“Hey now, this establishment keeps everything above board. No touching Kotobuki.”
“...Aww.”
“Don’t ‘aww’ me. You’re the one who’s gotta restrain herself, so we’re switching seats too.”
Kai told Jun to keep her hands off of Kotobuki and sat himself between them for good measure. Kotobuki was visibly relieved to have a bulwark protecting her. Jun, however, pursed her lips at being separated from her cute, adorable Hotey.
“Oh, I see what you’re after, Kai. That desperate to have a cutie on each side, huh? Gotta have your harem, huh? Bet you’re gonna snap a selfie and spread it all over the internet.”
“Can you please grow up?” Kai squinted and glared at Jun. With her bluff called, Jun clung to him and tried to take a selfie of her own. Kai would rather she didn’t—it was bad for his heart.
“An excellent idea. By all means, please take a photo of the three of us as a sign of our friendship. Though I’d rather it not be spread online.” Kotobuki’s eyes suddenly flared up. With her bluff called, she clung to Kai too. Kai would much prefer she didn’t—it was bad for his heart.
“Whoa, really? I get a photo with Hotey?! I won’t get billed later, will I?”
“This isn’t a maid cafe...”
“Worry not, I would never charge.”
“Omigosh!” shouted Jun in joy. “I’ll treasure it for the rest of my life!”
With her dramatic line out of the way, she took a flurry of pictures of the three of them squished together. Her camerawork put an emphasis on Kotobuki, who was off to one side making a heart mark with her hands. And there was Kai in the middle, looking as out of place as could be.
She might have been right, thought Kai as he winced at the pictures sent to him over LINE. The truth was painfully obvious from an objective point of view. This was the selfie of a man with a babe on each arm. What gave it an additional level of immoral impact was something he had until now taken for granted: this was a picture of girls sitting on his bed. If this had been a photo of strangers, he’d undoubtedly curse the man in the middle and wish him a swift death in a fire.
“Hotey, can you friend me so I can send it to you?”
“Very well.”
“Kotobuki?! Are you certain this menace should have your contact information?! Will you not regret this?!”
“It matters not. I would sell my soul to the devil himself to obtain this photo.”
With her resolve hardened, Kotobuki whipped out her smartphone and offered it to Jun.
“Is it that big a deal?”
“I could cry! Hotey, let’s put it on our lock screens as a symbol of our friendship!”
“A brilliant idea. Let us use it as our lock screens as a symbol of our amity, Miyakawa.”
Kotobuki nonchalantly responded as she opened the photo she received in an image editing app and nonchalantly cropped out the left side of the picture that contained Jun. For a while after that, the two of them looked on in glee at the photos now displayed on their smartphone screens—yes, even Kotobuki was smiling.
Kai didn’t have the courage to set it as his lock screen, but he placed it in a folder for safekeeping.
In the end, the three of them decided to eat one ice cream cup each and then to offer the remainder to the Nakamura household.
“I’ll take these down to the kitchen and get some spoons while I’m there.”
After a good deal of rumination, Kotobuki reached for the green tea cup. Kai put the remainder in the shopping bag and carried them downstairs. They wouldn’t go bad in the freezer, so nothing to worry about there.
As long as I make sure to tell Mom and Sis not to dig into them, anyway. He told his mom firmly when he reached the first floor and saw her preparing dinner.
With three metal spoons in hand, Kai hurried back to his room. He felt bad about leaving someone as shy as Kotobuki all alone with Jun.
They seem to be hitting it off better than I thought, though. Not like Jun’s ever been the one to shrink away from people, even if I wish she did for once. Kai had to chuckle as he assumed they’d get through the night without any major bumps in the road.
Well, you know what they say about assumptions.
Kai returned to the second floor and opened his bedroom door without a second thought...
“...What the heck led to this?”
...Only to find a completely topless Jun smiling as she covered her boobs with her hands (performing what one might call the “handbra”) while Kotobuki stared bug-eyed at them at point-blank range.
“Is this heaven? Or a vision of hell?”
Kai was unsure of what reaction he was supposed to have, so he settled on spinning right around and leaving the room. After waiting a bit for Jun to put on her actual bra and clothes again...
“We’re reeeeady,” came the voice of the perpetrator. Jun opened the door from the inside and gave a blushing giggle.
“At least pretend to be embarrassed,” said Kai in exasperation as he entered his own bedroom.
“Hey, nothin’ I can do. It was all for Hotey, after all.”
“I can think of a lot of things you could’ve done...”
That did raise the question of what sequence of events led to Jun whipping out her boobs for Kotobuki.
“Well ya see, Hotey said she wanted to learn what Reina taught me about how to make your boobs get bigger!”
“Aaaaaah! Gaaaaah! Aaaaaugh!”
In a rare case of Kotobuki raising her voice, she started shouting to cut off Jun’s explanation. She apparently didn’t want Kai to receive this information, but sadly, he heard the whole thing.
“...Huh, I always figured work like that was beneath Ms. Reina.”
“Hardly. She spares no effort when it comes to beauty. She is aiming to be a pro model.”
“Well, makes sense.” Kai could agree with that part. As for the other? “But, naw. Showing your boobs in a boy’s room is just, naw.”
“There’s nothing I won’t take off for Hotey!”
“Being proud of it isn’t gonna make it okay...”
Bringing Kotobuki into it was also kinda missing the point.
“I mean, c’mon, it’s no big deal. After all we’ve been through, what’s a little exposure between buds?”
“You sure it’s no big deal?” Kai was about to ask if she’d suddenly be okay with him hitting up her place and whipping out a raging boner the moment she left him alone, but thought better of it. It was such a lowbrow comeback that he just gave up.
“Besides, Kai, you could’ve knocked before barging in! Aren’t you the one who complains about nobody else knocking?”
“Fine, my sincerest apologies, literally everything was my fault!”
Jun pursed her lips, so Kai bowed on his hands and knees to appease her. Kotobuki seemed apologetic to Kai, though.
“I merely asked the question on a whim, I never dreamed that Miyakawa would go so far as to remove her own garments...”
But you were still ogling them pretty closely, weren’t you? You seemed pretty darn interested in the subject!
Kai was a man with some amount of tact, so he kept that thought to himself.
“Well, it makes my advice clearer if I demonstrate with a visual aid!”
Jun continued to defend herself, but she was really just trying to hide her embarrassment now that she was in front of Kai. Her cheeks had reddened just a bit.
Look, I’m embarrassed too. How am I supposed to know how to react after seeing my friend do a handbra pose?
Kai cleared his throat with an “Ahem.”
“Anyway, let’s eat this ice cream before it melts!”
“J-Jun did go through the trouble of buying it, after all!”
“A-And we’ll play some games after!”
With the three of them now accomplices to the same crime, they all decided to pretend they saw nothing.