig! She’s really popular, huh? I couldn’t resist and had to buy it!”

“A-And, why would that be?”

The sleeveless top and miniskirt, when worn by a real girl, revealed more skin than I could have imagined. I was having a hard time keeping my eyes on her face.

“I thought that maybe, the next time I go to an otaku party, I could cosplay! If Saki-chan is this popular with boys, looking like her would give me a head start!”

“So that’s why you bought that...”

“Honestly, I also just wanted to cosplay Saki-chan, since she’s super cute!”

“I didn’t know you were into cosplay.”

“I’ve never gone out in public, but sometimes I dress up in my room and take selfies. I really want to go to events like this, but there’s no way my friends would do it with me and I don’t want to go alone.”

“I see...”

This is such a tragedy! A cosplay this good shouldn’t be confined to someone’s room. The world deserves to see this Nishina☆Yumeno☆Saki!

If she actually went to an otaku party dressed like that, she’d instantly be surrounded by guys.

“Anyway, you showed me Saki-chan yesterday, so today I’ll be teaching you about the hottest titles for otaku girls!” she said excitedly, jumping in her cosplay.

“Okay, sure.”

“Can I use your PS4? I have Amazon Prime, so I can show you some of the anime I want to tell you about,” she asked, quickly proceeding to turn the console on and open an app.

“We’ve got to start with Next Stage!” she said, pointing out that it was the anime with the most female viewers this season.

“Knowing this one anime will be enough to talk for hours with most otaku girls, and it’s really good anyway!”

We sat together and began the first episode. Given the modest size of the couch, we were sitting precariously close to each other...

I snuck the occasional glance in her direction. The more I looked at her cosplay, the more I thought about how revealing it was.

The lack of sleeves left her shoulders and armpits exposed, and the tight fit emphasized the size of her breasts. As if that wasn’t enough, her pale thighs were peeking out from under the miniskirt. Even with all my restraint, I couldn’t help but be painfully aware of how close she was.

Kokoro began explaining the anime over the opening theme.

“You probably know this much already, but Next Stage is based on a gacha game. A girl has just been made the manager for this group of super talented and handsome male idols. In the story, she...”

“Uh? Oh, uh-huh...”

Despite the issues that I had with Kokoro’s personality, it wasn’t bad sitting so close to a pretty girl who was cosplaying YS.

“...and the way they adapted it is so good! Isn’t the animation perfect?! The story’s really interesting, so even boys should like it...” She continued chattering without a break, but her cosplay was so distracting that I was having serious trouble concentrating on the show.

“Ah! Kaoru-chan!” she squealed all of a sudden, making me flinch.

“Wh-What?!”

“The boy with the blond hair! He’s my favorite!”

I looked back at the screen and saw a handsome blond boy whose face I recognized. This must be the character plastered all over that ita-bag she has...

“His name’s Kaoru Hashimoto, and he’s a childhood friend of Yukito Fujimiya, the main idol. They used to be super close, but then they fell out. The reason, though, is that Kaoru thinks that Yukito did him wrong yeeears ago, but, get this, it’s all because he’s actually in love with him! He’s a gay tsundere! Isn’t that the cutest?!”

“Y-Yes...”

She was speaking faster and more excitedly than usual again, as her otaku instincts took over.

“Kaoru-chan!” she said, sighing. “Why is every move you make so cute?! I can’t take it!”

“This isn’t your first time watching this anime, right?”

“First? I’ve watched every single episode at least three times!”

“...”

“Ah! I love this scene! Ten out of ten Kaoru-chan fan service! It’s too sexy! I can already imagine the extras with him ****** their *** and ******** their ****** right into his ****!”

“Excuse me?!”

Kokoro was screaming all kinds of unfathomable words.

“He’s so hot! Like hotness in human form!”

“...op it...”

“Hm? Did you say something, Ichigaya?”

I finally snapped, losing all control of my temper.

“Stop it! I don’t care if you get into fujoshi rambling mode, but don’t do it while cosplaying Yumeno☆Saki! You’re killing Saki-chan!” The words raced from my heart to my mouth.

“But—”

“Even if your outfit is perfect and you look just like her, you’re ruining it all by talking like that! Try doing that during an otaku party and see what’ll happen! Sure, guys will swarm around you because you look just like Saki-chan, but the second you open your mouth they’ll get creeped out!”

“What...?!” She stared at me, surprised.

I couldn’t bear seeing a character I loved so much being tainted like that. Her cosplay was so visually perfect that it made it a thousand times worse.

“What are you talking about? If a cosplay is perfect, who cares about what the cosplayer says?!” she said, pausing the anime.

“You can’t call it perfect if you do things the character never would! You have to be Yumeno☆Saki! You don’t get it! It’s the way otaku boys think!”

“I don’t get it...?”

“Yeah. I showed you videos, games, anime, and even my doujinshi! But you still don’t get it at all!”

She stared at me, her cheeks puffed out in anger.

“Oh yeah? Well I’ll show you!” she shouted, jumping to her feet and storming out of the living room like an anime villainess.

“Ah...”

Did I say too much? I couldn’t just keep quiet while she treated Saki-chan like that...

We didn’t speak any more that day. We ate dinner in our own rooms and went to bed.

The next day, too, we went to school without a single word to each other.

Thinking that maybe she was still mad, I didn’t feel good about going back home. So, after school, I went to Akihabara with my friends, and didn’t make it back until about 6 p.m. The lights were on, meaning Kokoro was already there.

I went up the stairs and nervously opened the door.

“Hi...” I began to say, but my eyes short-circuited my brain.

“How’s it going kiddo? Welcome back! It’s me, Yumeno☆Saki! Dinner’s ready!”

She was still cosplaying YS, just like the day before, but now she was even matching her voice and speech pattern.

“Huh? I, er...”

The table was already set with a dinner that looked delicious: fried pork cutlet, white rice and miso soup. The smell made me realize how starving I was.

What is going on here? Did she make this?

“Wait, did you...?”

“Go wash your hands and sit down! You’d better eat it before it’s cold!” she interrupted me.

I did as she told me, washing my hands like a child and sitting down on the couch in front of the table.

“Now, let’s eat!”

The whole situation was baffling. I was expecting her to be mad at me...

Is this a trap? Is the food poisoned or something?

“Hm? What’s wrong? Aren’t you gonna eat?” she asked, watching me as I sat motionless with my chopsticks in hand.

She wouldn’t go as far as poisoning me... right? I thought, picking up a slice of the pork cutlet.

As I bit into it, the tasty flavor of the meat melted into my mouth. It was heavenly. One bite was enough to tell that this was homemade. Did she really cook it herself?

“So? Is it yummy?”

“Yeah...”

The food was far from being poisoned. In fact, the dinner that the girl in the YS cosplay had cooked for me was one of the best things I’d ever tasted. How was something so unbelievable even happening?

Could it be that...?

The day before, I’d told her that she didn’t understand what otaku boys really thought: that the perfect cosplay was to be the character, not just look like them... Did she take it to heart and try to become the perfect Yumeno☆Saki?

YS wasn’t such an extraordinarily good cook though. This scenario, if anything, was much closer to one of my (adult-only) Yumeno☆Saki doujinshi—the one where she marries one of her fans.

Did Nishina use my doujinshi to study what otaku boys want and try to replicate it in real life?

“Thank you for the meal.”

“How was it?”

“It was delicious...”

“Thanks, but that’s not what I meant! I mean, how did you like my Yumeno☆Saki cosplay?” she said, suddenly back to her normal voice. Apparently cosplay time was over.

“I, um... I guess it’s kind of better than yesterday’s.”

“You guess? Kind of better? But it was the perfect cosplay!” she exclaimed.

“Honestly, it’s still far from perfect. A real girl couldn’t compete with a fictional one anyway.”

She looked the part, and her voice was right, but Kokoro could never compare to the unspeakable grandeur of the actual Yumeno☆Saki.

“What?! People like you are the reason otaku are seen as creepy!”

“But you were the one who asked me what I thought!”

“Ugh! Then... how about this...?!” she said before rushing to her room and coming back with something in her hand.

“I-Is that an ear pick?!”

“Ahem... One, two...” she began tuning her voice to go back in character. “Come here, don’t be shy! I’ll clean your ears!”

“You wh-what?! Why?!” I yelped in surprise.

“I saw an ear cleaning scene in one of your doujinshi! And out of all those YS videos, the one with the most views and positive comments was the ‘POV Ear Cleaning’ one! Now come here and let me clean your ears, and then you’ll see how perfect my cosplay is!” she demanded, blushing.

If I really had to admit it, that is my favorite YS video, but...

“And also,” she went on, “I read all the comments and saw that otaku boys love to have their ears cleaned by cute girls! So, when I find my ideal boyfriend, I can clean his ears while cosplaying his favorite character!”

Am I some kind of training dummy?!

“Just hurry up and come here already!” she said, grabbing my shoulder and forcing my head onto her lap. Her skirt was so short that my face was directly in contact with her skin, which was smooth and soft against my cheek.

Oh. So this is what happiness feels like. Resting your head on a girl’s thighs... But anyway, what’s up with her? Was she so offended by what I said yesterday that she felt she had to prove herself?

“Tee-hee, how’s this? Does it feel good?” she asked me (in Yumeno☆Saki’s voice).

As much as I didn’t want to, I had to admit that her voice had a motherly ring to it, a quality that I’d never have guessed Kokoro could boast. My mental image of her was that of a loud, mouthy girl who drooled over yaoi hands and handsome two-dimensional dudes.

One of the best things about Yumeno☆Saki was that, despite being sixteen, she sometimes showed that tender motherly love that Kokoro was now succeeding in imitating.

Her ear cleaning technique, too, was gentle and pleasant. Between that and the feeling of her thigh against my face, I could only conclude that Heaven existed and that I was already in it.

As if that wasn’t enough, when I moved my gaze upwards, my eyes ran into her chest. If I so much as nodded, my head would have bumped into it.

I know that I’d just told her that she was far from perfect, but as far as cosplays go, I doubted that anyone could do much better. I was living the utter joy of having a pretty girl, with the same outfit and voice as my favorite character, doing her best to make me feel good. That was all that an otaku guy could wish for.

My student has learned so much in a single day, I thought, impressed, before realizing something very important.

All those doujinshi I lent her... they were adult-only stuff. She isn’t going to try those things out in real life too... right? No way. She’d never do that. But, what if she wanted to start out by, like, just sleeping side by side in the same bed? Ahhh! What am I thinking?!

“Time’s up!” she said, back to her normal voice again, shoving me physically off her thighs and mentally out of my delusions.

“So? Wasn’t I just the perfect Saki right now?!” she asked, enthusiastically tugging at my tie.

“Hng... M-My throat...”

“I’m so perfect, all the otaku boys will fall head over heels for me, right?! Even the most handsome, perfect otaku boyfriend isn’t out of my league anymore, right?!”

Don’t taint Yumeno☆Saki’s sacred clothes with such blasphemous words and violent behavior!

“Ichigaya? Answer me already!”

“You...”

“Uhm?”

“You don’t get it at all!”

My angry scream echoed through the house.

＊　＊　＊

After we’d washed up our plates, and each of us had taken a bath, Kokoro went to her room.

When it was almost midnight, time for my current favorite anime to air, I took my usual seat on the living room couch and switched on the TV.

“Oh, you’re still awake?” I heard a voice from behind me. It was Kokoro, who’d just walked in on me.

“Yeah. You too?”

“I just needed to use the bathroom. Why are you still up?”

“There’s an anime I always watch live,” I said.

“Oh! What’s it called?”

“It’s called ‘PopKing.’ It’s the anime that boys have rated highest this season, so maybe you could learn a thing or two from it.”

“I see. Welp, might as well watch it then!”

Kokoro, after going to the bathroom, came back to the living room and sat beside me on the sofa.

“PopKing is a rom-com with a bit of a twist, you could say...” I began explaining, since there was still time until the episode aired.

The anime was based on a light novel. It’s set in a high school where real popularity contests are held and the students are treated differently depending on how many votes they get from the opposite sex. The protagonist, at the start, isn’t really popular at all, but, with the help of a girl, he slowly climbs the popularity ranking, with all the expected rom-com antics.

“Oh, that sounds fun,” Kokoro commented.

“But the most popular character with fans, even more popular than the heroine, is this girl with the blue bob haircut. Her name is Ringo Sasame, and...” I continued explaining the intricacies of PopKing while the opening played on the screen.

Ringo Sasame was a childhood friend of the protagonist. Anyone could tell right from the first episode that it wasn’t going to end well for her. You could say that she was a character destined to fail from the start. Despite that—or maybe, because of that—Ringo was even more popular among fans than the main heroine was. She was the pure, loyal kind of childhood friend who was kind to the protagonist right from the start.

“There are loooads of factors to her popularity: she’s cute, of course, and then she’s voiced by Hanazawa, but personally I think that the main reason is that, unlike the heroine—who at the start doesn’t like the protagonist—she’s always looked after him, even when he wasn’t popular at all, and she fancied him, obviously, and also she’s everything a childhood friend needs to be, like she goes to his house every morning, she makes his bento, and even cooks his dinner—since he lives by himself—so she’s, like, the perfect childhood friend but everyone knows that the protagonist will actually choose the heroine in the end, but when you think about it, the reason that there are so many caring, childhood friend characters in anime is that people like the concept—no, they love it—because—”

“Shush! I can’t hear the TV!” Kokoro hissed.

“Huh?! But I was trying to explain why it’s so popular!”

“I got that. I guess you do have a point though. Caring childhood friends, huh?” Kokoro mumbled, still staring at the screen.

“Is it really that good to have a girl take care of you?” she asked.

“Of course it is! It’s the greatest thing in the world!”

“Oh, okay...”

Once PopKing was over, Kokoro said that she wanted to watch the whole series. Thankfully, I had it all recorded, so I showed it to her from the first episode.

I kept giving her my explanations, and though she kept telling me to shut up, sometimes she also asked me questions, so I could tell that she was genuinely interested.

“You really have no idea how popular Ringo is. There’s sooo much fanart on Pixiv. Men are suckers for girls like that.”

“Wow. She’s a real hit...”

“Yeah. She might even be more popular than Yumeno☆Saki.”

“Oh?”

We stayed up really late, watching PopKing while I explained it, until Kokoro caught up with the latest episode.

Promising her that I’d help her was one thing, but staying up until 3 a.m. watching anime for her? I’m too kind... But, to be honest, being able to talk about a show I love is fun.

I had to give it to Kokoro that she was really putting in the effort to reach her goal. I just wished she’d direct those efforts a bit better...