My stepmother's burden is my ex-girlfriend.

Page 281

Senior Sister Asahi hugged the petite classmate Asuhain tightly and patted her head.

Then he said:

"...Later he held me and comforted me for almost an hour..."

""""

The comforting atmosphere vanished in an instant.

"Alright, dismissed."

"President, we should go back to our work."

"Please come back soon, senior."

"Huh! Why has everyone suddenly become so cold?! Why?!"

After all that talk, it's just about showing off their relationship.

Irito Yuijo ◆ Signal

That being said.

I still have something I want to ask Senior Sister Ya Shuang.

"...Um, senior."

"Hmm? What's up, Yuuko?"

As I was getting ready to go home, I secretly went to talk to Senior Sister Ya Shuang, who was no longer pretending to be calm.

As I made sure no one was in the hallway, I lowered my voice and said:

"(I have something I'd like to ask my senior...)"

"Oh~?"

Senior Sister Ya Shuang's eyes lit up, and she lowered her voice to match my tone.

"(Is it something erotic?)"

"(...I guess so.)"

"Tell me about it!"

I quickly raised my index finger and said, "Shh—!"

This topic wasn't suitable to discuss in the hallway, so we moved to the end of the hallway.

"...Um, it's like this, senior."

"Well, what's wrong?"

Seeing my hesitant and reluctant demeanor, Senior Sister Ya Shuang, contrary to her previous attitude, acted like a caring senior. Her gentle tone encouraged me, and I mustered my courage to speak:

"...How did you... approach him, senior?"

"what?"

"I mean... how did you and Hoshibe-senpai create that kind of atmosphere...?"

"...Hmm~?"

Senior Sister Ya Shuang smiled faintly, as if she understood everything perfectly.

"You have a plan?"

"No, nothing like that happened...!...I just want to know how to make the other person feel that way..."

"I see, I see, so that's how it is? Okay, okay, I totally understand. Although it's a complicated feeling for a unicorn, my cute junior has asked me to do this!"

Senior Sister Ya Shuang confidently puffed out her chest and said:

"But all things considered, it was actually my senior who approached me first!"

"Ah──..."

"Hey, don't be disappointed in me! To be precise, it was 'I got the senior to speak up'! It was me!"

Senior Sister Ya Shuang pouted, unwilling to admit defeat.

"Although my senior has become quite the 'carnivore' since we started dating, things wouldn't have progressed so quickly without me giving him further signals!"

"W-What are the further signals...?"

"That depends on the situation at the time—...in my case, it was a bit like being seduced."

"A seductive submissive...?"

Seeing my puzzled look as I tilted my head at this unfamiliar term, Senior Sister Ya Shuang pondered for a moment and said, "How should I explain this—"

"Let me give you an example, like us walking together like this."

"Um."

Senior Sister Ya Shuang stood next to me.

"Then I casually touched the back of your hand."

My senior's hand gently touched the back of my hand.

"If this action happened many times, what would you think, Yuuko?"

"I wonder, 'Does he want to hold my hand?'"

"That's right! That's a signal. It's not the same as you taking the initiative to hold someone's hand, right?"

Indeed... should I say it aroused the other person's desire, or conveyed my own needs? Thinking about it carefully, I may have done similar things when we were still dating.

"Simply put, it's implying 'You can touch me.' Right now it's just the hand, so it's not a big deal, but what if it were the back of the neck, the thigh, or the chest…"

"You lecherous man...!"

"Yes or no?"

Senior Sister Ya Shuang gave a slightly smug snort through her nose.

"Besides the 'you can touch me' signal, there's also the 'you can look' signal. For example, it might be too explicit, but you could say 'It's so hot~' and then loosen your shirt a little."

"I'm starting to understand...! It's about deliberately letting down the defenses that girls should be holding up, right?"

"Exactly. You need to do it differently from usual. If you do it like this all the time, you'll just be a slut."

I remembered what happened when I first started living with Mizuto.

That was the time I teased the sink while wearing a bath towel—looking back now, that was probably the moment we were most likely to cross the line.

As for the time I barged into the bathroom to shower, I could sense that the other person wasn't willing to back down either. Perhaps that meant I went too far that time.

The signal must be given casually, but clearly enough.

If it can be done—

"In short, it's the same little devil act I mentioned before! The key is to do things that can only be done to someone you like! Just this time, don't hide your expression! Radiate affection from head to toe! Got it!"

"I understand! ...But senior, can I ask one last question?"

"Um?"

"What if the other party is too oblivious to notice the nonchalant signal?"

"Then—..."

Senior Sister Ya Shuang raised her hands and shrugged in a very American style.

"The only solution is to take off your clothes and push him down."

Mizuto Irito: Repression is the cradle of leaps.

—I absolutely...won't let you escape.

A day passed after the woman issued her statement.

The determination hidden in those eyes, the will revealed in that voice—everything was so vivid and intense, still etched in my memory. But after returning home, she didn't take any further action. This morning she went to school to handle student council affairs, leaving me feeling stuck, neither here nor there.

Even under these circumstances, I still came to Izana's room today.

"I've finished drawing it again, please take a look!"

She used that sentence to call me to her house. Actually, I could have just looked at the illustrations on my phone, but Isana seemed to prefer seeing my reaction in person.

"But speaking of which, you painted really fast. It's only been about two days since you finished the last painting, right?"

"Hehe—I was in such a good mood after the exam that I couldn't help but draw three pictures in one go."

Three!

So you're saying you only painted one and a half paintings a day? That's a bit overkill. And you even said they were all in color. Is that even possible in practice?

Anyway, I first sat cross-legged on the floor where things were scattered everywhere, and looked at the tablet she gave me.

The first illustration is of a girl getting ready in the morning. She's tying her hair up while turning her head to look this way. Isana often depicts women with large breasts, perhaps because she uses herself as a reference, but this girl's bust is unusually not so impressive. Is it from a cat's or something's perspective? The angle is very low; you can glimpse her underwear through the hem of her shorts.

The second painting depicts a girl changing into a sailor uniform. She has changed into school sports shorts, and her blouse is pulled up to her neck. Her delicately detailed white bra is clearly visible.

The third illustration shows a girl in underwear lying on a bed, scrolling through her phone. Her uniform is scattered on the floor, suggesting she probably got lazy while changing. The bra and underwear are still the same, and the brushstrokes are incredibly detailed. Judging from this part alone, it's practically professional-grade.

"How are they? Aren't they all adorable?"

Isana asked me with a smile, and I nodded.

"Yes. It's clear how high your libido was during the exam."

"Haaah!"

Izana reacted with a "How did you know?" and her face turned red.

I looked at her with my eyes half-open and said:

"At first, I was quite polite, only my underwear was exposed, but then I gradually lost my self-control."

"No, no... I finally finished drawing it, I can't bear to cover it up with clothes..."

When Isana draws figures, she always draws the nude first, then the underwear, and finally the clothes on.

There's nothing strange about this; it's even a basic technique for drawing the human body. The problem is that Isana occasionally draws her private nude poses with unusually high detail. Since she's a woman herself, she draws them incredibly realistically, and she likes to show them to me for amusement—it's really awful.

It seems that by depicting her in underwear this time, she has already shown some self-restraint... If you were to open this drawing with a drawing app and remove the "underwear" layer, it would probably immediately become an illegal illustration without any blurring or seaweed covering...

"...Okay, after all, Uncle Keikoin said that being able to fully express sexual urges through one's artwork is a talent. Also, how come you suddenly seem to have become so good at drawing lingerie?"

"I drew this while staring at my own underwear! The detailed patterns have already been saved as brushes, so the third one was drawn very quickly~"

...It's yours back.

I looked at the bra with the ornate floral pattern in the second painting.

So you wear this kind of thing? It might be too late to ask now, but isn't this guy even a little embarrassed?

"Personally, I hope you'll notice the wrinkles in your underwear! Like the butt area in the third picture, I even actually posed the same way to take the photo—"

"Okay, okay, that's enough! I know you're really good at drawing underwear now!"

It seems like she's the type who completely forgets about shame once she gets engrossed in something. Thinking about it, maybe she's had a natural talent for creation from the very beginning.

Well, putting aside the issue of Isana being dressed the same way, this third picture of a girl in lingerie does have a unique flavor.

"Although this painting only shows her in underwear, it doesn't seem erotic at all."

"Huh? Really?"

"Should I say it presents a sense of everyday life, rather than being erotic...? It feels more like illustrations of 'girls' than 'beautiful girl characters.' Or could I say it presents a realistic side...?"

"Of course, that's exactly how I feel when I get home from school. I take off my uniform and leave it lying around before I just laze around in my underwear."

"Using yourself as a model."

"However, the colors of my underwear might not match. But I prefer girls to have matching colors from top to bottom, so I drew it like this! But the mismatched colors from top to bottom are also quite realistic... It's a tough choice..."

Being able to use oneself as a model is a major advantage for female writers. From this perspective, although Isana has the heart of an otaku, she is also a girl, and perhaps possesses the strongest aptitude for drawing beautiful girl illustrations.

"Can you, a guy, draw like that? So far, all your illustrations are of cute girls."

"Huh? I don't draw boys."

It's not that I can't draw, it's that I don't want to draw.

"Because I've never been a fan of works featuring a lot of handsome men... If I'm going to draw something, I need a model to follow."