Interlude: Mashiro and Sumire 2

[AI CENSORSHIP BLOCKED THIS CHUNK - RAW ENGLISH RETAINED]

“I’m not finding anything. But I swear I could smell loli coming from behind here...”

“Loli has a smell?”

“My nose is as keen as a doberman when it comes to sniffing out impure porn! That’s why they call me the wholesome hunter!”

“I’ve never heard anyone talk about themselves in a less appealing way...”

We were in the elegant traditional room with the sunken fireplace. I peered behind the scroll (on it was the kanji for “steadfast principles”), but there was only wall behind it. I thought there might be a safe hidden there or something, but no.

This place was just like one of those huge traditional Japanese complexes you’ve probably seen in anime. It had the tatami room, the inner parlor, the living room, the reception room... Mashiro-chan and I searched them together one-by-one, but we found no evidence that my grandfather was a connoisseur of child pornography.

I was starting to sweat.

W-Wait, this is bad, right? If we don’t find anything, then what have Aki and Iroha-chan gone through that stupid ceremony for? And Mashiro-chan—she’s already going through enough. I’d feel terrible dragging her into this too!

Nooo!

Aki was hardly ever wrong about this kind of thing, so I was totally sure we’d findsomething.

“What exactly does child porn look like? Will it be a magazine, or a disc, or what?” Mashiro-chan asked.

“Uh, I didn’t really think about it. Maybe just some thin book with a lewd cover.”

“But you get those loli magazines with perfectly respectable covers, don’t you?”

“You sure do! Most people don’t even know what they’re looking at when they first see them!”

“So we’re looking for a book or magazine, right? Whether that’s thin or thick...”

“Probably, yes. My grandfather’s generation is only used to reading paper, and I doubt this place has really caught on to digital media yet.”

“Okay. Then we should think about where someone might hide a book.” Mashiro-chan put a hand to her chin and started thinking hard. It was adorable. “What about those cardboard boxes in the closet? These here?”

Mashiro-chan opened up the closet in the tatami room and pulled out the cardboard box from inside.

“Oooh! What makes you think that’s what we’re looking for?”

“It’s hard to pull out, so there’s less risk of the rest of the family finding it. If you don’t want a book getting damaged, obviously you’d usually put it on a shelf but, well, it’s obvious why he wouldn’t.”

“I get you. But what if the family’s doing a spring cleaning? They’d go through those kinds of boxes, right?”

“That’s simple, actually. You just put regular books at the top to hide the others. I was always the only one who read in my house, so my brother or anyone else would just see there were books in there and leave the box alone in case they got an allergic reaction!”

“Clever. Very clever.” I nodded. “Wait, you have a brother, Mashiro-chan?”

“Um, yeah... I haven’t heard from him since he moved out, though. He said he had an idea for an even better business than our dad, and left just like that.”

“So is he even still alive, or...?”

“I don’t know.”

“Ouch. You don’t sound like you care one bit. He’s your brother, y’know!”

“I haven’t seen or spoken to him in years, so he’s basically a stranger to me now. Maybe he’s been in contact with Aki; they did get on well.” Mashiro-chan sounded disinterested as she continued rummaging through the box.

“Aki always says Ozuma-kun’s his only friend,” I reminded her immediately. Her statement just now was a real threat. “Aki can’t have any other friends or my ship’s in danger.”

“He probably cut off contact then. I feel like being friends with my brother would only bring bad luck anyway.”

“That’s some way to talk about your brother.”

I wondered what kind of person he was. It made me realize that no two families were alike. Another thought struck me too. Although Mashiro-chan was Aki’s cousin, she could also be described as his “friend’s little sister” just like Iroha-chan was. It was a funny little coincidence that I never picked up on before.

That wasn’t important, though! There was one other tidbit that I couldn’t ignore!

“You seem to know a lot about hiding doujinshi, Mashiro-chan. Anything you’d like to share with the class?”

Her mouth fell open.

“What are you into? Shota? Loli? Who’s your favorite artist?! You never bite when we talk about this nerdy stuff, so I thought for sure you weren’t interested, but you gotta be if you’ve got whole boxes full of doujinshi!”

“Ngh... S-Stay away from me, dummy!” Mashiro-chan pushed her hand against my face to stop me getting any closer.

“Awww. You’re such a meanie.”

“R-Remember what I said?! I’m Makigai Namako!” Mashiro-chan deepened her voice slightly.

“Yeah, I remember. So?”

“We talk about nerdy stuff all the time over LIME, right? I’m even nerdy enough to keep up with you. You get it yet?”

“Oh! Right! Makigai Namako-senseiisa nerd!” I slapped my knee as it all came together.

“So yeah, I have books like that, and I hide them in my house too.”

I whistled. “I never had you down as someone who kept secrets from your family.”

“I hide stuff from everyone... Okay, this is no good.” Mashiro-chan put back the box whose contents were unfortunately wholesome before staring at the floor. “I hide a ton of stuff. I couldn’t even tell Aki or anyone else about the Makigai Namako thing before telling you.”

“Are you scared to tell them?”

“Yeah. But it’s hard keeping it a secret as well. It feels kinda gross, and it makes my heart hurt...”

“That’s probably guilt, huh?”

“I think so. I also think the guilt might be better than the alternative, though...”

Keeping our true selves a secret made us feel safe, but hiding our true selves from the people we cared about made us feel guilty. But we kept going down the path of least resistance and least change because it was less dangerous than the other.

I understood the discomfort guilt could cause when it was left to build up. I understood why Mashiro-chan was blaming herself. I understood, and that was why I’d decided—

“Damned thieves!”

A wild, bear-like growl boomed in my ears. The room, once dark, was filled with a retina-searing white light.