On a Sunday in late December, Miyako—at home on one of her few legitimate days off—was engaged in a nude yoga session. Or, to be exact, she was being put in nude yoga poses. Kaiko Mikuniyama (age 25), the manga artist she lived with, had once again asked her for modeling help.
Miyako had been too busy to provide this kind of assistance lately, so Kaiko apparently wanted to sketch multiple yoga poses today while she had her handy. They ran down the list, from the dove position to the cow pose and seemingly everything in between—positions Miyako would never take up in real life, but Kaiko briskly sketched them all in short order.
Kaiko was still drawing the manga adaptation of Itsuki’s All About My Little Sister for Comic Gifted magazine. The novel series had concluded two or so years ago, but the manga received so much praise for its high quality that it actually outsold the novels by this point; it was slated to keep running until it reached the end of the novel plotline. In addition to All About, Kaiko had also launched her own original series in another magazine three years ago, which was also doing well—and as if that weren’t enough, she had begun to be active in the doujin scene, and her work instantly found an audience there as well.
“You really do have just the best body,” Kaiko said, huffing through the pair of panties she had strapped to her head. “It’s fun to draw.”
“I’m starting to get a little self-conscious about my stomach,” Miyako replied. She tried to exercise when she had the time, but given her lack of any healthy routine and her habit of eating meals late at night, she couldn’t help but fall a little out of shape.
“Maybe, but having a bit of padding on you… There’s a demand for that, too, you know.”
“Don’t call it padding!” Miyako protested. “…Besides, if you need a model, why don’t you ask her instead of me?”
Kaiko’s eyes lit up. “Don’t be ridiculous. How could I ever make manga out of my precious girl’s nude body and expose it to the public?”
Miyako squinted at Kaiko. “And exposing mine to the public isn’t a problem…?”
This “precious girl” was Kaiko’s lover, a twenty-two-year-old woman who she hired as an assistant artist. As someone into the little-sister trope, Kaiko had this woman call her “big sis” and they had messed around as a fun lesbian experiment…and somewhere along the line, the play became real, with the assistant insisting on a full relationship.
“I mean, if you want to keep her all to yourself, that’s understandable…but at least stop doing not-safe-for-work stuff in your work room while I’m here, all right?”
“H-how did you…?!”
Kaiko blushed. Clearly, it was news to her.
“You think I can’t hear you girls through the door when I’m in the living room…?”
The mere recollection made Miyako blush as well. Few things in a shared apartment were more awkward than having to hear your roommate and friend moan rhythmically while you’re eating dinner.
“Yeah… I… We’ll be more careful…”
Kaiko hung her head.
“You know…if you feel like I’m getting in the way more, I could always move out.”
“No, no, I’m not asking for that at all!” Kaiko shot that idea down immediately. “I mean, I would like to live together with my girl someday, but that’s not for a while to come, I don’t think. I need to convince my parents first.”
“Oh, right.”
“Ah, but if you’re thinking about moving in with Fuwa, then don’t be afraid to say so, all right?”
Miyako had already told Kaiko that she intended to get together with Haruto when the time was right.
“Mmm… I did agree to make it formal with him soon, but I don’t think we’ll be immediately living together, no.”
“Okay. So it’ll be the two of us for the time being, then?”
“Yeah,” Miyako said, smiling at the visibly relieved Kaiko.
Between marrying, falling in love, finding a job, going to a new school, moving, aging, and everything else, one can never divorce themselves from change in life. That was something Miyako had been feeling all too vividly in recent years. Someday, she’d be moving away from Kaiko—and that was why she wanted to cherish the days she had left with this slightly weird friend of hers.
“By the way, Mya, are you free during the winter Comiket?”
“Comiket? I suppose I am, yeah.”
Branch Hill didn’t have an official presence at Comiket, so she wouldn’t have any work related to that, but she planned to attend so she could say hello to the creators and anime people she worked with.
“Well, if you’re interested, would you mind helping me sell my next doujin work? One of my workmates who was going to help me got the flu, so…”
“A sales assistant, huh? I don’t have to cosplay, do I?”
Back when she worked part-time for GF, she’d have to man their booth at every Comiket in full cosplay. It was actually kind of fun, once she got used to it, but now that she had a few more pounds on her, she felt self-conscious about it.
“No problem there,” Kaiko replied.
“Oh good. I’d be happy to, then.”
“Thank you very much!”
On the day of the winter Comiket, Miyako was now fully regretting her offer to help at the booth of Innocent Lovely, Kaiko Mikuniyama’s personal doujin group. The booth was being run by Kaiko, her lover Manaka Kumano, and Miyako. That didn’t make Miyako feel like a third wheel or anything, of course. The problem was how they were dressed.
“You said we weren’t cosplaying,” she groaned.
“That’s right,” Kaiko chirpily replied. “It’s not cosplay. This is the official uniform of my group.”
“I would have preferred cosplay to this…!”
All three of them were dressed in normal clothing, with one exception—the pairs of panties covering their faces. Miyako had actually seen this in action when she visited Kaiko’s booth at some previous Comiket, but she had completely forgotten about it and the shock that it caused her.
“Ughh… I can’t believe I’m seeing the day where I’m doing this, too…”
The panties all belonged to Kaiko’s personal collection, which meant (according to Kaiko, anyway) exclusively as headgear rather than for their normal purpose. In order to tell Kaiko apart from her booth assistants, Miyako’s and Manaka’s panties had “#1” and “#2” embroidered on them, right down the middle.
Even in these hours before the opening, three young women wearing panties on their heads in the middle of Comiket had already attracted no small amount of attention from nearby booths, as well as the event staff. Lots of booths featured cosplayers as barkers and cashiers, but Miyako and the gang stood out far more than any of them.
“It’s fine, Miyako,” Kaiko energetically shouted, hoping to encourage her. “You’ll get used to it right away!”