Something that had started, and I wasn’t even sure I could call it a date with Honjo-san.
Honjo-san carried a backpack, while I dragged the suitcase she’d brought along.
"Wow, you’re even carrying my luggage for me. Thanks a lot, boy."
"I’m a slave anyway..."
She said she was grateful, but in the end I was still a slave bound to her in a business relationship.
Being a slave tied to a target did give off a strangely stimulating feeling, but since I was here as a porter, it was only natural for those feelings to cool off fast.
Besides, if I actually started feeling too much of that, I could get beaten to death on the spot.
"Don’t say it like that!"
Honjo-san didn’t deny the slave part, and instead grabbed my hand all of a sudden with a playful smile.
She probably wasn’t doing it because she expected a certain reaction.
If she had, she would’ve complained when my expression didn’t change.
So the reason she took my hand was...
"Oh! Target spotted! Let’s go!!!"
To drag me quickly toward our destination.
"Could you slow down a little, please!!"
Hey, I’m pulling a suitcase here!
******
Where Honjo-san dragged me was a place lined with all kinds of manga and other subculture goods.
If Kyohei saw this place, his eyes would probably light right up.
"Wow, it’s changed a lot since I last came here~"
Looking around and comparing her memories with the place as it was now, it seemed Honjo-san had never used [Raziel] to check for changes like this.
"So you didn’t use [Raziel], huh."
"Of course not. I don’t use [Raziel] when I don’t need to. I hate spoilers, you know?"
"That’s fair."
If she used [Raziel] to spot changes, then naturally information about other works would be written down too.
That would be a huge spoiler for her, since she hadn’t read those books yet, so Honjo-san not using [Raziel] here was probably only natural for a reader.
I hate spoilers too.
"...But can you really carry all that?"
Maybe she was planning to read every book she hadn’t been able to touch for the past five years, because Honjo-san, who had just said she hated spoilers, was stuffing an enormous number of books into a basket.
Especially the way she picked them out one after another without even hesitating made it obvious how much she loved manga.
Don’t people usually at least think a little about which manga to get?
"It’s fine, because the boy will carry them for me!"
"...That’s why I asked."
Right, I had to carry all of that.
Because I was a slave.
It wasn’t that I felt bad about it, but I still wished she’d restrain herself a little. No matter how strong I was, there was still a limit to how much I could carry.
It wasn’t a weight problem. It was just a matter of physical range.
My hands were limited.
"...By the way, when DEM had you, did they do anything to you?"
Figuring that if it came to it I could just put things in my inventory for a while, I asked the question I’d been curious about.
After all, when I’d been caught by DEM, I’d almost been tortured myself.
In the end I hadn’t been, but could the reason possibly be that they’d already tried it on Honjo-san in advance and found out it didn’t work, so they didn’t bother?
It was only natural to have that suspicion.
But maybe my suspicion was just needless worry.
"Honestly, I don’t remember very well~"
Honjo-san said that with a completely unconcerned expression and brought over even more books.
"You said you were held for five years... right?"
Even though she’d been held captive for such a long time, she didn’t remember anything?
Was that even possible?
"Looks like they messed with my head through investigations and examinations and stuff. But if they’re getting beaten by you guys, then maybe they just couldn’t use [Raziel] in the end?"
"...That’s certainly true."
DEM, especially Ellen, always ended up getting beaten to a pulp by me whenever we met, but that didn’t mean they were weak or incompetent.
My own combat power was just too absurdly high. If anything, they were troublesome because they used methods like exploiting or prying into other people’s weaknesses to achieve their goals.
Tobiichi siding with DEM before history was altered was one part of that too.
And more than anything, if I thought about how they’d researched the Chaos Flame I’d attached to Ellen during that battle and used their own technology to create demons, creatures that didn’t exist in this world, then manipulating the memory of a single spirit would be easy.
...Though I didn’t know why they weren’t trying to figure things out with [Raziel].
One thing that bothered me was that I didn’t know why she wasn’t trying to use [Raziel] to find out what had happened to her.
But that wasn’t really something I needed to stick my nose into, and Honjo-san was surely thinking about it for a reason, so I decided to let it go.
"All right, then let’s go over there next!"
Honjo-san, after checking my expression, stuffed even more books into the basket and headed for the next section.
"...Haha."
With a mountain of books suddenly appearing in front of me, I didn’t think I’d be able to think about anything else.
"Huaaah...! There’s so much Tokiya merch...!!"
After tidying up the mountain of books Honjo-san had left behind and following after her, I found her hugging a life-size standee of some character with all her might, looking thrilled.
...I’d just been worrying about this person, and now that felt completely pointless.
"Tokiya must be the character’s name, I guess. Is it really that good?"
"It can’t be expressed with just the words ‘I like it’!! This is why I wanted to become a manga artist, you know!? Tokiya is my wife! A male character, but my wife!!!"
Seeing a grown woman, especially one who was walking around with me, acting like that started drawing attention.
All I could do was feel embarrassed under those stares.
[...So that’s the author of that ‘Silver Bullet’ series. Doesn’t look normal.]
At the commander’s mutter through the intercom, I gave a small nod.
******
After that embarrassing stretch of time passed, the next section Honjo-san headed to was the area with what people usually call BL.
"Ugh..."
I of course respected people who liked that sort of thing.
But that was as far as it went. I didn’t think I’d be able to accept it myself.
Just looking at the covers right now, I could clearly feel my expression rotting in real time.
"You like this kind of thing too...?"
When I asked, trying my best to smooth out my crumpling face, Honjo-san replied without taking her eyes off the books.
"Heh, you wouldn’t know unless you had a girl circuit."
I wondered if a girl circuit meant hugging a favorite male character standee like crazy to show affection.
But I didn’t say that out loud, and instead looked around while waiting for her to choose her books.
...She definitely is popular with women.
I didn’t really understand the BL genre, but at least I understood that it was popular with women.
Everyone in this section except me was female.
"Boy, did you know? A pro in this field can tell someone’s type just by looking at them."
"Is that so?"
"Yep! For example..."
When I turned my gaze toward Honjo-san, who had suddenly started talking while looking around, she was making a camera shape with both hands.
"Dull, natural, Casanova. Something like that?"
[Wow, that’s pretty accurate.]
"What do you mean, accurate!"
At the very least, I’ll admit I’m dull.
Up until just before the school trip, I hadn’t even realized the people who loved me were in love with me, and even after the trip started, I only realized it around the middle and still rejected them.
And now I wasn’t rejecting them anymore and was accepting it, but that still didn’t mean I was actually dating anyone or anything.
In that sense, the Casanova label was kind of ridiculous too.
I wasn’t someone I’d deliberately seduced, and in fact I’d even been hostile with Miku, Natsumi, and Marina.
And then they switched sides and started saying they liked me, so how was that supposed to make me a Casanova?
Besides, that natural keyword really didn’t fit me at all.
Isn’t a natural supposed to be someone like that?
Someone who isn’t even trying, but still charms everyone around them.
That had never happened to me once in my life.
If it had, I wouldn’t have been a lifelong virgin in my previous life.
"Hmm~ But it’s true that there are a lot of girls around you, right?"
"Th-that..."
Yeah, I couldn’t deny that.
It was true that there were a lot of girls around me, and besides that, if I denied that, I’d also be denying the memories I’d made with them.
Still...
"Does that mean you get to tease me about it?"
"Hah! Sorry, but you don’t really react to my seduction, so I need to do something like this to make it fun, you know?"
"Haah... You’re vicious."
This woman really was vicious.
"Whatever! Come on, let’s go buy the other stuff too!"
"Please, could you slow down a little...!"
Why are you moving around so fast!
******
After going through various sections with Honjo-san and buying a ridiculous number of books, I followed her into an alley.
"Ahh~ I’m satisfied! I had a blast~"
"Haha, you certainly look like it."
She really did seem to be enjoying herself while shopping.
So much so that it was hard to believe she’d been held by DEM for five years.
Maybe that was why I ended up smiling a little when I saw Honjo-san happily shopping around.
She seemed a little childish.
"I had quite a good time too."
And I’d enjoyed myself too.
I hadn’t planned on coming somewhere like this, but now that I was here, it wasn’t bad at all.
In fact, I was glad I’d found a few interesting manga.
"......"
After hearing my answer, Honjo-san fell silent for a moment, then turned around and walked backward so she was facing me.
"Should we rest for a bit at a café? It’s close if we go this way──whoa!"
Before she could finish, her body suddenly tipped backward.
"Honjo-san!"
Seeing Honjo-san trip while walking backward, I quickly loosened the hand gripping the suitcase, kicked off the ground, and moved behind her.
Before long, I caught her as she fell and managed to stop her from hitting the ground.
But for some reason, the pose had turned into a princess carry.
"......"
"......"
With the atmosphere turning strangely awkward, we just stared at each other.
[Hiki, this is your chance!]
The commander shouted through the intercom that this was the moment to kiss her, but I couldn’t do that.
Because what I saw in Honjo-san’s eyes was nothing other than embarrassment.
"...Sorry. I guess this really is impossible."
"Yes, I thought so."
After helping Honjo-san back onto her feet when she said it was impossible, the commander yelled at me about what the hell I was doing, but I ignored her.
Because it seemed like Honjo-san had something important to say right now.
"Well, being chased around by DEM is frustrating and I hate it too, you know? So if I can be sealed, that’d be fine..."
Honjo-san’s eyes sharpened even more.
"The truth is, I’ve only ever loved two-dimensional things."
Oh. I didn’t see that coming.
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