After lunch we headed to the dolphin show venue.
“Been forever since I saw a dolphin show.”
“Yeah — we hardly even visit aquariums.”
Last time was middle school — three years. Kano smirked.
“Remember when we went to a dolphin show with Suzuno and Ayato as kids? You got so excited you spilled your juice. Today — try not to spill anything from over-excitement.”
“Please don’t make me relive embarrassing lower-elementary stories. I’m seventeen — I would not behave like a child.”
If at 17 I were still doing things lower-elementary me would do, that’d be tragic. (For the record, the spilled juice hit my brother’s pants — escalated to a brother fight — Mom punished us both as equally at fault.)
“But Yuito is unexpectedly clumsy — I’m worried. Just to be clear, don’t intentionally spill juice on me and try to drag me to a hotel-with-love-in-the-name, please.”
“That you’d casually conceive of and articulate something so outrageous — I’m honestly a little disturbed by you right now.”
“Oh, that was from your hidden ero-manga The Slut-Looking Modern Gal Who Was Actually a Stubbornly-Inexperienced Virgin — not my original idea.”
“Did you read it?!”
“While you were taking your long shower, yeah.”
She’d beaten me to my own purchase. I hadn’t read it once.
“The scene where the always-aggressive gal heroine gets milk-bukkake’d by the younger childhood friend boy and dragged to a hotel where her first time gets forcibly taken — that’s a nice scene.”
“You read way more than a little.”
There’s no way you can summarize that much from a quick skim. (Also — we’re at an aquarium, why are we discussing this in broad daylight?)
”…Can we drop this topic? It’s bad for my mental health, please.”
“Aw — things were getting fun, let’s keep going a little longer.”
“You really are an S.”
Bullying me brings her to life. Dating Kano would mean being firmly under-thumb.
As we walked I spotted a girl, maybe five years old, looking like she was about to cry.
“Dad, Mom, where are you…?”
A lost kid. People around were giving her sympathetic looks but no one was helping. I couldn’t leave it.
“You okay? Are you separated from your parents?”
I crouched and kept distance — getting too close to a young child as a stranger would frighten her. She glanced at me but didn’t speak.
Kano stepped in.
“We’re not scary, big sis promises. Just tell us if you’re in trouble.”
”…Mom and Dad disappeared all of a sudden.”
The girl answered through near-tears. A girl was safer than a guy stranger to her. Without Kano this would have failed.
“Got it — big sister and big brother will help. So don’t worry.”
“Really…?”
“Yeah — first, what’s your name?”
“Natsumi.”
“Thanks for telling us, Natsumi-chan.”
Kano had won her trust in seconds. Communication powers — admirable.