Reiko and Kaede (Part 2).

“It’s not an easy question to answer,” Kaede said, smiling wryly.

“I bet,” Maeda-san laughed. “Let’s start small. What do you like? Do you have any hobby you’re particularly into?”

“…” Kaede blinked, and with each second that passed, the more her shoulders slumped with the weight of depression. She just realized she had no hobbies. “I… I don’t…”

“What? No way,” her classmate laughed. “There’s gotta be something you do for fun, right?”

“I read the books my mother gives me and watch documentaries,” Kaede answered. “It’s what mother lets me do.”

“Wait, you’re serious! What the hell!?” Maeda-san exclaimed, standing up from her bed. “You mean you don’t watch movies? Listen to music? Choose your own books to read? Then… you’ve never seen anime or read manga at all!?”

“My mother says anime and manga make you stupid.”

“NONSENSE!” Maeda-san proclaimed loudly, stomping her foot. “Anime and manga are our country’s biggest and most widespread examples of culture and art form! Okay, sure, I admit some series are… very stupid in many ways, but you can’t let some examples take away from the entirety of a medium capable of reaching millions of people!”

“Some would argue popularity and mass appeal don’t equal meaningful content…”

“True, but there’s a reason some series have become world icons! You can’t dismiss the stories with messages and values that resonate with so many just because some in the industry take advantage of the medium’s mass reach to produce cheap, fan service shows with no soul.”

Kaede couldn’t help but giggle. Maeda-san was so well-spoken and so eager to defend something she loved. She was clearly passionate about it, and it made her jealous. She wished she had something she could be passionate about as well. “You really like anime, huh?”

“Eh?” her classmate blinked, and once more she started blushing in embarrassment. “Oh God, I just went on a rant, didn’t I? I’m sorry.”

“No, I actually liked hearing you talk about it. Do you have a favorite show?”

“Well… I admit it’s not the greatest, but I have this soft spot of this show about a trading card game…”

“Trading cards?”

It just flowed naturally from there. Kaede listened as Maeda-san told her the premises of shows and manga she loved, about the card game she used to like playing and it all just sounded outlandishly fascinating to her. Life or **** card games, pirates with super powers searching for a massive treasure, giant robots, romantic comedies and more. All Kaede ever read were school-mandated books and things her mother approved of, which were mostly western books like Shakespeare’s or Alexandre Duma’s works, or even the Iliad. She knew all of them where critically acclaimed stories, but… she couldn’t bring herself to enjoy them.

“I wish I could enjoy anime and manga as much as you do…” Kaede said, smiling wryly.

“Mmm? And what’s stopping you from trying it?”

“…” She opened her mouth to answer, but immediately realized that there was actually nothing stopping her. Her mother wasn’t here, so she was free to do whatever she wanted. There was a single thing that worried her, and it was the general knowledge that people who enjoyed this type of media could be… looked down on by others. She’d seen it happen at school as she watched from afar. But like Maeda-san had said, why should she worry about other people? Especially when she was having a proper conversation about hobbies with a girl her age, a classmate. Why worry about people she didn’t know when she had a genuine interest in a hobby a classmate had?

Maeda-san stood up, went to her closet and opened a drawer. She took out a small plastic box and a three small books and handed them to her. “Take these. Try them out, and if you like them I’ll lend you the rest. If you don’t like them, you can move on to the next thing. Maybe another show or another hobby entirely. Don’t worry. Just take it easy!”

Take it easy? When had been the last time she’d been allowed to take it easy? Kaede looked down at the things Maeda-san had given her. The plastic box was a DVD, with a boy with very extravagant hair on the cover holding a card. The books were three volumes of the manga about pirates she’d been told about. She smiled. She was actually feeling kind of excited. Then she noticed something.

“Hmm?” The corner of some paper was sticking outside the book, and that dramatically bothered Kaede. “Oh no. Is this page bent?”

“What!?” Maeda-san exclaimed. She leaned forward to see as Kaede opened the second volume to the page that was bent, only to find it wasn’t that at all. It was a lone sheet of white paper with a drawing on it. “GAH!” Maeda-san yelped and snatched the paper away, making it into a ball and throwing it into the trash bin. But it was too late. The image was burned in Kaede’s eyes. “Why did I leave that there? Why did I leave that there? Why did I leave that there?” she kept repeating over and over as she hid her face behind her hands.

The image was a drawing of two characters of the same pirate manga, a man and a woman, locked in… a very… explicit embrace. Kaede didn’t need to have good social skills to connect the dots here. Maeda-san was embarrassed, there were drawing utensils on her desk, she was really into anime and manga, and felt comfortable enough to destroy the drawing, meaning it wasn’t particularly special to her. Her classmate was into drawing porn.

…

“Maeda-san?” Kaede started, looking at the floor with a light, melancholic frown. “Do you know how sex feels like?” she asked despite her head feeling like a boiling pot and making her dizzy and slightly ill. That was from the embarrassment of asking the question, but there was also a very uncomfortable feeling between her legs.

Maeda-san took her hands off her face and stared at Kaede for a moment before shutting her eyes tightly, shaking her head and sitting back down with her hands on her knees. “I do,” she answered. “You don’t, right?”

Kaede nodded. “Never even wondered until recently. Maybe the curse did something to my development, but my…” she swallowed nervously. “My sexual urges only started a little over a year ago. I understand what’s going on, I understand why Wisler-san brought us here. I just… I didn’t come here because of that. I only wanted a fresh start. But now…”

“Leo told you today, didn’t he? He won’t **** you to do anything you don’t want to. He doesn’t want it if you don’t want it either.”

“I don’t know if I want it or not. And besides, you guys are… going out together.”

“Oh, don’t worry about me. I’m not an issue here,” Maeda-san admitted with such a gentle and genuine chuckle that made her believe her. “Angela might be a bit more prone to jealousy, but I’m starting to think she handles it differently than most people do. So yeah, it comes back to what I said before. Worry about yourself first. What do you think of Leo?”

“…He’s handsome,” Kaede admitted, able to feel her heartbeat in her ears. “And kind.”

“He worries about you,” Maeda-san told her. “He asked me to look for you the day we spoke at the stairs.”

“…” Kaede pressed her lips, feeling self-conscious. “But... What if it’s him who doesn’t… you know… want me?”

“Ooookay, I’m gonna have to stop you there,” Maeda-san laughed. “At the end of the day, Leo is a man who, like all of you, couldn’t feel anything until a few months ago. On top of that, he’s an absolute stamina monster. Now add that you’re absolutely stunning, and Leo will NOT say no to you if you approach him first.”

“Wha… Wha…” Kaede blinked, mumbling incoherently.

“Again, just focus on what you want. The situation we’re in is weird, but thanks to it your decision becomes as simples as asking yourself if you want to do it or not. If you do, go for it. If you don’t, then… well, don’t.” Maeda-san shrugged.

Just focus on what she wants? Yeah. Yeah, she could do that.

Maybe?