Collecting the Manga Shuttle
“Do you still have the Vita-stick?”
“Auuuh…”
When I asked again, she froze completely.
Her mouth opened and closed as she started to say something, stopped, tried again, and stopped once more.
She was completely defenseless.
“Ah!”
I snagged the manga book she had been trying so hard to hide.
“Euhhing…”
She stretched out a hand as if to snatch it back, then gave up just as quickly, apparently deciding she had no chance.
Thanks to that, I could leisurely check the title.
Is It Okay to Love an Otaku?
“Oh…”
“G-give it back.”
Watching her recommend manga to me, I had figured our tastes might be similar. They were not.
A quick flip through suggested it was a hard-fought romance about an otaku heroine.
Having just watched me thoroughly dig through the manga she had kept hidden, Hayun looked completely checked out, leaning against the wall in a daze.
“Why won’t you answer me? Do you not have the Vita-stick right now?”
“…What’s that?”
“You’re going to play dumb now?”
She stuck to feigning ignorance even after the fact.
She clearly knew she had already been caught, yet still refused to admit it.
“Sssss…”
“Hwaaah… What are you doing…”
“Look at this. It’s strawberry-flavored.”
I leaned in close, lifted her hand, and took a sniff. Sure enough, that strange strawberry scent hit hard.
“W-what about it…”
“I just want to get closer to you. Are you that embarrassed?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
She seemed to have calmed a little; her tone turned even and she kept diligently pretending not to know.
“You said you wanted to get closer to me too, didn’t you?”
“I never sa—!!! That wasn’t about you, oppa!”
“Is that so? Anyway, so you really were smoking in the alley.”
In the end I used my last resort.
Technically I still had one more last resort after this, but that one would require being ready to visit a police station.
“…”
“You can’t deny it anymore, can you?”
Fortunately she seemed to decide further denial was impossible.
“P-please keep it a secret.”
“Mm, who would I even tell?”
“Anyway!”
“Alright already. You’re too close.”
“Auuah…”
Apparently this was an important enough secret that she forgot her embarrassment and came right up to my nose.
I still could not imagine how such a flimsy girl had ever gotten hooked on playing delinquent.
And more than that, when she had crawled over on all fours just now, I had gotten a look inside her clothes.
I thought she was far too unguarded, but there was something even more important.
“No tattoos either, huh?”
“…?”
Her face said she had no idea what I was talking about.
She glanced down at her own clothes, found nothing exposed, then looked back at me as if to ask what exactly I had seen.
“I saw when you crawled over just now.”
“P-pervert! Y-you came in here for this!!”
“Shh…”
“Mmmpph!”
Her voice suddenly spiked so high I clapped a hand over her mouth without thinking.
That only made her feel more threatened; she started thrashing.
Lick-lick.
Desperate to make me let go, she began licking my palm.
It was a pretty ridiculous way to resist, though it might have worked on someone ticklish.
Make the taste of my hand a sweet flavor that calms the mind.
I figured I should calm her down before taking my hand away, so I tried the ability.
A non-food target plus an abstract flavor description.
If anything, this was a decent chance to test whether both were possible at once.
Amazingly, her struggling gradually quieted.
Lick-lick—
She had been working her tongue hard.
Then—
Ssssuck— ssssuck—
She sealed her lips around the flesh of my palm and started sucking in earnest.
Whoa…
What on earth did it taste like for her to go this docile so fast?
“Feeling a little calmer?”
My words seemed to snap her back; she startled, planted her hands on the floor, and scrambled away.
“Hwaaaaah…”
Whether she was embarrassed or just winded from all that enthusiastic sucking, I could not tell, but I had definitely succeeded in quieting her down.
“I’m going to wash my hands real quick. You’re not going to run, right?”
“…”
“No answer? Want me to wash my hands and go straight to the owner?”
Nod— nod—
Only then did she answer by bobbing her head.
“Be right back.”
I pulled the curtain aside with my other hand and headed for the restroom the owner had pointed out earlier.
My palm was soaked in spit and flushed red from how hard she had been sucking.
I’m curious what it tastes like.
Washing might erase the flavor, so I had no choice but to taste it as-is.
In front of the restroom sink.
Even I thought it was pathetic, but I could not hold back.
Sss—
I brought my palm to my mouth and gave it a light swipe with my tongue.
Whoooosh—
The instant the taste hit, a massive wave of guilt crashed over me and I scrubbed my hands at top speed.
It had been a sweet chocolate base with strawberry syrup mixed in.
I had no idea what had just happened.
The only certainty was that Woohyun, who lived in the same building, would be coming back into the room any second.
Jung Woohyun… o…ppa.
Having gone through all-girls middle and high school and then failed to get into college, Hayun was currently retaking the entrance exams. She had zero immunity to men.
Naturally the word “oppa” felt extremely awkward on her tongue, and the fact that she had actually called someone that left her both embarrassed and strangely thrilled.
Jung Woohyun.
He was the guy who had started living in the same building a little while ago.
Someone else had moved the boxes about a month back, yet he himself only moved in two weeks later.
That was how she first became aware of him.
Probably one or two floors above hers.
It was a six-story building; she lived on the fourth and had seen him go higher, so she knew.
Of course knowing that and actually remembering it clearly were two different things.
He was the most handsome man she had ever seen in her life.
The male lead from the manga she had been reading lately, stepped straight off the page.
It had not even been a particularly gripping series, yet from the day she first saw Woohyun she had become completely immersed and fallen even deeper.
And the deeper she fell into the manga, the deeper she fell for Woohyun as well.
In the end she mustered the greatest courage of her life and decided to try getting closer to him. The method she chose for figuring out how was to analyze the male lead’s tastes.
Obviously she knew the male lead and Woohyun were different people, but they were both perfect guys—handsome, great bodies. Didn’t that mean their tastes would be similar too?
Nothing else came to mind, so there was no harm in trying.
After careful analysis she concluded the male lead had not been interested in the pure-type heroine from the start.
Early on he confessed to a female delinquent character, got rejected, and the heroine comforted him—that was the beginning.
Most people would have thought, “I should comfort that guy and treat him kindly too,” but Hayun was different.
Of course… the party girls are the popular ones…
Back in middle and high school, while she herself never interacted with boys at all, the girls in the delinquent crowd were constantly meeting guys from other schools.
In the end her school experiences and the knowledge she had absorbed from manga combined, and the method she finally settled on was becoming a delinquent herself.
More precisely, acting like one.
And now it had all been exposed.
She had even been idiotically happy while sucking on his palm.
“Haa…”
Everything she had worked so hard on had gone up in smoke at once.
What she regretted even more was that she could no longer suck on Woohyun’s palm.
Swish—
After washing my hands I returned to the curtained room.
Fortunately Hayun was still waiting in the exact same spot and pose where I had last seen her.
“…”
I sat down naturally beside her. She flinched but made no further attempt to leave.
“I’m not going to do anything weird. In the first place, weird stuff is…”
“Aaaaah!! I’m sorry… please forget it…”
“I told you to be quiet. The owner’s going to come.”
“Yes… so what are you going to do now…?”
I could not understand what she was asking me to do.
“Huh?”
“I don’t have money… and I’m useless…”
Did she think I was going to blackmail her?
I was not even sure what leverage I supposedly had on her, but I decided to just listen and see what she was talking about.
“A-actually I do have a little money…”
“I never asked for that.”
“Th-then… eek! No!”
Whatever she was imagining made her voice spike again.
“I-it’s my first time…”
“What?”
“Hic… please don’t… aah…”
This was truly baffling.
The absurd fantasy she had spun was already confusing enough, but the way she kept inching closer while saying those things was something else entirely.
“No, it’s not that. Now I’m going to read the manga you recommended.”
“Eh?”
“Hayun, live in reality. Manga and reality are different.”
“…”
Hayun’s range of genres seemed impressively wide.
Not only the kinds of manga I liked, but pure romance, and from her current reaction she had clearly been devouring the steamy ones as well.
She did not look like she would recover from the shock anytime soon, so I decided to wait while reading.
…
“Mm… oh…”
The Promised Foreverland that Hayun had recommended.
I had only finished volume one so far, but it was definitely good.
“Hayun, this is seriously fun.”
“Hayun?”
I had finished an entire volume and she was still broken.
Or rather than still the same, she might just be too embarrassed to move.
“Hayun?”
…
“Here.”
In the end the method I chose was holding my palm out in front of her face.
I did not know if any of the flavor was left, but it ought to be enough to get her attention.
“…”
Contrary to expectations she kept staring blankly ahead, eyes unfocused.
I had no choice but to think of something else and pulled my hand back.
Thud—
The moment I withdrew it, pressure clamped around my wrist.
Before I knew it she was staring at my palm, both hands locked around my wrist, refusing to let go.
“What are you doing?”
“Ah! Uwah… that’s…”
Speaking to her again finally brought her back; she panicked and started watching my expression.
“Want to do it like earlier?”
“…”
Nod—
After a long hesitation she gave a tiny nod.
“Then come closer. I still have to keep reading.”
At my words she scooted right up beside me, leaving only the barest gap.
“No, if I’m going to read you need to come in front. I don’t have free hands.”
“Ah…”
She hesitated a moment at that, then finally crawled slowly around to sit in front of me.
“Come back farther.”
Scoot— scoot—
She inched her hips forward a tiny bit at a time.
Whoosh—
“Hyeek—!”
Fed up, I grabbed her with both hands and yanked her in.
Our bodies did not press fully together, but we were close enough to feel each other’s body heat.
I put volume two of The Promised Foreverland into her hands and offered one of my own toward her mouth.
“…”
Ssssuck—
After a moment of gauging my reaction she finally sealed her lips around my palm and began to suck.
“Turn the page.”
Flip—
Following the original shuttle, I had now collected the manga book shuttle as well.