The great writer Lu Xun once said, "Can a scholar's business be called stealing?"
By the same logic...
Could a writer's business be called HENTAI, preserving dark history? That was called gathering material! Even the wandering dragon in the hot spring town was gathering material, so who could refute Sogo Doma's claim that he was gathering material nearby?
What was more, XX Sage was not the only one to use gathering material as an excuse. Even Utaha Kasumigaoka herself would use it as a reason to do this and that with him...
Never mind Yukino Yukinoshita—Utaha would surely understand this approach!
Probably...
No, rather, Sogo Doma firmly believed it. After all, people could trust one another!
"I see, Sogo-kun was doing it for research?" Utaha Kasumigaoka did not betray that trust either. Narrowing her eyes, she said in sudden realization.
"Kasumigaoka, you..." Yet Yukino Yukinoshita thought the other girl had lost her mind and wanted to remind her. It could not be helped, though—she was not a writer, so it was only natural that she did not understand the circumstances of gathering material. Thus, Sogo Doma paid her no attention.
Just as Yukino Yukinoshita had said, it was enough so long as the people who understood him could understand him. At least, that was what Sogo Doma thought right now.
"Of course!" He nodded with certainty. See? Utaha understood him after all.
"Question: Sogo-kun, do you know your sales figures?"
Sogo Doma: "..."
Huh!?
Sales figures, he...
He did not make a living by copying literature, so why should he care about that?
"Is this the professionalism of a writer?" After narrowing her eyes again, Utaha Kasumigaoka folded her arms and unconsciously tapped one foot.
If not for the fact that, aside from the copy she bought herself, Sogo-kun's book