After that I made tea for two people in the kitchen and returned to the living room. I saw Weiss sitting on the sofa, with her hands joined together in front of her chest, waiting for me.
"This is the first time I'm drinking a tea together in a friend house… I'm pretty excited. Thank you."
"… You're making way too big of a deal about this. It's just a tea."
"No, that's not true," Weiss drank a sip of the tea I had put on the table. "This delicious… I can feel all the weariness leaving my body."
"A-ah… thanks." Shocked, I smile once again.
I sat opposite Weiss, and took one sip of my own tea. Weiss was here, we were drinking tea, and were just having a nice leisurely chat… this was one of the happiest time I had at my life.
"Hey, isn't dinnertime soon? Do you want me to cook you something."
"Really? I don't want to bother you."
"It's okay, do you have something you want to eat?"
"I'm fine with anything."
"Mmm, alright then. Leave everything to me." I pat my chest confidently and stood up. I then rushed into the kitchen, and with practiced motions put on an apron. "Alright, I'm going to start cooking now. Please wait a few minutes."
Weiss nodded, and I began to cook.
"… Blackbird singing in the dead of night." I hummed the Blackbird melody happily as I worked, washing the vegetables with water, and beginning to go to work on them with the kitchen knife.
"You really seem to know what you're doing in there."
"Yeah, my cousin Yasaka is really good at cooking and she teaches me a few things."
Weiss gazed at me from behind as I briskly and happily worked away, this should have been the first time I had seen Weiss in our house's living room, but for some reason it felt like she had always been there. Soon, good smells began to waft through the air. It was the smell of chicken soup.
"… Hey, you've been staring at me for a while… is something wrong?"
"I'm just thinking about how lucky the woman who will have you as her husband."
"I-idiot! W-what are you talking about!" My face feels hot. Hey, stop saying embarrassing things!
Then, around thirty minutes later, dinner was done.
"Alright, the foods is ready."
"Thanks for your hard work," Weiss said, standing up from the dining table. "Let me help you set the table and lay out the food.
"Ahh, it's fine, just sit."
"No, please let me help."
And, like that, we began to set up for the meal together. In the middle of that, Weiss glanced upwards at the stairs.
"What about your sister…? Aren't you going to ask her to join us?"
How good-natured could one person be? Even though Naruko had been badmouthing her earlier, Weiss still thinking about her. And what's more, her line sounded like it came right out of a newlywed bride attending to her malicious sister-in-law.
"I don't care. Just leave her be and let's eat alone," I grumbled.
"Ruto, we can't do something like that! She's your sister!"
Weiss didn't seem to want to agree. Although, I was expecting her to respond this way anyways. But no matter how much I didn't like it, I took on the role of the belabored husband who had to go and pacify the fire-breathing sister-in-law.
"Okay. I'll go and call her down."
"Please don't argue with her like you did before, alright?"
"I'd like for that to be possible, but…" We'll see what happens.
As Weiss continued to worry about me, I left the living room. I went up the stairs, and headed for my sister's room.
Knock, knock.
"Hey Naruko I made a dinner. Want to come down and eat with us?"
When I faced the door and called out to her, the door opened relatively soon, and Naruko's head peeked out.
"Dinner? Alright, fine fine, when I'm done on the phone I'll come down."
"… Got it."
Well, that went better than expected… I thought she was going to be much more difficult. She seemed grumpy as usual, but her attitude now was still much more preferable than what it had been before.
"You in a better mood now?"
"Hmph, not really."
She's in a better mood, isn't she? So she managed to calm down in this half hour? How unusual.
… Well, granted, Naruko had obviously been the one in the wrong before, so maybe she even regretted her actions. I conveniently interpreted Naruko's sudden mood upturn in a way that suited me. Even though it was pretty clear that this wasn't the case if I just thought about it a bit more.
Well, anyways. Descending the steps and entering the living room, Naruko might have been in a better mood, but she didn't apologize for her actions, but rather approached the dining table silently.
"… These common Japanese foods, I'm not sure if these suit your tastes, but please." I said to Weiss.
"It's fine… " Weiss replied.
"How about you, Naruko? You're really fine with that little?" I asked her that.
"Look, the side dishes look really high in calories, so I can't eat that much. If I ate that all then I'd get fat."
"I-I see…" The side dishes today might all be high in calories, but they were all things that I liked.
"W-well then, let's just enjoy ourselves. Itadakimasu."
"Itadakimasu."
"… Itadakimasu."
We began eating in a strangely heavy atmosphere.
Lined up on the dining table were plates filled with a few people's worth of fried bacon, cabbage, and tomatoes. Eggs and sausages in paprika sauce. A few pickled veggies. Chicken soup with vegetables and thin noodle dumplings. Leaving the point that these were all pretty high-calorie aside, there was nothing unusual at all about this menu.
Weiss took the chicken soup and began to taste it. She sipped that soup mouthful after mouthful and before I noticed it, the bowl was already empty.
"So… Weiss, how does it taste?"
"It's delicious. I love it. "
"Really? I'm glad. And you, Naruko, how does it taste? Does the foods suit your taste? "
"This bacon, why you put onions and shiso in it?"
"Weiss told me before she liked it that way…"
"Hmph."
And like that, the meal progressed, until the time Weiss had just finished drinking down her second bowl of chicken soup…
With a clang, Naruko neatly lined up her tableware. With somewhat of a frown on her face, she faced me.
"… T-thanks. It… It's delicious, this soup you made." Naruko mumbled silently while looking the other way.
"Really? Thank you." I replied happily.
"I'll take my leave then." Naruko quickly and silently stood from her seat, and with a quick bow, went out of the living room.
Naruko wasn't the kind of person to lie in situations like this. She was probably speaking from the heart when she complimented me.
After we done eating I brought Weiss to my room. I turned the knob and opened the door, and turned my gaze to the desk right across from us…
"Uwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh!" I gave out a huge shout and dashed to my study desk, hugging the laptop that was showing a H-scene from an eroge on the screen! And hiding it from Weiss' view. With the most desperate expression on my face.
W-w-w-whyyyyy was Naruko's laptop in my room? Why… why did something like this… !? Calm down. Calm down and think, Haruto! How did it all fall to this? Who the hell set up such a sudden-death trap like this in my room? No, no, no, no! I don't even have to think about it! Right now, the only people in the house were me, Weiss, and just one other person! Crap, crap, crap! Fucking Naruko!
She had left early in such a bad mood, and then she seemed to be in a better mood… don't tell me she felt better because she had set up this trap in my room! Why the hell did she do something like this!? This is way overboard! I-I'll kill her… that girl… I'm definitely going to kill her later!
"Ruto… what's wrong?"
Looking back with my forehead soaked in cold sweat, I saw Weiss peeking in my direction near the entranceway. At my sudden, eccentric motions, Weiss stood there with her mouth opened vacantly.
E-even if you ask me what's wrong… t-this… how am I supposed to explain this image of a loli little sister with her legs spread wide open and her genitals blurred out…?
"N-Nothing's wrong at all Weiss!"
"… Even if you say… that nothing is wrong…"
I know, right?
"No! Seriously, nothing is wrong at all! It's just that… I was suddenly attacked by the impulse to scream and run!"
Why the hell was I always so poor at making up excuses? But this was bad… this was really bad. If you ask me what's bad, it's the fact that I really don't trust myself not to jump in front of a moving train if Weiss sees this… I'm going to die. I'm seriously going to die.
With my full body and soul, I began to try and think of a way to get out of this. I used what little brains I had and tried to work out a plan. I was hiding the eroge CG by hugging the laptop like this. And then, Weiss was standing dumbfounded behind me. How was I going to get myself out of this desperate situation? Was there… was there anything I could do? If I couldn't come up with anything, I'm going to die! Do your best! Do your best, Haruto!
"R-Ruto…?" With a worried expression, Weiss slowly approached from the entranceway.
There wasn't much time left… however. Ding! I could almost hear the sound of a light bulb forming over my head.
… Wait just a second! Yes… ! This… this might work… Pushed into a corner, I turned my gaze onto the escape key at the corner of the keyboard. Yes… it was the EMERGENCY ESCAPE BUTTON! It was the super function that would allow me to switch the full-screen, suicide-inducing ero image to something completely harmless.
Emergency Escape… just as the name would suggest, in times of impending crisis, you would push the button and be able to magically transport yourself out of danger. To put things bluntly, it was a function that actually existed in some 18 eroge.
When I was reading the instruction booklet to some eroge that Naruko had forced on me, I found a description of this "Emergency Escape Button". My eyes went as wide as saucers and I carefully read that section of the booklet. To high school boys who didn't have a lock on their door but had to play eroge, this "Emergency Escape Button" would be pretty fascinating, wouldn't it? There were a lot of scenarios in which it could be useful, like this one.
It was something like the airbags in a car, or maybe the emergency escape function in an airplane. It was the manifestation of the great efforts by the eroge companies to implement the desires of their customers. And happily, CO2, the eroge that was active on the laptop right now, should be equipped with this emergency escape function. Ahh… right now, I really wanted to praise those conscientious game makers to high heaven!
And so… Click. Just barely making it in time, I successfully pushed the emergency escape button. I could almost hear a Pikon! sound over my head.
"Phew…" I separated myself from the screen I was so desperately trying to hide before. I wiped the sweat off my forehead with the back of my hand. W-with this, it should be fine… the screen should have already changed to a completely neutral, harmless image. I smoothed down my chest and turned around.
"Haha, sorry for surprising you Weiss!" But, in the direction I threw my refreshing smile, there was…
"W-wha—… w-what is this!?" Weiss was gazing at an open copy of one of Namikaze Haruto's cherished ero books.
"Wha… !? Where the hell did you get that book!?"
I quickly looked around the room, when I saw that the collection that should have been hidden under my bed had been unceremoniously scattered on the floor. When I came into the room, I was so panicked about the screen that I hadn't noticed… W-what… what's the meaning of… she did this too!? She did some terrible things, that sister! She's like a little devil!
"M-Make up Paradise!?"
"Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"
I snatched away the ero book that Weiss was reading in her crouched position, and crawled around on the floor like a cockroach, gathering up the rest of the collection. And I did it with godly speed, too.
Completely dumbfounded, Weiss blushed and said one sentence, "… T-they were all half-naked."
"W-Weiss this misunder—where are you looking at now?" Feeling an ominous chill go down my spine, I couldn't help but start talking strangely like that. Because… Weiss had gone pale…
As my breathing became ragged in response to this feeling, I followed Weiss's gaze, and right there was the laptop screen which should have turned to something harmless.
"Ahhhhhhh!?" I let out a deranged cry of anguish. That image that the screen had turned to in response to my pushing the emergency escape button… that image was… the naked loli girl Chino seducing the player in a very suggestive pose. Her words were displayed in a huge font.
Onii-chan doesn't want any girl other than his little sister, does he? Onii-chan is such a hentai!
"What the hell happened to the emergency escape!? What's with this image!?"
"R-Ruto, y-you… h-how could you show such disgusting things to me…!"
Weiss's face is bright red and her eyes welled up with tears and she started to shake in anger.
"W-wait! I-I can explain this Weiss! Please hear me out!"
"SHUT UP HENTAI! DON'T EVER TALK TO ME AGAIN!"
Smack!
"Aww!"
Ignoring my pleading, Weiss gave me a hard slap and ran out of my room with tears in her eyes. Leaving the dumbfounded me alone with the smiling Chino on the screen…