Post by kousuke on Dec 13, 2019 18:17:40 GMT
In a small bookstore, sandwiched between a dingy coffee shop and an equally dingy ramen bar... A single old lady was chatting with her only customer of the day, an equally old man that had little better to do with his afternoons than hang around the 300 foot-square shop. The conversation didn't pause when the door for the bell rang, though the old lady did wave to the boy that walked in. He waved back. He was becoming a familiar face here...
Kousuke wasn't wearing his school uniform when he came in. Instead, he was wearing a hoodie that was two sizes too large for him, bearing the word "DragonFruit" written in English on its front. He also had a pair of jeans with a hole on the right knee, which he'd cut himself, and a pair of new-ish sneakers that he'd clearly tried to make look dingy by jumping in a filthy puddle. The hood for the sweatshirt was up over his head, hiding his hair and obscuring his face a little. Finally, he wore a backpack that was... far different in design from the one that he wore to school.
Why all the secrecy? What was so special about this bookstore?
Well, for some reason, they had a manga section. And that manga section only had collection volumes of original, non-pornographic dojinshi content. It was stuff you would have a hard time finding anywhere, maybe even on the corners of the Internet. Stuff like the shojo romance manga... "Finally, The Roses Bloom In The Hidden Garden Of My Heart", which had just released its latest volume.
Growing up, Kousuke had never been allowed to watch anime or cartoons, nor was he allowed to read manga. His uncle had always said that such things would rot his brain and fill his dreams with nonsense. For him, it had only ever been great works of literature, or non-fiction titles with some educational value.
So, of course, upon moving out of the Oshiro mansion into an apartment away from his uncle, Kousuke had immediately begun to look for any manga he could get his hands on, as well as anime releases on physical disks that he could use to catch up on the popular series. He'd even made a point of looking up any and every store in Musutafu that purported to have a manga section, so he could see what sort of "garbage" they were peddling. Through his searching, he'd found this little no-name store.
And so, through said store, he had been introduced to the story of Hana, a girl whose quirk let her understand the secret language of plants. A girl who was the only member of her school's gardening club... And who fell hard for a mysterious new exchange student after he joined her club and brought the roses in the garden back to life. Everything about him was a mystery to her, a mystery that she'd slowly been unlocking over the course of the story. Supposedly, in the new volume, she'd actually learn his quirk... though fan theories online posited that the boy was quirkless, and that was why he'd transferred between three schools before he wound up at Hana's.
As Kousuke arrived in the back corner where all of the manga was kept, his eyes scanned the small collection of shelves. Up and down and all around, where was it? Where was the new volume? Was it... Ah. There it was. Right at waist level, on a table below the shelves. The new volume, the only one left!
Kousuke smiled softly to himself as he reached out to grab it.
Bloom
Kousuke wasn't wearing his school uniform when he came in. Instead, he was wearing a hoodie that was two sizes too large for him, bearing the word "DragonFruit" written in English on its front. He also had a pair of jeans with a hole on the right knee, which he'd cut himself, and a pair of new-ish sneakers that he'd clearly tried to make look dingy by jumping in a filthy puddle. The hood for the sweatshirt was up over his head, hiding his hair and obscuring his face a little. Finally, he wore a backpack that was... far different in design from the one that he wore to school.
Why all the secrecy? What was so special about this bookstore?
Well, for some reason, they had a manga section. And that manga section only had collection volumes of original, non-pornographic dojinshi content. It was stuff you would have a hard time finding anywhere, maybe even on the corners of the Internet. Stuff like the shojo romance manga... "Finally, The Roses Bloom In The Hidden Garden Of My Heart", which had just released its latest volume.
Growing up, Kousuke had never been allowed to watch anime or cartoons, nor was he allowed to read manga. His uncle had always said that such things would rot his brain and fill his dreams with nonsense. For him, it had only ever been great works of literature, or non-fiction titles with some educational value.
So, of course, upon moving out of the Oshiro mansion into an apartment away from his uncle, Kousuke had immediately begun to look for any manga he could get his hands on, as well as anime releases on physical disks that he could use to catch up on the popular series. He'd even made a point of looking up any and every store in Musutafu that purported to have a manga section, so he could see what sort of "garbage" they were peddling. Through his searching, he'd found this little no-name store.
And so, through said store, he had been introduced to the story of Hana, a girl whose quirk let her understand the secret language of plants. A girl who was the only member of her school's gardening club... And who fell hard for a mysterious new exchange student after he joined her club and brought the roses in the garden back to life. Everything about him was a mystery to her, a mystery that she'd slowly been unlocking over the course of the story. Supposedly, in the new volume, she'd actually learn his quirk... though fan theories online posited that the boy was quirkless, and that was why he'd transferred between three schools before he wound up at Hana's.
As Kousuke arrived in the back corner where all of the manga was kept, his eyes scanned the small collection of shelves. Up and down and all around, where was it? Where was the new volume? Was it... Ah. There it was. Right at waist level, on a table below the shelves. The new volume, the only one left!
Kousuke smiled softly to himself as he reached out to grab it.
Bloom