I’ve always believed that the way a creature like the human being picks a mate ought to come down to matching up different hormones.
So I’ve never really understood how two bizarre hobbies like yuri and BL ever got off the ground in the first place.
Sure, I don’t enjoy talking to those boys, but that doesn’t mean I enjoy spending all day mixed in with a pack of fanatical young ladies who act like they’re permanently in heat, either.
That kind of situation might make a lot of guys jealous.
But honestly…
I feel like a male monkey surrounded by an endless swarm of female monkeys in their mating season, even though I happen to be female myself.
It’s exactly because of that mindset that I felt so unusually unhappy when I heard my old man’s proposal earlier.
No living expenses, fine, I could grit my teeth and bear it.
But telling me to go get kept by a bunch of girls, to live off some girl’s money, that feeling is honestly bizarre to the extreme.
Maybe the method really does have a limitless future, but that strange feeling just leaves me uneasy no matter what.
So, after Shokuhou Misaki floated something along the lines of
“keeping me,”
I thought about it for a moment and turned her down anyway.
Shokuhou Misaki is a Level 5, the Mental Out user.
I figured she wouldn’t be like all the other girls, getting interested in this somewhat unusual body of mine.
Eight times out of ten she just wanted my faction members, nothing more.
“Why turn me down?”
Hearing my answer, Shokuhou Misaki’s face was full of astonishment she couldn’t hide, and those star-shaped pupils so unlike a normal person’s flickered with an eerie light.
“You’re already out of living expenses, aren’t you? Don’t tell me you’re planning to drop out?”
“I haven’t fallen that far yet…”
Frowning, I looked into Shokuhou Misaki’s eyes and said, more than a little resigned,
“There’s still some money on my card. At the very least it can hold me over until—Shokuhou Misaki!!!”
Before I could even finish, I suddenly felt a stab of pain in my head.
I knew this feeling.
It was Shokuhou Misaki reading my thoughts again.
Because of the abnormality in my brain’s mental strength and calculation power, I can sense very keenly when someone does something to my mind.
If someone tried to forcibly rewrite my thinking, I might even seize the chance to turn the tables on them.
But if it’s just a simple read of my thoughts, there’s still no way for me to resist.
Just like a moment ago.
“Ahaha… don’t be mad now…”
Clearly she already knew my savings wouldn’t last long, so right now she looked as smug as a child who’d just gotten away with snatching a lollipop.
“Since your living expenses can only last another month, then, I’ll be waiting for you to come find me in a month, okay?”
“Who said I’d come find you?!”
Paying no mind to my somewhat furious voice, Shokuhou Misaki turned around in satisfaction and headed up the stairs.
As her figure vanished into the stairwell, the girls who’d been frozen motionless in the lobby instantly snapped back to life, resuming the actions Shokuhou Misaki had hijacked and cut short.
They’re all at least Level 3 espers, aren’t they?
Surely they aren’t this useless?
I swept a gloomy glance over the girls in the lobby and found that not one of them had noticed they’d been controlled for several minutes.
In the end I could only nod helplessly at the students who spotted me and called out a greeting, then headed straight upstairs.
“Here’s the information you requested, Onee-sama.”
“Th… thanks…”
School was already out.
Standing before me now was a middle-school girl who looked a bit younger than me.
The neat grooming and polished, well-mannered air all marked her as the daughter of some wealthy family.
But right now, standing in front of me, there wasn’t a shred of reserve in those eyes.
The look she gave me was practically like she wanted to swallow me whole, that raw, undisguised enthusiasm honestly a little hard for me to take.
If I were a man so handsome it was criminal and frighteningly powerful, fine, I’d get it.
But of all things, I’m a female student whose ability isn’t anything special and whose gender is the same as this girl’s.
As far as I know, this middle schooler calling me
“Onee-sama” with that worshipful face is actually two months older than me, and her ability level is Level 4, a full rank above mine.
For a situation like this, all I could do was smile bitterly to myself.
On the surface, though, I kept up my usual blank expression out of habit, reached out, and took the few sheets of information she handed me.
I gave her a nod.
The girl’s gaze was scorching enough to be a little scary, but at least she’d kept her wits and didn’t pounce.
“Thanks a lot…”
“N… no need to thank me, Onee-sama!”
She seemed startled by my thanks.
A faint blush actually surfaced on the girl’s face, and her whole body looked like it had been shot full of stimulants. You are reading on g.com, the official source.
The fiery look in her eyes only grew more agitated, and it set my heart pounding.
I almost thought she’d charge at me the next instant.
Thankfully, the girl still had decent self-restraint.
“Onee-sama has never once asked us to do anything. Now that you’ve finally given us a request, we’re nothing but thrilled, so please, Onee-sama, don’t stand on ceremony!”
That’s right, this girl in front of me is one of my faction members at Tokiwadai Middle School.
Before, I had zero interest in this so-called faction rivalry, so I never paid these things any attention.
But now, having lost all outside support, I’ve completely lost my source of income.
Come to think of it, the sudden collapse of my old man’s conglomerate definitely isn’t that simple.
So if I don’t actually want to live off some girl the way my old man suggested, my only option is to find a way to revive the Tenshouin conglomerate.
Tokiwadai Middle School is almost entirely made up of girls whose families have considerable background and influence.
So now that I’ve lost outside support, the only thing I can draw on is my own faction members.
Unlike Shokuhou Misaki, my faction and that of the other Level 5, the
“Railgun,”
Misaka Mikoto, are mostly groups the members organized on their own.
Among them, most of Misaka Mikoto’s fans were won over by her power, while I… it’s a bit shameful to say, but I honestly don’t know what mindset brought my faction members together.
The energy a Tokiwadai faction can generate is enormous.
In less than half a day, my faction had collected intel on the groups likely pulling the strings behind the bankruptcy of the Tenshouin conglomerate.
But on the way back to the dorm, while I was reading through this information and saw those names listed one after another, it suddenly hit me that reviving my livelihood through rebuilding the Tenshouin conglomerate wouldn’t be just ordinarily difficult.
Every single name written on these documents belonged to someone big enough to shake society with a single move.
For me to topple these behemoths alone was obviously impossible.
“Do I really have to go get kept after all…”
A little dejected, I pushed open the dorm door, tossed the documents in my hand onto the table beside me, and flopped flat onto the bed.
Staring up at the still-spotless ceiling, I sank into thought.
This morning I’d turned down the condition Shokuhou Misaki offered after all.
I don’t care if my faction gets taken from me, but thinking about Shokuhou Misaki’s usual behavior, I really couldn’t believe she just wanted my faction and nothing more.
And, after meeting that upperclassman earlier who called me Onee-sama, I couldn’t help thinking that maybe having a faction of my own wasn’t so bad after all.