‘Why are they looking at me like that? All I did was...’
Seiji thought back to what he just said and realized that they must have misunderstood his words.
He hurriedly tried to defend himself. "No, no, Senpai! What I meant was that anyone who married you would be lucky to be with you! I wasn’t talking about me... er..."
s.h.i.+ka’s expression didn’t change, while Mai narrowed her eyes.
"I understand... Haruta-san, you fool all the girls with this act of yours."
"Er, fool?" Seiji was confused. "I’m not trying to fool anyone; I’m just stating my honest opinion."
Mai’s face reddened even further as she averted her gaze.
s.h.i.+ka blinked cutely. "Brother Seiji... is a playboy?"
"Why did such a word suddenly appear here!?" Seiji asked in disbelief.
‘Just how was I acting the part of a playboy? All I did was make a mistake with my words; is it really necessary to brand me as a playboy!?’
"s.h.i.+ka-chan, you can’t just go around casually calling people ‘playboy,’ especially your brother. I’m a righteous, chaste man!"
The girl that he forcefully recognized as his younger sister and the embarra.s.sed maid reacted with nothing but silence.
Seiji continued sipping tea after he finished his serious performance.
"Kagura-san, as you see for yourself, Haruta-san... is an idiot."
"Yeah... Brother, his mind works... in a subtly different way from other people."
*Cough cough!* Seiji almost choked on his tea.
What was all this? Why was he being looked down upon!? Forget about the strange maid saying weird things about him, even s.h.i.+ka-chan...
If this was a manga, there would be numerous question marks popping out above his head right now.
s.h.i.+ka and Mai both ignored his presence and merely drank tea as if they were long-time friends who had reached a mutual understanding.
The atmosphere seemed a little strange.
‘Forget it. It isn’t necessary to argue over every word’s meaning with them.
‘Being together with girls means that I shouldn’t care about every little detail. Yep, I’m such a magnanimous fellow.’
Seiji inwardly praised himself for his tolerance.
After a period of silence.
"Houjou-san, is there a printer in this residence?" Seiji asked the question that he wanted to ask originally.
"A printer? Of course. What do you want to do, idiot… whoops, junior?"
Seiji’s cheeks twitched violently. ‘You must have said ‘idiot’ on purpose! You must have!’
Once again, he reminded himself to be magnanimous by not arguing over every little word. Otherwise there would be no end to it…
"I wanted to print a contract for a story I wrote..." He continued to explain that a publis.h.i.+ng company had picked up his story.
Mai blinked in surprise. "Oh...? Junior, you’ve written a light novel which got accepted by Thunderbolt Literature. That’s not shabby," she praised sincerely.
"I was just fortunate," Seiji replied with a humble look on his face.
Suddenly he noticed that s.h.i.+ka was looking at him, her eyes sparkling with light.
After a while, she expressed her desire: "I’d like to read... the story that Brother wrote."
That’s right; she was originally a literature-loving girl.
Seiji smiled. "Of course. I’ll send you the file in a bit, s.h.i.+ka-chan."
Then he thought of something.
"s.h.i.+ka-chan, you read books often, so have you ever considered writing your own story?"
s.h.i.+ka paused in surprise before shaking her head.
"No..." Her face gradually darkened. "Even if... I wrote one, I don’t know... if I could show it to other people..."
There was a brief period of silence.
Would the [Reaper’s Curse] ability even affect those that read s.h.i.+ka’s stories?
Seiji didn’t know. But as long as s.h.i.+ka was worried about that, she wouldn’t even want to pick up a pen due to her gentle nature. She would hate to harm others, even if it were only a possibility.
Seiji had a heavy feeling in his heart.
s.h.i.+ka was currently supporting herself financially by hiring herself out as a mercenary Spirit-branded Retainer. That was why she kept being harmed. In order for her to break free from this lifestyle, he had to first help her find some other method to support herself.
Although he could take care of his adopted younger sister as her self-proclaimed adopted brother, she might lose her self-confidence or pride because of it, and he didn’t want that to happen.
As for money? Money was never a problem to Seiji.
If he wanted to, he could get money any time through saving and loading. A single lottery ticket was all it would take!
Before, he didn’t want to abuse his power, since he believed in earning money through his own hard work. But if he really needed money for an emergency purpose, he wouldn’t hesitate.
And if he attracted too much attention by suddenly winning the lottery, he still had the option of borrowing money from any of the rich people around him, such as Chiaki Wakaba, Natsuya Yoruhana, or Hisas.h.i.+ Juumonji. He would definitely return their money afterward.
At any rate, money was the least of his concerns; what worried him was s.h.i.+ka-chan herself.
Just what should he do?
"s.h.i.+ka-chan... why don’t you work together with me to write stories?"
"Work together?" s.h.i.+ka asked him in a confused tone.
"Tell me your thoughts about the characters, story, background, and settings... and I’ll be in charge of writing it all out.
"Of course, I’ll also add in my own ideas. In summation, you’ll provide your ideas, I’ll also provide a few of my ideas and write the story, and we can try to get it published together afterward.
"If our story is published successfully, we can split the payment. I’ll take 60% and you’ll take 40%."
Honestly, Seiji wanted to reverse the ratio, but he knew that she definitely wouldn’t accept that.
"Is that... really fine?" s.h.i.+ka still seemed doubtful.
"I think it’s fine, since I’ll be the one doing the writing, and I’ll also add in my own content. This way, the finished product will belong primarily to me, so it shouldn’t... affect others like how you’re worried about," Seiji said calmly.
Doing it this way probably wouldn’t result in the [Reaper’s Curse] affecting others.
Otherwise, if the [Reaper’s Curse] was that ridiculously strong, it would have destroyed Sakura Island long ago when it appeared in the distant past.
Honestly, this ability seemed rather subtle, just from the fact that it could be "mitigated." It was indeed scary, but calling it terrifying seemed to be an exaggeration... At any rate, Seiji felt it was unnecessary to worry too much about it.
It wasn’t like this ability was a weapon meant for war.
s.h.i.+ka was a good girl, and it was nice that she was gentle, but being too gentle and worrying too much about others to the extent of throttling her own future and personal interests was a bad thing.
Since she worried that her stories would cause calamities to befall other people, then he would take responsibility for the stories.
A clear way to put it was that Seiji believed himself to be a simple-minded person who would do what was necessary without thinking too much about it.
s.h.i.+ka remained silent for a little while.
"I don’t know whether or not I can do it... but I want to try. I want to... write stories together with Brother Seiji!"
Her eyes blazed with a pa.s.sion light.
Seiji smiled at witnessing this sight.
"Then come." He reached out his hand to her. "Please take good care of me, Teacher Kagura."
"I-I’m no teacher!" s.h.i.+ka’s face turned red as she shook Seiji’s large hand. "I’m the one who should call you Teacher, Brother! Teacher Haruta, please take good care of me."
And thus they agreed to cooperate.
Mai witnessed all this with a gentle smile.
"Also..." s.h.i.+ka began.
"Hmm?"
"As for the payment, I only need 20%... no, 10% is enough," s.h.i.+ka said.
"Nope!" Seiji countered instantly, sipping his tea in a casual manner. "We’ve already agreed on it! You get 40%."
"But..."
"If you keep going on about this, I’m going to increase it by another 10% and give you 50%!" Seiji remained calm as he took another red bean cake.
"Er..." s.h.i.+ka didn’t know what to say anymore, and she revealed a dazed expression.
"Haha..." Mai, who was observing the sibling’s conversation on the side, couldn’t help but chuckle.
‘These two are just too cute...’