June Story - Dagashi Kashi: Sugar-Free Love (Chapter 5) (Patreon)

Once Pops left, Kokonotsu closed the front door and went to his office. The pages of his manga were there as he last left them. He picked them up and thought over the ending to his next scene. Once the idea hit, he drew so fluidly that he lost track of time. He remembered a time when Pops told him that the women in his manga were too idealistic. Kokonotsu could never get past a page without getting frustrated about how they looked.

But ever since he met Hotaru Shidare so long ago…

The imagination never stopped.

Five years later and he created enough content for a full season of an anime adaptation. Twenty-five tankōbon volumes. All that was left was actually making the big leap to getting it published.

He flipped through his recent work. He had gone through a love scene where the main character, oddly like Kokonotsu, and the main girl, oddly like Hotaru, expressed their feelings for each other.

He blushed and fidgeted in his seat, thinking about how Hotaru was only a few feet away upstairs in his own bedroom.

His manga was also a way to shoe-in his fetish here and there. The main girl would “accidentally” fart here and there. He spaced those moments out to not make it obvious that he had a fetish. Then again, in today’s world it might be obvious. He even flat-out considered being open about it. After all, manga was so popular now that even the weird king stuff was becoming mainstream. There was that manga about the elf-girl who ate too much, the manga about the guy who liked to smell this girl’s body odor, and to say nothing about all the furry stuff out there! It wouldn’t be long until a manga about farts was published...

But maybe he wasn’t entirely ready for that. Maybe he wasn’t the author to push those limits.

Every time he worked on it, he was both ashamed and turned on. He dangerously walked the fine line that crossed into erotic art. Was it smutty? Was it too much? Whatever it was, he was passionate for it. He put his heart and soul into everything, drawing everything down to a T.

“Coconuts?”

He gasped and covered his pages.

Hotaru had stepped into his office. He stood up suddenly and got in the way of her from fully entering the room.

“H-hey, what’s up?” he said. “You feeling better?”

“Oh yeah.” She rubbed her belly. “Whew, that fart really hit the spot.”

He blushed, looking away. “Heh. Yeah.”

Hotaru looked over his shoulder and beamed. “Is that your manga?”

“Wh-what? No.”

“Lemme see! Lemme see!”

Kokonotsu scooped up all the pages and volumes from his desk and raised it high to prevent her from reaching them. “It’s nothing.”

She reached out with her arms to try and snatch anything she could grab. “Oh, don’t be ridiculous. Lemme see! Just a peek!”

“Be careful you’re going to tear it!”

“So it IS your manga!”

He underestimated just how determined she wanted to see. She jumped up and snatched a volume from his hands. He cried out, and so did she, as they both fell to the floor, papers flying everywhere. Hotaru cackled and bolted from the office with a book in her hands.

“NO!” he cried, scrambling to catch up with her.

Hajime watched dumbly as he chased her out of the store. She was quite the sprinter and was already meters away. He stopped to catch his breath, and then realized with horror that she was already reading it.

He couldn’t watch. He turned around. He froze. He stood there very still for maybe two whole minutes before taking the courage to turn around and face her.

She was still standing by the river reading. The afternoon sun lit up all her features. She flipped the pages over and over. Her expression was difficult to read. She looked relatively neutral reading everything. But then something registered in her as her eyes widened.

“Oh man…” he murmured, massaging his temples.

A couple more minutes ticked by. Hotaru stopped reading. She looked up and stared right at him, lost in thought. She finally approached him. With every step he took, Kokonotsu grew more and more nervous.

“Um…” he said. He thought of some kind of apology for his perversion. Words couldn’t form in his head. He instead was agonized over why she wasn’t saying anything. “Uh…I can explain.”

“This…” she said lowly, raising the book.

Kokonotsu flinched, expecting her to hit him with it. “I know it’s—”

“THIS IS AMAZING! I didn’t realize just how well you drew! It has such a great premise! This is gonna make millions! How are you not published yet? How many of these have you made? You have like a WHOLE STACK of them in your office!”

Kokonotsu flushed. He could have had a heart attack. Did she not realize that the main girl looked like her? That she was so obviously modeled after her?

He couldn’t utter anything comprehensible. He stammered and stuttered. Hotaru slapped the book on his chest and said, “You need to put yourself out there, Coconuts! Keep it up!”

The front door of the house opened. Hajime stepped out and said, “I’m heading out now! Are you going to close up shop?”

“Yeah! Don’t worry about.”

Hajime gave a thumbs up and left around the corner.

“What do you want to do now?” Hotaru said.

“Well. Actually. I was going to wind down for the day. Close up shop and then work on my manga.”

Hotaru grimaced. “Really? Your best friend is back from the city and you’re going to just be alone and do work? I gotta head back to work in a couple days.”

Kokonotsu blanked. She had referred to him as her “best friend”. She never said that before. Even after all these years of not seeing each other, she held him in high regard. He shivered, suddenly feeling weak and vulnerable.

“Come on. Let’s play a game or something.”

“O-okay, like what?”

“I dunno. Anything!”

Kokonotsu was still nervous at the fact that Hotaru read through a volume of his manga. Thankfully, it wasn’t the part of the story where the two characters confessed their love to each other. After scouring the house for games, Hotaru had a sudden urge to play shogi. The two of them sat on the floor of the shop to play.

“So, Coconuts,” Hotaru began, starting her turn, “now that you’ve made a name for yourself here in this town with your dad’s shop…what say you work for my company?”

Kokonotsu scoffed. He hadn’t heard her ask him that in such a long time. A flood of memories came back to him.

“I dunno. The manga comes first. I want to publish that before I take on a job like that.”

“And when exactly do you plan on publishing it? You have enough material there to start!”

He sighed. “I dunno. I have to figure out the right market for it. If it’s even good enough to publish…”

She set a piece down. “Sounds like you just haven’t taken that leap of faith yet.”

Hotaru’s face then scrunched up. Kokonotsu wasn’t sure what she was going to do, until she leaned to one side to let rip a fart. It was loud and abrasive, and the immense strength of it nearly made her yelp.

“Oof!” she said. “That was still stuck in there. Hmmm. There still seems to be more lingering inside.” She once again took out her phone to take notes. “Lingering after-effects. About two hours later. Interesting…”

When Kokonotsu masturbated in the bathroom, the release was so much that he didn’t think he’d have a second go-round. With Hotaru farting again, he became hot and bothered again in no time. Since they were sitting on the wooden floorboards, her farts sounded much louder and had a certain twang that really turned him on.

After letting off a sputtery, wet-sounding one, she groaned, “Ugggghh. My stomach feels like it’s all over the place. I really thought that big one would have gotten everything out by now.” She inspected the bag. “Oh, here it is. This bag has way more grams of sorbitol than the other ones I had. THAT would explain it.”

As they played shogi, she casually leaned to one side to rip a fart. They weren’t crazy loud or long like last time, but they happened frequently, often interrupting her sentences. They still smelled like shit. Kokonotsu tried so hard not to give away that he was sniffing the air more than usual.

“Oof,” she said, after emitting another loud PRURT, “thirty farts in the past…twenty minutes? That’s almost two farts every minute!”

Kokonotsu rubbed the back of his neck. “Heh. Yeah.”

Hotaru smiled at him. “You know, this is exactly why you would be perfect working for me. You don’t mind how gross the science behind it gets. You should have seen me test our cola. I was burping for daaaayyysss.”

Kokonotsu’s heart pounded, both from being horny again and being in love. Hotaru was really staring at him fondly. Her eyes seemed to sparkle. Her smile was so pure.

When they realized they had been staring at each other for a long minute, Hotaru cleared her throat and brushed her hair behind her ears. “Right. Is it my turn?”

“I don’t remember, to be honest.”

Hotaru looked over his shoulder. “It’s so nice out tonight. We should go for a walk.” Then, a sudden inspiration. “I know where to go!”

“Where?”

But Hotaru didn’t answer. She took him by the arm and dragged him out of the house, leaving behind an unfinished game of shogi.