December 2024

  ***

  “Do you want to know how I got these scars?” Seika leaned over the table, intensely staring at the young girl sitting across from her. MagiColle’s newest addition to their ever-growing roster of writers, Miyako Hashima.

  The girl was 17 years old, wearing her black hair in a ponytail which nicely complemented her school uniform; Seika brought her in to fill a gap in served demographics in MagiColle’s portfolio. With the highly coveted, well-paying siscon demographic dropping Yoshida’s novel ‘The Demon Lord’s Right Hand Woman is my Little Sister’, Watanabe ordered Seika to find the best incest story on the world wide web, one that would make the hearts of every depraved otaku in the world sing. Who better to send on such a quest than the resident pervert otaku? Seika denied those accusations against her character vehemently but still took the job.

  After finding a suitable author, she invited her to a quick meeting at a local fast-food restaurant, arguing internally that a high school girl would appreciate it more than a café or an izakaya.

  Right now, the new hire was utterly terrified of her, though. Her eyes were glued to the office lady’s atypical scars, and it appeared like she would be distracted like that for a while if Seika didn’t break the tension somehow. So, she decided to have some fun at her expense. The poor student gulped and nodded quietly in response to the question she asked her at the very start, and Seika grinned.

  “A long, long, time ago, there was a writer. He kept missing his deadlines. He missed them so often that his editor, a beautiful woman with the patience of an angel, started to get a little angry with him.

  “She kept reminding him, and he kept making up excuses. She had to endure being yelled at by the printers, by her superiors, by everyone in the production chain, even though it was never her fault! She endured and endured, but even the most kind and beautiful soul will snap one day.

  “She grabbed him by the throat and choked him in anger! He fought back and scratched her eye, but he was never seen again…”

  The girl’s lips trembled, and Seika grinned.

  “I’m just messing with you, I got caught up in an interdimensional incident. But let me tell you this: I really don’t take kindly to the kind of author who keeps missing their deadlines, alright?”

  The girl looked visibly relieved and took a deep breath before she nodded, and Seika considered her warned enough.

  “Keep up with the deadlines and keep delivering your story at the same quality I’ve seen from you online and we will be good friends, alright?”

  Another nod and Seika was satisfied. She looked at the manuscript in front of her again.

  ‘Little Sisters Ought to be Worshipped!’ was the title of the raunchy romantic comedy involving blood related siblings. There was no adoption involved, no remarriage of the parents. Seika suffered no cowardice like some authors put out there these days; she would climb the mountain of sin and taboos without taking any ‘steps’. If MagiColle wanted to capture the hardcore siscon demographic, they would need to employ the hardcore taboo in its rawest, purest form.

  The main character of the novel used to be a regular boy with a little sister complex, until one day he hit his head and received a divine revelation: little sisters are to be worshipped!

  He immediately elevates his own little sister to the status of goddess and founds his own ‘Imouto’ religion, beginning a radical movement to change Japan forever.

  A bizarre premise, but one that was fertile ground for absurd comedic developments, so even people who weren’t avid siscon readers would be able to enjoy it.

  “A few questions before I welcome you aboard.” Seika spoke up.

  “What do you want to know?” the author leaned closer.

  “You’re not going to introduce a plot twist that one of them is actually adopted?”

  The girl vehemently shook her head and even protested verbally.

  “It’s only good if they’re blood related! Otherwise, it’s not a taboo, it’s just roommates with a head start!” she insisted, slamming her hands on the table and standing up. A few heads turned their way, but she didn’t seem to care.

  Seika smirked. “Good. Next question: What inspired you to write this story?” she asked the girl, leaning a little closer.

  The girl grinned and wriggled in place, holding her cheeks in her hands.

  “Ehehe, I want to have a big brother and be spoiled like Iris, the main heroine...”

  “So, you don’t have a brother?” Seika pierced the girl with her eyes, and she simply shook her head.

  Good. We serve fantasy, not salacious scandals.

  “Welcome aboard!”

  Seika left the fast-food restaurant in which she met the young author and fished her phone out of her pocket. She sent Watanabe a message that she finished her meeting and used MagiColle’s new HR app to sign out of work, before walking at a brisk pace towards the closest convenience store.

  It was the 24th, Christmas, and while people would forgive Seika for indulging in the so-called ‘6 hours of sex’ which described the time from midnight to 6am of the 25th, when couples were getting busy, her and Miori instead decided to spend the evening at Ayame’s place. To catch up on the tradition Seika and Ayame couldn’t continue since 2015, despite one of them no longer being single.

  Ayame’s flirting was relentless recently. They got to talk more, and Seika learned all about her carefree lifestyle which involved sleeping with women she picked up in any of the many lesbian bars of Ni-chōme.

  She was especially excited to tell Seika about her being a ‘unicorn’, a third in the bedroom of established couples, be they lesbian or straight, for some enhanced fun. Seika herself was a little uncertain about this new side of Ayame, or was it ever a new side? She had multiple boyfriends in school and college, and none of those relationships lasted long. As she herself said recently, she was not one for romantic commitment.

  Despite that, Ayame said she felt that her and Seika and even Miori shared a deeper connection than she ever had with any of her romantic or sexual encounters. It confused Seika a little, and apparently it confused Ayame, too. Still, Seika couldn’t deny her own attraction, especially after that succubus-induced dream she had while she spent the night at Madame Bille’s place.

  So, instead of having an erotic all-nighter, the fresh couple decided to spend some time with their shared best friend, possibly to figure themselves out.

  Why do I feel like I’m about to walk into something new, terrifying and exciting?

  Seika shook her head, paid for the beer she bought and made her way to the part of town where Ayame lived.

  Seika rang the bell to Ayame’s apartment and waited. The tingle of anticipation made seconds feel like hours as she heard footsteps inside approaching the door. The door was opened and Ayame greeted her with a smile.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  “Oh, look Miori, it’s our dinner!”

  “Bring her in so I can have a bite!”

  Seika raised an eyebrow and Ayame winked, grabbing Seika’s wrist and pulling her inside. “Miori arrived an hour earlier. We’ve been talking for a while.”

  They arrived in the living room. A modern and relatively western interior design dominated everything in view. There was a small dinner table with four wooden chairs and a couch stood in front of a large LCD TV with its own little table. Miori sat on said couch, waving at Seika.

  “Hey there, handsome!” she said with a wide grin as Seika smiled and approached, putting down the beer on the couch table, where it joined an equally sized collection of still full cans. The two lovers greeted each other with a kiss before Ayame gently patted their shoulders.

  “So… evening program? We could finally finish that raunchy anime we watched in college before we got so rudely interrupted by Lethe.”

  Seika let out a stifled laugh. “You didn’t finish it? You were still able to sing the opening.”

  “Hey now, that was practice to wow you during the karaoke party, alright?”

  “Sure thing, sure thing. I’ll believe this at face value and won’t imagine that you were watching the show on your own and became a super fan.” Seika winked and grabbed her first beer, opening it with a hiss. Ayame and Miori followed suit.

  ***

  They decided to watch another show Seika had been interested in for the whole past year but never found the time. They sat together, with Ayame in the middle, her arms around Seika’s and Miori’s shoulders while the latter two held hands, resting them on Ayame’s lap. It felt oddly right for the three of them to sit together like this.

  On the TV a raunchy yuri anime about Magical Girls ran, featuring a shy, mousey protagonist who was forced to join an evil organization but discovered her sadistic side and started to sexually torment her beloved Magical Girls with her newfound power. The displayed raunchy acts ranged from simple rope play to candle wax, to spanking and tickling, to more elaborate BDSM instruments. Seika raised a brow as she watched.

  “Wow. I didn’t even realize they made them that pervy these days. I approve.”

  “Of course you do!” Ayame laughed, gently prodding Seika with her elbow. “You’ve always been the pervy one, with an interest in these acts.”

  “Pfft, I’m way more innocent than you are, Ayame.”

  “Oh, please. Just because you didn’t have a partner to live your depraved fantasies out with, doesn’t mean that they weren’t there. Hmm... I daresay you would have made a great magical villainess instead of a Magical Girl. You could have tied up and played with so many girls...”

  Seika cleared her throat, blushing. She wanted to look away, but Ayame controlled her head by putting a hand on her cheek and grinned.

  “Hey now, no running away. Look me in the eyes when I tease you.”

  Miori sipped on her can of beer as she watched the two, then she suddenly put her hand on the back of Ayame’s head and pushed her forwards, surprising even the teasing brunette as her lips met Seika’s. Ayame fell on top of her and pushed her down with her weight, causing the two to look at each other dumbfoundedly. Ayame’s eyes narrowed with mischief as she simply continued, pushing her tongue into Seika’s mouth, who struggled at first, but was quickly goaded into reciprocating. Miori got up from the couch and kneeled down next to it to get on eye level with the two, sipping from her can of beer as she watched them with mischievous interest in her eyes.

  She waited until they separated before she grabbed Ayame by the jaw and pulled her over.

  “Now do me.” Seika could hear her whisper, before her lover and best friend locked in a kiss.

  Seika was confused. By all rights she should want to walk away from this situation, or get jealous, or panic, or feel any other kind of negative emotion.

  Instead she felt a sense of belonging, even more so as Ayame and Miori separated and Miori came to Seika to finally kiss her, too.

  Seika melted into the sensation, closing her eyes until the kiss was over, then she looked at Miori.

  “You’re drunk, aren’t you?” a last piece of resistance from her annoying rationality spoke those words, but it already faltered, and then was shattered entirely as Miori turned her beer can around in her hand, revealing the non-alcoholic label.

  “Let’s go to bed, Seika… Ayame.” Miori said softly.

  30 minutes before Seika’s arrival.

  ***

  “So, you want me to be the third in your relationship? And Seika is afraid that you two would hurt me?” Ayame asked. Miori arrived earlier and the two got to talk for a bit among themselves.

  “That’s about it. I get it, though. She still blames herself for abandoning you after Lethe got you. And she never really saw you first-hand when you started your lifestyle, only I did. She simply didn’t spend enough time with you to grow comfortable with the thought of such an arrangement.”

  “But as you put it, when you two sleep together, you sometimes transform into your Magical Girl forms. Aren’t those their own personalities? Like, aren’t you technically already in a relationship with three people that way?”

  Miori sighed. “Yes. She even acknowledges it, but whenever I try to talk about you, I can sense that her guilt holds her back.”

  Ayame nodded and opened a can of beer before she handed Miori one as well, but the blonde shook her head.

  “Give me a non-alcoholic one. I want to be sober for this, or she’ll insist that I’m not myself when I’m drunk. She should know that this comes from me.”

  Ayame nodded, grabbing a nonalcoholic beer and handing it to Miori.

  “And you’re sure she loves me?”

  “Same way I do.”

  “Like a sister?”

  “Please forget that I said that when we’re talking about us possibly having sex.”

  Ayame let out a laugh in response to Miori’s words, then she sat down next to her, reaching out to pat her shoulder.

  “So like… her best friend in the entire world. And she doesn’t want to fuck that up. Is that the gist of it?”

  Miori nodded before she spoke. “I want us to ease her into it. I want to show her that it’s okay, that she doesn’t have to be conflicted about it.”

  ***

  Now, a few hours later, she was in bed with Miori and Seika. She embraced Seika from behind, resting her chin on her friend’s shoulder as she assisted her in making love to Miori. She trailed her fingers over sensitive skin here and there, sometimes Seika’s, sometimes Miori’s. She grabbed Seika’s hand by the wrist to guide it to better places, teased her when she didn’t have anything else to do and in general just enjoyed her time with both her best friends, who she was oh so attracted to.

  Until…

  “Now do Ayame!”

  The demand came from Miori, who gave them both an exhausted, but genuine smile. Ayame could feel Seika hesitate, could feel her contemplate the situation, so she acted, grabbing Seika’s cheek and guiding her face towards her own to kiss her.

  “Go ahead. I want it, too.”

  ***

  Ayame was lying on her stomach, her heart hammering in her chest as she looked over her shoulder at Seika. She lorded over her like a conqueror, and her eyes were those of a carnivore about to devour her, just the way she remembered. Seika always carried that side in her, only faintly visible during her college days, to the point that Seika herself never even realized she had that side to her, until recently; a fire Ayame only saw when her friend spotted a girl she was interested in, though, given her Magical Girl duties, she never dared to approach anyone.

  Ayame squirmed a little, biting her lower lip as she stared ahead. There was one thing she needed to be certain of before they started, and it pained her that it ran counter to what Miori and her discussed.

  She’s most afraid of fucking this up… I am so sorry for presenting her with an opportunity to colossally mess it up right out of the gate…

  Ayame cleared her throat and crossed her wrists behind her back as she looked at Seika.

  “Before we start… I want to be tied up. There are cuffs in the shoe box under the bed.”

  She saw Seika hesitate, so she followed up.

  “My safe word is Pierrot. Like that famous lolita fashion brand.”

  Seika nodded now. “Pierrot. Alright.”

  Ayame took a deep breath as the familiar feeling of leather cuffs tying around her wrists touched her skin for the first time in four years. She repeated the deep breath and repeated it once more.

  Her mind involuntarily went back to her ex-girlfriend Maria. Ayame was tied up similarly to this situation back then, and Maria wanted to try out spanking with a riding crop. Ayame enjoyed herself for the first five hits or so; then they got inexplicably harder, as if Maria was giving up any self-control. They hit her in places a riding crop should never go, in swings that would get Maria thrown out of and blacklisted from any BDSM club in the city. She ignored Ayame’s tears and pleading as well as her repeated use of her safe word. Worst of all, it didn’t even feel like a gratification thing for Maria. It felt like she wanted to hurt Ayame for the sake of hurting her.

  After an agonizing eternity of remembering, Ayame found herself back in reality. She realized that she was hyperventilating, and her arms were straining against the cuffs.

  “Pierrot!” she said in a quiet voice, despite only having been tied up for five seconds.

  She immediately wanted to say it a second time, to shout, or even scream it as she panicked, but then she felt the cuffs loosen, and as they were gone, Seika gently propped Ayame up and wrapped her in a blanket.

  “I’m sorry, Ayame. Did I put them on wrong? Did I pinch you anywhere? Are you alright? Can I get you anything? Water, maybe?”

  Tears ran down Ayame’s face, yet she felt warm and comfortable. Most important of all, she felt respected, loved, and she could feel her ability to trust a partner returning.

  I wondered how they would treat me… and now I have my answer. I only ever needed the right person by my side.

  “It’s… alright, Seika. Thank you. Thank you so much…”

  Seika looked completely confused by Ayame’s words, even more so as she simply reached out and pulled Seika into a tight hug.

  “I’m so glad to have you back in my life...”

  Ayame didn’t end up being restrained that night and enjoyed normal intimacy with her partners. The lovers and their friend slept together in her large bed, with Seika and Miori tightly embracing Ayame from both sides. Their mutual understanding was that they were in a relationship now, with Seika and Miori both considering Ayame not their friend with benefits, but something much deeper, much more intimate, despite the lack of romantic feelings, and Ayame wouldn’t have it any other way. She let the feeling of being embraced by her friends sink into her, absorbing the physical and emotional warmth. She could finally heal.