How to Cheer Up an Otaku, Part II

“Good boy! And now sit!”

Hinako gestured on the bed next to her. Kuro took a seat. His heart pounded like crazy. He felt Hinako’s hand touch his neck and gently pulling him closer.

“Huh? What are you doing?”, He said as he found himself laying on top of her thighs moments later.

“Hmm? Giving you my lap as a pillow and patting your head of course! What else would I be doing?”, Hinako said with a slightly cheeky vibe.

“Oh that’s… hm…”

“Oho? Could it be… that you expected something else?”

“No… no… I…”

Kuro went bright red.

“I am your Oshi right now. I know that she can be a bit lewd sometimes, but she is a Japanese idol after all, so I think this suits her better, don’t you think?” Hinako asked with a cheeky smile.

“Yeah… it does.”, Kuro answered and tried to hide his face.

Hinako began to gently caress his head. Kuro began to sniffle quietly.

“Oh? Are you crying? Did I do something wrong?”, Hinako asked slightly panicked as she noticed his eyes getting teary.

“No… quite the opposite… It’s just that I always dreamt about this, but I had given up hope to ever experience it…”

“What? Nobody ever let you lay your head in their lap before?”

Kuro shook his head slightly.

“Damn… your exes must have been cruel bitches, if they didn’t grant you this simple wish.”, Hinako said and continued to caress his head.

“… There were none.”, Kuro said quietly.

“No lap pillows? Yeah, I got that.”

“No… exes…”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

Kuro turned his head and looked her straight in the eyes.

“I meant that I never was in any kind of relationship whatsoever… so naturally there are no exes of mine either…”, Kuro explained.

“Ah you meant that… okay.”, Hinako replied.

“Pretty pathetic, huh?”

“Hm? No? Why would it be?”

“Because… I’m thirty-five… Isn’t it weird to be that old and not have at least some experience in that matter?”

“Who said that?”

“I don’t know… everyone?”

“This everyone is a really stupid Idiot then.”

“Huh?”

“Look everybody has a different way in his life, where the experiences and the time of them is not the same for anybody. Only because you haven’t had some of them yet, does not make you weird or pathetic at all and it does not mean that they are not waiting for you a bit further down the road. I get it that it can be hard sometimes when you look at others and see what was or is on their road, especially if it’s something that you did not choose to not experience and that it can make you feel jealous, but don’t only look at them. Try to focus on your own way, or you will just stumble forward blindly and maybe miss some experiences you could have, just because you looked in the wrong direction the whole time. Maybe someone is already walking on your road, or close by and you just haven’t noticed yet.”

“You think so?”

“I’m sure of it. And you know what? Being weird doesn’t have to be a bad thing. In my opinion, being a bit weird does suit you very well. And you know what else is weird? Me, for being happy that you never had those experiences and I get to be the first one to let you lay his head on her lap.”

“Thanks…”

“No, thank you. And now enjoy your dream of receiving headpats in the lap of a beautiful young woman, cosplaying as your Oshi!”

Kuro closed his eyes and turned his head again. Hinako continued to gently trace over his head and play with his hair.

“I’m sorry…”, Kuro said after a while.

“For?”, Hinako asked softly.

“For how I behaved towards you. The whole thing happening with Shinoha really got to me and I snapped at you…”

“It’s okay. I get it. You two are close, huh?”

“Yeah… She is like a second mother to me.”

“I see… Well then, I’m really sorry that you have to go through such though times now and I hope she will recover.”

Kuro began to sniffle again. Hinako swept tears from his face and stroked his head.

“I’m sorry I nearly called you a…”, Kuro said after calming down a bit.

“A what?”, Hinako asked.

“A… bitch…”

Hinako began to laugh.

“All good, dude! You can call me that all you want, since I was a curious bitch that day…”, she said.

“I rather call you Hina…”, Kuro replied.

“Oh, thank you, that’s so sweet of you, Kuro.”

“Johann…”

“Johann?”

“That’s my real name… Johann Schwarz… or at least the name I used back in Europe.”

“Oh, I see. That’s a lovely name… but I’m now kinda used to Kuro, so do you mind if I continue to call you like that?”

“No… rather I would prefer it even, since I left my old name behind in Europe. One thing I managed to let go… not like something else…”

“Ah, I see…”

They fell silent again, and Hinako just caressed his head. She noticed the looks that he gave her.

“What’s the deal with the box? Tell me everything. I’m a curious bitch”, Hinako said looking at him smiling.

Kuro breathed deep and looked relieved.

“Thank you…”, he whispered.

“No need… sorry, that I didn’t ask sooner and just looked inside, but yeah, I really wanna know.”

“Well let’s begin at the start. I was born as the son of Maria Schwarz, a powerful battlemage from Europe. I never knew my father, but my mother told me that he was just a normal guy from Austria, that she fell in love with. He died in a demon invasion before I was born. Back in the day demonic invasions happened rather often in Europe and my mother was always fighting against them, and she was very good at it. She was after all touted as ‘The War Mage’ since she was so powerful, that she classified as a one-man army. She didn’t stop fighting during her pregnancy with me and not after I was born either. My earliest memories are those of being carried on her back and seeing spells and demon parts flying past me.”

“That doesn’t quite sound like the ideal environment to raise a child.”

“No, not really… but yeah, that’s how it was. My mother noticed very soon that I had a talent for magic and a very large capacity for magical energy, even as a baby. She began training me as soon as I could walk and always took me with her on her fights. I killed my first demon when I was six and by the age of ten, I was already more powerful than most mages in Europe. This earned me my first moniker of ‘The Demonchild Mage’. In the years after I continued my training and fought many battles together with my mother and from time to time with Shinoha as well, since she was an old friend of my mother and sometimes, they went on an international mission, where they brought me along.”

“Damn, you had an… interesting… childhood.”

“Some would call it that… others would call it traumatic… Well, it all went fine until I turned fifteen and one of the biggest demonic incursions in recent history happened. It was there that even an archdemon appeared. My mother sacrificed herself in order to kill it and save countless lives, me included.”

“So that’s when the tragic bit starts…”

“You would think that, but while I was sad about what happened… My mother always taught me that this day will come, and she will die one day… so in a way I was prepared for it. I had lived my whole life on the battlefield and saw countless mages die after all... But yeah... After that I joined the Magical Academy in Vienna.

“You went to a Magical Academy? Even though you already went up against countless demons and even an archdemon?”

“Well, I dropped out of it soon anyways and joined the Europe MDF… But in that brief time, I got to know the woman in the photo, Sophia. We became fast friends and after a few years I noticed that…”

“You had feelings for her?”

“Yes. It was on New Year’s Eve. We celebrated with friends. She was a bit drunk that night and just randomly gave me a kiss on the cheek… She also gave me that glowstick armband that night…”

“Oh!... Shit… sorry I called it Junk…”

“It’s okay.”

“So, the letters in the box are…”

“Love letters… yes… or rather the drafts of them. I agonized long about what to write and I didn’t want to send anything with a mistake in them… I even tried to train my handwriting to be a bit neater…”

“Oh, that’s all the other papers with the scribble on them?”

“Yeah…”

“And did you give her the letters in the end?”

“Yes… I dropped them in her postbox.”

“And what happened?”

“Nothing.”

“Huh?”

“I was too shy to put my name on the letters, so she had no way of knowing that they were from me…”

“And you never told her?”

“I did, when I confessed my feelings in person a few months later…”

“And what happened to the letters?”

“I don’t know… maybe she threw them away or maybe she still has them… I did not ask.”

“Okay, but you properly confessed your feelings. That’s good. But I guess it didn’t go like you planned it?”

“No… the feelings were just one-sided.”

“Okay, that sucks, but it happens… what then?”

“I didn’t know how to face her anymore and got consumed by the feeling of hopelessness, which made me emotionally unstable… I then went and broke some stuff, which I’m not proud of, but what was much worse that I accidently even caused a rupture, letting in a few demons… I killed them immediately of course, before they could do any harm. But that all made me fear myself and what I might do in the future… so I ran away… all the way to Japan. Pretty pathetic, huh?”

“Again, with the pathetic stuff… why would it be? Its normal and human that this shit hurts.”

“Yeah, but I was fine after my mother died… but that not only broke my heart but also me… shouldn’t it be the other way around?”

“I don’t think so… And only because you ran away after you got your heart broken, does not mean that it your mother’s death affected you less… Which would be okay as well. Like I said before everybody has different experiences at different times, and everybody feels different about those experiences, good and bad ones. Maybe it was just the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

“Yeah… maybe you’re right. But I just feel so ashamed about what happened back there and how I reacted. I fear, that if it gets out that I because of a broken heart I threw a tantrum so hard, that I ruptured the veil and let in demons… That’s why I don’t talk about it and don’t want people to find out… also the things I wrote in those letters are pretty cringe…”

“Being in love can make you do some pretty cringe things, that’s normal and it’s understandable that you may feel a bit ashamed about it, but you don’t have to. It takes real balls to write a love letter and send it too, even if you put no name on it. You even went afterwards and told her, so respect to you! And yeah, that thing with the demons is pretty hardcore, I’m not gonna lie, but you did sort your problem out yourself, without endangering anyone, so no harm done… right?

“Yeah…”

“So that was your reason to leave Europa and move to Japan. And that’s when you became the Otaku and lost interest in real women?”

“Well, I was into anime and all that already before I moved here. And I would not say, that I lost interest in women… it’s more like they never had any interest in me, at least not in a romantic way…”

“Now that is flat out not true.”

“What do you mean?”

“That I’m sure there are women who are very much interested in you that way… you just haven’t noticed yet.”

“Like who?”

“Hmm… what about Yamada-san?”

“Sa… Yamada? No way…”

“Okay I have to ask now… Her first name is Sachi, right?”

“Yeah…”

“Come on spill it… she also took a peek into the box, right?”

“Yeah… Back when I first came here, she was my first assigned partner… She was supposed to be my instructor to get me used to how things went here… A bit like I am to you now.”

“What happened?”

“Well, all went pretty well, we got along… which was near a miracle, since I was at that time in a bad shape… mentally speaking… But Yamada… Sachi was very nice to me. She was the first person I opened up to a bit here and we were partners for a few months. But then similar to you I happened to find her peeking inside the box back then…”

“And you snapped at her, like you did with me?”

“Worse… As I said, I was mentally in a pretty bad spot at that time, with it all being fairly fresh… I flew into a rage and attacked her… I hurt her pretty bad… Yukiko told me afterwards that she had to give up on being a battle mage in the Special Forces and had to switch to Command and Planning, because of the injuries that I caused… She was one of the best and most talented mages in the force before the injury I caused. That’s why she resents me so much and I never managed to properly apologize to her… not that I even deserve her forgiveness…”

“Oh… okay that’s a bit worse than what hit me… I mean I still have the feeling that that’s all just a tsundere act from her, but let’s put her aside for now. What about Emi?”

“What about her?”

“Dude… she is soo into you!”

“She’s just friendly to a customer…”

“She works at an Izakaya, not a Hostess bar!”

“Yeah… but we just share a bit of our Otaku hobbies. I really don’t think there is more to it…”

“Damn, you’re denser than some of the MCs in the stories that you gave me to read. Okay then there is one more, who I am positive about that she is attracted to you, but I think in her case the problem is, that you are not attracted to her.”

“Huh? Who is that supposed to be?”

Hinako grabbed the sides of Kuro’s head and turned it towards her.

“Me.”, She said looking him into the eyes.

“What? You?... You… love me?”, Kuro stuttered.

“No, you Idiot. I don’t love you. I find you attractive!”

“That’s … Ummm… really?”

“Yes really! But don’t worry, I know that you don’t see me that way. You don’t have to say it, again… My point is, that you are not hopeless and that there are women interested in you. You just have to be a bit more confident in yourself. But don’t worry, I’ll help you out a bit.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ll see… But for now, enjoy my lap and stop worrying so much. Everything will work out somehow, I’m sure.”

She turned Kuro’s head back again and continued with the head caressing.

“Thank you… Hina-chan.”, Kuro said after a while and closed his eyes.

“You’re welcome…” Hinako replied

She continued stroking his head until he fell asleep.