Hajime looked up at his mother. She had that look about her again. It was that exhausted but driven and focused look she got when the deadline was near and the work still had much left to do. Sometimes, in these situations, she accepted help from her son. This was one of those times and Hajime was working diligently… but the manga he was focusing on was different from anything he had worked on before.

"Okasan, what is going on here? Maybe… this scene should be darker?" he asked.

Sumire glanced over the edge of her desk to see what her son was talking about. There shouldn't be any dark scenes in the little slice-of-life piece that she had given him to do. But the scene he was working on wasn't what she expected to see. On the short table where he had been working she saw the scene coming together that portrayed a short boy and a tall girl in a small apartment room. The girl was trussed up in ropes and had a gag in her mouth, and the boy simply stood nearby… taking in the sight of her bondage.

"Where did you get that?" Sumire asked her son.

"This is what you handed me to work on." Hajime answered honestly.

"Oh… this is my fault. I meant to give you something else." Sumire started to reach for a different folder.

"This one isn't facing a deadline?" Hajime asked.

"It is… but if the content bothers you, I could give you something else." Sumire offered.

"If the content bothers me?" Hajime was confused, "I just need to know if this scene should be darker. I mean, is he about to kill her?"

"Oh no, not at all. In fact, this is a love story." Sumire corrected her son's misunderstanding.

"A love story?" Hajime balked. He looked back at the bound girl on the half-finished manga page and wondered if his mother was looking at the same thing he was.

"This piece is is from the Nana to Kauru works. It's a story about those two characters who are in love with each other, but have a different way of showing it." Sumire explained.

"A different way of showing it? You mean, torture?" Hajime asked.

"No. Let me explain the plot." Sumire took a breath and explained as simply as she could, "The girl is one of those successful types. She is active in sports, head of the student council, gets good grades… you know the type."

"Yeah?" Hajime glanced down at the page showing the sensuously bound girl and had a hard time imagining her as a student council president.

"But always performing at that level puts a lot of stress on her. She started to fall apart. Her counselor told her she needed to find a hobby and take a breather from all the pressures in her life. And, long story short, this is what helps her to find balance." Sumire waited to see if he really understood.

"But… wouldn't getting tied up by this guy just make more pressure for her?" Hajime asked.

"You would think so, but there are other factors at play. You see, they both care for each other and she trusts him implicitly… to the point that she would willingly call him her master." Sumire spread out some of the other pages that went with the work to illustrate what she was saying. "And the boy isn't just tying her up like a package. He takes special care to make sure the ropes he is using are clean and properly prepared. Without her knowing, he has taken every precaution to make sure that her little breather session won't endanger her in any way."

"I see." Hajime looked at the drawings in a different way now. He noticed that, even though the girl was immobilized with rope and gagged with a ball that kept her mouth wide open, she didn't look like she hated it. Indeed, he could now see that she was in the throes of intense pleasure. And the boy wasn't just leering at her either. Sure, there was a component of lust in his eyes, but there were also elements of worry, doubt, and caring. "So, they're perverts."

"Yes, but it's up to you to decide if that is a bad thing." Sumire sounded like she was lecturing just then.

"Huh? Perversion is perversion, isn't it?" Hajime asked.

"It is. But is it bad?" Sumire explained, "At it's core, perversion is anything that isn't normal. You do a lot of things that your classmates wouldn't think of as normal, right? But does that make you a bad person?"

"Like what?" Hajime asked.

"Drawing manga with your mother, your fascination with loli girls… to name a few." Sumire smiled.

"I do not have a fascination with lolis." Hajime insisted.

"You may not be honest with yourself, but don't lie to me." Sumire waggled her finger at her son, "I've seen how you follow that cute little teacher of yours with your eyes. Your father and I agree that she is right in your strike zone."

"Okasaaaaaaan!" Hajime groaned, "Enough of that, please? Just tell me how do I know if it's good perversion or bad perversion?"

"Just like anything else," his mother told him, "just ask yourself if it is hurting anyone, or if it is illegal."

"That's it?" Hajime looked back down at the picture. From what he had seen of the manga so far, both the boy and the girl were the same age, and they both looked like they were enjoying themselves. "Huh, I guess this is a good perversion then."

"Yep," Sumire turned back to the work on her desk but couldn't help teasing her son just a little bit more, "And that teacher of yours is a legal loli, so there won't be any problem with you pursuing her as soon as you graduate."

"Okasaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!"

.

"Hajime?" Yue called to her lover. He had been staring at the fire, but now he was just staring off into space.

"Yue?" Hajime snapped out of his memory daydream. Yue was leaning against him and looking up at him curiously. He put a hand on her head and ran his fingers through her fluffy hair.

"What were you thinking of?" Yue asked in her almost monotone.

"Tio." Hajime said simply. He gazed through the flames of the campfire at where Tio and Shea were chatting. He expected to hear some kind of response from his girlfriend but she was silent. Glancing at her he saw a very distressing expression on her face.

"I was thinking about giving her some kind of reward since she has been reliable recently, but if you don't want me to…" Hajime let his gaze wander up to the stars in the sky above.

"She has been quite reliable." Yue admitted. In fact, she had been more like the great and noble dragon folk that she had learned of in her youth… and less like the perverse harpy that she had become since meeting them. Still, Yue wasn't ready to share Hajime with anyone but Shea just yet. "What did you have in mind? Are you saying you want to take her to your bed?"

"Hell no." Hajime rejected that offer immediately. As she was now, she did nothing for him. Not like Yue, or even like Shea.

"Then what?" Yue asked.

"I can't believe I'm even considering this… You see, I think Tio is under a lot of pressure. All of her little pervert outbursts are because she is starting to crack."

"How do you know she wasn't always like this?" Yue asked.

"She is a princess like you were right?" Hajime asked.

"Yes." Yue agreed.

"Could you have remained a princess if you had a depraved personality like hers?" Hajime asked.

"Only if all the other dragon folk are like her… but I don't think they are. None of the tales of their courage and nobility ever described them that way." Yue looked over at Tio and worried about her in a way that hadn't crossed her mind before, "Do you really think she might crack?"

"I don't know." Hajime wished there had been more books about the dragon folk in the great library where he had studied when he was first summoned to this world, but it seemed that most of the references to their race had been purged.

"Is there anything you can do?" Yue believed that if Hajime wanted to, he could do anything and in her heart, she did want to save this dragon folk princess… even if she was an incorrigible pervert.

"Possibly. But, if you knew what I was thinking, it might repulse you, or make you angry with me." Hajime pulled her closer to him and gave her a squeeze to let her know that neither of those things were something he wanted to do.

"Tell me. I'll be with you no matter what you decide." Yue gave him the line that she usually said before they went into battle.

"All right. I'm going to tell you about something called breathers. This is something my mother taught me." Hajime said seriously.

"So, this is something you did with your mother?" Yue took additional interest in this since she knew she would meet his mother some day and wanted to make a favorable impression.

"Kak! Uh, no." Hajime said through a sudden spasm of coughing and choking. "I didn't do it with her. She taught me about it like a lecture."

"And this is something you want to do with Tio?" Yue asked. She wondered if she should be jealous that he hadn't done it with her yet.

"Whether I want to or not, I think it is something that she needs. I'm sure it is something she desperately wants." Hajime answered.

"Tell me." Yue wanted to know now, "Tell me about these breathers that could help Tio."