Witch Academy (2)
"What the hell is so fun about books that she's making such a fuss?"
"That's because you don't get it. These manga books are different from the books we know that are just packed with text."
"...I really don't understand girls."
The young man sighed as he watched his friend—a girl—happily picking out manga books. What was so different about these so-called manga from the books he knew that she liked them this much? Until last year she'd been the type to freak out at the mere mention of books, just like him. Was it true that as you got older, your tastes got old and boring too?
He mentally roasted his friend like that as he wandered aimlessly around the bookstore—until something on the shelf struck him as so out of place that he was thoroughly flustered. It was shaped like an extremely thick book, but the cover had drawings of half-naked girls on it.
"What the hell is this?"
There had occasionally been books with colored lettering around here, but this was the first time he'd seen a book with pictures drawn so blatantly on it. Among them, the one that caught his attention most was a picture of the most demure-looking girl, her face flushed bright red, trying to cover her naked body with nothing but her hands. Without much thought, he pulled the book out—and was shocked.
"Whoa, this is pretty amazing."
Including the girl from earlier, the cover featured a whole cluster of girls from the similar books sitting next to it. On that cover, the girls looked like they'd just finished having sex, cum dripping from them as they wore utterly wrecked expressions. Was that the kind of face girls made after sex? Along with the vigorous reaction from his lower half, he was quite shocked.
"No, what kind of book content would have a cover like this…"
Actually, putting pictures on covers was something he'd only occasionally seen because of the books his friend bought—the ones called manga. He'd thought it was a pretty uncommon thing. Even among those manga books, he didn't think he'd ever seen a cover that depicted sex this explicitly. Curious for some reason, he roughly flipped open the middle—and realized the inside was all pictures too, even if they were black and white.
"Ah, so this is what manga is…"
He'd thought it was just text with a few pictures inserted. But it was the opposite—it was pictures with text added on top. Of course, just because it was pictures rather than text didn't mean he was the type to look at this kind of thing normally. But wondering if there might be the sex scene itself—the content before that post-sex scene he'd just seen—he started flipping through the inside.
"What are you doing?"
"Uh, uh!?"
Given that he'd been looking for content that would be awkward to show to his friend who wasn't the same gender—a girl—he was thoroughly flustered and jumped in surprise. The girl said she should buy the manga he was holding, Witch Academy, too, and started deliberating which cover art version to get.
"What, they're not all different?"
"Normally they are, but this work is special. Do you like that girl called 'Lucy'?"
"Lucy? Ah, so that's the name of the girl drawn on the front. Yeah, it's written small."
"Lucy, Amy, Lily, Vine. Looks like there are four of them. I'm going with Lily. You buy these two for me. I'll give you the money."
"Huh? Then you could just buy them yourself."
"Why do you think I bothered coming with you? They give a discount if a guy buys them."
"...But why two volumes?"
"Just shut up and buy them."
What a weird girl, seriously. He grumbled with considerable irritation, but did as she said, paid for the items, and went outside. Then he handed her the books, received the money, and got reimbursed for exactly what he'd just spent.
"So I'm done with my part, right?"
"Phew, good thing. Lily was still left here. If she hadn't been, I would've had to drag you around to other bookstores too."
"...You'd switch bookstores and wander around just to get the one with Lily drawn on it? You said the books inside are all the same."
"There's no color in the books."
"No, but the covers all have drawings on them."
"The poses are different so they're completely different pictures. What do you mean they're the same? If there was something similar I might understand, but."
"...I don't really get it."
"Anyway, since you hung out with me today. Here's a gift."
"...What?"
He was dumbfounded looking at the Witch Academy manga she held out. She said she came with him to buy it cheap—but if she bought him one more, wasn't she spending more money than if she hadn't gotten the discount?
"What's wrong?"
"I was thinking you've finally lost it."
Even if she was in the swordsmanship club with him, full of nothing but swords in their heads, she wasn't so dumb she couldn't do basic money math. He was saying that when she punched him in the gut and he cried out in pain.
"Ah, why!"
"Idiot. You think I really came with you just to get a little discount? I was just saying that."
"...Then why for real?"
"Ugh, I shouldn't even say it. Around me, whether girls or guys, everyone's only into this kind of stuff. It's so exhausting…"
"Ah, wait. You were planning to gift me this anyway? So you came together because buying two gets a better discount?"
"You're getting a little closer. So what's the answer?"
"Uh, well. I don't really get it, but I'll try reading it?"
Honestly, if it had been a normal book he would have freaked out and refused. But there seemed to be a lot of half-naked girls, so looking at those might be fun. He'd wondered why people went to art exhibitions and such, but if you could see a bunch of pretty naked girls, it might not be a bad way to spend time.
"But the drawings in these manga books look a bit different from normal people. Why is that? When I went to an exhibition with you when we were younger, they all looked like real people."
"It's called deformé. It's what's trendy in art these days."
"Deformé?"
"Since photography exists now, rather than drawing things exactly the same, it's a process of making them a bit unrealistic while making only the pretty parts jump out at a glance."
"Aha."
Lately all the cover art on the manga books she bought looked like this. He'd thought it was a characteristic of manga books, but apparently this style of drawing was just generally trendy. It was definitely pretty, yeah.
"But earlier, weren't you trying to read that manga too?"
"...That."
"Why?"
"It's nothing. I just got a little interested."
Even so, he couldn't tell a girl that he'd wanted to see how the sex scene on the cover played out. He mumbled his way past it. Still, since he'd been gifted this, he could slowly check what kind of content was in it.
"If it's fun, tell me. I'll recommend more."
"I don't know if I'll end up liking this like you do. You always liked pictures and stuff even though it didn't match your personality…"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"...It's not exactly a hobby the swordsmanship club would be into."
And conversely, he wondered if it wasn't a stretch for him to like this kind of thing either. Honestly, pictures were something the delicate kids in the magic department liked, right?
"But don't you guys sometimes talk dirty with the other boys?"
"Ugh, how do you know about that?"
"You say it right out in the open. So I figured you might be interested in sex content and stuff. I heard this work has a ton of that."
"...Hmm."
So, just as he'd expected, there were tons of scenes of men and women having sex drawn in it. That might get him a little interested. By the way, the pictures progressed gradually in a continuous form—so would the sex scenes also be depicted in detail across multiple panels?
"These days there are quite a few works like this. Why? Interested in that kind of content after all?"
"It'd be weirder for a guy not to be interested."
In the end, with that kind of feeling, he ended up bringing home a manga book he hadn't even been thinking about. He was about to flip it open anywhere like earlier, but then thought he should start from the beginning out of consideration for the person who bought it for him, and opened the first page. And slowly began reading the manga.
"Hmm, so only the dialogue is text. Most of it is pictures."
This made it a bit easier to look at. Unlike text, you didn't need to imagine deeply—most of the situations were shown through pictures. And because of that, even reading straight through without much thought, he could easily grasp what was going on.
"So, he enters an academy only girls can attend. And he's going to learn magic that can save his parents?"
Seeing the protagonist do something that looked incredibly humiliating, he thought the guy had some serious filial piety—then was startled by how incredibly high-quality the cross-dressing was. Honestly, if he hadn't seen the earlier content, he would have mistaken him for a girl.
"Ah, the academy uniform is a baggy one-piece so the body type doesn't show well. And with the hair as a wig, it looks incredibly convincing…"
But looking only this far, he had absolutely no idea why this protagonist would end up having relations with the girls on the cover. The girls themselves appeared soon enough, becoming friends with the protagonist at the academy. But he had to hide that he was a guy from these kids, right?
"Ah, he gets caught."
The protagonist gets caught by his roommate Lucy while changing clothes. The roommate Lucy was a cute type, with a very kind and good-natured personality. Naturally, Lucy promised not to reveal that the protagonist was a guy, and the incident seemed to be settled for the moment.
"Whoa, what the hell is this…"
The problem was that the Witch Academy in the book was a place where girls were raised from before adulthood in small academies, then enrolled in the current Witch Academy the moment they became adults. So the girls at Witch Academy had only ever encountered men in books—they were a fascinating novelty. For that reason, Lucy becomes curious about a man's body. Because of that curiosity, she asks the protagonist, and ends up exploring his dick and various other aspects of being a man…
"Oh, so this is where they do it?"
In the steamy atmosphere born from that curiosity, the two eventually end up having sex. Finally getting the scene he wanted, he began focusing intently, dissecting every single drawing in the manga. Muttering every lewd moan and sound effect to himself, he gradually sank deeper into the work.