Chapter 4: The Moon and the Sun’s Game of Tag (Front Half)

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VOLUME 2

Static ran across the screen as the DVD played in fast-forward.

At that point, I realized how engrossed I was getting in this video. I leaned against the back of my chair, letting out a deep sigh.

What the h.e.l.l was up with this DVD?

As far as I could tell, it just seemed like a normal tape of Tsurugi and the others messing around.

But… something felt off to me.

Just watching this tape caused a sense of unease to well up inside me.

The most frightening thing was…

The fact that I had no recollection whatsoever of any of the things that had been shown on screen.

I couldn’t remember it… in fact, I had absolutely no idea about any of this.

I was the one being taped.

I was the star of this show.

And yet… when exactly had they filmed this?

Static continued to dance across the screen.

“……”

My head felt horribly heavy, and at the same time I began to feel strangely anxious.

I… needed…

Needed…

I needed to get away from here right away.

”Okay, and here we are~~!”

The fast-forwarding continued for a while, but finally stopped.

I could see the sun had almost fully set in the distance behind the town, while Tsurugi was in the foreground. ”Yo,” she said while making a peace sign.

”Kagami was asleep so we didn’t have any GPS getting here and didn’t know where Sasami had gone off to, but she’s definitely here! After all, this is the only place you can buy that last item on this shopping quest she’s on!”

With overly flashy movements of the camera, Tsurugi showed us the shop she was referring to.

It was a small building, but it extended upwards quite a ways.

The words “Uzumenoana” (1) were painted in cute letters on a big sign, and right next to the lettering was a little girl who looked like a celestial maiden (she was drawn in anime style) striking a cute pose.

There weren’t many people around this place, although I could see plenty of sketchy-looking adult shops.

We were in an area at the corner of the shopping district, in a place to which children rarely ventured.

Maybe a lot of these shops only opened when the sun had completely set, but the area was pretty deserted.

”Over here, over here!”

Tsurugi happily charged into Uzumenoana, and my brother chased after her.

All the floors in this building belonged to this Uzumenoana shop, but each floor handled different merchandise.

1F: Comics, Light Novels, Game Walkthroughs

2F: Games (All-Ages PC Games, Family Games, Retro Games)

3F: Doujinshi etc. (Doujinshi, Adult Comics, Adult PC Games, Other Goods) (2)

4F: Event Booth (Event Hall, Office, etc.)

”Let’s go up to the third floor! Third floor!”

Tsurugi quickly went up the stairs.

This store had tried to pack so many items on each of its small floors that everything seemed evey more cramped.

But, in our neighborhood, this was the only place you could get such genuine (?) articles, so they were doing pretty good business. There were plenty of customers, despite the shop being so out of the way.

”Umm, Tsurugi-sensei, it says here that you have to be over eighteen to go to the third floor…”

”Hm? Got a problem? You’re an adult and I’m an adult, right? Ah, you worried that I’m gonna get taken away by the police or something? I’m not a child, dammit! If I saw a student here, I’d be the one who went up to tease him! ‘Hey, watcha doin in a shop like this? Bought a p.o.r.n book? Want to tell sensei which one you bought? Hmmm?’ Something like that!”

”No, it’s not that I’m worried about Tsurugi-sensei… but Sasami-san is underage, isn’t she? Sasami-san has common sense though, so I don’t think she’d go up to the third floor. If she’s in this shop, she’s probably on the first or second floor.”

”Tch tch tch.”

Tsurugi had already gotten to the third floor, and she puffed out her chest proudly.

“The final boss of this shopping quest can only be found on the third floor of this town’s Uzumenoana! I even gave Sasami a memo telling her that, and drew a nice map for her too! She’s definitely on the third floor!”

”Please don’t ask someone underage to go buy something you can only get on an adult’s only floor…”

”But, if I gave her an easy task then this’d all be so boring… this is for Sasami-san to get experience, after all! Also, you idiot! Keep your voice down! We don’t have something as convenient as a ‘stealth mode’ or whatever, so Sasami’s gonna notice us if you keep on making a fuss! Especially since it’s cramped in here!”

Tsurugi was the one who was making a fuss, but my brother obediently fell into silence.

”Sasami-san… where is she? Oh?”

When it came to sniffing me out, my brother was the best in the world. He managed to find me right away, bending his neck at an impossible angle and staring off into an unknown direction.

”She’s there! It’s Sasami-san!”

I was standing right there.

”Tsukuyomi! Get over here! We’ll hide in this shadow!”

Tsurugi beckoned to my brother over to the doujinshi bargain bins, where there were piles of old doujinshi in cardboard boxes.

The me on screen didn’t seem to have noticed my brother and Tsurugi, but just kept on looking here and there with my cheeks flushed.

”But…”

Tsurugi was puzzled.

”Why is Sasami wearing that bizarre outfit?”

It was exactly as she said.

I was wearing a matching jersey top and bottom that was completely out of fashion, a windbreaker, sungla.s.ses, and a knitted cap atop my head.

My hair was mostly hidden underneath the cap.

Even for me, that was a really sketchy-looking outfit.

”Ahah~~.”

Tsurugi seemed to have figured it out.

”This shop is near the school, right? So she doesn’t want to be found browsing around a place like this and then getting rumors spread about her at school. So she’s wearing a disguise… ahh, she bought this outfit at the hundred-yen store and probably changed at the bathhouse, didn’t she? And I thought all of that was completely random…”

Indeed, that seemed to be the case.

It seemed that going into a shop like this in my school uniform was too much for me to bear.

And so I probably thought about it, and settled on wearing a disguise.

”Well, I can’t say her disguise is very good… but going through trial and error and showing a bit of creativity to gain experience is the ideal goal of this SWP! Now we just have to see if she can finish this quest well or not…”

”Tsurugi-sensei, what exactly did you ask her to buy…?”

My brother voice was uneasy.

”Sasami-san’s body has a pretty small build, so even if she disguises herself she still clearly looks underage… I really don’t think she’ll be able to buy adult books.”

”Ah, I admit I did want to see Sasami-san go red in the face after she tries to buy a p.o.r.n book and is told that she’s too young by the clerk… but I’d feel sorry for her too. So don’t worry! I asked her to buy something that minors can buy legally!”

As the two of them talked, the me on screen seemed to find what she was looking for and began to move.

Around two-thirds of this floor sold adult manga and doujinshi, while the remaining third consisted of a rather sorry-looking selection of figures and other goods.

Almost everyone on that floor just made a straight shot for the adult sections, so there weren’t too many people around me.

The register and stairs were right in the middle of a section that sold both adult and all-ages goods, and the bargain bins my brother and Tsurugi were hiding behind were also right next to the register.

The staff member manning the register was staring at my brother suspiciously as my brother continued filming with his camera.

”… Umm… this one… right?”

The me on screen had stopped in front of a gla.s.s case that had been polished crystal clear.

There were a number of figures lined up in that case, sending forth waves of love that came right from the boundary between two and three dimensions.

”Umm…”

I was reading a memo.

”Let’s see… umm, Ibuki-chan from the Yamato War Chronicles Taketake ☆Ru~n? Ahh, there’s also an extra note here… ‘Don’t get her mixed up with k.u.maso-chan! They look alike but that’s a different character! The tsundere-looking one with her eyes upturned a bit is Ibuki-chan, okay?!’ What the h.e.l.l, as if I’m supposed to know! ‘Buy the limited-edition one with removable armor! You can’t take the armor off in the normal version!’ Ugh, who the h.e.l.l cares?!”

I was putting on a one-woman play on screen.

”Uwaah, something like this is thirty thousand yen…”

I was staring right at this Ibuki-chan or whatever.

It was a girl with a lot of skin showing, skin so pale that it almost hurt the eyes. And that was supposed to be armor? Looked more like a swimsuit…

She looked young, but her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were huge.

Maybe she was a demon or something, but there were horns sprouting from her head, and for some reason she was holding onto a vicious-looking metal rod.

”……”

The me on screen looked back and forth for a while between Ibuki-chan and the memo. Then, I looked towards a shop employee, and the minute we made eye contact I looked down again. Geez, I was acting suspiciously.

”What’s wrong? She found what she was looking for…”

My brother was bouncing up and down, ready to leap to my aid, but Tsurugi held him back.

”Well, wait a bit. This is the true test now…”

Tsurugi let out a wicked smile.

Run away, Sasami…

It seemed that I had found what I was looking for, but I had no idea how to buy it.

There were a bunch of boxes piled up next to the case, but those were filled with cheap things only.

If you wanted to buy the expensive stuff that was locked in the gla.s.s case, you probably had to call a shop employee over and tell him what you wanted.

For someone like me who was pretty bad at communication, this was a difficult mission indeed.

I could’ve probably handled it if this was a normal item, but this was an erotic figure we were talking about.

I seemed to make up my mind and headed for the register, but it didn’t seem like I could bring myself to say anything to the employee. I just pa.s.sed silently by the register and then went back to the gla.s.s case.

I repeated the same motions a couple of times.

It was like I was a bear in a zoo.

The shop keeper watched me act suspiciously. He might’ve thought I was a shoplifter, because he was staring at me really sternly.

That just made me cower even more and made it even more difficult for me to call out to him.

Shopping was hard.

Ahh, even for me, this was pretty painful to watch.

The me on screen wandered around, but then seemed to get tired and slow down, before coming to a complete stop.

I was looking at… a wild wilderness of perversion that was spread out right in front of my eyes.

The adults-only area.

”……”

I was staring fiercely at that area.

I would be lying if I said I wasn’t interested in that kind of stuff.

I probably had no idea that my brother and Tsurugi were right next to me (well, of course I didn’t), so perhaps out of pure curiosity, the me on screen began to nervously wander into the adult area.

Kyah?!?!

Noo!!!

”Ufufufu! She went in, she went in! Welcome to my world! If you wish, half that world is yours!” (3)

Tsurugi began to yell random incomprehensible things, sounding a bit like the last boss of a video game.

”Let’s chase her, Tsukuyomi! If we get enough material here I can make fun of her for half a yea-… umm, I mean, it’s a teacher’s job to learn the habits of her students! So, I am bound by that teacher’s code, and I’m also her guardian, so… am I right?!”

”That was what you were after all along, wasn’t it…? Well, Sasami-san is also at an age where she’s curious about a lot of things, so she really might be lured into that area of perversion if it’s dangled in front of her face like a carrot. She’s probably also a bit more daring since she’s wearing a disguise.”

Not aware that I was being followed by two awful adults, I began to look all around me in the adult section.

I’m sure I looked really suspicious, but everyone in that section was too engrossed in their browsing that they didn’t have enough time to pay attention to me. So I was fine.

”Waah… uwaah…”

The me on screen sounded pretty impressed… ugh, this was embarra.s.sing.

Just stop. Stop this awful sadom.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.tic scene, dammit…

”L-Little sister… moe…?”

There were a few adult manga over in that section that customers could pick up and flip through.

Perhaps I was pulled by the t.i.tle of one book, but I picked up a manga t.i.tled “Lovey dovey~~ Love Chuu Oniichan” and gazed at the cover.

All the books around there were similar… t.i.tles like “I love my oniichan no matter what!” and “B-But we’re brother and sister…” and “This is forbidden, but I can’t help myself… *thump thump*.” It was all stuff like that.

”Eh? That… this… she’s his little sister, right?”

I watched as I gulped and began to engross myself in the manga.

”B-But, this… why is… ah, I guess that happens. But… ehh? This is… what is she doing? That’s a guy’s… ehh?!?!”

Oh my G.o.d, listening to myself like this was so annoying.

–

”Umm… do you have a minute…?”

–

Suddenly, a guy wearing an ap.r.o.n with the Uzumenoana log on it – in other words, an employee – tapped me on the shoulder. With a smile.

”Hyaah?!?!”

I panicked and looked up, opening my mouth and shutting it without a word. I looked like I was about to die.

”U-Umm, umm…. I-I was…”

The employee still had that bright smile on his face, and grabbed my arm firmly.

”You’re… a high school student, aren’t you?”

”U-Umm, n-no. I’m not. Umm… I’m-“

I was speaking umum-nese, but unfortunately j.a.panese people didn’t speak that language.

”Could it be that you came for the seiyuu (4) show on the fourth floor? Well, you can follow me then! I do apologize, the stairs are hard to find sometimes. The stairs up to the fourth floor are in a bit of a weird place… they’re just over here~~.”

The employee was going on and on about something while pulling me with him.

Considering I had just been caught reading an adult manga, I probably didn’t have the courage to correct the employee’s misunderstanding. All I could do was mutter ”Eh? Ah, yeah. That… seiyuu show… that’s what I wanted.”

Like that, both the shop employee and I fell out of camera range.

”Ahh, Sasami-san was taken by an employee?! Let’s chase them, Tsurugi-sensei!”

My brother began to panic and chase after me, but right next to him…

”Shut up! You idiot! I told you I’m not an elementary schooler!”

At some point, Tsurugi had managed to load her arms full of p.o.r.n manga and doujinshi, and was now having a verbal sparring match with the person behind the cash register.

My brother did a spit take.

”Just sell the d.a.m.n things to me. I have the money, so why does it matter?!”

”But, ojou-chan (5). These books are only for adults, okay?”

”I’m an adult, I’m telling you! Can’t you tell?! Look, I even have a d.a.m.n driver’s license! Just look at this! It’s a teaching license! So back off!”

”Yes yes, ojou-chan. But forging these licenses and official doc.u.ments is very, very bad, okay? It’s a serious crime.”

”They’re not forgeries! They’re completely real! Why aren’t you believing me even after I showed you my licenses?! I’m a d.a.m.n adult!”

”Yes yes. Please come back when you’re an adult, ‘kay?”

”……”

My brother seemed to decide that he would be here for a while if he stayed and watched this pointless war drag on, so he left Tsurugi there and quickly chased after me.

TRANSLATOR’S NOTES

(1) May be a reference to Toranoana, a very large comics/doujins chain store in j.a.pan.

(2) Not sure if I really need to footnote this, but doujinshi are books drawn by fans and sold at doujinshi events like Comic Market.

(3) A reference to what the Dragon King says in Dragon Quest.

(4) Voice actor/actress. For cultural reasons I refuse to translate this word to “voice actor.”

(5) Honorific which basically translates to “little princess.”

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