Chapter Text
Issei stared up at the dragon above him, craning his head trying to take in the full sight of it at once. Then he dropped to his knees, hands clasping together.
“Please, Dragon-san,” Issei said. “If you can really grant any wish—then help me get a girlfriend! Or multiple girlfriends, actually. Who all like me, and have really big boobs, and—”
“Just what do you think this place is? Quit making a fool of yourself and get out of here!”
Issei scrambled to his feet, as an old man waved a walking stick threateningly in his direction. The giant wooden carving of a dragon on the ceiling suddenly wasn’t quite as intimidating by comparison. The old man chased him out of the shrine, though Issei stopped looking back at some point, so he couldn’t exactly when the old man gave up.
“Issei! What did you do this time?”
Before Issei could stop and catch his breath, his mother was upon him. They were a family trip to Kyoto, or more accurately a business trip of his father’s that the rest of them had tagged along for. So for today that just left Issei, his mother, and seemingly every shrine east of the Kamo River.
“I was just making a prayer to the dragon,” Issei explained, dusting his clothes off. “He had this ball that could grant wishes, just like in—”
“And what exactly did you wish for?” Hyoudou Miki’s eyes narrowed on her son. “Didn’t I already tell you off after all those bamboo leaves?”
Issei winced. It had seemed like a good idea at the time. A bamboo leaf that granted luck in finding a spouse… If he wanted to marry a bunch of women, wouldn’t that take a whole bunch of leaves? Though it was possible that angering the people who actually worked at the shrine, and whichever gods might’ve been there, had earned more bad luck than it got him in return.
“Ah, nevermind,” his mother shook her head. “I told your father we’d meet him at Kyoto Tower in twenty minutes, so we don’t have time to stick around anyway. Just… try to make less of a nuisance of yourself?”
Nodding dumbly, Issei brushed off his mother’s complaints. If there really was a magical dragon out there that could grant any wish, then it was Issei’s duty to at least try. Becoming a Harem King demanded at least that much.
But for now, the Harem King needed to not have his mother very angry at him, and so Issei said nothing as he slowly trailed after her, back to Tofukuji Station. And then they started running, once his mother realized exactly what time it was already.
Kyoto Tower was… really tall. Like, really, really tall. Issei had already known that, given how easily it could be spotted from nearly anywhere in Kyoto one happened to be standing. Or maybe it was more fair to say the rest of Kyoto was really short? Either way, it hurt Issei’s neck even more than looking at the dragon earlier, trying to look up at it from so close.
“Kiyamachi? What are you doing—Yes, I’m aware that’s where all the best bars are. What I’m asking is why you thought it was a good idea to go get a drink with all your buddies at—”
Needless to say, Hyoudou Gorou hadn’t found his way to Kyoto Tower at the agreed upon time, leaving his wife in far from the best of moods. Glancing around Issei, once more considered sneaking off for a bit.
His mom probably wouldn’t even notice. She could go on for a while when she got like this, and was presently oblivious to the scene she was already making. Leaving Issei on his own to do a bit of unplanned sight-seeing, as he pretended they weren’t related. Funny how in the space of half an hour, they had flipped those roles around so easily. Well, funny for anyone whose mother wasn’t currently screaming into her cell phone in front of Kyoto Tower.
Went to the bookstore. Be back soon.
It wasn’t Issei’s first attempt at typing such a message, but this time he had worked up the courage to hit send. His mother wouldn’t see it until she was done with his father, and with any luck, Issei would already be on his way back by then. He wasn’t even really leaving Kyoto Station… Well, only sort of. If the whole mall was right underneath them, did it really count as going anywhere?
Of course, ‘bookstore’ was a bit of a euphemism. What really caught Issei’s attention was the chance to purchase erotic material in a big city hours from Kuoh, where the stock would be vast and untouched, and none of the store employees could recognize him on sight. And he was actually fifteen now, a bunch of the stores back home were just dicks and refused to sell even the R15+ stuff to him! …Probably because of how often he had tried lying about his age.
None of that mattered now. Issei had brought a good chunk of his life savings all the way to Kyoto, just for a chance like this. Games, manga, DVDs… it could all be his. He only didn’t run towards the stairs for fear his mother might notice him leaving, though that was probably an unnecessary precaution. All too easily, he disappeared into the crowd and back down the stairs, his wallet feeling heavier in his pocket than before. It’d be a bit lighter on the walk back, if Issei had his way.
It was a bit more crowded than Issei would’ve liked, when he finally reached the shop and stepped inside. It was pretty close to the entrance to Kyoto Station though, so maybe that wasn’t much of a surprise. Besides, this was the whole point. Who cared how many people saw him, if he was never coming back here again? Issei already prided himself on his lack of shame, when it came to expressing certain desires, and here in this distant city, there was no need to restrain himself whatsoever.
“Oppai!”
By some unknown instinct, it took Issei less than a second to pinpoint the ecchi corner of the unfamiliar store. It was usually the area the rest of the shoppers would be avoiding the most, though that was their loss, in Issei’s opinion. Winding his way around a display table, proudly showing off some novelist Issei had nearly heard of, Issei wasted no time claiming his rightful place within the store.
It was… heaven. Shelf after shelf, all stacked full of busty women. Sometimes more than one on the same cover. The really good stuff wouldn’t be here, Issei had to rely on other connections for that. But there was still a lot of room in between R15+ and R18+, and several titles here seemed to be boldly testing those limits. A bikini pulled down just a bit too far, with the nipples half poking out. A woman pushed down suggestively against a table, her skirt spilling open for the man standing behind her. A bodysuit so form fitting, Issei could practically count the individual pubic hairs…
“Ha… What happened to all these ladies’ clothes?”
Issei let out a squawk, nearly dropping his armful of manga and DVD cases. He turned to find the territory he had claimed had been all too swiftly invaded. A girl? What was a girl doing here? The voice had been a girl’s voice, and the person standing beside him looked like a girl… Unless there were any blonde haired boys in Kyoto that liked wearing shrine maiden outfits.
She was also way too young. Like, keep-her-away-from-Motohama young. And probably also from any R15+ material, on that note.
“Er, look somewhere else!” Issei said, placing his back against the shelves, blocking the girl’s view as best he could manage with his arms full. “Your parents are probably wondering where you are anyway.”
Issei wasn’t very good at dealing with kids, so his first instinct was to get rid of her. She couldn’t have come into the shop alone, could she? Issei wasn’t even sure if she was out of elementary school, with how small she was.
“Haha-ue lets me go wherever I please,” the girl explained, her ears perking up cutely. “So I tailed you all the way from the shrine!”
Issei spent a moment cursing Motohama in his head, before putting aside whether it was okay to think of the girl as ‘cute’ and focused on more pressing matters. She had normal human ears attached to her head, and so they couldn’t be moving on their own anyway.
“W-What? All the way from Takio…?” Issei said. “You followed me onto the train? There’s no way your mother would be okay with that!”
The girl shook her head, the air above her holding a strange shimmer as she moved.
“Not Takio, Fushimi Inari,” she corrected him. “The face Miho made when she heard your prayers was really funny, so I decided to go see what you’d do next. You must really, really like women, huh?”
Issei started nodding before he could stop himself. For a moment, his passion distracted him from the problem that kept ballooning in size. Fushimi Inari was another two stops before Takio, and his mother had not let them make the journey there quickly. She must have been missing for hours already! Would they accuse him of kidnapping her?
“Uh, I have to go!” Issei said, running off towards the cash register. He was in a hurry after all, if he wanted to get all of this discretely bagged up before his own mother noticed him missing.
Nearly tripping over his feet to get away from the girl, Issei managed to reach the checkout line without dropping anything. Unfortunately with how busy the store was, he found a fair few people ahead of him and was forced to wait in line.
“So are these instruction manuals for different kinds of women…? I tried looking inside this one, but it was all sealed up! What sort of bookstore won’t even let you open a book before you buy it?”
He was trapped. There was a little girl asking him about the very questionable visual novel she was holding, and there was no way out. Even if Issei tried dropping everything and running, he’d get yelled at for that too. Why wouldn’t she just leave him alone already.
“It’s not a book, er, not really,” Issei said, trying to explain a visual novel while avoiding the exact subject matter of My Sacred Lifestyle with My Little Devil Onee-san 2 as much as possible. “It’s more like a computer game. You wouldn’t see anything anyway if you opened it, just a disk.”
Issei tried to console himself by the fact that it was out on the shelf in the first place. It had to be the censored version. If it was really that dangerous in the hands of a little girl, wouldn’t they have left it curtained off in some back room?
“Ah, a computer game… That’s like the ones at the arcade, right? So you put in ¥100 and—” she flipped the box over, giving it a closer read. “—then you try to ‘make a busty Onee-san beg to be filled with hot…’ What’s this last word? All this kanji makes my head hurt. And why do all the pictures have these blurry spots?”
“It says ‘hot sem—’. Wait, no! Stop looking at that!” Issei said, trying to adjust his grip as if he could miraculously snatch the box out of the girl’s hands without dropping anything. Had she somehow found a copy of the 18+ version shelved there by mistake? “Girls your age aren’t supposed to play these games, okay?”
“Neither are you, kid.”
A flat, unimpressed voice from across the counter made Issei freeze up. There was no one ahead of him in line anymore… but there were a ton of people staring at him now. The cashier looked quite unamused by Issei’s chosen topic of conversation, whether voluntary or not. He also had a pretty scary look to him, now that Issei had his full attention. Short, bleached hair, one ear pierced, and the coldest glare Issei had gotten in at least a month. And that counted all the girls at Kuoh!
“Er, I don’t even know this girl,” Issei said, not spending the time to wonder if that made things better or worse. “She just came up—”
“Put them back,” he said in a short, clipped tone. “All of them. Both of you.”
Issei sighed, quickly realizing this wasn’t a fight he could win. It had never been a sure thing from the start, even if he was technically old enough now for everything that should be displayed out in the open. As he walked discouraged back to the far corner of the shop, Issei couldn’t help but be a little resentful at the brat beside him. Did she have any idea how much trouble she caused him?
“So you were trying to pretend you were older, since you aren’t allowed to buy it otherwise?” the girl asked him, placing My Sacred Lifestyle with My Little Devil Onee-san 2 exactly back where she found it, with Sara-onee-san’s shirt riding up far enough to show off her bra underneath. “It’s like smoking or drinking sake then? I don’t get why humans are so hung up on those things.”
Humans…? This girl seemed a little young to be suffering from second-year syndrome. But come to think of it, the dialect she spoke sounded a little weird and old fashioned. Could that also be a chuuni thing?
“Look, just forget it, okay?” Issei said, trying to stay strong as he placed all his precious bounty back on the shelf. Busty nurses, flat-chested angels, even that cute pair of twins. All once again out of his reach. “You should worry more about what your mother will think about you running off all the way to Kyoto Station by yourself!”
If she really was in middle school, then it maybe wasn’t that big a deal. The part about taking the train into the city without telling anyone, not the eroge part. Issei just had a hard time believing a girl this short was anything but an elementary school student, no matter how she might be speaking.
“So you’re giving up already? Where did all your passion go?”
Issei held back a scowl, looking down at the girl. “What am I supposed to do? The shopkeeper recognizes me now—half the point of coming here was to not be recognized.”
“Ah… Are you well known in the human world?” the girl asked, Issei’s chuuni-meter ticking up a solid 10 points. “I could lend you my [Tail That Steals Faces] so you could look like someone else then—an adult, if that would be more convenient.”
Despite her tone staying even throughout, Issei could practically hear the capital letters there. Another 10 points, at least. No, more like a hundred.
“Er, I appreciate the offer,” Issei said, even if he really didn’t. “But I don’t have time to play dress-up right now. My mom is probably—”
“Nonsense, it’ll only take a second!” the girl insisted, grabbing Issei by the hand. “Let’s just get away from all these prying eyes…”
As Issei found himself dragged off across the shop, towards what suspiciously looked like the women’s restroom, too quick to consider protesting. But he still had enough sense to realize it wasn’t a good look heading in there with a girl several years his junior, no matter who was dragging who.
As the door shut behind them, Issei was caught somewhere between panic and awe. He had never been into a women’s bathroom before, never seen such forbidden sights… at least from the inside. Motohama had a bit of a gift for finding peep holes.
For better or worse, it looked like they were alone. All the stall doors had a small little indicator, flipped to green, which Issei hoped he could trust to tell him there was no one inside. His very life might depend on it.
Still, Issei couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling that came over him. Something about what he was seeing as all wrong. All public bathroom stalls looked more or less the same, men’s or women’s, but somehow it was different. The angle was different, he was all twisted around, why did his feet feel so far—
“Gah! What the hell?”
At last, Issei looked towards the sinks. Towards the mirrors. They weren’t alone, there was some other shady guy in here with them—and now that Issei had spotted him, he started going totally crazy!
“Calm yourself,” a woman’s voice called out to him. “I said it was a [Tail That Steals Faces]. What else could you be expecting? Hm… Perhaps admittedly it does a tad more than just ‘faces’.”
Issei could see her in the mirror too. Blonde hair, massive boobs, unspeakably gorgeous… but hadn’t she said some rather strange and specific things just then?
“Y-You?” Issei said, turning to find the woman also standing beside him. Even though in the mirror, she had been right next to that weird older dude. “Wait… No way! What the fuck? What did you do? Who even are you?”
The chuuni girl, the one who had nearly gotten Issei kicked out of the store… didn’t she have hair that looked just like this? Not nearly as long, of course, but it had a rather distinct texture, so thick it was almost more like fur than hair. And then, when the woman tilted her head, there was that same weird shimmer he saw earlier.
“Did I not introduce myself already, Hyoudou Issei-san?” the woman said, using his full name to evoke that same chuuni feeling as before, despite looking way too old for that now. In fact, her entire chuuni dialect was now turned up to maximum. “This one is named Kunou. Apologies, I had no intent to deceive you.”
Issei’s mind snapped in half, just for a second. The boobs on this lady just didn’t compute with everything else he knew. That would take way more than makeup alone. And the girl from earlier, she couldn’t have just vanished. All Issei knew for sure was that those boobs had to be real, they were too bouncy and full of life! If they were a lie, then everything Issei thought he knew about the world must also be a lie—
“Damn it, you’re making me think chuuni thoughts now too!” Issei swore. “Now tell me where your boobs were hiding all this time—covering them up isn’t just a crime, it’s downright impossible!”
They were too big. Making a complete joke of her shrine maiden outfit, desperately trying to stay together under the sheer pressure of their combined might. It was still the same general design as before, except trying to compare them was a joke. Even if all Kunou’s clothing looked a fair bit tighter than what the girl from earlier had worn, it still must have been several sizes larger just to have any hope of staying on. It was quite nearly a losing battle regardless.
“Oh… Is this what you tell Sara-onee-san to make her lift her shirt?” she asked, not so subtly brushing her hands against her chest. “I must admit, I’m still rather intrigued by these ‘games’ of yours.”
Issei could only stare, hearing the name of one of his lovely eroge heroines from the lips of a yet more beautiful woman still. It made no sense at all—and more, it was really starting to sound like Kunou was the same girl who had been bugging him earlier. But he would’ve picked up on those boobs from a mile away! What was going on?
Then there was the other elephant in the room. Or rather, the stranger in the mirror looking back at him. Copying everything he did. Whatever trick Kunou had managed to pull, it seemed to work for both of them. Even in his mind, Issei refused to call it magic. He wasn’t going to fall into that same trap of thinking, just because he couldn’t figure out how the kid had done this.
“Well… If this really holds up,” Issei said, not at all confident in that assumption, “then we can go for the good stuff. The really lewd games they won’t even put on the shelves where people can see them.”
“I gather they also feature many beautiful women?” Kunou asked, though Issei couldn’t say if she was just teasing him over it. She reached out a hand towards him. “Then what are we waiting for, Hyoudou Issei-san? If someone catches you here in the women’s restroom, you’ll surely perish before you become a Harem King.”
She was definitely messing with him! Her old fashioned manners and phrasing confused things a bit, but she must have known how sketchy everything had looked earlier!
That didn’t mean Kunou was wrong though. The quicker Issei got out of here, the longer his life expectancy would likely be. In fact, wasn’t it almost too unbelievable that the women’s bathroom was empty to begin with, when the store had been so crowded?
Issei reluctantly took Kunou’s hand, pushing any thoughts of ‘magic’ to one side. He had more important things to worry about right now. Oppai and eroge things.
It turned out, Issei had made a slight miscalculation with his life expectancy. He must have died no more than two minutes after leaving the woman’s bathroom with Kunou. After all, what else could this be but Nirvana itself?
There were DVDs. Not just of ‘idols’ in skimpy outfits, or anime that toed the line into hentai. Full blow AV, and for every title he recognized, there were two more he had never even heard of before, let alone seen. For many of Japan’s people, visiting Kyoto was something of a religious pilgrimage, but nothing else today had moved Issei’s soul quite so deeply.
And if in the afterlife, all those who die are reunited with the ones they love, then Issei found himself equally blessed by an angel he never thought he’d see again.
“Sakurako Kaoru?” Issei said, “She’s still making new AV? She had a big retirement video and everything!”
While her name was placed prominently on the cover of New High School Teacher's Training: Season of Cherry, Issei needed no introduction to the ‘Best Breasts’ award winning actress. While these days it seemed Asami Yuma was the name everyone talked about when it came to breasts, Issei’s loyalties were a bit more hard won. The extra 5 cm of bust Kaoru had over her younger competitor didn’t hurt either.
However great the shock might be, seeing those breasts back from the dead, no single title could hold Issei’s attention for long. He tried his best to recall every pair of boobs he had ever seen, where facial recognition alone might fail him.
“Hm… so it is like tobacco and alcohol,” a voice said somewhere off to his left. “Look here, Hyoudou Issei-san, were you aware adultery could be addictive? And so can… whatever this word is here? It would seem not even school girls are safe.”
Issei spun around a little too quickly, dragged back down to the Earth from his place of bliss. Kunou proudly held up a pair of DVD cases, right in front of her chest. Sakurako Kaoru’s face—and naked boobs—greeted Issei once more, but it was less of a surprise this time. Matsuda was basically in love with Yoshiyuki Yumi, and made them watch everything she directed. So after Big Tit Sisters was ‘snubbed’ by the Pink Grand Prix back in April, he was convinced Adultery Addiction would be the film that finally did it. Issei couldn’t complain for another chance to see those gorgeous boobs, though he hadn’t expected to get his hands on a copy before Matsuda.
The other DVD that Kunou was holding wasn’t quite unknown to him—the hottest new title from Dogma, supposedly one of Nimura Hitoshi’s best directed AVs to date. But it wasn’t quite the sort of genre he typically watched together with his buddies. Neither of the actresses standing naked on the cover immediately brought a name to mind, and with a title like Lesbian School Girls Addicted To Orgasm, Issei expected they ran in other ‘circles’ than the actresses he watched most.
“They aren’t saying ‘addiction’ literally. It just means, uh, that it feels really, really good,” Issei explained. “Some rich and famous people have tried to claim they were addicted to sex, but for the most part no one really believes them. It’s just a way to avoid taking responsibility for things.”
“Responsibility? Oh, like if a man gets you pregnant, he has to marry you,” Kunou said with a nod. “Haha-ue taught me as much. Do you plan to become Harem King by getting a large number of women pregnant then?”
Somehow with how big Kunou’s boobs were, it was hard to remember she had barely been half as tall not ten minutes prior. But judging by the sorts of questions she kept asking, Issei really doubted this was what she was actually supposed to look like.
“With all the women around here though, do you even need a harem?” Kunou asked, turning the cover back to examine the supposedly lesbian, supposedly school girl actresses. “Even the contents of this one room alone seems it could last a lifetime…”
“Don’t fall into a trap like that, Kunou-san! There’s no replacing genuine oppai,” Issei told her, snatching both DVD cases out of her hands. “If I spent all my time watching AV, I’d never manage to find even one woman to marry—let alone enough to call myself a Harem King. Going my entire life without knowing the wonderful feeling of a real woman’s breasts… I absolutely can’t accept that.”
Kunou looked down at her own generous chest, poked one of her boobs with one finger. Issei watched a hint of cleavage peek out from behind its prison of white silk.
“Are they truly so wonderful?” Kunou asked, humming softly to herself as she lifted her hand higher, slipping it inside her kosode. Issei stopped breathing, not believing his eyes right away. “Ha… Oh…”
There was a strange woman groping herself right in front of him. Nothing about Kunou made any sense at all, but Issei’s brain had abandoned sense now. There was room only for oppai. He took a careful step to his right, trying to sneak a better angle on Kunou’s breasts without drawing too much attention. Shrine maidens didn’t wear anything underneath, that was Issei’s firmest belief and conviction. Which meant Kunou’s hand had to be touching it. She had to be feeling it. And the way she bit her lip and not-quite moaned as she felt around in there could only have one root cause.
Oppai. Breasts. Boobs. Titties. Issei had seen them before. Much clearer, even much bigger than what he was seeing now. But this wasn’t a porno, this wasn’t spying on girls while they were changing! This was a real life woman, standing right there in the same room as him—knowing he was there—and squeezing her breast without any restraint at all.
“W-Well, you do claim to be the expert on this matter,” Kunou said, face a little red as she pulled her hand back out. “I’ll remember to investigate in more detail later, once I’ve returned home.”
Just like that, the air deflated out of Issei. Another reminder that something was deeply wrong, whether or not he could hold in his head exactly what. Maybe it was a dream. That wasn’t too far off from heaven, and Issei had dreamed of oppai plenty of times before. Everything felt too real to be a dream though. Everything but Kunou, who was utterly impossible.
“Oh, I also did mean to ask first,” Kunou said, jumping back into conversation as if she hadn’t just reached down her top while Issei was watching. “Have you humans started marrying multiple women now? I hadn’t thought such things were legal in Japan…”
“It’s not about the law, it’s about a dream,” Issei said, not for the first time brushing past Kunou’s odd use of ‘humans’. “A ‘King’ doesn’t merely follow laws, he creates his own. So becoming a Harem King means doing it whether you’re allowed to or not!”
Practically speaking, like most of his fellow citizens, Issei had no real way to oppose the larger Japanese government on any such matters. But that’s why it was a dream, getting into the specifics of how he could get his own harem would likely be a rather short and depressing exercise. If he thought about it too deeply, his hope would be crushed, and he had nothing else but hope left to drive him.
“When you put it in such terms, it does sound rather appealing,” Kunou admitted. Issei didn’t know what to say to that. It had never come up before, nor any other reaction from a woman that wasn’t abject disgust at learning of his dream. “But I do remember you were in a hurry, Hyoudou Issei-san? Perhaps you should finish deciding what you wish to purchase. Who knows how long my [Tail That Steals Faces] might hold?”
Issei really hoped that was a joke, and Kunou’s magic spell wouldn’t run out before he managed to get out of the store with his haul. Then he reminded himself again that magic wasn’t real. There were just certain natural phenomena that even scientists couldn’t explain yet, and so there was no chance of a high school kid like him figuring it out either. That sounded reasonable. More than a chuuni girl pulling him into the women’s restroom and sprouting half a meter all at once. Whether in height… or other places.
Looking for a distraction, Issei returned to the shelves of DVDs. Just like with explaining what was going on with Kunou, he faced an impossible task. Choose? From among these riches? He should’ve brought his entire life’s savings. Matsuda’s and Motohama’s too. They would’ve thanked him for it, honestly.
“How am I supposed to choose?” Issei said. “Special Bath House Tsubaki is supposed to be one of the best AV of the whole year, maybe ever. It’s got everyone—Asami Yuma, MO☆MO, even Katase Mako! And her boobs are almost as big as Sakurako Kaoru’s. But if it’s so popular, won’t Matsuda get his hands on it eventually? This might be my best chance to finally get to watch Female Breasts: Sakurako Kaoru…”
It was just too unfair, seeing both titles right next to one another. On one side, Issei’s number one pair of boobs, taking up nearly half the cover. One breast front and center on full display, the other playfully held in a loose grip. But could any single pair of boobs compare to the sheer number of scantily clad women on the other cover, all of whom purportedly worked at the very same bath house? A full dozen, half in spicy red lingerie, the rest in seductive black. Tempting Issei away from what his heart knew was right, trying to overwhelm him through raw sex appeal.
“Why not simply pick them both?” Kunou asked, leaning in beside him and taking a good look at Sakurako Kaoru’s breasts for herself. “If money is the only obstacle, that can be easily taken care of.”
Both of Issei’s hands reached out, moving before he could think it through. But wait!
“Easily taken care of? By who?” Issei asked, turning back to Kunou. “Unless you stuffed your chest with ¥10,000 notes, someone has to pay for it!”
Without hesitating, or so much as a word, Kunou reached inside her kosode and pulled out a large fistful of cash. She gave Issei a sly smile as she held it out to him.
Boob money. Money that had touched a woman’s boob. Issei knew such a thing could exist, but only within the realm of certain gentleman’s establishments which he would definitely get kicked out of at his age. Except he had made it back here, hadn’t he? Kunou’s strangely named ‘tail’, whatever she had really done, seemed rather convincing. If Issei was willing to push his luck, he could aim higher than just the R18+ section of this one store, he could maybe even…
“I won’t stand here forever, Hyoudou Issei-san,” Kunou said, breaking Issei out of his latest fantasies. “If you won’t take it, then I—”
“No, no! Thank you, Kunou-san, you won’t regret this,” Issei said, taking the money out of Kunou’s hand before she decided it was a mistake. He had absolutely nothing to offer Kunou in return, let alone something as amazing as boob money. “Now where was I…?”
“I believe you were trying to acquire as much illicit material as you could carry, before your mother notices you missing,” Kunou said, a little too smugly. “And it would be remiss of me not to remind you how long that line was, during your first attempt~”
Issei cursed inside his head. Even with Kunou’s generous windfall of boob money, he was still limited by his own weak body! He turned a wider gaze onto the shelves, reminding himself that there wasn’t just AV here, but hentai, eroge, even drama CDs. He reached deep inside himself, trying to find some hidden strength to assist him… but that chuuni thinking was probably best left to Kunou, and he found nothing.
“Oh yeah, I know!” Kunou’s voice drew his attention once more, if only because it was actually Kunou’s voice again. Except… when would it not have been? She was right here the whole time. “I’ll go find your mom and tell her you’ll be back soon. Maybe distract her a little, buy you some time? That sounds like fun!”
By the time Issei looked back, much less enthusiastic about the idea of his mother learning he had run off with this strange woman—strange girl?—Kunou had disappeared. Leaving only the flapping of the black curtain leading to the rest of the store as proof she was ever there.