“Wh-What do you care?! And I told you not to look at my manga!”
“How am I supposed to help you sell them without even seeing the cover?”
“Ugh...”
“Can I take a look inside?”
“Absolutely no way!”
She could at least let me see them, sheesh! I normally don’t care for BL, but who wouldn’t be curious about a 15+ manga drawn by his own sister?
Kisaki, taking great care to hold the book so that I couldn’t see its contents, flipped through the pages, carefully checking for any printing mistakes.
Her reaction didn’t really leave room for objections, so I silently waited for her to finish. When she had, she took more stuff out of her bag: a tablecloth, price tags, a coin holder with some change in it, a board listing the items for sale, those copybooks, and a bunch of pens.
While she was laying the tablecloth over our half of the table, the circle that would be using the other half arrived. They were two girls, probably in their twenties. Both of them looked like the serious, meek types.
“Are you... Queen?!” one of the girls asked Kisaki.
“Ah, yes! Ringo?!”
“Yes! I’m so happy to meet you in person!”
“Me too! I hope today’s going to be fun!”
“Wow, I didn’t think you’d be so young! I imagined you were around our age...”
I figured that “Queen” was probably Kisaki’s pen name, and that the girl she called “Ringo”—most likely also a pen name—was an online friend of hers.
“This is Tokita; she’s going to help me out today,” Ringo said, introducing the other girl.
After they were done greeting Kisaki, the two girls’ gazes shifted toward me. Kisaki followed suit, looking somewhat embarrassed.
“Oh, he’s... helping me out with the booth. This is my older brother,” she explained, struggling for words.
“Your brother?! That’s amazing!”
I forced a smile and said hello to the two surprised girls, who returned the favor. There were no other men in the spaces around ours, so seeing one in what was clearly a BL-only zone must have been surprising in itself, not to mention the fact that I was there to help sell the homosexual softcore erotica that my little sister had drawn. I was suddenly beginning to feel... rather awkward.
Kisaki and I continued preparing the booth, taking the books out and lining them up on the table with the price labels in front of them. While we were doing so, I could hear the girls next to us whispering to each other.
“Can you believe two young siblings that are so good-looking are selling doujinshi together?” one of them was saying to the other.
Two siblings... Are they talking about us?! I’ll admit that Kisaki is so fashionable that you’d never take her for an otaku, and, even if it is weird to say so as her brother, she’s far from ugly... Heck, I guess she’s outright cute. But they’re talking about both of us... What?!
Granted, I’d put a lot of effort into myself that day, since I was half expecting to run into Elena. That being said, I’d never thought in a thousand years that I, Otaku McOtakinson, would ever be called “good-looking.”
To be honest, I couldn’t help but be a bit thrilled about that.
“You really have some passion for this though, huh? Making these at the last minute when you already have a printed book to sell...” I said while helping Kisaki line the copybooks up next to the professionally bound ones.
“I can’t help it. I came up with the idea for the story and wanted to publish it...” she replied.
Sure, it was probably just another story about handsome men making out with each other, but I still had to respect my sister for how much creativity she poured into her hobby.
“Wait a second...” Kisaki suddenly said, freezing in place. “How do you know that I made these copybooks at the last minute?”
“W-Well, I... Uh...”
I’d overheard her conversation with Kokoro the previous night, but I obviously couldn’t tell her that. If I did, she’d accuse me of eavesdropping.
Oh no! I was so careful not to make a noise yesterday, and now I go and let my mouth run like an idiot! Great going, Kagetora!
“I mean, er... Since it’s a copybook, you know, I just imagined you must have been in a hurry, right?”
“But you said it like you knew it for certain! D-Did you... hear what I was saying last night?!”
She figured it out!
“I thought I heard something outside the living room yesterday... That was you?! You didn’t walk in and you didn’t flush the toilet at all, so I thought I’d just imagined it... I can’t believe it! You were sneaking around on purpose so we wouldn’t know you were eavesdropping!”
“N-No! I didn’t mean to hear you, I swear!”
“So you did eavesdrop on us!” she shouted, her face completely red.
Lying won’t do me any good at this point...
“Look, I couldn’t help it! I meant to go to the toilet, but then I heard you two talking and I figured it’d be awkward to go to the toilet, so I just went back! What’s so bad about that?!”
“H-How much did you hear?”
“I... don’t know. I can’t remember exactly.”
Ah, what the hell. Might as well tell her what’s been on my mind.
“I might have heard you say that I was avoiding you...”
“You heard that?! Y-You...!”
“I just wanted to say that it was a misunderstanding...”
“You creep—huh?”
“I think you definitely get it now, but... you know what anime and games can be like, right? There’s ones that you don’t want your family to see. I was just shutting myself in my room to check out that sort of stuff. I wasn’t avoiding you at all. To be honest, I thought you were the one who was avoiding me...”
“You can’t be serious,” she murmured. “What kind of stupid reason is that?!”
“What...?”
“‘Ones that you don’t want your family to see’? You’re telling me you were holed up in your room watching porn all that time?!”
“Huh?!”
“And you were still in middle school! Ack! That’s the last thing I wanted to hear from my brother!”
“W-Wait!” I stammered, trying to stop her from getting any louder. The people from circles nearby had started staring at us.
“I went through that because of your weird addiction to porn? I-I can’t believe it...” Kisaki said. “I was so lonely and anxious all this time all because of that. I feel like an idiot...”
Lonely? Anxious? She really felt like that because she thought I was avoiding her?
“Sorry to keep you waiting!”
A familiar voice made both of us snap out of it. It was Kokoro, dressed as Arimu Yumemi. Her pink wig and blue maid outfit were on point, as were the makeup and the colored contact lenses. It looked like Arimu herself had been transported into the third dimension to spread the news of BL at Comiket.
Did she... pad her bra or something? If my memory serves me right, Arimu’s chest circumference is supposed to be around 90 cm. Nishina might have quite the pair herself, but today they’re on a totally different level... Wait, why am I staring at her chest?! I’m going to creep her out! I quickly averted my eyes from the danger zone.
“K-Kokoro! You’re sooo cute!” Kisaki said.
“Thanks! I’m sorry it took me so long. Am I too late to help with anything?”
“Not at all!”
Kokoro came to join us behind the table and took a seat.
“Is this your latest work?! It looks incredible! Can I read it?!”
“Of course!”
Heeey! Why do you let her read it and not me?!
“Awaaah! I can’t take it! This is too hot!” Kokoro screeched as she flipped through the pages.
“If you’d like, I can give you a copy. I know it’s not enough to thank you, but...”
“Really?! Thank you so much!”
“I’m helping out too, you know?” I said, unprompted.
“L-Like I’d give you a copy! You wouldn’t even want one, would you?!”
“To be honest, I’m really curious about the contents, so...”
“Absolutely no way!”
Kokoro’s arrival had put an abrupt end to my conversation with Kisaki. I was shocked to know she’d felt so bad because of me, and I wanted to talk more about that. Unfortunately, even if we did end up alone later on, it wasn’t exactly the easiest subject to bring up.
I can hardly believe it... I was sad too because I thought I was the one being avoided...
With the three of us at the booth together, we decided that Kisaki and Kokoro would sit at the front, and I would stay in the back—that would probably make female clients more comfortable buying.
Just as we’d finished getting ready, an announcement blared from the speakers in the hall. It was time.
“Good morning, everyone. The 96th Comic Market summer event is now open!”
Before now, I’d only ever heard that announcement while waiting in line. I certainly never imagined that I’d one day be able to hear it from the circles’ area... while sitting next to my sister.
We joined in as everyone in the hall started clapping.
“Whoooa! I’m getting all shaky!” Kokoro grinned in excitement, offering the perfect contrast to my sister, who could barely muster a nervous whisper. I could only see her small back, but that was enough to tell that the pressure was getting to her.
“I-It started... It’s open... I hope we get at least a couple of customers,” she said, more to herself than to us.
She’s still worrying about that...
“Don’t worry! We’ll get tons!” Kokoro said, slapping her on the shoulder.
The guests finally began pouring through the doors. As expected, most of the ones making their way over to this area were girls. Before today, I’d only visited the parts of Comiket where guys tended to congregate, so this was a very strange sight.
Eventually, some even started walking closer to our table. Every time one of them seemed to be approaching it, I felt a rush of excitement run through my body. I hadn’t read it, but it was still Kisaki’s doujinshi, so I really hoped it would do well.
Finally! I thought when a girl stopped in front of our table.
“One copy of the latest issue, please,” the girl said, without even checking inside it.
“O-Of course! Thank you very much!” Kisaki quickly replied, standing up from her seat.
Kokoro picked up a copy and informed the customer that it would be five hundred yen. The customer happily handed the money to Kokoro and left with a smile on her face.
“You already sold a copy!” Kokoro squealed.
“Y-Yes! I did!” my sister replied, looking a bit surprised. “I didn’t expect a customer this fast, and she didn’t even bother to see what was inside...”
“See? What did I tell you? That’s totally someone who bookmarked your work on Pixiv and was planning to come here and get one!”