“Did I hear that right? Do you even know what you’re saying?” Carlo didn’t bother getting up off the floor, just stared wide-eyed at Sak to double-check his own hearing.
“I’m telling you two in complete seriousness.” Sak’s face was grave.
What happened to this guy over the break?
Did he crack his skull?
“No, seriously, how did you even come up with such a ridiculous idea?”
At Carlo’s words, Mir nodded along from the sidelines.
This kind of wildly out-there idea was his and his alone—he couldn’t let this guy steal his thunder.
Sak kept up his solemn expression—anyone who didn’t know better would think he’d just announced something of world-shaking importance.
“Since most of the girls at our school have yuri leanings, then if we cross-dress we should be able to pick them up more easily.
Assuming, of course, we don’t look too awful.”
“If we actually did that, by the next day we’d be the laughingstock of the whole academy.” Carlo looked at Sak like he was meeting him for the first time.
“It’s fine—as long as nobody knows we’re guys, right?” Sak spoke with such sound logic that Carlo nearly believed him.
“Then how are we supposed to pick anyone up? You sure the girl’s first reaction after finding out won’t be to slap us?”
Mir cut in.
“And the second the disguise comes off, the whole act falls apart.”
“Then we use cross-dressing to grind the girl’s affection up until she won’t even care about that kind of thing!” Sak practically roared the line.
Hearing it, Mir curled his lip in disdain.
He had no idea how these two had drifted from “how weird is cross-dressing to pick up girls” all the way to “what do we do if we get caught cross-dressing,” or where they got the confidence that they’d look good in the first place.
But Mir kept it to himself, because this was fun, wasn’t it?
The corners of his mouth curling slightly, savoring a flicker of glee, Mir asked, “So then, where are we going to get women’s clothing?”
That question really did stump the two of them.
As men, where would they have women’s clothing lying around?
And going out to buy some—they’d probably get taken for perverts.
Then Sak seemed to hit on something and turned to the still-seated Carlo.
“As an otaku, you’ve definitely got women’s clothing stashed away, right? Now’s not the time to hold back—hurry up and cough it up!”
Unbelievable!
How had Sak—who didn’t even know what a “Long Aotian” was—somehow concluded that an otaku would hoard women’s clothing?
Carlo hurriedly protested.
“Why would being an otaku mean I’ve got women’s clothing stashed away?!
What does one have to do with the other?
I’m no Cross-dressing Master.”
“How about we dig through this guy’s wardrobe?
Screw this!
This bastard!
Carlo dashed over and clamped both arms around Mir, but against raw brute strength it was all for nothing—he got dragged along toward the bedroom.
“I confess! I confess everything! I really do have women’s clothing stashed—I’ll go get it for you, okay?!” Carlo felt like he was about to cry.
This guy actually does have women’s clothing?!
Sak stared at Carlo in astonishment.
He’d only tossed it out off the cuff, never expecting to hit the mark.
Mir, meanwhile, halted in disappointment.
He’d really wanted a look at a shut-in otaku’s lair, but since the guy was being so sensible about it, he’d let him off the hook this time.
After all, I’m not some kind of demon.
Carlo got up and walked into his bedroom.
He only shut the door without locking it, because he knew that door really might not hold those two devils back anyway.
Surveying the bedroom buried in figures, posters, and life-sized body pillows, Carlo sighed helplessly—the kind of room he’d never want anyone to see, no matter what.
After a while, Carlo, face wreathed in misery, pulled out a few articles of clothing and tossed them to the demon duo.
“Here’s the women’s clothing you wanted.”
“Reeks of shut-in otaku, huh. This guy hasn’t worn it before, has he?” Mir reached out and unfolded the dress in front of him, asking suspiciously.
“There’s no such smell! I never wore it after I bought it—if you’re not going to use it, give it back!” Carlo said, flustered and furious.
“Mm, good.” Sak turned to Carlo.
“Then let’s start with you.”
“What? Why do I have to wear it too?!” Carlo’s eyes went wide, trying to overpower Sak by sheer force of presence.
“Don’t you want to see what it’s like to be treated as one of the girls?”
Carlo wavered.
“This is a rare, one-of-a-kind opportunity~” the devil whispered into the beast-eared boy’s ear.
“Fine, I’ll wear it!” The pure-hearted beast-eared youth couldn’t hold out against the devil’s temptation.
“But how am I even supposed to put this on?” Sure, he’d bought the women’s clothing himself, but he’d deliberately gone for the complicated anime-character kind, not the just-throw-it-on-and-done type.
“Oh, that’s easy. You just do this… then this… and finally mind the stockings… and you’re done.” Mir walked him through the steps on the dress in Carlo’s hands.
Why are you so skilled at this?!
“What are you looking at me for? Are you two putting these on or not?”
At his words, the two quickly looked away.
Maybe… this kid is the real master?
“Alright then, Carlo changes in the bedroom, I’ll take this spot, and Mir gets the bathroom.” Sak pointed and gave orders.
The two each headed to the spot Sak assigned.
After a while…
“You two done changing?” Carlo’s voice drifted out from the bedroom.
“Let me say this up front—I’m genuinely done. If any one of you plans to just fake his way through this, the second I come out I’ll beat him to death!” Along with Mir’s voice came a muffled thud from the bathroom, as if he’d punched the wall.
“…Then give me another five minutes.” Looks like Carlo really had been scheming something crooked.
Five minutes later…
“Ready?”
“Mm.”
“I’m ready too.”
Two doors opened at the same moment, and the three cross-dressed boys finally saw one another.
First was Sak.
Sak had always been fairly handsome to begin with, and now in women’s clothing there was surprisingly little sense of wrongness.
Height-wise all three were around 170 centimeters tall, and Sak’s face was the sort suited to cross-dressing.
His red hair was already fairly long, and a blue hairpin added to it lent him even more youthful spark.
Cap it off with a sailor uniform, and a spirited high-school girl was born!—if you overlooked the unshaved hair on his thighs.
Next was Mir.
Although he normally wasn’t as handsome as the other two, his naturally soft features suited the outfit, so cross-dressing now was no trouble at all.
He’d smoothed out his normally unkempt, choppy black hair and left bangs across the front.
Up top he wore an open red women’s jacket, and underneath a blouse attached to a skirt—yet under his overall styling, the skirt somehow read as a pair of trousers.
His long, slender legs were sheathed in black stockings, there to hide his puppet-like joints.
A narrow strip of pale, hairless skin showed above the stockings; as a puppet, Mir had no body hair.
Though the jacket-skirt-stockings combo looked a little odd, on the whole he came across as a fairly convincing, cool-looking girl.
Last was Carlo.
The demon duo, done sizing each other up, turned their eyes to Carlo—and froze at the same instant.
What… the hell is this?!