Vol 1 Chapter 7 – Lewd Behavior?

He’s reading our doujinshi.

It’s not the ‘extreme’ ones we’d already removed, per Hatsune’s suggestion. It’s the fan-made manga published by the Modern Culture Research Club.

Honestly, it’s a little embarrassing.

It’s not that I thought it was a book for guys; it’s completely a magazine for a female audience. It’s not technically porn, but it is porn.

It’s parallel universe stuff of popular series characters, pushing the absolute limit of the risqué with our protagonists, who are still underage 16-year-olds.

But he has to understand what our club actually does, which is why I’m having him read it.

I think we’re pretty decent at it, for what it’s worth.

When we first participated in a doujinshi fair, we printed 50 copies but only sold a measly four. We ended up burning the rest, all of us crying as we did it.

That humiliation is what changed us.

We worked hard. We put in a desperate amount of effort.

Looking back, that first year, everyone was just drawing manga all the time. The four of us huddled around a single drawing tablet—a leaden-gray, if not downright gloomy, adolescence.

It wasn’t all bad, though.

You can still talk while you draw manga. Segawa, Hatsune, Emma—we’d all just draw on the tablet while chatting with each other.

I wonder how many we’ll sell next time?

Let’s aim big—eight copies, double what we sold! and so on.

We encouraged each other and grew together.

In the end, we started making posters, creating social media accounts to make announcements. We started promoting like crazy, and now we can sell through all 300 copies of the book we put out every month.

So, even though it’s embarrassing, I’m showing it to Kajiwara-kun.

So? Pretty impressive, right?

“……”

He’s reading the doujinshi in silence.

If I had one worry, it’s that what we draw isn’t technically porn, but it’s a book that gets infinitely close to it. It’s fetishistic.

Each of us puts out a book specializing in our own particular fetish, and there’s a generous amount of skin tone shown.

I was worried how Kajiwara-kun, being a guy, would take it.

Tilting his head, he says.

“So, President, you like men’s hands, huh?”

“Guh. He noticed.”

Of course he noticed; he’s reading it with such intense seriousness. That’s my fetishism for you.

Hands.

I love men’s hands.

You know, those photobooks of gravure idols—who are unattainable for women anyway—all sweaty while carrying or lifting something? I love those rugged, well-built hands, hardened from the weight training they do for those shoots. I end up staring at them, completely mesmerized.

But I’m not interested in mainstream gravure idols anymore.

The ones I’m interested in are—

“What do you think? Of my hands, for instance.”

—his hands.

Kajiwara-kun’s hands, made rugged and tough from too much weight training, the skin hardened.

He holds his palm out.

I sum it up in a single word.

“I like ’em.”

What am I saying, you idiot?!

I feel my face about to turn red, but I desperately maintain my poker face.

“Would you like to hold it? It’s just my hand, so it’s nothing special, but…”

“Whoa? Is that okay?”

“If it can be a reference for your work, President, I’d be happy to.”

There was no reason to refuse.

There was no reason, but I was hesitant.

Touching his hand.

For someone with my fetish, this was practically a lewd act.

It was the same as “sliding our mucous membranes together like slugs.”

I was hesitant—but I couldn’t say, This is too lewd, let’s stop.

How could I ever say something like that?!

Tentatively, I gripped Kajiwara-kun’s hand with both of mine, making contact.

His palm had a distinctly masculine firmness, completely different from my soft hands.

More than that, his hand was big. Kajiwara-kun’s hand.

“Whoa, this is the first time I’ve held a guy’s hand. It’s so rough. If you hit me in the head with this, I’d probably die in one shot.”

I desperately tried to cover my embarrassment by talking.

If only he’d hit me and I’d just die already!

“Even if heaven and earth switched places, I would never hit you, President. But yes, you would probably die.”

I should just die.

He wasn’t offering his hand because he thought it was something lewd.

He was purely trying to understand my fetish, offering his hand in the hopes it might be helpful.

But my motives were decidedly impure.

I was receiving his kindness through a lens of lust.

I pressed my tiny palm—I could only call it my “ittle hand”—against his, comparing their sizes.

He doesn’t have those kinds of feelings for me.

I know that much.

What he feels is probably just pure respect and admiration for an upperclassman.

That made me happy, but at the same time, it made me sad.

Along with that, I felt a shame so intense it felt like my head was boiling.

My mind was bubbling like magma.

I rubbed my thighs together in a spot he couldn’t see, as if trying to soothe the ache.

I was spending time with a guy I like, flirting, our palms pressed together.

But I couldn’t let go of his hand.

The envious glances from the other club members were the only thing keeping my sanity in check.

As we stayed like that, Kajiwara-kun was the one who finally spoke up.

“Should that be enough for now?”

“Yeah, sorry. I kinda want to sketch it, though.”

“If that’s what you want to do, I’m happy to oblige? I can’t draw at all, though.”

A sketch.

I’d love to do that.

I wanted to trap Kajiwara-kun inside a drawing and hang him up in my room.

Of course, the real him would go on living his life normally.

But it wouldn’t hurt to make his drawn likeness mine, right?

Sentimental—I cut that thought off and spoke.

“Whoa, eager, are we? But hey, you should just join our doujinshi circle, Kajiwara-kun.”

I invited him.

It was necessary to invite him.

It’s like, I really wanted to create something together with him.

With everyone else doing doujinshi work, it wouldn’t really work for him to be the only one playing card games with me.

He’d probably feel awkward.

He might even get the wrong idea, like, Am I just a nuisance to President Takahashi?

That kind of misunderstanding was entirely possible.

It’s fun, this doujinshi stuff.

There’s humiliation sometimes, but the joy you feel after overcoming it is on another level.

I want him to understand that.

And besides.

I’m sure that doing doujinshi activities with him would become my own intense version of youth—my aoharu.

“So, how about it, Kajiwara-kun? You should try something. I mean, look at Emma—she only started drawing a year ago, and now she can make manga this good.”

I directed the conversation toward the other members.

Including those members who’d been sneaking jealous glances this whole time.

I had to share the waters of this aoharu—this youth—with them too.

Ah, I suppose Emma is the one who’s worked the hardest among the members.

A blond, blue-eyed kid isn’t exactly rare these days, but sometimes having good looks is exactly what leads to pent-up frustration.

“…In middle school, I was a non-productive, moe-type otaku. I’m really sorry.”

Emma apologized to some unseen entity.

I’d known since she joined the club that she looked down on herself for being a “non-productive otaku.”

That’s why I invited her: Then let’s do it together. Let’s all do it.

As a result, her skills exploded in a single year.

Because she worked harder than anyone.

“You never know what’s going to click! So, Kajiwara-kun, you should try something too!! If you make something, we’ll put it in our doujinshi!!”

I shouted, full of fake cheer, to gloss over the moment.

Because Emma had reached her limit.

She’s timid, so she probably can’t exchange more than a word or two with a guy like Kajiwara-kun.

I drew his attention back to me.

“Then I shall try drawing. But I am a complete novice, so I expect I will be ridiculed.”

I heard a timid, fearful voice.

Emma was also afraid of being ridiculed as a novice at first.

A novice?

Everyone is just a small fry when they’re born, when they first start.

But even a small fish can grow into a full-fledged bluefin tuna.

“Doujinshi’s all about that. The important thing is to participate.”

Starting is what matters.

I believe with all my heart that beginning is the most important part.

I want everyone I meet to be able to grow together with me.

“President Takahashi, you’re very good at motivating people.”

“It’s my only strong point, after all.”

Conversely, it’s my only strong point.

But I suppose that’s where Kajiwara-kun’s respect for me comes from.

As sad as it is that it’s not romantic feelings.

As if savoring the lingering warmth on my palm, I used that hand to stroke my own cheek.