“And what does that have to do with me?”
Kousaka Kyousuke let out a light laugh.
“You should be thanking your lucky stars I helped you keep the truth under wraps.
At least now you still have time to finish ‘Lunar Witch Transformation,’ don’t you?”
Bastard.
He was totally enjoying this.
Kousaka Kirino ground her teeth in frustration, but after thinking it over, she had to admit he had a point.
She was in her third year of middle school, with half a year left until the entrance exams.
Better to drag things out as long as possible than have her father shut her down right now.
Kyousuke watched the girl before him go from furious to calm, her eyes still carrying that familiar hostility, and found it inexplicably entertaining.
“So, what do you say?
Want to accept the tutoring?
With my help, you might actually get into Chiba Daiichi High School, you know.”
He leaned back against the wall, propping up one knee, and tilted his head at her.
“Really?”
Kirino was well aware of her own limitations.
When it came to academics, the brother her stepmother had brought along could grind her into dust without leaving anything behind.
“Hard to say.
My study methods are highly efficient, but whether someone of your intellectual capacity can actually master them is another question.”
Kyousuke said it with a grin, and Kirino answered him by hurling a pillow at his face.
“Get lost!
Who are you calling stupid?
This is all your fault.
If it weren’t for you, Father never would’ve found out my secret.
Everything was fine before you two…”
Kirino trailed off, wrapping her arms around her knees as she crouched on the chair.
She realized she’d said something she shouldn’t have and fell silent.
The sudden drop in her mood caught Kyousuke completely off guard.
Had he pushed the teasing too far?
He noticed a faint glimmer of moisture forming at the corners of her eyes.
Truth be told, he understood where her hostility came from.
The reason blended families struggled to find harmony was that love got divided.
Before, Kirino had lived under Daisuke’s protection, and that love had been hers alone.
But Kyousuke’s arrival had forced the head of the household to step in and strike a balance.
Being constantly held up for comparison had given Kirino the sense that her father’s affection was being siphoned away.
Kyousuke knew full well what the rest of that unfinished sentence was meant to be, and he was honestly surprised she’d managed to rein it in before it fully slipped out.
It seemed this girl, beneath it all, had a fundamentally kind nature — she was just habitually headstrong and bratty.
Hurtful words wounded the heart, and the fact that she could recognize that meant she was far from a lost cause.
“What’s discovered is discovered.
There’s nothing worth panicking over.
I can promise you this — under my tutoring, you will get into Chiba Daiichi High School.
That way, you can keep drawing manga.” Visit g.com for the full chapter.
Kousaka Kyousuke sighed.
He’d gone soft after all.
He’d originally meant to give this sharp-tempered sister of his a proper lesson.
“I don’t believe you.”
Kirino turned her head away, speaking in a sulking tone.
“Believe what you want.
If you make up your mind, you can come find me in my room anytime.”
Kyousuke stood up, opened the door, and walked out.
Kirino watched the door close, then flopped headfirst into the futon on her bed, slapping at the pillow in frustration.
“Honestly, acting like nothing fazes him — it’s so annoying!
Is being good at school really such a big deal?
Saying he can tutor me into Chiba Daiichi High School…
what a load of hot air…”
After thrashing around for a while, exhaustion seemed to catch up with her.
The girl sprawled out on her bed and stared up at the ceiling.
…..
Back in his own room, Kyousuke sat down at his desk and pulled the latest issue of a Kadokawa manga magazine from his bag.
Printed across the full-color cover was a blonde, twin-tailed magical girl, a crescent moon adorning the inverted-triangle ornament on her forehead.
Without question, it was a character from “Lunar Witch Transformation” — the very work penned by his own sister, Kousaka Kirino.
He’d bought this issue yesterday at a convenience store, specifically.
“In some sense, she really is a genius.”
Kyousuke flipped through the magazine and skimmed the current serialized chapter.
From a storytelling perspective, the manga was accessible and easy to follow, with a premise that could be called fairly novel.
But its true market success ultimately came down to its exquisitely polished artwork.
If he hadn’t seen Kirino at the Kadokawa building with his own eyes yesterday, he would never in a million years have believed this manga could come from the hand of a fourteen-year-old middle schooler.
In his view, talent like this needed to be developed as early as possible — it was that critical.
Even he couldn’t entirely suppress a flicker of envy.
Having inherited the memories of his past life, he had originally thought about earning his first pot of gold through manga as well.
After all, the present era was exactly when manga was at its peak.
A purely text-based medium simply couldn’t compare to a product as visually impactful as manga.
Why else would the galge genre have been born?
It was a compromise that novel authors had made in response to the market.
Just look at the Kadokawa Corporation— the manga editorial department held far greater status than the light novel editorial department, and its ability to generate revenue was many times stronger.
But what frustrated him to no end was that he genuinely possessed zero talent for drawing.
After tentatively picking up a pen, the final product that emerged was too painful for him to even look at.
In the end, he’d resolved to debut through light novels instead.
While “Kino’s Journey” had now secured a publishing opportunity, based on his experience from his previous life, this novel would have a hard time becoming a breakout hit in the current market.
The inherent constraints of its subject matter destined it to be a niche work — its strength lay merely in being a stable debut.
In his original plan, he’d intended to use “Kino’s Journey” to accumulate a decent sum of income to serve as investment capital, then collaborate with his online friend Bajeena to develop a galge capable of shaking up the market.
But now, a way to save even more funds while speeding up the timeline seemed to have presented itself.
“If we were on better terms, maybe we could even collaborate.”
Kyousuke closed the magazine and set it casually on his desk.
Late at night, the Kousaka household had gone dark.
Kyousuke had finished washing up, put on his sleep mask, and was deep in slumber.
Creak—
The bedroom door made a soft noise as a figure slipped inside.
A faint rustling sound followed.
Smack!
A sharp, ringing slap suddenly rang out through the quiet bedroom.
Kyousuke felt a hot, stinging pain spread across his cheek, and something heavy seemed to be pressing down on him.
He yanked off his sleep mask and opened his eyes.
Golden strands of hair cascaded beside his ears, and a pretty face was thrust right up close to his.
Was this some new, inventive form of revenge?
He found Kousaka Kirino straddling his waist, dressed in nothing but her pajamas and a pair of shorts, and he could feel the soft touch of those impossibly smooth thighs.
“What are you doing?”
Kousaka Kyousuke genuinely began to panic.
Was she kidding?
What would happen if her father saw this scene?
Kirino had him pinned down in a posture like a tiger about to pounce, her backside planted squarely on his stomach.
“Keep it down!
Do you have any idea what time it is?”
Kyousuke was about to shove her off him when Kirino hissed a reprimand at him under her breath.
“Those should be my lines.
What are you doing sneaking into my room in the middle of the night?
And in this position — don’t tell me you’ve got some kind of weird kink?”
Kyousuke glared at her.
Kirino seemed utterly oblivious to just how improper her posture was and simply furrowed her brow at him.
“Didn’t you say it yourself?”
“Say what?”
“That I could come find you anytime once I’d made up my mind.”
“Made up your mind about what?”
“The tutoring!
I’ve decided.
Please tutor me so I can get into Chiba Daiichi High School.”
Kyousuke was almost laughing from sheer disbelief.
The mental circuitry of this sister before him was beyond absurd.
He glanced at the bedroom clock by the light of the moon — it read midnight.
“So you snuck into my bed in the middle of the night and woke me up just to tell me this?”
“That’s right!”
“And did you just slap me across the face?!”
“No.
That’s just your imagination.”