My Sister is Bronya

"Oh, then let's just head straight to the hotel."

"...Oh." Ishiu felt something was off about that statement. If they got caught by the police, wouldn't Kiana taking a minor to check into a room count as something shady?

Before long, the two found a hotel that wasn't too fancy, but not shabby either—just a perfectly ordinary one.

Kiana used her ID to easily book two single rooms. They each took their keys and entered their respective rooms.

"You really get what you pay for." Looking at the clean, comfortable room, Ishiu couldn't help but think back to that fly-infested hotel from yesterday. The difference was like heaven and earth.

Sitting on the bed, Ishiu pulled out his phone out of boredom, wondering if Miss Mei had messaged him.

But Raiden Mei hadn't sent him anything. After a moment's thought, he figured he couldn't just let the girl always make the first move, so he sent a text: 'Made it home?'.

Then, out of habit, he started browsing through the phone.

Ishiu wasn't a phone addict. To him, a phone was just for calls and texts, maybe photos at most. In his past life, people had even teased him for being like someone from ancient times.

He didn't see what was so fun about phones, and Raiden Mei's model was an older brand. Though well-maintained, it was already a bit slow and had limited features.

He scrolled idly, and before he knew it, he'd stumbled into the photo album.

"What the hell?"

The next second, Ishiu's eyes went wide.

The reason was simple: in that album were photos of Raiden Mei.

Whether she'd forgotten to delete them or not, Ishiu clearly saw them. Miss Mei in the photos was stunningly beautiful. She wore a white dress and a sun hat, with a travel backdrop. In the picture, she was smiling so brightly.

Chapter 47: "Let Me See!" "Bro Qi, No!"

Huh... look away, look away!

Ishiu awkwardly averted his gaze, then stood up, planning to put the underwear on the bathroom counter. He figured it must have been something Kiana accidentally left behind, and there was no way he'd walk over to return it to her—that would be way too awkward.

So he'd just leave it there. When she remembered, she'd come get it herself.

But before he could act, the door to his room slammed open with a bang, and a big white fluffy ball came charging in.

Kiana spotted the white strip of cloth in Ishiu's hand in an instant, and her face flushed bright red like a monkey's butt.

"Kiana, you—"

"Shut up!"

Biting her lower lip, equal parts embarrassed and furious, Kiana rushed up to Ishiu, snatched the underwear from his hand, and yanked it back.

"You little pervert, what were you planning to do with my underwear?! Were you, were you going to do something like that?"

To be fair, Kiana's knowledge base was pretty solid. Despite her carefree attitude, she knew that some teenage boys liked to use girls' clothes for... unspeakable things.

"Where's your head at?" Ishiu's forehead lined with three black streaks. "I just found it in the bathroom and was about to put it on the counter for you to pick up, and then you came barging in. Speaking of which, you're... uh..."

Ishiu trailed off mid-sentence, unable to continue. Because Kiana, in her excitement, had moved a bit too wildly, and the towel wrapped around her was now hanging loose.

Well, this...

That had to be about the size of four Bronyas combined.

"Mm!"

Kiana noticed her own situation too. Unlike other girls, she didn't let out an earth-shattering scream. Instead, she frantically re-wrapped the towel, then shot Ishiu a fierce glare. "Little pervert! Seen enough?"

"No." Ishiu answered honestly.

To be fair, a sight like that—you could look at it forever and never get tired. That was probably every man's honest thought at that moment.

"Damn it! I'll show you!" Kiana flew into a rage, reaching out and pinching Ishiu's cheek hard. "Still not enough?!"

"Enough, enough." Ishiu didn't resist. Whether intentional or not, he'd taken advantage of the situation. Since he had, a little grievance was only fair.

But Kiana only got angrier the more she thought about it. In all her years, she'd never suffered such a loss. Even her deadbeat dad had never seen her body, and now this brat had.

No way—she wasn't taking this lying down!

"Take off your clothes!" Kiana suddenly shouted.

"Huh?" Ishiu was stunned. What did that mean?

"Didn't you hear me? I said take off your clothes!" Kiana's face was bright red, but a strange glint flashed in her eyes. "You saw me, so I'm going to see you too. That's only fair."

"Ha?" Ishiu was completely baffled. What kind of logic was that? Since when did girls say things like this?

"Ha what ha? Hurry up and take them off! If you don't, I'll do it myself." Kiana threatened.

"Are you an idiot?! There's no way I'm taking them off!" Ishiu finally snapped. He broke free from Kiana's clutches and quickly backed away from this suspected pervert.

"Come on, be good, let me see!" Kiana cracked her knuckles, looking ready to pounce. "You saw my body, so I can't come out at a loss. It's the principle of equivalent exchange."

"What the hell kind of equivalent exchange is that?! I think you've got water in your brain!" Ishiu refused outright. No way—he wasn't some gigolo. If he stripped just because she told him to, where was his dignity?

"Hmph! If you won't cooperate, don't blame me for getting rough." With that, Kiana lunged at him, like a big bad wolf ready to devour a little rabbit.

"Bro Qi, no!"

Ishiu's stomach churned. He'd just gained a much deeper understanding of Kiana—this girl had a screw loose.

After playing hide-and-seek with Kiana for over ten minutes, she finally gave up on her plan to strip him naked.

There was no helping it—Ishiu was simply too agile. Even throwing everything she had into it, she couldn't catch a single hair on his head.

Never mind that they were in a cramped room of barely a dozen square meters; once Ishiu's evasive footwork kicked in, even Kiana, who was no slouch herself, found herself utterly helpless against him.

"Damn it! This young lady is marking this grudge. Ishiu, you just wait!"

In the end, Kiana could only hurl a furious parting threat before storming off to her own room in a huff.

Ishiu's mouth twitched. He suddenly felt that getting along with Kiana from now on was going to be quite the challenge.

After that little episode, Ishiu went through his usual routine of training his mana for two hours, then turned off the lights and went to sleep.

The night passed without incident. When he got up the next morning and saw Kiana again, the girl's face was still sour. She deliberately refused to talk to him, trying to get under his skin.

But Ishiu didn't react at all. In the end, it was she who couldn't hold out any longer and spoke first.

So much for a paramecium being a paramecium. (LOL)

"Ishiu, what do you think about us renting a house?" On the way to their part-time job at McDonald's, Kiana suddenly spoke up.

"What brought this on all of a sudden?" Having spent some time with Kiana, Ishiu had come to understand some of her quirks—she often jumped from one topic to another completely unrelated one in the span of a second, and he was getting used to it.

"It's because staying at the inn is too expensive," Kiana sighed helplessly. "The money I earned from work yesterday—a quarter of it went just to the inn. On top of that, I have to eat. There's no way I can save anything like this."

"That makes sense." Ishiu thought it over and agreed. He couldn't just keep staying at an inn forever, could he? That would be way too wasteful.

"Right, right?" Seeing Ishiu approve of her suggestion, Kiana perked up happily. "I've thought about it—we can rent a place together. That way, we split the rent, and it's good for both of us. What do you think?"

Chapter 48: Renting a House

"Renting together... sure, that works." Ishiu nodded. He had no objections to sharing a rental—it wasn't the same as cohabitation, after all. In his past life, he'd often shared places with others, both men and women, and was long used to it.

"Should we set some ground rules?"

"What ground rules?" Kiana looked confused.

"Rules that both parties in a shared rental agree to follow. That way, we make sure we don't interfere with each other's lives," Ishiu explained smoothly.

After all, he'd signed plenty of those in his past life.

The most ridiculous time was when he shared a place with four girls—the ground rules nearly turned into thirty of them.

"Hmm... sounds like a hassle. Can we skip it?" Kiana said reluctantly. She was the easygoing, carefree type, and anything called "ground rules" sounded way too complicated to her.

"Up to you. If you don't want to, we don't have to." Ishiu shrugged. He wasn't losing anything either way.

"Alright, then. Once we're done with work, let's go find a place to live!" Kiana said eagerly.

"Sure."

Neither of them was the type to dawdle. Once they decided to do something, they followed through.

After finishing their shift, they started looking for rental places nearby.

Luckily, they'd already scoped out the area yesterday, so they weren't going in completely blind.

Soon enough, Ishiu and Kiana found a rental notice on an old residential building.

The landlord was a married woman in her thirties, average-looking but with a very generous figure.

When Ishiu and Kiana approached her about renting, the married woman cheerfully took them to see the place.

The apartment was on the third floor of the building—a standard one-bedroom, one-living-room setup. It wasn't big, mainly because Ishiu and Kiana couldn't afford anything larger.

The room came furnished, ready to move into with just a bag, and it was fairly clean. Both Ishiu and Kiana were quite satisfied.

But the only trouble was... they didn't have enough money for the deposit.

It was pretty awkward. Between the two of them, they'd only worked two days, so they really didn't have that much cash for a deposit.

Even when Ishiu swallowed his pride and called the married woman "Sister" a few times, making her beam with delight, she only gave them a twenty percent discount. They still came up short.

"Crap, we don't have enough. What do we do now?" While the married woman wasn't looking, Kiana pulled Ishiu aside and whispered.

Ishiu rolled his eyes. "What do we do? Nothing! You're asking me like I can just conjure up money out of thin air."

"Ishiu, I think that landlord auntie kind of likes you. How about..." Kiana paused in thought, then suddenly grabbed Ishiu's shoulders and looked at him seriously.

"Damn it! Get away from me! I'm not selling my looks!" Ishiu's face darkened. If the married woman hadn't been right there, he would've loved to smash Kiana's head in.

This idiot actually wanted him to use his charm to get the married woman to lower the deposit.

You say it so easily—why don't you go out and sell yourself instead? That'd bring in money even faster!

"Then what do we do? We can't just go back to the inn, can we? That'd cost way too much," Kiana said, wincing.

"Then... let me think of something." Ishiu scratched his head, running through quick ways to make money. In the end, he realized that all he had to do was look up the criminal code online to find some fast cash methods.

Of course, he wasn't about to do anything illegal. He was a principled, peace-loving model youth.

So after racking his brains, Ishiu could only think of one solution—borrowing money.

As for who to borrow from... did he even need to ask?

Around here, besides Kiana, the only person he knew was Raiden Mei.

Sure, borrowing money from someone he'd only met a few days ago was a bit awkward, but Ishiu had no other choice. Besides, he felt that Raiden Mei wasn't the type to sweat the small stuff, and it wasn't like he wasn't going to pay her back.

So Ishiu asked the landlord to hold the apartment for them while they went back to get the money, then dragged Kiana out of the residential building.

"Ishiu, how are you planning to get money?"

"Borrow it." Ishiu replied as he sent a text to Raiden Mei, first asking if she was free—since at this time of day, she might be in class, making a phone call inconvenient.

"Borrow it? Do you even have a friend you can borrow from?" Kiana was a bit surprised.

"I don't know if I can actually get it. It's just someone I met two days ago." Ishiu answered with complete candor. "If I can't borrow it, then we'll have to think of another way to get money."

"What way?"

"You're in pretty good shape, right?" Ishiu glanced at Kiana, answering off-topic.

"Of course I am. My body's amazing." Kiana patted her chest with some pride.

"Great. Then if we can't borrow the money later, we'll go busk on the street. You know how to smash a rock on your chest, right? I believe in you." Ishiu patted Kiana on the shoulder and said with a straight face.

"I'll smash your big head!"

While they were bickering, Raiden Mei replied to the text, saying she was free now. Ishiu then sent another message, asking if he could come see her—he had a favor to ask.

Raiden Mei responded quickly this time. She said yes, and added a smiley face emoji.

Whether it was Ishiu's imagination or not, he felt like Raiden Mei seemed genuinely happy that he was coming to her for help.

So Ishiu took Kiana along, and the two of them hopped on the number eleven bus—their own two feet—spending half an hour to get to Senba Academy.

Raiden Mei was already standing at the school gate, as if she'd been waiting for a while.

"Mei!" Ishiu called out and hurried over.

"Ishiu, you're here." Raiden Mei turned at the sound of his voice, and when she saw Ishiu running up to her, an involuntary smile spread across her face.