Vol 2 Chapter 4 (1/2)
VOLUME 2
Chapter 4: The Moon and the Sun’s Game of Tag (Front Half)
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: Doujins.h.i.+ etc. (Doujins.h.i.+, 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 doujins.h.i.+ bargain bins, where there were piles of old doujins.h.i.+ 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 fas.h.i.+on, 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 doujins.h.i.+, 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?!”