Chapter 53 | Everyday Life

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[Shinji's PoV]

A Saturday in late January.

“Whew…I slept well…”

I doze off on my bed.

I look at the clock on the wall and see that it is around 10 o’clock.

“I’ve stayed up too late…”

I had stayed up late last night watching late-night cartoons.

I creakily get up from bed and head for the living room.

“Dahli-ah…? Huh?”

There was no sign of Dahlia, who lives with me.

There was a letter on the table.

[I’m off to my part-time job, Onii-chan.]

“A part-time job…at a coffee shop…”

Dahlia has been working part-time since she was adopted by my family.

I’ve been paying for her daily needs, but she wants to save for the future.

I’m impressed…

[Breakfast is in the fridge.]

I gratefully take the breakfast Dalia has prepared.

“Mmmm, delicious…”

Rika is a good cook, and so is Dahlia.

Are all girls good at cooking?

“……”

After breakfast, I had some free time.

“Maybe I’ll do some drawing.”

I walked to my room and turned on my computer.

I draw pictures as a hobby and sometimes sell doujins.

It’s easy to draw pictures these days because I can write on the computer instead of on paper.

When I turn on the computer, the discord (like a chat room) starts up.

“Ah, Master Ko-chan is here!”

One of the members of the discord is my master of drawing.

When the discord is up and running, you can see if you are logged in or not.

“Let’s talk again after all this time.”

I send a message to my master.

[I’m about to start drawing, would you like to chat with me?]

The master immediately replies.

[Very well.]

The call comes in immediately.

I put on the headset and talked to Ko-chan, my drawing master.

“Hello, Shishou.”

[Hmm. It’s been a while.]

What I hear from the other end of the headset is the voice of a girl.

She is a popular illustrator named [Misaya Makou].

“Shishou, aren’t you up early? You’re getting up. You usually wake up at the same time I sleep.”

[Kou-chan is not sleeping. She’s been up all night.]

“Oh my… that’s not good for your health. What have you been doing?”

[A little bit of Apex.]

It’s a gun-shooting game.

“Shishou, you really like Apex, don’t you?”

[It’s Ko-chan’s ai-dente-tee, you know.]  [TLN: Yes, she said it like that.]

We start up the drawing software and draw a picture together.

Master seems to be distributing his drawings at the same time.

She is both an artist and a Vtuber.

[Lately, Kou-chan’s Vtuber setup has not been utilized very much, you know…]

“Shishou? What are you talking about?”

Master Misaya is a beautiful girl of Russian descent.

Sometimes phrases that aren’t in Japanese leak out.

[You remember me, don’t you? Is Ko-chan a Vtuber? Did you forget that part? Don’t worry, Ko-chan forgets a lot too.]

While chatting like this, we finished the picture.

It was a collaboration between the two of us.

[You’re getting good at this, my pupil.]

“Thank you.”

[Thanks to the good work of your master! Kouchan has led people on again, huh?]

We passed the time by drawing comfortably with the master like that.

[Dahlia PoV]

I Dahlia Kurohime…no, Dahlia Ueda was at a coffee shop in front of the station on this day.

I work part-time at this “Cafe Arukuma”.

“Here you go, Kyuke!”

After saying a few words to the staff members, I headed for the backyard.

“Oh my, Dahlia-chuan ♡♡♡”

A burly-looking old man was writing things at his desk.

He was a burly man who looked like he was trying to compete with Mr. Terminator, a friend of Shinji’s.

“Shiojiri Tencho. Hello.”

“Hi, hello, ♡”

The manager says, wiggling his body.

By the way, this person looks like a man, but she is a woman inside.

It doesn’t matter to me whether the manager is a man or a woman.

We are sitting on the sofa, facing each other and talking.

“Hey, how’s it going with him?”

The manager asks excitedly.

The manager is talking about Shinji, My older brother.

Perhaps it is because he is a girl on the inside that he loves to talk about his love life.

“Hmm, I wonder.”

“Oh my gosh ～～～♡I’m so jealous of you～～♡”

The manager doesn’t seem like a man’s man.

He’s more like a female friend.

Well, I can’t really talk about love with Rika-tan, can I?

I’m just too naive to talk about love with her.

“So you’re finally going to live with a guy you really like, right? That’s wonderful!”

“That’s right. Well, he’s my brother now, so I can’t touch him.”

“Oh no, you can’t? But isn’t it nice? You can live together with the person you love.”

“That’s the thing.”

The manager is not at all offended when a kid talks back to him.

I mean, I want him to be frank with me.

“Well, you know, it’s just too much. I’m so happy I feel like I’m going to die every day.”

“That’s nice♡ That’s nice♡ So, how about it? Have you done it yet?”

“Baka. What are you talking about, Tencho? It’s my Onii-chan, you know? There’s no way you can do that.”

“Nah! That’s not true!”

It’s true that I didn’t have any resistance to kissing when I was doing Enko.

But with Shinji, I can’t do that, even as a joke.

“How about s*x?”

“I really want to do it.”

“I’m sure you do. Dahlia has a strong s**al drive.

“Well, yes. I’m trying to hold myself now, but I’m at my limit.”

“That’s right, your beloved man is sleeping very close to you. You were about to barge into his room and attack him, but you’re holding back.”

“That’s right. It’s very hard to resist.”

The manager looks at me and giggles.

“That guy, and your relationship with him, must really mean a lot to you.”

The manager seemed to realize from the conversation how I felt about Shinji-kun.

Yes, if she didn’t think anything of it, she would have kissed him quite a bit to satisfy her sexual desires.

The reason why I don’t is because I don’t want to ruin my relationship with Shinji-kun.

“But if you’re too shy, he won’t see you as a woman at all, but as his little sister, won’t he?”

“That’s… I don’t want that.”

I have no intention of taking Rika-tan’s spot.

Even more so because I got the best chair, his sister.

But…still.

I want Shinji to see me as a girl.

“I understand.”

“Really?”

“Yes, ♡ women always want to be thought of as women, don’t they?”

The words have weight because a girl says them.

“Well, they should be treated moderately.”

“I know that even if you don’t say so.”

“I was giving a sermon to Buddha. Well, I think Dahlia-chan would be able to do well. I feel relieved.”

And so the break time of the part-time job passed.

[Rika's PoV]

“I was at the movie theater with my mother…”

I followed Shin-chan to a shopping mall in Kawasaki.

“Haa! That was fun!”

Me and Yacchan leave the movie theater together.

We were holding hands.

“Rika, that was fun, Nanocure!

“Yes!”

Nanocure.

The TV series that little girls love to watch on Sunday mornings.

Today was the airing day of the new series of Nanocure and its animated movie, so I was here to watch it with my mom.

We moved to a coffee shop.

“What was your favorite part, Rika-chan?”

My mother asked.

“The production was good. You can’t go wrong with a film directed by Mitakeyama!”

“The script was great too!”

Since we are a mother and daughter otaku, we can get excited talking about these things.

Or rather, to begin with, I became an otaku because of my mother’s influence.

She was a single mother and was always busy, but she always made sure I didn’t feel lonely by watching anime and manga with her.

She is a kind mother. That’s why I love her so much.

Recently, since she quit her job as a prostitute, she has more time on her hands, so we often go out together like this.

We go to the anime store, go to the movies, and so on.

“I’m sorry, Rika-chan.”

“What? What’s wrong?”

Yacchan said a little apologetically.

“I’m sorry, Rika-chan. You really wanted to go on a date with Shin-chan, right?”

“Hmmm. But I didn’t make a date with Shin-chan today. I decided to go out with Yacchan today.”

As if to fill the time we were too busy to do the things we used to do, we went out all the time.

Adolescent girls may feel uncomfortable going out with their mothers.

But I don’t feel that way at all.

I like my mother.

I know that she wanted to do this with her daughter.

“I see…well then, let’s have as much fun as we want today!”

“I guess so. Oh, that’s right! I want to go to karaoke! I want to sing Nanocure!”

“Let’s sing a duet with Yacchan!”

“Yes!”

Me and my mom leave the coffee shop together.

We walk under the blue holiday sky, holding hands and laughing.

Shin-chan got us jobs, and now we have more time to enjoy our lives.

I now have time to play with my mom together.

Oh…I love you…I really love you, Shin-chan…

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