It was August 8, the day that Kisaki would be running her booth at Comiket.
Last year, I’d only washed my face and brushed my teeth, never mind bothering to fix my hair before the event. Of course, this year I couldn’t be that careless.
Kokoro was probably going to drill me about all the usual stuff about meeting girls there, but that wasn’t the point; even if I did meet someone new, I didn’t really care. The only girl I cared about was Elena. I wouldn’t want her to see me and think that I was uglier than she remembered.
Yesterday, I’d shaved, plucked my eyebrows, and prepared the clothes I would wear. All that was left to do now was to change and make my hair somewhat presentable.
When the girls finally walked into the living room, it was already too late to eat breakfast. We left the house at seven and hurried to Big Sight, where Comiket awaited us. I only had a backpack with me, but Kisaki and Kokoro both dragged huge trolley bags behind them.
Wouldn’t a cool guy offer to take their bags? Yeah... but I can’t take both of them, and offering the favor to just one of them would be weird, not to mention embarrassing...
While we were on the train, Kisaki turned to Kokoro with a worried expression on her face.
“I wanted to tell you something. I’m very grateful you agreed to help me out... and you too, I guess,” she added, looking at me. “So, I’m sorry if my doujinshi doesn’t sell at all and you’re left doing nothing. You can just go and enjoy the event if that happens!”
She hadn’t shown me her Pixiv and Twitter accounts, let alone her doujinshi, so I didn’t know how good of an artist she was, or how much she could be expected to sell. But sounding so negative right before the real deal wasn’t very much like her. I couldn’t tell if she was being modest or if she really believed that.
“Awww, you know that’s never gonna happen!” Kokoro comforted her. “Look at how many people bookmark your work on Pixiv!”
Oh... So I guess she’s pretty good after all.
“But loads of those are from my friends on Twitter, and most people bookmark stuff that they don’t really plan to buy, so I don’t know how much of that will be reflected in actual sales,” Kisaki replied.
“Even if you take out all the people you just mentioned, I’m sure there’s plenty left! Oh, and I’m sorry my cosplay isn’t HypMic related...”
“Oh please, don’t worry about that! I’m actually really looking forward to seeing your Arimu cosplay!”
Right, she’s going to cosplay Arimu. I’m looking forward to seeing her cosplay too... Wait, what am I thinking?
As we reached Tokyo Big Sight Station, Kokoro’s eyes seemed to pop out of her head.
“Whoa, look at all the people!”
“Yes... It’s even more overwhelming than it looked on TV...”
Both Kokoro and Kisaki seemed to be surprised by the size of the crowd, and I remembered feeling the same way when I’d first been to Comiket. In fact, while lining up with all of them, I’d promised myself that I’d never do it ever again. Of course, as soon as I started browsing the booths and buying doujinshi, I’d gotten so excited that I entirely forgot just how painful the wait had been.
“D-Do we have to get in that line? For real?” Kokoro asked, terrified.
“No, don’t worry. People with circle tickets get in through a separate entrance,” Kisaki explained.
“Phew, I was scared for a moment there!”
Circle tickets really are wonderful, wonderful things...
“I’ll go change as fast as possible and then meet you at the booth!” Kokoro said when we got inside, before heading straight for the changing rooms.
Left alone, Kisaki and I went to the area reserved for circles—the west exhibition hall. One glance at my sister’s face was enough to see that she still looked worried.
She must be worrying about whether anyone will come to her booth...
“S-Say, Kisaki, does it even matter if people buy your manga? I mean, drawing and publishing a doujinshi is pretty impressive if you ask me. It takes a lot of effort and all that,” I said.
While it’s true that I said it to cheer her up, I wasn’t lying. As someone who consumed as much manga and doujinshi as I did oxygen, I deeply respected her for being able to actually create one.
“Uh...? What are you talking about? It’s not impressive at all. Anyone can do that, as long as they have the money...” she replied.
“Oh, right...”
I guess my words didn’t really reach her...
“But maybe you do have a point,” she said. “When you make a doujinshi, you’re just drawing stuff you like and publishing it for fun, so worrying about how many people come to buy it doesn’t make that much sense, I guess...”
She sighed, but at least she seemed to have relaxed a bit.
We shortly reached the right hall, asked for the number of the lot reserved for Kisaki, and made our way there while looking at a map.
“This should be it,” I said when I finally found the spot we were looking for. Inside was a table with several pamphlets, folding chairs, and some other stuff on it.
“The new copies are here! Perfect!” Kisaki rejoiced. The printing company often delivers doujinshi directly to the client’s lot, saving them the hassle of carrying all that manga themselves.
“I have to check them to see if everything is okay! But first, we have to move those chairs out of the way,” she said.
We took the three folding chairs down from on top of the table, but since there wasn’t enough space to put all of them side by side, we placed two of them closer to the table and the third one behind them.
Most of the pamphlets looked like useless junk, but Kisaki put all of them in her bag anyway. Then, she took out a box cutter, used it to open a box under the table, and took a look at the doujinshi inside.
“Wow...” she whispered, staring with sparkling eyes at the cover of the manga she was now holding in her hands.
Her first printed manga... No wonder she’s getting emotional.
I was finally able to take a peek at the cover. It surprised me for a variety of reasons. First of all, the art was incredibly good. I had no idea that Kisaki was such a talented artist. Of course, the subject was a couple of men making out with each other, but I decided not to pass any judgment on that. My main point of concern was the red “R15” icon on one corner.
“Fifteen plus?! Is there porn in that story?!” I asked Kisaki, whose face turned a deep shade of red as she hid the doujinshi behind her back.