“Can you get off me now?”
“But you still haven’t agreed.”
“Get off first.”
“Oh.”
Kousaka Kirino climbed off the bed, and Kyousuke immediately got up to close the bedroom door and switch on the light.
The harsh brightness made both of them squint, their eyes taking a good while to adjust.
Kirino plopped herself down onto Kyousuke’s chair and leaned against his desk.
“Seriously, going to bed this early — can you even call yourself a high schooler?
Your schedule’s practically the same as an old man’s.”
“You’re the weird one.
Haven’t you heard that sleeping past eleven accelerates aging?”
“Wait, really?
Is that true?”
Kirino looked thoroughly skeptical, as if she didn’t buy that claim at all.
“So, what you said during the day — is it still good?
The part about tutoring me into Chiba Daiichi High School?”
She’d spent several hours mulling this over, and after turning it every which way, she seemed to have no other path forward.
Drawing manga was her passion, and if failing to get into the high school her father expected meant she’d be forced to put down her pen for nearly three years, that was an outcome she simply couldn’t accept.
She could already imagine how dull and tedious her life would become, crammed to the brim with every tutoring class imaginable.
That was not a future she wanted, which was why she urgently needed to confirm whether Kyousuke’s claim about tutoring her into that school was actually feasible.
“Of course it’s still good.” Kyousuke sat back down on the bed.
“And even if you are as dumb as a rock, I have a way to make sure you get in.”
The essence of exam-oriented education lay in predicting the questions.
Through targeted, repetitive drilling, one could still achieve relatively excellent results — that was the foundation of Kyousuke’s confidence in saying this.
The curriculum in Chiba Prefecture wasn’t particularly difficult, and with his knowledge, he could easily predict ninety percent of the exam questions.
Strengthening Kirino in those areas and helping her advance to the next level wasn’t an impossibility.
In Japan, the truly difficult part was getting into university.
“But I have one condition.”
Kyousuke walked over to Kirino, reached past her ear, and picked up the Kadokawa magazine from the desk behind her.
“I want to see your original manuscript first.”
“Eh?”
Kirino eyed him with suspicion.
“What are you up to?
I don’t keep the manuscripts at home — they’re all at the studio I rent.”
“Then take me there tomorrow.
I’ll decide whether to help you after I’ve seen it.”
Kyousuke nudged and shooed her out of his room.
“Hey, I can walk on my own, you know.”
Kirino grumbled, standing in the doorway and staring at him with a mildly disgruntled expression.
Before closing the door, Kyousuke pointed a finger at her.
“Next time, do not come into my room while I’m asleep.
And especially, do not get on my bed!”
“Hmph!” Kirino wrinkled her nose, shot him a glare, turned on her heel, and left.
The door shut, and silence returned to the room.
What a disaster.
Kousaka Kyousuke turned off the light and lay back down.
He was a high schooler in the prime of adolescence, after all.
For this sister of his to climb onto his bed so utterly unguarded — did she seriously not see him as a member of the opposite sex?
He closed his eyes, feeling thoroughly unsettled.
That girl…
she was going to be the death of him!
Early the next morning.
Kyousuke took his seat at the dining table with dark circles under both eyes.
“What’s wrong, Kyousuke?
Didn’t you sleep well last night?”
Mieko asked with a note of concern.
Daisuke had already been out the door for a while by this hour.
Aside from Mieko, only Kirino was at the table, nibbling on a piece of bread.
“It’s nothing.
I dreamt a demon climbed into my bed, so I was up in the middle of the night.”
Ignoring Kirino’s murderous glare, Kyousuke smiled at his mother.
“Kirino and I will be heading out in a bit to buy some study materials for tutoring.”
“Alright, go ahead.
You can ask your father to reimburse you when you get back — this doesn’t count toward your allowance.”
Mieko nodded with a smile, feeling deeply gratified as she watched the relationship between the siblings visibly thaw.
They’d already progressed to the point of going out shopping together.
How wonderful.
Kousaka Kirino sat beside them in silence, simply biting down on her slice of bread with vicious snaps, as if taking out her frustrations on it.
…..
“What do you mean, ‘a demon climbed into my bed’?!
You—”
The moment they stepped outside, Kirino was already hounding him in protest.
“Exactly what it sounds like.
Being woken up in the middle of the night by someone straddling me and slapping me awake — does that not fit those phrases of mine?”
“I meant who are you calling a demon, you jerk!”
“Heh.”
Kyousuke let out a quiet laugh and ignored her entirely, heading straight for the train station.
This guy — his personality was infuriatingly annoying.
Kirino suppressed her anger and followed behind him, grinding her teeth.
For some reason, she just felt like she and he were fundamentally incompatible.
Even the most casual teasing remark from Kyousuke could set her off.
“Why do you have to see my manuscripts?”
Once they were on the train, Kirino couldn’t hold back any longer and took the initiative to ask.
“Don’t ask unnecessary questions.
Once I’ve seen them, I’ll naturally tell you.”
Kyousuke brushed her off with a vague reply.
This guy!
Reminding herself that she still needed something from him, Kirino reluctantly swallowed her irritation.
The two of them made the journey without further incident, and the train soon pulled into the station.
Sakaecho Station.
Kyousuke had confirmed the address of Kirino’s studio with her before they’d left the house.
It was located in an apartment near Sakaecho Station.
As for why she’d chosen this place — aside from the cheap rent, proximity was also a factor.
By bike, it was a mere fifteen minutes away.
With Kirino leading the way, Kyousuke soon found himself outside her studio door.
She inserted the key, and the apartment door swung open.
Kirino slipped inside first, and before Kyousuke could follow, the door was shut in his face.
“Wait outside for a bit.
I need to tidy up.”
This was a place she hadn’t even brought Ayase to — for her, it was a top-secret sanctuary.
After about ten minutes, the studio door opened.
Kirino poked her head out.
“Come in.”
The moment he stepped inside, Kyousuke looked around with open curiosity.
In this life or the last, it was his first time visiting a manga artist’s workspace.
But Kirino’s secret base looked nothing like what he’d imagined.
Discarded papers were piled everywhere, and two rows of what looked like display shelves stood against the walls, draped in thick black cloth.
There was no dust on them, and Kyousuke guessed that whatever Kirino had been frantically tidying up inside just now had been to cover those very shelves.
At the far end of the studio sat a slanted drafting table — the kind of setup he’d seen online, a manga artist’s work desk.
“Here.
My latest manuscript, the newest chapter.
Be careful with it.
If you damage it, I’ll kill you!”
Kirino handed over a thick stack of manuscript pages, still unprocessed with screentones and only finished up to the inking stage.
Kyousuke took them in hand and flipped through a few pages.
“You really do draw beautifully.
You’ve got genuine talent.”
It was heartfelt praise, and Kirino, caught off guard by the sudden compliment, found herself momentarily unable to process it.
Her heart suddenly began beating faster.
This was the first time anyone had praised her face-to-face besides Editor Iori, and it left her stammering.
“What’s with that, saying something like that all of a sudden…
I’m a best-selling author, you know!
Isn’t it only natural that I draw well?”
“From what I understand, ‘Lunar Witch Transformation’ should be wrapping up soon.
Do you have any plans for a new work?”
Kyousuke suddenly posed the question, and Kirino blinked, caught off guard, before shaking her head.
“I don’t have any new ideas yet.
Come to think of it, it’s like this manga used up all my inspiration…”
This was another of her worries.
While having her debut work become a massive hit was an incredible thing, only she, as the author, knew how draining the serialization process had been.
Getting “Lunar Witch Transformation” to this level had already taken everything she could wring out of her brain.
Toward the end, it had practically become a cycle of repeating the same templates — the protagonist Lunar Witch’s ditzy daily life, discovering a crisis, shrinking back in fear, and finally fighting.
It was partly because of this that Kirino had instinctively pushed the work toward its conclusion, because she felt the story was starting to become dull.
As for a new story, she simply hadn’t had a moment to spare for plotting, let alone drawing.
“Is that so?”
Kyousuke handed the manuscript back to her.
“In that case, how about collaborating with me?”
“What do you mean?
What exactly are you trying to do?”
Kirino looked at the brother standing before her with bewilderment.
“As a condition for tutoring you, I want you to co-create a manga with me.
I’ll handle the name, you’ll handle the original art.
We split the profits fifty-fifty.”
Kousaka Kyousuke leaned against the work desk, pulled a dip pen from the holder, and wrote two words on a sheet of paper.
He handed it to his utterly baffled sister.
Kirino looked at the words and read them aloud without thinking.
“Cardcaptor…
Sakura?”