All Right! Fine! I’ll Take You! – Zaimokuza Gaiden – Chapter 11

All Right! Fine! I’ll Take You! – Zaimokuza Gaiden – Chapter 11

Walking back home from school, my hand tightly clasping that of a girl who says I’m her boyfriend, is one of those things I never expected to experience without a healthy dose of suspension of disbelief, a carefully curated savegames collection, and a screen between the action and I.

Yet here I am.

Walking.

Holding her hand.

And sweating like a pig.

A furtive side-glance shows me the Lady Minami is still in that precarious state where her face keeps trying to match the fiery shade of her hair to make the whole scene easier on the colorist.

I’m not doing much better.

Honestly, between my… robustness, my height, and the rivulets of moisture running down my face, it’s quite likely I’d currently fit perfectly well the notoriously legendary ‘Fat Bastard’ tag. Adding in the bashful schoolgirl in my grip only makes the whole thing even shadier.

I wouldn’t be surprised if my vision got suddenly impeded by the appearance of a righteous black censorship bar.

“So…” I start to say, mostly to fill the silence.

But then she looks up at me, her bangs almost hiding her gray eyes from me, a shy, questioning look on her face, and I…

…

Moe!

‘Whatever you do, don’t even think about yelling that—’

“Unfair! Have you studied the classics?! Have you rehearsed the shy appeal of Mikuru Asahina just so you could pull a gap moe attack after switching back from your Asuka Langley?! Are you—”

Once again, my speech seems to be impeded by a physical obstacle.

‘You know what? Maybe just yelling “moe” wouldn’t have been so bad.’

I’m glad to count on your unconditional support, Inner Hachiman.

‘… Just pay attention to the girl angrily glaring up at you. Please. I live in your skull.’

Certainly. It’s nice to always count on such a close comrade.

‘On second thought, I always wondered if reincarnation was a thing.’

“Have you gotten it out of your system?” the Lady Minami asks me.

I arch my eyebrow in silent interrogation, then look around us, at the people hurriedly trying to appear as if they weren’t staring at me, then back at the flushed cheeks of my companion.

Then I replay the past two minutes in my head.

…

Ah! I wanna die! I wanna hide under my sheets and die! I want the world to forget I ever existed and my sister to burn every last trace of my writings!

‘I’m pretty sure the last one’s doable…’

“Answer the question, chuuni.”

I look at her, my eyes nobly conveying the depth of my suffering and a simple request for it all to end.

“I’m gonna take that as a yes. Now, I’ll be taking my hands off your mouth, and if you scream, I’ll kick your shin so you have a legitimate excuse to do so.” And with such an ominous declaration, she suits action to words and frees me to speak once again.

“Truly, your penchant for violence never ceases to amaze me.”

“I’ve yet to hit you. And I don’t lack reasons,” she answers, imperiously crossing her arms beneath bountiful hopes and dreams.

… Maybe I should focus on her words rather than her actions?

“Please don’t. As of this morning, I have a healthy respect for your martial prowess.”

Either she likes or dislikes very much my comment on her skilled takedown of her enemies, because she’s now fidgeting and squirming in a way that I’d usually associate with somebody rubbing their thighs together.

And not looking at me.

And, once again, flushing.

…

Moe!

‘No! For fuck’s sake, no! Keep your shins unkicked!’

Fiiine…

“That wasn’t… very smart of me,” she finally says.

“I do think wit and wisdom should be judged according to the intent, not the action born of it.”

“… Are you trying to sound sage-like, or just pretentious?”

“Is there a difference?”

“Yoshiteru…” She tucks her hair behind her ear and looks at me before finally grabbing my hand and pulling me along toward my house. “You have a lot of reading to do.”

That’s… That’s…

‘I think the words you’re looking for are “that’s my fetish!”’

It is!

***

It isn’t.

I’m sitting on my bed, the Lady Minami on my chair, with her legs crossed, as she observes me while I try to read…

The Tao Te Ching.

A web translation.

It’s…

“Do I really—”

“You want to write wise characters giving cryptic advice? Start with the classics.”

“I… I’m not averse to it—it certainly isn’t the most abstruse piece of literature I’ve ever consumed—but…”

“But?”

“You’re kinda… watching me?”

She arches an imperious eyebrow and turns aside for a moment to get her cup of tea from my desk, then turns back to me, her mouth hidden by the lip of the mug, her eyes cast down…

Is she… being bashful?

“Lady Minami?”

“Gah!” She all but jumps, and it’s a near thing the tea doesn’t spill.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes! Why wouldn’t I be!”

“… Because you’re acting like I’ve finally infected you, as both my sister and Hachiman oft worried it would happen?”

“… What exactly have you told Hachiman and your sister about us?” Her gaze sharpens, and the tea is lowered upon my abused desk with an ominous clacking noise.

“Uh?”

“That they would worry you could… infect me.”

“What are you even—no! Not that! Not that at all; they’ve always thought it was a generic danger, not a specific one! And certainly, my sister would laugh at the very notion of it being at all a threat as an STD…” I trail off after the acronym, because… Well, mostly because it’s the kind of thing I never thought I would have to reassure someone else over, and also because I kinda, maybe, would like to stop digging my grave.

Aaaand now she’s glaring at me.

“I’m a virgin!” I quickly, decisively, and helpfully reassure her.

And now she’s covering her eyes with her palm, her elbow cradled in her other, cupped hand in yet another masterful display of both technique and tactics—right. Maybe I should shut up.

And definitely not yell ‘moe’ at the top of my lungs.

‘Oh. He can learn.’

Maybe things would have been easier on me if you were a god of scholars rather than Battle, Harems, and Battle Harems.

‘Right. Because you would’ve made so many more friends if you wore a traditional Chinese scholar’s uniform rather than a trench coat.’

It is very dashing.

“Yoshiteru, I can’t believe I need to tell you this, but I am not the least suspicious of being even the tiniest bit at risk of you giving me an STD.”

“Your faith in the steadfastness of my heart makes my spirits soar above the land!”

“… Did you like the damn book, or not?”

“I mean… sure? It inspires a certain serenity, pointing at a hidden order aside from the one that the commonplace all but throws at the unwary, an order that is actually harmonious when appearances are discarded, one where there exists a path for the individual to find,” I succinctly explain my impressions after reading the first few passages of the book Immortals supposedly understand.

Or was that the I Ching? I mean, both are part of the Chinese classics, so I guess the answer would be that understanding one necessarily implies not having any difficulties with the other. Unless I was writing a series where each book held a deeper, secret meaning that could only be deciphered when in conjunction with the right mindset and circumstances (lunar phases for the Tao Te Ching? It’s obviously reminiscent of the waning and waxing of Yin and Yang alternating). So, each ancient book would unlock… not a power per se, but a path to power—that is actually tied to illumination, even if most cultivation stories don’t pay much mind to what that may actually entail beyond punching harder—

Why is the Lady Minami so silent?

“Did you… Have you already read it, Yoshiteru?”

“Well, yes?”

And now she’s groaning as she straightens her legs from beneath her and slumps down my chair.

Except her skirt isn’t precisely gliding along with her, what with friction being what it is, so… The situation presents a dilemma. Nay, a moral quandary.

Is it right to enjoy a panty shot one could have averted?

On the one hand, the Lady Minami’s already established mastery of the anime body language and codified meanings therein assures me it’s very unlikely any such display would be at all accidental; on the other, this reasoning of mine seems awfully self-serving…

‘I’m proud to be called a hypocrite—’

I know, Inner Hachiman. I know.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asks, her eyes cast toward my ceiling like a traumatized robot pilot looking for something familiar, her voice adrift like an editor trying to come up with an acronym for a light novel title.

“Uh… You didn’t ask?”

“I told you to read something. And you started reading it. It is implied that, at some point in the process, you could have stated having already done the thing I told you to do.”

“Why?”

“Because—wait, is this where you tell me that you often reread things and didn’t think it was weird at all to do it again just because I asked you?”

I beam at her, showing my heartfelt joy at her instinctive grasp of my—

“That’s dumb,” she says.

I glower at her, at the careless cruelty and disregard for my particularities—

“Tell me these things. I don’t want you to just follow my orders like… like you’re just humoring me,” she ends up with a tiny voice that pulls at—

Oh, it looks like I’m standing up. Is this another instance of ‘my body moved before I could react?’ Because I don’t like it.

At all.

I mean, such a propensity could be useful if correctly leashed. Like if, for instance, one could convince the body to go do stupid, repetitive, boring exercises without bothering the mind…

“Yoshiteru?” she asks.

Ah, right. I’ve got a girl to reassure.

I kneel in front of her, my eyes raised so that I don’t inadvertently catch even a hint of a panty shot that may actually be unintended, and take one of her tiny hands between mine.

“I… I don’t know what to tell you, my Lady, because it is true that I’ll always resort to heeding your words as a first reaction. You have shown me a kindness I’ve rarely felt, and my very being demands I repay you in kind. But it’s… I think you fear me not being genuine, blindly following your wishes without any regard for any… issues that may arise. I can tell you I’ll strive for this not to be the case. I’m too fond of your company to jeopardize it with such carelessness.”

“… This sounds like a very complicated way to tell me that you won’t turn into an insufferable simp.”

Her gray eyes are on mine, and her fingers curl around those of my right hand.

My heart beats as fast as when I think about jogging.

“I won’t, for as long as you suffer me. By definition.”

I hold back the smile for as long as I can, but I cave when she starts laughing, and I soon join her.

Then her hand slips from between mine, she grabs my hair, and pulls me up into a searing kiss.

Her lips brush against mine, her heat making me hold my breath until she opens her mouth to suck my lip into her mouth. One of her hands slips behind the tie of my ponytail, the other beneath my shirt, to massage both my neck and the beginning of my back as I incorporate myself and my arms hold her below hers, pulling her body against mine, feeling her bountiful chest once more pressed to mine.

My legs strain, and I lift her off my chair before I sit on it, her round derriere right on my lap.

Then she grinds down on me, and her tongue enters my mouth, and I see white.

I don’t know how long it takes, but after a moment of something having given way, I open my eyes to see the Lady Minami flushed atop me, her arms around my neck, her butt over my erection, her breast beneath my palm.

I squeeze, and her moan makes me throb.

I suck on her tongue, my own twisting around hers before I invade her mouth, because I need to take as much of her as she offers me, and she’s writhing in something that invites me to push further than I thought I could by myself.

The hand that isn’t lifting her breast lays upon her exposed thighs, and she opens them, the soft, warm, smooth skin inviting—

My fingers trail the inside of her legs, and she closes them around my hand.

She leans back, her eyes still close enough to consume my whole world and her breathing scalding over my face.

“Yoshiteru, before we go any further… I want to tell you something.”

…

‘Run.’

Inner Hachiman, I’m sure there’s a perfectly innocent context for the ‘we need to talk’ clause to be invoked.

‘You’re trying not to shake like an epileptic leaf watching Pokemon.’

There are different degrees of surety.

“It’s… not something bad. Well, I don’t think it is, but maybe you will, so I really should tell you, and I… just… just listen? Please?” she pleads of me, with eyes that…

Damn it. I can’t say no to these eyes. It looks like my mind is not the inexpugnable fortress that I thought it to be.

‘Dude, I am in here.’

True. But as a guest, I’d like to think.

‘Yeah, keep telling yourself that. On the other hand, don’t worry, I’ve figured it out.’

What? You have?

‘Of course, who do you take me for?’

Ah! As expected of Inner Hachiman! Tell me, what has your prowess in the field battle that is love that is war discerned about the current situation?

‘Oh, that’s easy: she’s just a trap.’

… What.

‘Well, what else could be momentous enough for her to bring to your attention right before you—’

I have… I have very vividmemories of the Lady Minami being definitely female.

‘I mean, maybe she genderbends? You cannot discard—’

I think you devote far too much time to Saika, Inner Hachiman.

‘You take that back, you fat piece of—’

“I… I’m sure whatever it is that you have to tell me is far easier to swallow than what my feverish imagination is currently conjuring,” I tell the increasingly nervous girl perched on top of my erection.

Which is a line I never thought I would ever think without being at my keyboard.

“Are you… Is it cringy anime shit?” she asks, managing to even make the crass question come across as endearing.

“It… may be?”

“Ah. Then you aren’t far from the mark.”

I look at her. She casts her face down before looking back at me.

“I’m quite certain that isn’t the case,” I state, my serene expression bordering on hieratical.

She raises an eyebrow, and I refuse to blush in embarrassment and vexation.

‘Gender bender. I’m telling you.’

Shut. Up.

“Yoshiteru… can you close your eyes?” she says.

And I, not fearing at all discovering parts of my sexuality that have so far remained confined to Ranma doujins, follow her instructions.

‘Yes, follow the trap side—’

Inner Hachiman, I willhurt you.

“Right…” Minami says in the tone of an anime girl psyching herself up, probably before stepping into the stage to save the school by gathering funds through a concert that will launch her idol career. “Right, just… follow my voice, okay? Don’t answer! Just do what I say.”

She pauses, and I, with an effort not unlike that of a ninja trying not to yell out his attack before stepping out of cover, keep silent.

“Take a deep breath. Fill your abdomen before you feel your chest rising, then let go in reverse order. The air escapes gently, first emptying your chest and then your stomach, but not completely. There’s a small ball of air, of your breath, that remains below your navel. And when you take the next breath, the air gathers around this small ball, and when you let go, the ball has grown just a bit, just a tiny bit that’s almost unnoticeable. Except that you do notice, that you feel it as it makes the ball denser.

“And the ball shines.

“At first, it’s a dim glow, barely there, but with every breath, with every time you feed it more of the air that enters and nourishes your body, it grows brighter and warmer.

“And it beats.

“Slowly, but powerfully, the light within you beats. Pulses of light travel through your body, and wherever they find a shadow inside you, the light gathers until the shadow is no more.

“And the light grows. It’s warm, it’s summer over a field of grass, it’s… It’s life.

“It’s ki.

“And you take that light, that life, that energy, and let it drift up your body, up to your chest, then to your right shoulder, and then it slowly travels down your right arm to your hand, to where I’m holding your hand, where I’m…

“Where I’m… Yoshiteru, can you open your eyes? Please?”

I do. The Lady Minami is holding my hand in front of my chest, her warm hands holding me, and I can feel the beating of her heart through her hold, and she looks where hers and mine are joined with an expression I can’t readily decipher.

Then at my eyes, looking for something… That she doesn’t find.

“You… can’t feel it?” she asks.

I shake my head.

Something crumbles, and she hugs me, her face buried in my chest.

“Do you think I’m crazy?” she asks.

I don’t shake my head.

Instead, I grasp her chin and guide her to look up into my eyes.

“You said I was your boyfriend in front of the whole school,” I gently remind her.

“Wha—what does that even have to do with—”

“My Lady Minami, your mental health was never in doubt. As the classic claims: we are all mad in here.”

I smile at her, as gently as I can.

And she stabs me with a finger.

“You are a jerk.”

“I was just being honest! And sympathizing!”

“In a jerkish way!”

“Woman, what it is that you want of me?!”

“That you stop being a jerk!”

“Haven’t you used that term enough! At the very least, have the decency of varying your insults!”

“Fine! You want variety? You are a chuuni otaku who never, ever thinks about how his hot girlfriend who’s perfect in precisely each and every way that matters feels—”

“You aren’t my girlfriend!”

The silence that follows my declaration is deafening.

Which is a cliché that doesn’t make any sense. Maybe being deafened would bring silence, and a sudden silence may be akin to sudden deafness, but it’s still overused, and I need to—

‘Pay attention to the ticking time bomb you just set off?’

Ah, yeah. That.

The Lady Minami is glaring at me.

And that’s the way I’m describing it because I’m currently unable to consult my thesaurus for a stronger synonym.

“I am not?” she very calmly asks in a tone without inflections.

…

I think I’m in danger.

‘Gee, I wonder what gave you that impression.’

Is that rhetorical—

‘Of course it’s fucking rhetorical, you moron. Now stop running away into your inner dialogue and solve this.’

Right. Right. Arguing with the voices inside my head should be reserved for when I’m not holding a live Minami.

‘She’s not a grenade, dude.’

Do you mean I can’t throw her far enough that the explosion won’t catch me?

‘Precisely.’

“Ahem!” I proclaim with dignity and not at all to make sure my voice doesn’t tremble. “I don’t remember ever asking you to enter a relationship with me,” I explain.

“You… haven’t.” Some men may interpret the pause as hesitation. Those men are blessed with ignorance.

“And I… won’t.”

“Oh?”

… I really think I should be taking notes right now. This is prime ‘Demon Lord’s menacing aura’ material that’s being sadly undocumented.

“Not right now, not like this. You deserve something better. You deserve me… asking seriously instead of just taking the chance that’s fallen right into my lap. Even if that chance is a beautiful girl I desperately want to take.”

She looks at me for a moment, the menace in the air thankfully dissolving, but her expression not softening in the least.

“The ‘beautiful girl you desperately want to take?’”

…

“Not like that! Well, also like that, because you are in my lap, and the flesh is weak, except not that weak when you keep wiggling your shapely derriere on top of me, but, I mean, yes, I want to take you in each and every way, carnal and not, but that doesn’t mean it would be right to—”

The Lady Minami, once again, and as is her wont, silences me.

With yet another searing kiss that doesn’t clarify my muddled thoughts in the least.

“You!” she exclaims as her lips leave my own with an audible smack. “You! Are! Impossible! And confusing! And I don’t even know why I keep doing this!”

She throws herself back at me, her chest mashed against my own before she once again tears herself away almost violently.

“And I keep doing it! I keep being this stupidly horny—”

The door to my room opens.

In the yawning darkness beyond, my sister stands.

“If you two are going to keep screaming at each other, I expect to be an aunt by the end of it, so either start fucking or shut the Hell up!”

The Lady Minami freezes on top of me, and the sudden, abrupt stop to her movements makes it so she almost jerks my erection between her thighs.

Which, I can say with as much confidence as I can ever muster, is something I never wanted to happen in front of my sister.

‘Just sic her on Shigeru. The brat deserves it, and the blood sacrifice may appease her until the next solstice.’

Do the bonds of comradery mean nothing to you, Inner Hachiman?

‘Yes. Easier, more trusting sacrifices.’

Ah. I can certainly see your point.