The Literature Lover's Harem Romance

The Japanese word 'wa-mono' means 'things that are pervert'. It's a neologism, but it's used to describe anything erotic.

I think you can understand the reason why I chose to read a book there.

It was a rainy day when I entered the cafe. The rain was in sheets, but the cafe windows were fogged up and all I could see was my own reflection staring back at me. I had thought there were only a few people, but when I looked around, there were a few tables occupied, including one where a lady was sitting by herself. She was reading a book of some sort. That made me feel more at home - like there were other people who shared my interest in reading so I didn't need to worry about looking weird.

I went over to sit by the counter, and took out my best friend for the day - a classic 19th century English novel that had seen better days with its tattered cover and yellowed pages. As soon as I flipped open the book, I knew something was wrong. The print on the inside cover page was faded and hardly legible - I had only been able to make out 'The Great British Classics' and an address on some street in London. The name of the author seemed to be missing - or rather, it seemed like someone had tried very hard to erase it completely.

It wasn't much of a tragedy, though - I had already read this book twice before. Even if I couldn't remember what it had been called originally (and there were two or three possible titles that could fit), it didn't matter much because the story was quite simple: a lonely young man meets a beautiful young woman who is kind as well as attractive, they fall in love with each other, and they live happily ever after. Sure enough, she died at the end of the book because she wanted her lover not to be sad. But before she died, she got pregnant with their child and bore him...

"Excuse me?" A voice said from behind me. It sounded high-pitched and uncertain, like that of a fourteen year-old girl... except that wasn't really possible because no fourteen-year-old girl would have anything to do with a guy like me anyway; not unless money changed hands somehow. So instead, my brain took over running my mouth to answer her voice as politely as possible: "Yes? May I help you?"

She walked up beside me and sat down across my table without further explanation. Her long black hair billowed gently in midair; her big brown eyes looked at me with curiosity while her tiny hands set down two teacups on our table silently - one for herself and one for me (which meant she knew how this works). She smiled up at me sweetly after setting down hers cup of tea down on the table, then glanced around our surroundings covertly before smiling back at me again. Her face looked just like any other fourteen year old girl's face would look like if she had nothing else better to do than play hooky from school; which made sense because she probably wasn't even fourteen years old - maybe ten or eleven? Maybe nine? Maybe younger? Or older? Maybe older than twenty? Or perhaps... Just maybe...