Hot Gimmick, Vol. 5

In company-owned rabbit-hutch apartments live tenants who can't afford to live anywhere else, and the apartment complex in which high-school girl Hatsumi Narita lives is ruled over by the rumour mongering, self-righteous Mrs. Tachibana. Get on Tachibana's bad side, and life becomes hell. When Hatsumi has to buy a pregnancy test because her popular sister Akane is late, Mrs. Tachibana's son, Ryoki, who used to bully Hatsumi as a kid, promises not to tell the world about Hatsumi's secret, only if she becomes his slave. Suddenly Azusa, Hatsumi's protector in their youth, reappears to save her again! He's moving back into the neighbourhood! Despite the budding romance between Hatsumi and Azusa, Ryoki has control over her through the secret that could ruin the lives of everyone in Hatsumi's family, and he hasn't forgotten who his slave is! Increasingly attracted to her former "master" Ryoki, our heroine Hatsumi asks him to a movie, but things get complicated (of course), when a jealous Ryoki starts to take umbrage at Hatsumi's relationship with her (adopted?) brother Shinogu, which looks suspiciously "too close for comfort" from what he has seen. Then Shinogu decides to take himself out of the picture by moving out of the house...All this and more in the latest volume of Hot Gimmick, one of the most talked-about new manga titles coming out of Japan!