Kuroha Akira stretched once more, his joints protesting after hours of hunching over the keyboard. The outline was complete, the foundation laid—but as he turned from his desk, he realized he wasn't alone in his late-night vigil.
There, beside him, was Shinomiya.
She was sprawled face-down on the table, her head resting on folded arms, emitting the soft, steady breaths of deep sleep. Her sleeping face was peaceful, charming even... but he had to admit, the defenseless look with a tiny trail of drool escaping the corner of her mouth in the early morning hours? That was somehow even cuter. More real.
He glanced at the clock. It was already the dead of night—or early morning, depending on your perspective. Shinomiya had worked a full day, then practiced voice acting all night alongside him. Her physical and mental energy had to be completely depleted.
But sleeping like this, slumped over a hard table, wasn't good for her. When she woke up, she'd feel stiff everywhere, and her arms would be numb from being pressed against the wooden surface.
Kuroha Akira considered his options for a moment, then decided: he'd carry her back to her room.
As he moved to lift her from the chair, he noticed a piece of paper tucked beneath her arm. He carefully extracted it and glanced at the contents.
It was filled with notes—problems she'd encountered during her voice acting practice, and potential solutions she'd brainstormed. Her thoughts were remarkably comprehensive, covering everything from tonal shifts to emotional delivery at specific lines. She'd even noted which characters required more breathiness versus clearer enunciation.
She was following his instructions to the letter, trying to compensate for the deficiencies in her character voice acting through sheer analytical effort.
Kuroha Akira felt a strange twinge in his chest.
He'd originally said he would listen to her practice, guide her through the rough patches. But he'd been so consumed by his own light novel that he hadn't paid any attention to how Shinomiya was doing. Not once had he checked in on her progress.
Yet she, on her own, had already discovered numerous shortcomings and found ways to address them. She was self-correcting, self-improving.
It was like people with perfect pitch—they could hear a song once and transcribe a complete, accurate score in their minds. Such people inherently knew how to continue improving without external guidance. Genius was exactly that: "natural talent." The ability to become self-taught without a master. They always knew the right direction, never took detours, never wandered down wrong paths.
Even without him, Shinomiya could surely become a top voice actor on her own.
The thought made Kuroha Akira feel like a fraud. A super-sized liar.
Before she'd even gotten started, he'd boldly proposed a fifty-fifty split, knowing full well that the average agent commission was only 10% to 15%. Even top agents rarely exceeded thirty percent, with most operating on a twenty-eighty split—twenty percent to the agent, eighty to the talent.
Of course, the exact ratio depended on the power dynamic between artist and agent, and whether the agent was independent or assigned by an agency. In Japan, with its hyper-developed entertainment industry, the division ratios could be brutally extreme. The worst agencies operated on ninety-ten splits—the artist receiving a pitiful ten percent of their own earnings. Pure sweatshops, those places.
Which meant that when the time came to choose a voice actor agency for Shinomiya, he'd need to be just as careful as he'd been today when selecting a publisher for his novel. The wrong choice could trap her in an exploitative contract for years.
For an ordinary person dreaming of becoming a voice actor, having any agency willing to take them was considered lucky. But with Shinomiya's talent, she had the right to be selective. She could pick the best.
But if things continued like this, once Shinomiya fully understood the industry and realized that "Kuroha Akira seems to be just a burden," she'd probably end their partnership proactively. Why would she need a middleman who didn't actually do any middleman things?
So before that happened, he needed to invest more "cost." More favors. More kindness. So that when the time came for her to repay those debts of gratitude, she'd have to give up more in return.
Like now. Taking her back to her room. Covering her with a blanket. Small gestures that would increase her favorability, little by little.
The thought solidified his resolve. Kuroha Akira slid one arm under her shoulders, the other beneath her knees, and lifted her from the chair in a princess carry.
She was lighter than expected. He carried her carefully to her room—his room, technically, but they'd swapped for the night—and placed her gently on the lower bunk.
Today, they'd just have to switch beds. He'd take the upper bunk for once.
But just as Kuroha Akira was about to cover Shinomiya with a thin blanket, his eyes caught something that made him pause.
Her legs.
Specifically, her two beautiful legs, still encased in those white stockings from earlier.
Don't misunderstand. He wasn't having impure thoughts. He was genuinely wondering: could she really sleep well wearing such tight thigh-highs?
In his experience, sleeping with socks on was incredibly uncomfortable. In his previous life, even on his most exhausted days, he never forgot to kick off his socks before collapsing into bed at home. That constricted feeling was unbearable once you were trying to relax.
If short socks were bad, thigh-high stockings had to be worse. The compression, the tightness around the thighs—it couldn't be conducive to quality sleep.
Women who didn't like wearing stockings often cited exactly that: the uncomfortable, constricting feeling. Men only saw the aesthetic appeal—the way stockings looked and felt to them. But women had to actually wear the things. Comfort mattered too.
Though he had to admit, pantyhose worn inside stockings were closer to leggings, with better warmth retention. Those were actually popular among girls for practical reasons. Pantyhose were the best compromise between form and function.
Anyway. To ensure Shinomiya had a good night's sleep, Kuroha Akira decided to help her remove her stockings. There was absolutely no dirty ulterior motive here. He definitely wouldn't take the removed stockings and... do things with them. Absolutely not.
Kuroha Akira knelt on the bed, leaning close to Shinomiya's thighs. He didn't roughly yank the stockings down—that would be clumsy and might wake her. Instead, he inserted his index fingers into the edge of the indentation left by the thigh-highs, where the elastic had pressed into her skin. Then he hooked his fingers slightly and rolled the entire stocking downward, much like removing a pillowcase from a pillow.
Perhaps because Shinomiya's thigh skin was exceptionally smooth, or because the friction coefficient between skin and stocking was optimally low, the white fabric slid off in one fluid motion. The stocking rolled neatly into a white donut shape, like a condom two sizes too large, if such a thing existed.
Kuroha Akira repeated the process on her other leg with equal precision.
With a pure heart, his technique remained divine.
Task completed, he placed the two rolled-up white stockings neatly aside, pulled the thin blanket over her sleeping form, switched off the light, and quietly left the room.
The door clicked shut.
Silence.
Then, from the lower bunk, a rustling sound.
Shinomiya, who had been lying perfectly still, curled her body inward and hugged her legs tightly against her chest.
What Kuroha Akira didn't know—couldn't know—was that Shinomiya had actually woken up while he was carrying her downstairs. She'd been pretending to sleep the entire time.
Her Acting proficiency, now at Lv1, had allowed her to perfectly deceive his eyes. The steady breathing, the limp limbs—she'd sold it completely.
But when he'd lifted her in that princess carry, her heart had started racing so fast she'd worried he might actually hear it through his chest. She'd focused on keeping her breathing steady, and thankfully, he hadn't noticed.
And then... then he'd removed her stockings.
When Kuroha Akira's fingers had slid into the elastic band at her thighs, Shinomiya had nearly cried out. The sensation had been overwhelming.
She understood, logically, that he was only removing them to help her sleep better. His intentions were purely practical. But what she hadn't expected was how incredibly stimulating the process would be.
With her eyes closed, all her attention had focused on her legs. She'd felt every movement of his fingers, every inch of fabric sliding down her skin. And when her thighs were finally re-exposed to the cool air, that sudden sense of liberation had been so intense it almost hurt.
It was as if she'd suddenly comprehended the true purpose of stockings for the first time.
She hadn't felt anything special when putting them on earlier. In fact, she'd found the tight constriction around her thighs somewhat uncomfortable. She'd never expected that removing them would feel this... exhilarating.
Honestly, Shinomiya had always held a certain prejudice against stockings. Her mother wore them often, and she'd always assumed they were invented to please men. "Leg armaments" designed to capture male attention. She'd thought of them as tools of seduction, nothing more.
(The historical irony that stockings were originally designed for men was lost on her in this moment.)
But now? Now she understood. When she wore stockings, Kuroha Akira looked at her legs more. He'd even massaged her feet and calves earlier, which had been pleasant enough. And then, when they came off, she got to experience this unparalleled sense of liberation.
Shinomiya had completely fallen in love with stockings. A type of hosiery she'd never worn before yesterday was now her new favorite thing.
However... the "side effects" were a bit obvious.
Though not as extreme as that morning, there were still... marks. Physical evidence of her body's reaction to the experience.
Fortunately, she was now wearing a freshly purchased pair. The ones she'd borrowed from Kuroha Akira were already in the laundry.
But now these new ones were soiled too. Two pairs in a single day.
"Mmm..."
An embarrassed sound escaped from beneath the covers, muffled by the blanket she'd pulled over her head.
What was she supposed to do? She felt like she was becoming more and more... lustful.
Would Akira-kun dislike girls who were too lustful? The thought gnawed at her as she curled tighter into herself, cheeks burning in the darkness.