One day, Sakuta Azusagawa met a wild bunny girl.
It was the last day of Golden Week.
A brisk twenty-minute bike ride brought him from his apartment to Shonandai Station, where the Odakyu Enoshima Line, the Soutetsu Izumino Line, and the Yokohama Municipal Subway intersected. The station was surrounded by a sleepy suburb with few buildings of any real height.
Keeping the station on his left, Sakuta made a right at the light. From there, it was only another minute to his destination—the library.
The bike rack was only half-full, so he parked and headed inside.
Sakuta came here a lot, but the distinctive hush inside always put him slightly on edge. His body tensed up a bit as he stepped inside.
It was the largest library in the area and was always pretty busy. Just past the entrance was a stand full of magazines and newspapers. Sakuta spotted a familiar older gentleman scowling at a sports paper. His favorite team must have lost.
As he passed the lending counter, a row of study desks came into view, almost all occupied. High school students, college students, even grown-ups with laptops.
Sakuta barely glanced at them. He headed for the shelves filled with hardback copies of modern novels. His eyes traced the spines arranged in alphabetical order, scanning the section of books that started with yu. His search forced him to look down. He was five foot eight, and even the tallest shelves only came to waist height.
He soon found the book his little sister had asked for. The author’s name was Kanna Yuigahama. It was called The Prince Gave Me a Poisoned Apple. If he remembered correctly, this book had come out something like four or five years ago, but his sister had enjoyed one of the author’s other books and was determined to read through the rest of her works.
Sakuta reached for the somewhat tattered spine, pulling the book off the shelf.
Looking back up, he intended to head straight for the lending desk—but then he caught sight of her.
A bunny girl, standing there between the bookshelves.
“……”
He blinked several times. Apparently, he wasn’t seeing things. She was clearly real.
Glossy black high heels on her feet. Long legs in black stockings sheer enough that he could make out the color of her skin beneath. Above that, a black leotard that emphasized her figure—slim but curvy—and created a noticeable, if not especially dramatic, valley up top.
White cuffs provided a bold accent at her wrists, and she wore a black butterfly tie at her throat.
Without the heels, she was probably five foot five. Strong features plus a bored expression gave her a mature charm and ennui he found very attractive.
At first, Sakuta assumed someone must be filming this. He checked around but couldn’t see a TV crew anywhere. She was here by herself. Lost and alone. Incredible. A genuine wild bunny girl.
Naturally, she stood out like a sore thumb in the library on a regular afternoon. Totally out of place… In fact, Sakuta could only come up with a few places that might be considered a bunny girl’s natural habitat. Vegas casinos or shops of ill repute, perhaps? Either way, bunny girls definitely didn’t inhabit the local public library.
Surprisingly, that wasn’t even the most shocking thing going on here.
This girl was wearing the most attention-grabbing outfit imaginable, yet no one was looking at her.
“What the…?” he said aloud.
A nearby librarian shot him a glare that clearly said, “Shh!” Though he respectfully bobbed his head in response, he couldn’t help but think he wasn’t the one most deserving of reproach.
But the terrible truth was already sinking in.
Nobody cared about the bunny girl. They paid her no attention, raised no fuss, and did not even seem to notice she was there.
Ordinarily, if a girl in this stimulating bunny outfit walked past, even that student wrestling with the Six Codes of Japan’s legal system would have glanced up. The old man with the sports paper would have pretended to keep reading while stealing glances. And the librarian would have come over and politely suggested a change of attire.
Something was wrong. Very wrong.
It was like she was a ghost only Sakuta could see.
He felt a bead of sweat run down his spine.
As he watched in horror, the bunny girl took a volume from one of the shelves and headed for the study corner in back.
On the way, she leaned in, staring right at a college girl’s face—and stuck out her tongue. Then, she put her hands between a businessman and his tablet, waving it up and down as if verifying he couldn’t see her. When neither of them reacted, she smiled, seemingly satisfied.
She then took a seat at the very back.
There was a college guy buried in research across from her. He never noticed her. She noticed the front of her leotard starting to sag and gave it a quick tug back in place, but still, the college guy failed to react at all. Even though he was looking right at her.
After a while, the student finished his research and got ready to go, as if absolutely nothing was out of the ordinary. Then he left—again, like nothing at all unusual had taken place. He didn’t even try to glance down at her cleavage as he passed.
“……”
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