49: A Jealous Stepsister

Despite her gyaru appearance, Marin was actually a huge otaku who absolutely loved cosplay. She was a big fan of magical girl anime and adult video games, and she wasn't ashamed to openly share her interests with others. There had even been a few times when she basically forced Natsuo to sit down and watch anime with her.

She had also been secretly teaching herself how to sew. Unfortunately, despite how hard she had been trying, the results were, to put it mildly, far from satisfactory.

Thud!

"No!!"

Marin dropped onto all fours, looking as though all the life had been completely drained from her. She stared blankly at the ruined clothes before beginning to mutter to herself, "I'm such a failure... Useless... I can't do anything at all..."

Natsuo watched her for a while before finally sighing. He bent down, picked up the scattered pieces of fabric, and asked, "What was that?"

"It was supposed to be Shizuku Kuroe's dress!" Marin crawled toward him, pulled out her phone, and showed him an image of a sexy anime goth girl.

"From Saint ♡ Slippery's Academy for Girls: The Young Ladies of the Humiliation Club: Debauched Miracle Life 2!"

Natsuo took the phone and stared at the woman in the image before looking down at the scattered pieces of fabric in his hands. He remained speechless for a moment. "So this is what you wanted to show me?"

"Yep! I'm trying to make that outfit... so, yeah." Marin held her arm and looked slightly embarrassed. "Well... Ehem... I'm trying to, at least."

"Although I don't know anything about tailoring, this doesn't look anything like the outfit in the image!" Natsuo shoved the phone toward her face and pointed at the pieces of fabric scattered across the floor. No matter how clumsy someone was, wasn't she taking it a little too far?!

"No one could suck this badly even if they tried!"

"Heuh?! You're being so mean, Fujii-kun!" Marin dropped to the ground again and started crying.

"...Maybe I was a bit too harsh. Don't cry, I'll give you a candy." After talking so much, Natsuo felt that he might have been a little too hard on her. Had Rui infected him with her bluntness?

"So, why did you show me this?"

"You're the only person who's willing to watch anime with me, so you should understand me! Natsuo Fujii, will you help me make a Shizuku Kuroe cosplay?!" Marin immediately sprang to her feet and grabbed both of his hands. She leaned closer, bringing her face right up to his, her pink eyes sparkling with excitement.

"How am I supposed to help you? I know even less about tailoring than you do. Besides, I'm a busy man, you know?"

The way Marin was looking at him made Natsuo feel too guilty to turn her down. The problem was that he wasn't exactly good at tailoring either. The only things he knew how to do were sewing buttons back on and stitching loose clothes back together, skills he had learned when he was around ten years old.

His mother had already passed away by then, and there had been no one around to help him with those little problems. He had been forced to learn how to take care of them himself.

Still, if he put his mind to it, he should be able to learn fairly quickly. The Super Soldier Serum had granted him something akin to accelerated cognition, allowing him to process information, learn things like languages, and calculate variables at superhuman speeds.

Even his memory had become far better than before, allowing him to retain and recall information with incredible accuracy. If he seriously devoted himself to learning tailoring, he should be able to pick up the fundamentals in a relatively short amount of time.

"Don't worry! I believe in you! All you have to do is believe in me because I believe in you!" Marin stared at him with unwavering confidence and a bright grin. "We can do it!"

"Dafuq is that?!" Natsuo flicked her forehead and pushed her away from him. Shaking his head, he sighed and said, "Alright, I'll try to help you, but I can't promise anything."

"Natsuo-kun, thank you! I knew I could rely on you!" Marin jumped up and shouted, "Yaay!" while flashing him a peace sign.

She had also conveniently switched from calling him Fujii-kun to Natsuo-kun.

"Don't worry, I'll pay you a commission. I've been working a part time job, so I have enough cash on me." She proudly patted her chest and spoke with confidence.

"I don't need your money. You can't afford to pay me anyway. My time is valuable," Natsuo said dismissively.

He wasn't being arrogant. He really didn't need her money. If he were doing this for money, Marin would probably have to sell her organs just to afford his time, and even that might not be enough.

He was only helping her because she was his friend. Friends were supposed to help each other, right?

"Oh, right! You're rich. Tsk!" Marin suddenly remembered that Natsuo was loaded and clicked her tongue in disgust, like a communist who had just discovered that his friend was a capitalist.

Everyone hates capitalists until they become rich themselves.

"Let's go, lunch break is about to end." Natsuo glanced reluctantly at his unfinished lunch box. He hadn't even gotten to finish his lunch.

"You really like cosplaying, huh?" As the two of them walked back toward the classroom, they continued chatting about cosplay and Marin's hobbies.

"Mm! I love cosplaying!" Marin nodded enthusiastically. She skipped ahead of him before spinning around to face him as they walked. "I want to bring all the beloved characters I've seen on the screen to life. It's such a wonderful feeling!"

"Yeah, I can relate. It really is a wonderful feeling." Natsuo nodded in agreement, though he wasn't thinking about cosplay at all. What he had in mind was the feeling of seeing characters from fiction, like Chelsea or Hilda, standing right in front of him in real life.

That really was an incredible feeling.

The two of them continued chatting as they walked back toward the classroom. When they passed by Rui's classroom, Rui happened to glance in their direction.

The moment she saw Natsuo walking together with Marin, her expression darkened, and she frowned.

"Rui-chan, is something wrong?" one of her classmates asked.

"It's nothing. I just saw something unpleasant." Rui shook her head lightly before turning her attention back to her classmates and continuing their conversation.

...

"Did you have a fight with your classmates?" After school, Natsuo and Rui walked home together. He noticed that her mood seemed slightly down, as if she were sulking, so he asked.

"...I saw you with a girl earlier." Rui glanced at him with a quiet, slightly displeased gaze.

She looked as though she were simply asking out of curiosity, but Natsuo already knew her well. He knew that she was actually quite upset and that this was simply her way of expressing it.

"Kitagawa-san? She's my classmate. We're good friends." Natsuo shrugged and answered calmly. He had nothing to hide, and there was no reason for him to hide anything in the first place.

"Classmate?" Rui repeated the word calmly before falling completely silent.

"I want to stop by the bookstore on the way home. Want to come with me?" Natsuo suddenly remembered something and asked.

"...I'll go," Rui replied. She didn't understand the strange tightness in her chest. It was an uncomfortable feeling. When she saw Natsuo and Marin laughing and talking together as if they were having fun, she felt as though something precious to her was being taken away from her.

"What are you looking for?" When they entered the bookstore, Rui noticed that Natsuo was scanning the shelves, searching for something.

"My book. It should have gone on sale today," Natsuo replied as he walked past another shelf. Suddenly, he stopped and picked up a book with a black and red cover.

"Found it!"

"Your book?" Rui leaned closer. She knew that Natsuo was an author, so she had always been curious about his work. However, the moment she read the title, her expression became strange. She stared at him with a look of disgust.

"What the hell do you have in that rotten head of yours?"

The title of the book was The Forbidden Fruit: Stepmother's Unbridled Obsession.

"Just because I write this kind of stuff doesn't mean I have these preferences. Books like this are very popular with women, and controversial topics tend to gain popularity quickly." Natsuo explained without feeling the slightest bit ashamed. He held the book in his hands and casually flipped through the pages before walking over to the counter and buying it.

As his number one fan, he had to support himself, right?

"Really?" Rui narrowed her eyes and stared at him with a skeptical expression. At the same time, she thought to herself that she needed to keep a close eye on both her mother and Natsuo.

After buying his new book, the two of them left the bookstore. They hadn't walked very far when Natsuo suddenly pulled Rui into his arms.

"Look out!"

Two bicycles recklessly sped past them, nearly ramming into Rui. The riders were talking and laughing with each other, completely distracted and paying no attention to the road.

"Blind fucks! This is a sidewalk!" Natsuo cursed when he saw that the two cyclists didn't even bother to apologize. If he had been alone, he would have smacked some sense into them. He glanced at Rui and asked, "Are you alright?"

"Thanks," Rui said in a low voice. Just now, when he had pulled her into his arms, her heart had skipped a beat. It had felt surprisingly nice.

...

"It seems that no one is home." Natsuo slipped off his shoes and put on his slippers before turning on the lights. It seemed that Hina and his parents hadn't returned home yet.

Rui changed into her slippers as well before heading to her bedroom.

Ring!

Natsuo was also heading back to his room when he heard the doorbell. He walked over and opened the door.

"Yo! Natsuo-kun!" Marin stood there with a grin. She handed him a cake box and slipped inside without even waiting for an invitation. "So this is your house?"

"What are you doing here?" Natsuo closed the door behind her and asked.

---

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