“W-Well, it’s not like I’m going to ask him out or anything, but... I thought it’d be nice to see him again and maybe cosplay together or something!” Kokoro replied, just as excitedly. She was probably too embarrassed to outright admit that she wanted to date him, but her reaction made it pretty clear.
“What about you, Kisaki? Do you wanna go?” Kokoro asked.
“Oh, er, yes. Well, to be honest... I’m going to have a booth there.”
“Your own booth?!” Kokoro shrieked.
I was just as shocked. First I learn that my sister is actually an otaku, and now she’s going to have a booth at Comiket?!
“You draw doujinshi?!” I asked.
“Y-Yeah...” she reluctantly replied.
“Were you doing that when you still lived here?” If she was, then she’d been pretty good at hiding it.
“I’ve been uploading my art online for a while, but I’ve never sold physical copies before. Last winter, I also reserved a booth, but then I had to move to India. I kept posting my work online from there though.”
“So you came back to go to Comiket?” Kokoro asked.
“Well, I also want to see my friends, go shopping, and stuff like that, but Comiket is the main reason, yeah.”
“You’re still in middle school and you sell your own doujinshi?! That’s awesome! What characters do you base them on? HypMic ones? Toppo?”
“Y-Yes...”
“I knew it! Awww, I really wanna buy it! Would you show me your drawings? Please?”
She doesn’t just read BL... My sister draws BL.
“I-I’m not that good though! But if you really want to see, well...” Kisaki handed her phone to Kokoro, probably showing one of her drawings.
“Not that good?! You’re amazing! Wow, this is so cute! Awaaah!”
How good are they? I kinda want to see them too... I thought. My eyes met with my sister’s, but she puffed out her cheeks in annoyance and looked away.
She’d never show them to me... Still, I can hardly believe it. Kisaki became a huge otaku, maybe even more so than me! Didn’t she say she was uploading her stuff while she was away? At least she has the internet over there...
Not only had my sister been hiding her hobbies from me all this time, but we were eating and chatting together at the same table. Everything was so weird. Back when we’d lived together, we’d almost never spoken to each other.
“If you’re going to Comiket, I can give you a circle ticket,” Kisaki offered. To Kokoro, of course.
Circle tickets... I’d never drawn a doujinshi in my life, but even I had heard of these mysterious artifacts. Doujinshi artists usually publish their work through their “circles,” and the circles that participate in Comiket are given these special tickets. It’s said that the owner of one may enter the Comiket venue before all normal visitors do.
“Are you freakin’ kidding me?! That’d be so awesome! Would you really do that?” Kokoro asked.
“Sure. I don’t have anyone helping me sell my stuff, so I have no one to give my extra tickets to anyway.”
“Really? But doesn’t that mean you’re going there by yourself? Isn’t that a bit... dangerous? Don’t you have any friends you can ask to come and help you out?!”
As soon as she heard Kokoro’s question, Kisaki’s face flooded with gloom and depression.
“Actually, I don’t have any otaku friends. Some of my classmates here used to watch anime, but that’s about it. I was too scared to ever tell anyone that I’m a fujoshi...”
So she wasn’t only hiding it at home, but at school too. But, er, why does this story sound so familiar?
“It’s the exact same for me! I’m, like, hiding my power level at school, so you’re the first person I’ve ever talked to about BL in real life!”
“Really?! You’re the first person for me too! I can only talk about my favorite ships online, you know?”
The two girls, having discovered yet another commonality between them, began to chat more and more excitedly.
“What do you say I help you with your booth? As thanks for the circle ticket! It’s not safe for a middle schooler to go to Comiket by herself, you know? And you could go see the rest of the venue while I handle the sales stuff for you!”
“R-Really?! That’d be a huge help! I’d love to buy a ton of doujinshi myself, but I’d given up on that because I thought I wouldn’t have the time to leave my booth!”
“May I ask how many circle tickets you have?”
“Three, including mine.”
“I see. What are you gonna do with the one that’s left over?”
“Pfft, I don’t know.”
“Then what about having Ichigaya come help with the booth too?”
“Huh?!” I exclaimed.
Having a circle ticket would be nice, sure, but... helping Kisaki sell doujinshi? BL doujinshi?!
“H-Him...?”
“Wouldn’t it be real unsafe for two cute girls to stand alone behind a booth? Having a guy there would be loads better. And if he’s helping out too, we can totally take shifts so we have even more time to buy doujinshi together!”
Did she just call herself cute? I mean, it’s no lie, but... Anyway, Nishina’s planning to use me so she can have more time to run around Comiket, isn’t she?! That being said, if I could get my hands on a circle ticket in return... that’d be a fair tradeoff.
After lining up with the normal Comiket visitors last year, the thought of hell no longer scared me—it was preferable to waiting an eternity in the scorching heat while surrounded by other suffering souls. Sitting behind a booth selling doujinshi would definitely be better than that, and if there were three of us, I’d have plenty of time to go shopping myself.
However, even if I was fine with it, I doubted Kisaki would agree. Having your own older brother help you sell BL doujinshi was probably too awkward to even consider.
“N-No way! It’s BL drawn by his little sister... He’d never do that... right?” Kisaki asked, confused, taking a quick glance at me before looking away. I was surprised to see that, more than she disliked the idea, she was worried that I’d be the one to turn it down.
“Why not?” Kokoro said. “He doesn’t mind BL at all. He’s even been playing a BL game I recommended to him.”
“You... played a BL game?” Kisaki asked me in utter shock.
“It’s not like I was interested in it! Nishina just told me I should learn about that kind of thing if I want to date an otaku girl...”
“Ohhh... So you did play it then. That’s surprising,” Kisaki said, screwing up her face like she was creeped out.
Agh, great, now she thinks I’m a closet BL fan...
“You don’t mind helping your own sister out if it means getting a circle ticket, do you?” Kokoro asked me. “Maybe you could even meet some girls there! You could meet a cute doujinshi artist, or like, a cute cosplayer selling stuff at another booth!”
“I-I was planning to go either way, so I’d definitely help out in exchange for a circle ticket.”
Truth to be told, lately, I’d been so busy thinking about what Elena had told me that I hadn’t even considered the possibility of meeting girls at Comiket.
“Y-You would?!” my sister asked before I could ask her if she was fine with it. “B-but don’t you ever, ever read my doujinshi, okay?!”
Does this mean she’s agreeing to it?
“Of course, I’d never do that without permission.”
“It’s all decided then!” Kokoro grinned.