The Half-Baked Vampire vs. The Strongest Little Sister?!

by Tsuyoshi Fujitaka

  Prologue: Natsuki Takeuchi is Definitely Crazy

  “Would you go out with me?” Takashi Jonouchi asked, without a hint of nervousness in his voice. He was confident that he would not be refused.

  They were standing behind the gym at Prefectural Seishin High School. It was the most common place for students to ask other students out, and Takashi saw no reason to deviate from this practice. He didn’t need an ostentatious display to get attention. “By the book” would work well enough for him.

  He had everything a girl could possibly want: good looks, good grades, and fabulous wealth. Of course, one girl had rejected his advances previously, but he had taken that as a learning experience, and studied diligently since then.

  “I’m sorry... Could I ask you one little question?” the girl asked.

  Takashi’s initial shock that he had been turned down flat became relief as she continued.

  The name of the girl, standing there with head cocked in puzzlement, was Natsuki Takeuchi. She was famous as one of the most beautiful girls in the first-year class.

  She wasn’t just “cute” like most high school girls. She was genuinely beautiful, with an air of maturity that was lacking in most girls of her age. She had short-cropped hair and cold eyes, and never flirted, which could easily lead one to believe that she was arrogant about her appearance.

  “Sure, what do you want to ask?”

  “Who are you?”

  She doesn’t even know who I am?! Takashi thought, so forcefully that he only barely managed to keep himself from saying it out loud.

  In the interest of surprising her, he had sent her an invitation to meet him without using his name. Perhaps he had merely been arrogant.

  “R-Right. Forgive me, I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Takashi Jonouchi.”

  He restrained himself from appending, “You really don’t know who I am?” Even he knew that that would sound pompous.

  “Okay, Jonouchi. So? Where, concretely, am I supposed to go with you? As I’ve never met you before, I have no idea what this might be regarding.”

  Takashi was dumbstruck. Did she really not know what he meant by “go out with me”? That was the kind of silly misunderstanding that happened in manga, not real life.

  Maybe she’s feeling shy and trying to deflect the subject? No... probably not...

  Natsuki’s expression suggested total sincerity.

  “What I meant was, I want you to be my girlfriend. What do you think?” he asked, trying to take her in good faith.

  “By girlfriend, you mean, you want a romantic relationship? I’ve never been in one of those, so I’m uncertain as to what exactly it entails. I have some ideas of what a girlfriend does, but they might not line up with your own, so could I ask for more detail about what it is that you expect? I can’t exactly give a proper answer to something I don’t fully understand.”

  Is she making fun of me? Takashi was starting to think she was more trouble than she was worth, but he didn’t want to give up on her quite that easily.

  “Well... we’d call each other, we’d email each other... we’d go on dates...” Takashi stammered as he tried to explain. He had vague ideas about what girlfriends did, but he was finding it was hard to put that into precise words.

  “Dates... that means going out into town and eating things together, right? And you call and email each other, too... and that’s fun?”

  Is she suggesting that she doesn’t find that fun? Takashi thought, starting to feel paranoid.

  “Of course,” he continued, smoothly. “Any man would be happy to spend time with a beautiful girl like you.” He decided this might be a good place for some flattery. One of Takashi’s core beliefs was that Japanese men were not good at complimenting women. The ability to do this effortlessly, then, was an important skill.

  “So if I become your girlfriend, we’ll go out together, eat food, and call and email each other... and that’s all I have to do?”

  “Yes, that’s right. You’re just asking to make sure we’re on the same page, right?”

  “Yes. I think it’s very important. Becoming a girlfriend is like forging a contract, so it’s important to get everything clear before you agree to it. The image I associate with a romantic relationship is physical contact, but are you saying you don’t require that?”

  “W-Well...” Takeshi stammered again.

  Of course, that was Takashi’s ultimate objective, and the dating was just a way to get there, but you couldn’t just admit to that from the start. You had to go down a lot of annoying side roads to get the girl in the mood.

  “Shall I assume that you don’t want to have sex with me?”

  Her casual use of the word caused Takashi to freeze up at first, but it faded after a moment. Perhaps this was for the best. If they were both interested in the same thing, why fight it?

  “No, I do want to have sex with you.”

  It was then that Natsuki smiled at him for the first time. “I’m so sorry. I don’t want to have sex with you.”

  “Huh?” Takashi asked, confused. That was not the response he was expecting.

  The next moment, her beautifully proportioned face drew in close to his. They seemed about to collide, but the next minute, her face was gone, and he felt her behind him.

  Her breath tickled the back of his neck and the faint, feminine aroma caused his heart to race.

  “See... You just smell awful to me... Did you know that people prefer the smell of members of the opposite sex who have immune systems different from theirs on a genetic level? Which means our immune systems may be similar... I’ve heard the instinct is there to prevent incest, but I don’t know if it’s true.”

  She was so close to him... This could be his chance. He could turn around and continue his confession. He could embrace her and whisper words of love...

  But he did nothing but stand there.

  “Huh? Isn’t that Takeuchi?”

  “Sakaki, don’t look! At times like these, the polite thing to do is to pretend you don’t see!”

  The nearby sound of a young man and woman’s voices snapped Takashi back to reality — how long had he been standing there? — as they came around the corner of the gym. Judging from their uniforms, they were students of Seishin High School, just like Takashi.

  Natsuki must have known them, because she swiftly began walking in their direction. All Takashi could do was watch in astonishment.

  “Well, I should be going,” she said. “That’s right, I forgot to give you a proper answer. Sorry, but I can’t go out with you.”

  Natsuki didn’t even turn back. It was as though she had no interest at all.

  Takashi could do nothing but stare after her in a daze as she left.

  Then she latched on to the approaching boy.

  “Whoa, where did that come from? Get off me!”

  “H-Hey, Takeuchi! What are you doing?”

  “Yes, you smell so much better, Sakaki!” Natsuki buried her face in the boy’s neck.

  All of the coldness in her voice had vanished, and she sounded like any ordinary girl her age.

  Sakaki...

  Up until that point, this had all been acceptable. All he had been doing was trying to make a move on a beautiful girl, and she had turned him down. That should have been the end of it. But not now. He couldn’t simply give up now.

  What the hell is going on?

  Jealousy welled up in Takashi’s heart despite his attempts to suppress it.

  You’ve gotta be kidding! Who do you think you are? He began to step forward, threateningly... then stopped dumb again as he recognized
the other girl who was with him.

  “Takeuchi! It’s one thing to turn a boy down, but at least try to show a little consideration...”

  Isn’t that... Aiko Noro?

  Takashi’s mind immediately went blank. An unpleasant sweat was forming on his forehead.

  Aiko Noro was the only other girl who had ever rejected him. The only two women who had ever blown him off were both getting friendly with one other man.

  And how did Takashi fit into this diagram?

  “Dammit!” he shrieked as he went running off. This sort of humiliation was far beyond his ability to deal with.

  Chapter 1: A Chinese Restaurant Basically Named Konnichiwa Nihon

  There was a crash.

  Yuichi fell back on his bed, clutching his forehead. He seemed to have collided with something when he sat up.

  He heard a little shriek, looked beside him, and saw a girl in a sailor uniform lying there. She was also rubbing her forehead. She must have been leaning over the bottom bunk of their bunk beds.

  “That hurt...” the girl said as she looked up, still rubbing her forehead. The label “Little Sister” was hanging over her head.

  Yoriko Sakaki, Yuichi’s little sister, was in her second year of middle school. She was a rather mature girl for her age, with long, black hair that suited her well. She was well-known as the younger of the Beautiful Sakaki Sisters.

  “What happened, Yori?” he asked.

  It was clear that they had bumped into each other as he sat up in bed, but he couldn’t figure out what she had been doing there in the first place.

  “Huh? Hmm? Nothing!”

  “It was definitely not nothing! Why were you standing over my bed?”

  “Um... a nostril hair! I saw you had a nostril hair sticking out, and leaned in to check...”

  “Oh, really?” Yoriko sounded flustered in her response, but Yuichi saw no reason to doubt the idea.

  “You need to be more careful about your appearance! You’ll never get a girlfriend at this rate,” Yoriko scolded as she rolled away from him.

  Yuichi checked his watch. It was 7 AM on Thursday.

  “Do you only have morning classes today too, Yori?” he asked. At Seishin High School, where Yuichi attended, they were having final exams for their first term. Today was the last day of the tests.

  “Yeah, why? Ah! You want to go somewhere in the afternoon?” Yoriko asked, brightening.

  “Probably not. I agreed to get lunch with the club.” They had decided to get lunch together to celebrate the end of exams.

  “I see...” Yoriko’s mood immediately seemed to sour. She must have really gotten her hopes up.

  “Well, today’s not good, but I was thinking of buying some clothes soon. Would you help me pick some out?” Needled by feelings of guilt, Yuichi spoke right up.

  “Sure, I can do that!” Yoriko smiled again.

  Yuichi hardly ever picked out his own clothes. As a child, he had just worn what his parents had picked out, and once he got old enough to pick out his own, he’d opted to leave that to Yoriko.

  His older sister Mutsuko had tried picking out clothes for him, too, but they tended to be bizarre, so he ended up relying more on Yoriko.

  “Now that tests are over, summer break’s right around the corner...” announced the teacher. Maybe he’d be able to take it easy for a while. It had been three months since Yuichi Sakaki had first entered Seishin High School.

  “Yeah, so, today’s the last day of finals. Can you guess what I’m going to say next?” Yuichi was sitting in his classroom, staring out into space, when Hanako Nodayama — who had the label “Homeroom Teacher” hovering over her head — arrived and spoke up lazily from the lectern.

  As usual, she was in a track suit, with her hair done up in a half-hearted style. Everything about her suggested a total lack of enthusiasm.

  “Don’t make trouble, right?” The student who raised his hand to answer her was Shota Saeki, who sat in the seat in front of Yuichi.

  His label was “Ace Striker,” and he was a member of the soccer club. Despite being a first-year, he was apparently already a regular — a big guy with an uncomplicated personality.

  “Yes! That’s right! I know a lot of you are gonna want to let your hair down now that tests are over, but when thinking about whether or not to do something, consider whether or not it’ll make trouble for me! That is all!” As always, their homeroom teacher was completely self-centered. The moment her job was over, she dashed out of the classroom.

  The students of Class 1-C were not surprised in the least. They were used to this by now.

  Only a few students left right after Hanako did. Most remained behind in the classroom to talk. Now that they were finished with their tests, their thoughts were already flying ahead two weeks, to summer vacation. The only major event before the term ending ceremony would be the return of their tests.

  As always, copious labels hung in Yuichi’s line of sight.

  The magic sight: Soul Reader. It was Yuichi’s power, so named by his big sister, Mutsuko.

  Yuichi could see words above people’s heads that seemed to reveal something about that person.

  Their contents covered a wide range, from unremarkable labels like “Mom” and “Big Sister” to dangerous-sounding ones like “Serial Killer,” “Vampire,” “Witch,” and “Zombie.”

  He had no idea what had awakened the power; he had just had it when he’d gotten up in the morning of his last day of spring vacation.

  It had gotten Yuichi into a little trouble on his first day of school, as well. That trouble had worked itself out, but his lesson from the experience was to give a wide berth to the classmates with strange labels.

  He came off a little standoffish as a result, but it had helped him get through his first term in peace. At this rate, he might finish up without any more trouble.

  Yuichi looked around the classroom.

  “Heir” Kogan Yanagisawa was chatting with “Superhuman” Miyu Hirata, while “Adult Datesim Childhood Friend” Sayaka Haraguchi poked in her head for a chat with “Datesim Childhood Friend” Yoko Sugimoto.

  “Anthromorph” Yuri Konishi was giving a lecture to “Datesim Protagonist” Koichi Makise, “Zombie” Risa Ayanokoji, “High School Tragedy Victim” Riko Seki, and “High School Detective” Sadao Shindo about the importance of review and how they mustn’t let their guard down now that the tests were over.

  “Witch” An Katagiri was chatting with “Witch’s Beloved,” Takuro Oda, about something. Takuro seemed more or less used to An’s behavior by now, so he wasn’t nearly as frightened as he had been at the start. Talking to Takuro seemed to be the only time when An’s expression relaxed, too. At times like these, she almost seemed kind of cute.

  But just as that thought entered his mind, An suddenly tossed her hair back and glared over at him.

  This is why you terrify me! Any time Yuichi looked at An, she always looked back at him. It was as if she could sense his gaze upon her.

  Yuichi averted his sight from An to make eye contact with Shota in the seat in front of him. He had been talking to “High School Criminal” Saito, but that seemed to be over now.

  “High School Criminal” was another disturbing label, but he didn’t seem to be doing anything suspicious, so there was no reason to worry about him just yet.

  “Right? Hanako hasn’t cut her hair since the first day, see?” Shota said in his usual lackadaisical way.

  Now that he mentioned it, it did seem rather long. There was more black at the roots, too, indicating a neglected dye job.

  “You know what she’s like. She probably thinks it’s too much trouble,” Yuichi responded.

  “Right, but then why’d she dye it in the first place? Why dye it at all if it’s too much trouble to take care of it?”

  “True.” But it was pointless to try to figure it out. He didn’t care about the color of his homeroom teacher’s hair, anyway.

  Shota seemed to notice Yuichi’s lac
k of interest, and changed the subject. “What are you doing for summer vacation?”

  Summer vacation was still a few weeks away, but with tests finished, it felt imminent.

  “No particular plans. I’ll probably just hang around the house. What about you, Saeki?”

  “Clubs, mostly. We’ve got our summer training camp, but that’ll suck with no girls along. By the way, your club is all girls, right, Sakaki?” Yuichi grimaced. He didn’t like the implication that he had joined it to get girls.

  “If you’re jealous, why don’t you join?” he offered.

  The survival club was a club led by Yuichi’s big sister, Mutsuko. She claimed it was about figuring out ways to survive in the world, but they didn’t just prepare for sudden earthquakes and other disasters. They also discussed alien invasions, or what to do if you were thrown into an isekai — another world or time period.

  And, just as Shota said, other than Yuichi, all the other people on the roll were beautiful girls. You’d expect a club like that have guys beating down the door to join, but they hadn’t gained any new members since April.

  “Well... I dunno...” Shota said, hesitantly. He knew Mutsuko’s reputation by now, and he wasn’t the only one. The main obstacle to getting new members for the club was its president.

  Mutsuko Sakaki: a striking girl whose outward beauty masked a truly unfortunate personality. She was known throughout the school for her “middle school syndrome,” a sort of delusional pretentiousness associated with middle schoolers. But Yuichi knew that hers was a little different from what most people thought of when they heard the term.

  Her middle school delusions related only to things that were achievable in the real world. She had imbued Yuichi with seemingly impossible, ridiculous martial arts techniques that she had read about in manga, and stuffed his bag with bizarre tools — all of which Yuichi found incredibly embarrassing.

  But it did have a few upsides. He’d probably do very well on those final exams, for instance, thanks to her attempts to train his memory, which allowed him to memorize a considerable amount of information.

  But since it all came from last-minute cramming, he’d probably forget most of it by the time the testing period was over. He knew better than to think he was especially smart.