Haru-Naru ♪♪♪ Love is a Comedy

It was the Sunday right after Obon. As I've planned, bringing Naruko along, I had come to the Summer Comiket.

"Come on… they're not even open yet, so what's with this damn crowd…? Hey, come on, do something."

"Don't look at me. It's not like I can do anything about it!"

"Ugh, I'm so bored. Why is it that I had to get up so early in the morning just to come to such a swelteringly hot place? Hey, are you listening?"

Even though she had nagged and nagged and finally got me to go here with her, all she's been doing since we've gotten here is complain. Just shut up and go play your PSP, geez. In the middle of this disgusting crowd, I sighed and looked up at the sky. It was cloudy today. It wouldn't rain, but the midsummer sun was masked by heavy, thick clouds. It was almost as if the weather reflected my own feelings, but thinking about how long I've had to wait here, maybe the clouds were a godsend instead. If the sun were shining completely through, I wouldn't be surprised if I collapsed from heatstroke. Just the thick heat emanating from this crowd was enough to make me feel ill.

Ugh… wiping the sticky sweat from my forehead, I gave a glance to my side. As if she had lost interest in complaining to me, she was quietly fiddling with her PSP. I sort of wanted to play a bit with one too. As someone who never got games bought for him as a child, seeing my sister like this made me a bit jealous, but because my sister spent her own money to buy her own PSP, I can't really say anything against her… dammit, maybe I should just get a part-time job and buy one too.

Today, Naruko was wearing an orange camisole with a miniskirt, and had on a stylish pair of sunglasses. She was also wearing plenty of accessories, such as bracelets, earrings, and rings on her fingers. She was cheeky and arrogant, but even so, I would be lying if I didn't say she was also really cute. Naruko and I have been squatting in this line for over an hour… and this may be the first time in my life I've stood in line this long.

"Dammit, I can't do this," I muttered to nobody in particular. But, no matter where I looked, my vision was filled with other people. People, people, people, SO MANY DAMN PEOPLE! I mean, Mio had warned me that there was going to be a crowd, but I had no idea it was going to be this bad. There must have been thousands of people here! I thought I already knew what otaku were capable of, but I obviously completely underestimated these people!

"Dammit, why did I have to come here on a holiday? Hey come on, when is the line going to move? My legs are starting to get sore…" While still staring at the screen of her PSP, Naruko flexed her elbows behind me.

"I don't know. Seriously, all you've been doing for a while now is complaining."

"Hmph." Naruko faced the other way and scowled. What a bad attitude.

Don't you think that's rude to Mio, who went through the trouble of inviting us? But my choice to take Naruko to the Summer Comiket seems to not have been a bad one. Because if Naruko really thought this was all so annoying and that she didn't want to come, then she definitely wouldn't be sitting here obediently like this. If she didn't want to come, she wouldn't have accepted the invitation, and the minute she began to regret it, she could just go home. So she was probably just spouting foul language to hide her embarrassment. Hey. For some reason, it seems that I'm gradually beginning to be able to understand my uncooperative sister. Dammit, not good. This wasn't the time to be learning how to be my sister's butler. As I impatiently thought of these things, I scratched my head and began to talk with Mio, who was sitting next to me. "Mio-chan, thank you. Honestly, you've been a great help… I wouldn't have been able to come up with any good ideas about how to get Naruko to 'make good memories' by myself."

"Fufufu… why are you being so shy, Haruto-chan? I'm the one who invited you two, right? It's natural that Orange-chan and Ruby-chan, and of course, Haruto-chan would want to try to have a lot of fun, isn't it? And I also have more fun this way. So really…" In other words, she didn't need to be thanked. After saying all that, Mio smiled happily. "Hey hey, why are you staring at me like that? Haha, I see, so you were just admiring my beautiful face, hm?"

"N-No. What are you talking about." I'm really not admiring her… she probably has a beautiful face under those weird swirly glasses, but she's pretty cocky, isn't she… as I sat in amazement at this aloof girl's attitude…

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh! What the hell are you doing?!" I heard a shriek come from my sister next to me. It was already pretty hot and humid outside, but somehow her yelling out so loudly made it seem even hotter and even more humid. Feeling annoyed and turning around, I saw Naruko glaring at her PSP screen with an angry expression.

"Don't be so loud, Naruko. What happened? Have you lost your mind or something?"

"No! S-S-S-She… s-s-she…" Naruko was pointing at Ruby dressed in a gothic lolita outfit. She was sitting opposite Naruko, and also was holding onto a PSP. As Naruko pointed accusingly at Ruby, Ruby gave a curt, condescending response without any emotion in her voice.

"Hmph. All I did was shoot a bit at your character for fun. A lot of people do that as a joke during cooperative play, you know? Don't get so angry about it. It's just Monster Hunter. Stop raising such a fuss about it. It's embarrassing if you yell like that."

"Huuh?! Every single time I kill an enemy and try to loot it, you shoot at me and stop me from getting the loot! What kind of excuse is that?! I spent thirty minutes killing that monster, but in the end I couldn't get anything from it!"

"Well, I already have all the loot from that boss. So I have to look for other ways to have fun or I'll be bored to death."

"Wha—this is fun?! Shooting at your allies is fun?!"

"You heard me wrong… but in general, you should be thanking me for being so kind as to play with an idiot like you who lets her guard down."

"B-But I died because of you, didn't I…? "

"How rude, blaming things on other people."

"Nooo! Right after I set that huge bomb, you casually went over and set it off and the explosion killed me! And then every time I tried to heal, you got in the way! Attack the enemy, not me!"

"Hmph, but that was quite thrilling."

"I'm never playing games with you ever again!"

There was no point in me trying to butt in here. In the first place, I had no idea what they were talking about, and also, when these two got together it pretty much always got like this. I had already given up on trying to stop them. I had no choice but to let them continue to go at each other.

Well well, it seems that when it came to games, Ruby had more skill than Naruko did.

"Fufufu… what a pleasant sight, don't you think, Haruto-chan?"

"It's… pleasant…?" Hey hey, Mio. Are you being serious? These two both had pretty nasty mouths and personalities, so whenever they talked with each other they couldn't help but start spewing insults. How resistant can you be to this kind of abuse? Are you paralyzed or something? See, look, the people standing next to us are starting to notice them, aren't they? Well, I guess you could say that it's nice that they can be so frank with each other though.

Ugh, but also, I had to drag this girl with me here, and now I'll have to attend an event I know very little about… will I really be alright? I have a really bad feeling about this.

"Hey, Haruto-chan, where are you going?"

"I have to use the bathroom. I've been thinking about a lot of things, and my stomach is starting to hurt…" Lifting myself up off the floor, I answered Mio's question. Mio took out a wristwatch from her rucksack, and after checking it, her expression clouded over.

"Hm, you should hurry then."

"Why? It's not like there's a bathroom that far away, is there?"

"It's not as bad as it is in the winter, but… If you're unlucky, you might have to wait half an hour for it. So if you don't go quickly, you might not get back before the line starts to move."

Wah… there was even a line for the bathroom… Summer Comiket was scary. With a heavy heart, I looked upwards at the sky. The line would start moving soon, in less than an hour. It was so hot that I was breaking out in sweat just by sitting here. I could feel my energy draining. And the noisy pair next to me wasn't helping the heat.

"You shitty vampy! Stop secretly setting depth charge needles in my blind spot!"

"Shut up, tomato head! Did you forget that depth charge needles are effective against Ganototosu?"

As usual, the two girls were arguing with each other while playing the game.

"Hey, you two… hurry up and stop playing. The line's beginning to move," I reluctantly spoke up. But Naruko and Ruby were determined not to listen to me.

"Don't you understand me when I say your last lightning attack dragged me into it too?! This is why your name shows up on the xlink kai message boards!"

"T-That's definitely just someone else with the same name."

"Hah, there's nobody else with such a childish naming sense. Ah, seriously, I've been meaning to say this for a long time, but did you seriously think it was cool to put that messed up symbol before and after your name? Seriously, stop embarrassing yourself."

"What did you say…? Yeah, that's what I thought, so what? Rather, I should be the one doubting your style for not realizing how great it is. Seriously, it's like all the other dimwit pigs who just jump on what's trendy… saying that putting † on both sides of a username is childish, that it's holy or that it's dirty, that only dumbasses would use such a beautiful symbol in their name… what the hell is that? Don't go and just label things like that so thoughtlessly. I'll decide what's cool or what's not cool by myself."

"Yes yes, I really sympathize with you. So please, put away the games and let's start moving, alright?"

Even though we still hadn't gotten into the building, my anxiety was already reaching its peak. The line slowly moved forwards.

"Please move forward as much as possible! You there! Move please, move!" Came shouts of the staff all around us, but Naruko and them were still slow to respond. The staff were already drenched in sweat, and their jobs did not seem easy. I can very firmly say that I really dislike people who can't follow rules or directions. Although it's not like I'm trying to claim that I'm that law-abiding and obedient. More simply, I just don't like fighting with my surroundings. I want to live a calm and quiet life. But even more fundamentally, it's not good to be causing such trouble for the people around you over such a trivial thing. Geez, I guess there's no helping it. Picking up my sister and Ruby's bags, I put myself between them while they were still arguing, and urged them both to go forwards by pushing on their backs.

"Hey, you two, come on, move. You're holding up the line."

'Don't touch me!"

"Hey hey… so now you two choose to harmonize!" While I retorted in annoyance, Mio faced me and laughed.

"Hahaha. You're popular, aren't you?"

"Shut up, you!"

The crowd slowly moved forwards. With a scowl, I began to walk through the large passageway that had developed. Finally, the line of people went up the wide stairs, and we walked towards the giant inverted pyramid building—the Tokyo Big Sight convention center. It was almost like a line of the dead walking towards Yomotsu Hirasaka. By the way, I'm used to getting stares from boys and girls when I walk together with my pretty sister, but right now there was nothing of that sort. It's probably because everyone was excited for the event that was right about to start.

When we had ascended the stairs, Ruby whispered something to Mio, "Today, can we start from the East side?"

"Yeah. First we'll do what we came for, to look at the doujinshi displays."

"When we were waiting, I read through a bit of the catalog, but… what do you mean doujinshi displays? I mean, there's really one thing I don't understand. Doujinshi is, in short, books that people make by themselves, right? Books that they don't sell at normal bookstores. So this is an event where people get together and sell these things… so it's just like a big version of that Tora-something place we went before?" As we walked, I asked my question and Mio nimbly gave me a response.

"You could say selling doujinshi is like that, but for me it's a completely different feeling… hmm, how should I put it… perhaps the important thing to keep in mind is that Summer Comiket is an event that was created out of everyone's efforts."

"Aren't there companies behind this event?"

"Of course. In fact, there's a corporation that's responsible for the event. But they're more there just to set the stage so that everyone can have fun… to the end, this event is something that's brought to life by the staff you see, the participating doujinshi circles, and the many many general attendees who gather together."

"Sorry. I still don't really get it."

"You came here without even figuring this stuff out?" Naruko sent me a snide remark after hearing my remarks, and sighed in disbelief.

"Shut up, you. Hmph, well, you sure know everything about this, don't you?"

"How would I know? This is the first time I've come to this event too…"

This girl… she's so arrogant… and she still hasn't thanked me for carrying her things. As sparks flew between Naruko and me as we stared at each other, Mio interjected. "Come on, you two. Isn't this a good opportunity? You can participate and then find out for yourselves."

"Well…"

"I guess…"

Reluctantly, Naruko and I stopped glaring at each other.

After that, we continued walking until the stream of people began to branch off.

Hmm? I took out the catalog from my hand luggage, and opened it to the page with a map on it. I see… it seems that this was the entrance plaza, which was where you could get access to each of the buildings.

Following after Mio and Ruby, Naruko and I turned left at the directional signs and entered into the building.

"Uugh…"

"Uwah…"

Naruko and I gave out weary groans. The moment we took a step into the building, we were hit by a stifling wave of heat. The entrance hall to the Tokyo Big Sight felt just like a fully crowded train. There were so many people that it was difficult for me to see what was going on. All I could see was people people people, people people people. Like this, it would be really easy to get swept away by the crowd and lost if we weren't too careful.

"Whoa… this is… hey Naruko, are you alright…? "

"Hoooot…! And smelly…! Ugh! Do they not have air conditioning?!" With a terribly displeased expression, Naruko grabbed my shirt. "Ugh, that fatty got sweat on me when he walked by!"

"Hey! Don't wipe it off on my shirt dammit!"

Ugh… it must have been ten times hotter here than it was outside! It was hard to breathe! I need oxygen! This is serious! Ugh… this… This is impossible! I don't even know how to describe this to someone who hasn't been in this situation before… this… this… ugh… if I had to compare it to something… if I really had to… well… imagine you were on a fully crowded train in the summertime without working air conditioning, and you had to walk from the first car all the way back to the last car by foot… It's something like that… crap… I really wanted to go back now… I can't take this anymore. To think that Summer Comiket would be as tough as this… if the weather were also sunny, I seriously might have collapsed!

"Don't run! Please do not run!" Suddenly facing the direction I heard that voice, I saw an armband wearing staff member with an almost terrifying expression, issuing warnings out of his megaphone. At his order, a group of otaku who looked almost like they were in a speed walking race slowed down. But even then, I could feel their impatience at wanting to move forwards.

"What's up with them… where are they rushing off to in such a hurry?"

"To the line of popular circles. If they don't get there quickly, all the popular doujinshi will be sold out." Looking back, I saw that the one who had answered my question was Ruby. Hm… so it was like that… Naruko seemed a bit affected by the hustle and bustle around her.

"S-Shouldn't we hurry too?"

"Nah. Let's not rush too much today. I talked with Ruby-chan earlier too and that's what we agreed on. Certainly, standing in line waiting to buy doujinshi is one of the greatest pleasures of this event, but…" Mio expertly navigated the crowded spaces and led us forwards. Following after the dependable leader, we walked along the path to the Northern Concourse: Tokyo Hall. "If you're going to turn your first event into a life or death struggle, I think that would be pretty tough on you. Doing that also eats up a lot of time… And I wanted you to be able to experience more of what this event is about, so I thought we wouldn't stand in line today and would just stroll around and take a look at what's going on…"

Life or death struggle huh? Well, certainly, it seemed fitting to compare this situation to a battlefield. Or maybe just to hell… earlier, while we were waiting, I had read the event catalog in preparation for the event, and there were many fine details written on warnings and rules, as well as a page spared for information about the first aid room… so it's no wonder I would be wondering about how exaggeratedly crazy this event was. But no warning could have prepared me for something like this. Looking around at the crazy crowd of people around me, I nodded, finally beginning to grasp the situation. But Mio… she seriously had thought a lot about our feelings, hadn't she?

"Hmph. Judging by what you're saying, you planned ahead and launched a funnel, didn't you…? If you do, make sure I get in on it too."

"Ahh, I'm really sorry. Unfortunately, I'm really just not planning to buy very much on the third day this time around… I wasted a lot of money at the Wonder Festival too… Honestly, if I stuff any more figures or doujinshi into my room, my parents might start getting angry at me. Ahaha." Mio shyly put one hand on the back of her head and looked down. I interjected in response to this exchange I didn't really understand.

"What's a funnel?"

"Umm, how should I explain it…? Ooh! Haruto-chan! Look that way!"

When I looked in the direction Mio was pointing, I saw a middle-aged man wearing a flight jacket and with his long hair tied behind his head, zealously giving instructions into a headset.

"This is Skull Leader, this is Skull Leader, requesting status report, over. - A28 new publication secure, acknowledged. A87 new publication secure, acknowledged. A69 battle ongoing, acknowledged. Message to Skull 2 and Skull 3, proceed with Plan B, continue to cover wall circles, and be on alert for warnings from the enemy search party. Skull 5, head towards the island center, and rendezvous with me. - Do you copy, Pixie Platoon? Requesting status report on the corporate booth."

"Did the heat get to him or something? What the hell is wrong with that idiot?"

"No, no, nono! Haruto-chan! He's not talking to himself!" Mio seemed alarmed, and quickly waved both her arms back and forth. "He's managing his own funnel over there. He's communicating with his partners wirelessly, see? Umm… one way to put it is that it's an efficient way to obtain all the really popular doujinshi. And the names are based off of similar names used in Gundam to remotely control troops."

"A… ahh… so it's like that…"

As we were talking, we continued to walk, until finally a giant sign saying "East 4" appeared on our left.

Glancing intermittently at the map in my hand, I spoke, "Is this where we're going?"

"Down a level. We need to go down on the escalators," Ruby murmured her response.

After that, in no time an escalator appeared before us. Two staff members were standing next to it.

"Please leave a step between you and the person in front of you when getting on the escalator!"

That and other such warnings were being yelled by the staff. As for us, Ruby and Naruko rode the escalator together, while I got on with Mio, and we slowly descended onto the lower floor. While we were riding, we got a splendid bird's eye view of the scenery down on the bottom floor. The expansive passageway below us was completely buried under the huge amounts of people.

"You know… there was a scene like this in Resident Evil. When the zombies were rushing into the shopping mall."

Stop it, Naruko. Don't say "zombies."If you say it like that, they're going to start looking like real zombies to me. As I wearily took in Naruko's statement, this time it was Ruby that started making outrageous statements.

"Every time I come here, when I'm up here looking down at all these people crowding around, I wish I could kick them around with an AoE attack."

"Hahaha, for me, this scene reminds me of Samurai Warriors."

Even you, Mio? And all their analogies seemed to be related to games… I wasn't very knowledgeable about games, so for me this scenery reminded me more of the zombies from a George A Romero movie.

In any case… at this point, I didn't exactly have the best of impressions of this Summer Comiket thing. I mean, I never had any interest in coming to this event in the first place, I'm exhausted, it's damn hot, all Naruko's been doing is complaining… there wasn't a single redeeming quality to be found.