Inou-Battle wa Nichijou-kei no Naka de - Volume 7 - Chapter 3

Chapter 3 ★ July and a Tense Colorful Bow Go to the Pool with a Reader

It was a perfectly lovely day out. The sun shone high in the sky, and the air was downright scorching. One could hardly have asked for more appropriate pool weather.

“By the way, Sayumi—don’t ‘scorching hot’ and ‘freezing cold’ have, like, a really cool two-sides-of-the-same-coin sort of aesthetic going on? They could totally be a paired set of special moves, or titles for a character with a split personality, or something... Oh, but wait! Maybe it’d be even cooler to swap them around? Like, one personality could be ‘The Freezing Hot’ and the other could be ‘The Scorching Cold’!”

I hadn’t the foggiest idea how to reply to Andou’s nonsensical gibberish, so I refrained from commenting entirely and just kept walking.

“But, man, tough luck, huh?” he continued. “Can’t believe Maiya ended up having summer classes right when you got a pair ticket to the pool!”

“Very much so, yes. A stroke of bad luck indeed,” I replied.

The two of us had just gotten off the bus and were now walking together toward the water park’s entrance. The bus in question had been full of couples...which is, perhaps, why I’d found myself feeling so oddly uncomfortable, in an awkward sort of way. In all likelihood, this was just me being paranoid, but nevertheless, I couldn’t help but think that the people around us were assuming that Andou and I were a couple as well. He had seemed entirely oblivious to the possibility, of course.

“Y’know, I actually ended up at this pool just about a week ago,” said Andou.

“Oh, is that so?” I replied.

“Yeah. Chifuyu and Kuki invited me, so the three of us came here together.”

“Well, then... I suppose I’ve imposed upon you by inviting you today.”

“Ah, no, that’s not what I meant! I wasn’t complaining!” Andou quickly clarified. “It’s not like the pool stops being fun after the first time you go, right? I don’t mind at all!”

“I appreciate the reassurance,” I said.

We stepped into the facility, presented our ticket at the reception desk, then reached the locker rooms.

“Okay, see you in a minute,” said Andou as he stepped into the men’s room.

“Quite. We’ll meet by the poolside,” I said, stepping into the women’s room in turn...or rather, pretending to do so. In truth, once I was certain that Andou was gone, I returned to the entrance lobby where the reception desk was located.

There, after passing by a few decorative plants, I spotted a particular young man seated on a nearby couch. He was wearing a Hawaiian shirt, a straw hat, and a pair of sunglasses. I had to assume that outfit was his attempt at going incognito, but it also gave the impression that he was enjoying his summer to the point of excess.

“Good morning to you, Takanashi,” the young man said cheerfully as he noticed me, then stood up.

“Frankly, I’d have to say it’s a little late for a greeting like that,” I replied. “We spent a whole bus ride together, after all.”

“Fair enough, I guess! Still, it just feels wrong to not give a real greeting when you meet someone face-to-face—so good morning, Takanashi,” he repeated for good measure. He was acting so polite and proper, it ended up coming across as disturbing in its own right.

“Good morning, Sagami,” I said in return.

Sagami gave me a satisfied smile. “Anyway, I’ve gotta say, you and Andou have a really nice mood going! I was watching you from the back of the bus the whole ride, and if I didn’t know better, I would’ve been convinced the two of you were a couple!”

I didn’t reply, and after a momentary pause, Sagami grinned. “Psych. But would you have been happy if I really did mean it?” he asked as he leaned in to peer at my face. “Oh, the awkward pleasure of fretting over whether or not you look like a couple! Not to mention the frustration and irritation at the fact that your partner doesn’t seem to share any of those worries! I could feel all those conflicting emotions fighting within you, just by watching your back! Very nice, really. That’s exactly how a maiden in love is supposed to act!”

He wasn’t mincing words, to say the least. It felt like he was seeing through me—like he’d invited himself into my mind and was now stomping about without even bothering to wipe his shoes at the door.

But no. That’s not quite right. In his case, I could say with reasonable confidence that he hadn’t seen through me at all. He didn’t have any real, objective perspective into my mind—rather, he was theorizing. He’d observed my actions, my attitude, my expressions, and my word choice, and he’d used those factors to guess at the innermost subtleties of my heart, as if he were a reader, theorycrafting about the motivations of a character in the story he was consuming.

“All right, time’s a wasting! We’d better get started,” said Sagami, sounding like he was enjoying every second of this experience. “This’ll be a very special arc, featuring a rare opportunity for reader participation! ‘Make Takanashi Sayumi the Main Heroine Project, Round Two: The Heart-Throbbing Pool Chapter (Nip Slips Included!)’ kicks off, here and now!”

“...”

There will be no “nip slips.” Absolutely none whatsoever.

“I’m offering you my help. Feel like accepting it? If you do, I’ll make you into the main heroine.”

I suppose you could say that I’d clung to the proverbial spider’s thread, or chased the bluebird of happiness, or perhaps made a deal with the devil. However you wanted to describe it, the literal fact of the matter was that Andou’s so-called acquaintance had appeared before me and said those words shortly prior to the beginning of summer vacation.

Sagami Shizumu was an incomprehensible young man of unfathomable origins and motives. He was a self-proclaimed “reader,” and you could understand where his unique sense of perspective and values were coming from just by the name he’d given his plan: the “Make Takanashi Sayumi the Main Heroine Project.” He seemed to have a proclivity for viewing himself as a reader of other people’s stories. He kept others at a distance, drawing a line between himself and the rest of the world such that he could observe it from that outside perspective. He just watched, treating the things he saw as if they were matters of no concern or a distant mirage, smiling happily all the while.

One might say that he was firmly dedicated to acting as an onlooker, but personally, I saw things with a slightly different nuance. After all, he seemed to have no ironclad principles and took pride in nothing whatsoever. The fact that he was willing to step in and meddle in my affairs was proof enough of that. He called himself a reader, but very much did not limit himself to that standard. He didn’t just watch—he intervened, when it suited his purposes. Perhaps, in his mind, the freedom to act so inconsistently is what defined the status of a reader?

Of course, in the end, no amount of pondering his motives would have done me any good. What really mattered was that he’d offered me a hand and I’d chosen to accept it. I was no drowning woman grasping at straws, to be clear. I had chosen to let myself be wrapped up in his scheme by my own free will, not under duress. I was no victim—I was the perpetrator, undeniably complicit in Sagami Shizumu’s misdeeds.

The project he championed was already well underway. Its first stage—“The Flashback Arc (A Staple of Any Long-Running Manga, As Long As You Don’t Drag It Out till It Gets Boring)”— had already come to a close. That development had occurred a few days after summer break began. I’d paid a visit to Andou’s house and heard the story of his time in the eighth grade, the time when he’d given up on his chuunibyou, straight from the horse’s mouth. One might call it his origin story—the story of how he’d become Guiltia Sin Jurai.

In unraveling that tale, I had learned about Andou’s past, and in doing so, I had learned who our story’s main heroine was—that is to say, whom Sagami Shizumu recognized as our story’s main heroine. That brought us to today, to the project’s second stage.

“All right, Takanashi,” said Sagami in an irritatingly gleeful tone. “I’ve brought a swimsuit for you to wear to the pool today, so I’ll need you to go ahead and put it on.”

“Absolutely not,” I replied, curtly, bluntly, and above all else, definitively. I’d anticipated that he would make a demand along those lines since the moment he’d proposed the pool as our destination today, but this was one thing that I had no intention whatsoever of taking his advice on.

I was Sagami’s accomplice, for the time being, and he had essentially entrenched himself as the mastermind of our plan, but that didn’t change the fact that I held the right to veto his decisions. I also had a sense of propriety, and while this may be a rude way of putting it, Sagami was an incorrigible degenerate whose sheer perversion beggared the imagination. I’d only interacted with him a sparing few times, but those meetings were more than enough to give me an uncomfortably clear understanding of that fact.

There was simply no way that I would ever wear a swimsuit he had chosen. All of my internal alarm bells were blaring at maximum volume. It was a given that he’d picked out something preposterously shameless.

“Oof,” said Sagami. “It kinda hurts to get rejected that bluntly! Don’t you trust me, Takanashi?”

“No. Not even slightly,” I replied. Least of all when it comes to anything proximal to the erotic.

“Ha ha ha! I like how you don’t sugarcoat things, actually!” said Sagami. “But, that said...I also had a feeling you’d say that, so I swapped your swimsuit out in advance.”

“...Pardon?” I said. I couldn’t believe my ears.

“Well, really, I got your little sister to do it. I asked her to swap it out with mine last night. I was pretty worried that you’d notice, honestly, but judging by how surprised you look, I guess you didn’t catch on after all.”

“That’s... You couldn’t possibly have...” I stammered, but then, a question even more important than the matter of my swimsuit struck me. “You’ve spoken with my sister, Sagami? How on Earth did you contact her...?”

“I mean, the normal way? She has a Twitter account, so I just followed her and slid into her DMs.”

Well, that’s...certainly a modern way of getting in touch with someone.

“Maiya sure is a great sister, huh?” Sagami continued. “She really did her part to help her big sis’s love life out! Or, at least, that’s how I’m gonna frame it, whether it’s true or not.”

“A word of warning, Sagami. If you lay so much as a hand on my little sister...well, I trust that you understand what sort of consequences you’ll face,” I said, making no effort to hide my hostility.

Sagami just shrugged. “Ooh, I’m terrified! Don’t worry though. Maiya’s a real cutie, don’t get me wrong...but the thing is, it looks like she’s already got a boyfriend. I’m a virgins-only sorta guy, so that puts her right out of my strike zone.”

I gritted my teeth. Hearing that my little sister was out of someone’s strike zone put me in a rather conflicted state of mind, but knowing that he in particular wasn’t interested in her was most definitely a good thing.

“By the way, Takanashi,” Sagami added, “how’s it feel to know that your little sister’s got some real romantic history while you haven’t even had your first boyfriend yet? From a big sister’s perspective, I mean.”

“I’d rather we drop this topic,” I replied. As it so happened, I felt rather conflicted about that as well.

Maiya was, well...to start, her personality could hardly have been less like mine. She was making the most of her time in middle school, enjoying her youth to the fullest, which was something I most certainly had not done. She boasted many things that I lacked, and I was proud of her for them, certainly...but when it came to love, I couldn’t help but feel that I was lagging behind her as well. You could say I had something of an inferiority complex brewing in that respect.

“’Kay, I think that just about covers it for now,” said Sagami, bringing the conversation to a premature close. “I made sure to pick something that’d look good on you, so don’t go backing out on me, okay?”

“What? W-Wait just a—”

“Better hurry! You wouldn’t want to keep poor little Andou waiting much longer, would you?” Sagami said, brushing off my protests as he strolled away.

I walked into the changing room, stepped up to a locker...and felt like I was going to drop dead on the spot. The sheer weight of the regret and shame that assailed me was simply more than I could bear. Ruinous despair the likes of which I’d never felt before shrouded my heart in impenetrable darkness, and not so much as a glimmer of light was left in its wake.

I had yet to check inside the bag I’d packed my swimsuit in. I was afraid—petrified—to think that the moment I opened it, my life as a woman could very well come to a premature end. I was, well and truly, in an unprecedented fix. How could I have ever anticipated that Maiya would stab me in the back? Though, of course, she probably thought she was helping me rather than betraying me. This, frankly, was one time when I wished she’d just minded her own business.

I took a moment to breathe, then glanced down at my bag. It was perfectly nondescript in every possible way, yet it seemed to be emanating a palpable aura of darkness. Sagami had chosen a swimsuit for me...and I simply couldn’t imagine how that could ever turn out well. Would it be the sort of swimsuit an exhibitionist would choose? Or, considering the sort of person he was, was it more likely that he’d picked out the sort of school swimsuit that certain fetishists slaver over? Or perhaps he’d gone in the opposite direction and chosen a frilly, cutesy swimsuit that would never suit me in a million years...? I wouldn’t put it past him to try and make me wear a...a l-l-loincloth, even!

In spite of all those apprehensions, I couldn’t afford to stand in the locker room forever. Andou was almost certainly already waiting for me poolside. “All right,” I said to myself. Whatever happens, happens!

I mustered up all my resolve, then I opened the bag.

Please, let it be a school swimsuit! Just spare me the loincloth, if nothing else! I silently pleaded as I looked inside... And then, my eyes widened.

“H-Huh?”

“Ah, Takanashi! You put it on! Nice!” said Sagami as I stepped out from the locker room. He’d been lying in wait in the space between there and the poolside. He was still wearing the straw hat and sunglasses, but he’d also changed into a swimsuit. I’d been sure that he’d go home after making contact with me—or rather, I’d desperately hoped he’d go home after making contact with me—but it seemed he was planning on skulking around to watch us for some time longer.

“Yup, yup,” he said. “It really does look perfect on you. Better than I’d thought it would, even!”

“How very kind of you,” I muttered.

Sagami had prepared a plain white bikini for me. It was completely unembellished and perfectly simple in its design. The fact that it was a bikini made it somewhat revealing by default, of course, but as far as bikinis went, it covered perhaps an above-average amount of skin, and it was perfectly reasonable by any standard. After how I’d been trembling with fear at the thought of what sort of outrageous outfit he’d force me into, the reality of the situation almost felt like an anticlimax.

“Knowing you, I was certain you’d pick something far less reasonable than this,” I said.

“Ha ha ha! Oh, you wound me!” said Sagami. “You could try and have a little faith in me, at least! Think about it—how could I have given you a crazy sexy swimsuit when I had to have your little sister make the swap?”

“A valid point,” I said with a nod. “In any case, I’m relieved. Part of me was convinced you’d try to make me wear, well...a loincloth, for instance.”

“A loincloth...? You’ve got one hell of an imagination,” Sagami said. He sounded a little weirded out, and knowing how much of a pervert he was made that tone hit far harder than I’d expected. I’d been genuinely terrified by the prospect, so I wasn’t exactly happy about my fear being made light of.

“Anyway, it’s time for you to head to the pool! Andou’s already waiting for you farther in,” Sagami said as he glanced down the passageway. “I don’t have any other orders left to give you, really. Just have a blast and make the most out of your pool day with Andou. I’m sure it’ll make for a great memory,” he said with a perfect, seemingly genuine smile.

“All right,” I agreed, then stepped past him to make my way to the pool area.

Perhaps, I reflected, I’ve been reading too deeply into Sagami’s actions. Thanks to the story that Andou had told me, I’d wound up keeping a very high guard around Sagami, but I was coming to understand that he acted solely for the sake of his own entertainment. There wasn’t anything malicious about the way he conducted himself. If I were to describe him in a positive fashion, I’d say that he was innocent but lacked self-awareness, and if I were to describe him in a negative fashion, I’d say that he was insensitive and unfeeling. For better or for worse, he was driven purely by curiosity and his sense of self-satisfaction.

Sagami was attempting to deepen my relationship with Andou exclusively because that was a scenario he wanted to see play out. As such, it seemed reasonable to assume that he wouldn’t take any actions that would diminish my standing in Andou’s eyes. In that sense, I was beginning to think that I might be able to trust him—or at least, that I could trust in his driving desire to entertain himself in whatever way he chose in the moment.

“Oh, right! Almost slipped my mind—one last thing,” Sagami said in an incredibly unconvincing affect of forgetfulness just before I left the passageway.

“Y’know those swimsuits they use in porn shoots that go see-through the moment they get wet? You’re wearing one, so watch out for that.”

My mind went entirely blank. A wave of dizziness swept over me, and I very nearly fainted on the spot. He’d said it in a perfectly innocent, perfectly insensitive tone, and by the time I was able to process and understand the meaning of his words, I’d already stepped out into the pool area and into the line of sight of Andou, who was waiting there for me. “Ah, Sayumi! You sure took your time,” he said as he walked toward me.

Ah.

Agggh.

Aaauuuggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

I was a fool. Trusting Sagami Shizumu for so much as a second had been the very height of stupidity.

To my dear departed grandmother,

I fear that this may be the end for me.

All throughout my life, I have diligently striven to be a woman as strong and beautiful as you were. I have my fair share of imperfections, but nevertheless, I have made self-improvement my constant and consistent ethos.

However...I have erred. Here, on this day, I may well have rendered all those efforts meaningless. My womanhood...may not live to see another dawn.

I can only beg you to forgive me for the shame I have brought upon myself. And if, perchance, my womanhood joins you in heaven before the day is out, I ask that you greet her with open arms and offer her the consolation she will surely need.

“Sayumi! Hey, stay with me, Sayumi! Wh-What the heck happened?! Your eyes rolled all the way back in your head for a second! Don’t tell me you totally suck at puppy dog eyes too?!”

“...Ah!” I gasped as I snapped back to reality. It seemed that I had very nearly passed out on my feet. The situation was so overwhelmingly irrational and humiliating, it had genuinely almost rendered me unconscious—no, it had very nearly killed me. Suddenly, I felt closer to my departed grandmother than I had in years...

“Excuse me,” I said. “I just had a slight dizzy spell, that’s all. It’s nothing to worry about.”

“Really...? Well, if you say so,” said Andou. There was still a note of concern in his voice, but I was in no position to alleviate his worries.

A swimsuit that would turn transparent when wet... I wasn’t acquainted with pornography on the whole, unfortunately, so it goes without saying that I’d never seen one of the swimsuits in question, but it wasn’t hard to imagine their function and purpose. If I let myself be splashed with water...I would find myself in an obscene state of dress indeed.

I bit my lip with frustration. The sheer shame of it all felt like it might drive me mad. Could anything be more disgraceful than wearing a see-through swimsuit in a public venue? Just one slip, one splash, and I’d be labeled as an exhibitionist for the rest of my lifetime.

I-I’m still okay right now, aren’t I? It’s...It’s not see-through yet, is it? Surely it wouldn’t happen at random, would it?

“Anyway, that swimsuit—”

“Is something wrong with it?!” I yelped.

“Huh?” Andou said, gaping at me.

“I’m asking you if something’s wrong with my swimsuit! Is there anything strange about it?! If there is, you have to tell me, now! Hurry!”

“Uh, I mean... Er, like... I was just gonna say you look good in it, that’s all...”

“O-Oh. Is that so...? Well, thank you,” I said, then sighed with relief. Thankfully, it seemed that so long as the swimsuit wasn’t wet, it was entirely indistinguishable from an ordinary article of clothing. There was at least some semblance of a silver lining to the situation.

That being said...this wasn’t sustainable. There was simply no chance that my mental fortitude would last if the situation didn’t change for the better somehow. We were at a water park in the middle of summer, full of attractions and adventure. Water was constantly splashing about everywhere you looked. Spending a whole day here without exposing yourself to so much as a drop of it was an outright impossibility. My best option, clearly, was to leave and change back into my normal clothes at once. I could buy a replacement swimsuit from the park and avert disaster before it could strike.

“I’m sorry, Andou. I seem to have forgotten—” I began, then trailed off with a quiet gasp. The moment I’d turned around to beat a retreat, I was greeted by a truly gut-wrenching sight.

There, in the corner of my peripheral vision, hidden in the shade of one of the decorative trees by the poolside, was a sunglasses-wearing boy holding an assault rifle at the ready, its sights trained upon my, well...my groin. Needless to say, that boy was Sagami, and equally obviously, his assault rifle was a water gun.

The distance between us was considerable, but given the size of his water gun, I couldn’t rule out the possibility that I was within its range. Sagami held its stock pressed to his shoulder, posing like a world-famous assassin as illustrated by someone who had heard of proper shooting technique, at best. Truly, it was a stance worthy of the phrase “I’ll blow a hole through that pretty face of yours!”

Under ordinary circumstances, a water gun would be nothing to fear. At that particular moment, however, it was even more terrifying than an actual gun would have been. One pull of the trigger, and my womanhood would be sent to an early grave.

“H-Hey, Sayumi? Is something wrong? You’re making a face like Golgo 13 and Jigen Daisuke both have you in their sights at the same time,” said Andou.

I wanted to question what sort of face that was supposed to be, but I feared that the description was most likely entirely apt. It was the fearful, despairing face of a woman who knew that the right to determine whether she lived or died lay squarely in the hands of another.

“I-I’m fine, thank you,” I said.

“Okaaay... Well, that’s good, I guess,” said Andou. “Anyway, you said you forgot something?”

I hesitated for just a moment. “No, never mind. I was just imagining it. It won’t be an issue after all,” I finally said.

No sooner had the words left my mouth than Sagami lowered his rifle. His sunglasses made it difficult to tell exactly where he was looking, but his delighted smile was plain to see. I wanted nothing more than to drive my fist directly into his stupid, smirking face.

In any case, it was plain to see that I would not be permitted to escape from my predicament. I had no choice but to ride out my time at the pool while wearing that novelty swimsuit. Why, oh why have I been dragged into this humiliation fetishist’s dream scenario? Did I do something to earn the ire of a buddha in a past life, perhaps? Or otherwise...perhaps this is my punishment for taking advantage of Andou’s goodwill and dragging the story of his past out of him?

“Umm... Sayumi?”

“One, two, three, four!”

“Sayumiii?”

“Five, six, seven, eight!”

“Hey, Sayumi! I’m talking to you!”

“One, two... Oh? Is something the matter, Andou?”

“I mean, kinda...? Just how long are you planning on doing warm-up exercises for? You’ve been at it for thirty minutes already!”

“Andou,” I said in a stern tone. “You mustn’t underestimate the importance of warming up before you go for a swim.”

“Right, I get that, but, like...thirty minutes? That’s gotta be overkill!”

Yes. Yes, it most certainly is! I am well aware of that fact, thank you very much!

I wasn’t trying to buy myself time, per se. I was just so scared of what was to come after my warm-up was over that I couldn’t bring myself to bring it to a close. The thought of extending it in perpetuity and warming up until the day was over did cross my mind, but I was well aware that wouldn’t be feasible.

I brought my warm-up to a close and headed toward the pool area with Andou. All sorts of people were frolicking about in all sorts of pools. There was a lazy river, a water slide, a shallow pool for children—the facility had something for everyone and could be enjoyed by any and all comers. Everywhere I looked, water abounded. A splash here. A wave there.

This is...truly terrifying. Who knew that a pool could be such a fearful facility? I mustn’t let my guard down for so much as a second!

Every time water splashed within my field of vision, I shuddered with fear. I couldn’t stop myself from imagining the worst-case scenario, and each time it crossed my mind, I felt a chill race down my spine as my face blazed with heat. My body temperature was running entirely amok.

I’m certain now. I can’t take this. There was simply no way that I could enjoy my time at the pool while I was in this state. More to the point, while this was the sort of pool where the ostensible goal of many of the attractions was to not fall in the water, going an entire day here without touching water in any capacity was simply impossible, no matter how athletic you were. Perhaps I should feign a stomachache and suggest that we spend time somewhere I won’t have to get in the water? The food court, say, or the footbath? I felt a little guilty about the idea, but it seemed like my only reasonable option.

“Umm, Andou,” I began.

“All right! We’re gonna have a blast today!” Andou shouted with a full-faced grin before I could finish my suggestion. “You have no idea how much I’ve been looking forward to this, seriously!”

“...”

“Coming here with Chifuyu and Kuki was fun and all, but, like, I was the old one there, right? It sorta felt like I was their chaperone, so I didn’t get to really go crazy or anything. Not today, though! I’m gonna pull out all the stops and go totally wild!”

“...”

“Let’s make this a day to remember, Sayumi!”

“...Sure.”

I-I can’t. I can’t say it! Just look at the excitement shining away in his eyes! How am I supposed to suggest we stay away from the pools in the face of an expression like that?! Ugh... How on earth did it come to this? I should be enjoying my day at the pool to the fullest, not jumping at splashes! I was just as excited for today as he is before everything went wrong!

“Sayumi, Sayumi! Look!” Andou shouted. He’d vanished from my side before I knew it, and when I looked over in the direction his voice was coming from, I saw him standing in a shallow pool intended for young children. “Take this! Water Style: Water Dragon Missile!” he shouted as he dipped his hands into the water, then splashed it in my direction!

In spite of the overblown attack name he’d shouted, in truth, all he’d done was splash water in my direction. It could hardly be considered an attack at all, assuming the person using it wasn’t named Arlong, and under ordinary circumstances, it wouldn’t have posed a problem to me at all. I certainly wasn’t petty enough to get upset about being splashed by a little water—that was, after all, what we’d come to the pool for in the first place.

These, however, were not ordinary circumstances. Today, a little water was a matter of life and death.

“Hiyah!”

In that split second, my body reacted on pure instinct. I kicked off the ground with such force you’d think I was trying to take flight, dodging away at just below the speed of sound. Every ounce of martial arts experience I’d accrued—all the judo, aikido, and practical self-defense skills I’d ingrained into my muscle memory—manifested in unison for the singular purpose of dodging that splash. And dodge it I did. By the time the water splattered harmlessly against the ground, I was several meters away.

I paused, speechless. If I may be frank...even I was somewhat horrified by the level of speed I’d just displayed. I’d been driven into a corner, pushed to an extreme, and it seemed my body had manifested a burst of superhuman strength in an effort to carry me to safety. It felt like I’d left sound behind me in my wake.

“Huh? Wait...wha?” Andou gasped with astonishment. He’d looked for me in entirely the wrong direction at first, as if I’d left an afterimage in my wake that had thrown off his perception. It took him a moment, but he finally turned to face me, his eyes as wide as dinner plates. “Wh-What the heck was that? Shunpo? Sonído? Or was it Hirenkyaku? Did you use Fullbring to pull that off, or what?!”

Frankly, I was just as shocked as he was. My body had moved on instinct, far faster than my mind could process. As a result, I’d managed to move faster and more fluidly than I ever had before. I had truly attained the Selfless State. It seemed I had taken another step toward understanding the true essence of the martial arts...though I would have preferred to have done so under absolutely any other circumstances, if at all possible.

“Sayumi...” said Andou. “You’re not supposed to run by the pool, you know?”

“That’s not an issue,” I replied. “Strictly speaking, I crossed a great distance in a single, swift pace. I was, technically, not running.”

“Okay, but that sounds a lot more dangerous than running, in my book... Also, what was that you shouted? ‘Hiyah’? First, that was super friggin’ cool, and second, it really made it look like you were using some sort of ancient secret martial arts maneuver!”

I wished he hadn’t pointed that out. I’d shouted like that in the heat of the moment, and I already regretted it. The fact that he’d called it cool just made it all the more embarrassing to think about.

“Andou? You’re going to give me a heart attack at this rate, so I’d prefer if you wouldn’t try to splash me without any warning,” I said.

“O-Okay, then,” said Andou.

“And on a related note, I would appreciate it if you did not splash me today under any circumstances.”

“Okaaay...?”

Andou looked downright mystified. I knew that he could be surprisingly perceptive and reasonable, though. If someone told him not to do something, he would most assuredly not do it, so I felt safe in assuming he wouldn’t try to splash me for the remainder of the trip. Of course, a surprise splash was just one of myriad threats that I’d surely face before the day was up.

I took a moment to collect myself. All right. It’s about time I resigned myself to my plight. No amount of standing around and regretting my mistakes would turn back the clock, and a master assassin was constantly lurking in the shadows, making escape an impossibility. I was well and truly stuck, with enemies on all sides. The situation was beyond dire...but I was done hesitating. My shame had escalated so far it had wrapped around again and brought me into a state of total composure.

If this see-through swimsuit is a trial that the gods have chosen to impose upon me...then let it be so. I’ll overcome any and all obstacles that are placed in my path! In the name of my grandmother, I shall prevail!

And so began my long, solitary struggle. It felt like I was forever ascending that thin, fragile spider’s thread, dancing precariously in the air. I was fighting an endless battle, and even a moment’s complacency would spell my instant and horrific demise. My opponent: the water park, and every last drop of liquid within it. Water itself was my foe. Well, one of my foes.

“Ah, look, Sayumi! That log bridge over there looks super fun, doesn’t it?! Let’s give it a try!”

Andou, who theoretically should have been firmly on my side, had wound up turning into a remarkably troublesome enemy.

“All right, let’s gooo!” he shouted as he charged toward the floating obstacle course. It comprised logs, boats, bananas, and whatever else have you, all made out of soft, buoyant material. The goal was to jump from platform to platform, making your way across the pool without falling in. It was a lot like the obstacle courses you see on variety game shows every once in a while.

“Hup! Woo! Hiya— Ugyaaahhhhhh?!” Andou wailed. He’d made it all of three steps into the course before he lost his balance, his foot slipped, and he tumbled head-first into the water. Hop, step, jump, plummet—a perfect wipeout, truly. From an athletic standpoint, his performance scored a zero out of ten, but from an artistic standpoint, I gave him full marks.

“Pfhaaah!” Andou gasped as he surfaced. “Man, I sure took a dive there! Did you see that? Talk about a wipeout! That was downright artistic, if I do say so myself! C’mon, Sayumi, you give it a try— Wait, whaaat?!” he yelped, on account of the fact that by that time, I’d already made my way across the finish line.

Needless to say, I’d done so without coming into contact with so much as a drop of water. I’d quickly and quietly conquered the obstacle course, using the bare minimum of motion to carry myself across the pool.

Andou still looked astonished by the time he dragged himself out of the pool and walked over to me. “When the heck did you cross the course, Sayumi?” he asked. “And, like, how? Those platforms are so slippery and wobbly!”

“Hah! Laughable!” I declared. “An obstacle course of this level is child’s play in the face of the Takanashi-Style Art of Locomotion!”

“What the heck happened to your personality in the last thirty seconds?! And since when has the Takanashi Style been a thing?! Have you turned into one of those characters in school stories who go on and on about their family having run their Last-Name-Style dojo for generations in the blink of an eye, or what?!”

I had to admit, I was in a rather unusual mood...but if I didn’t keep that nervous energy going, I knew I wouldn’t be able to last through the day.

After the floating log course, we moved on to our next attraction. I was hoping that whatever it turned out to be, I could navigate it easily enough to avoid ending up in the water...

“Oh, let’s try that one next! See it? The huge log roll one! Holy crap, that thing’s tall! I bet it’d hurt like heck to fall off it, even with the water down below!”

...but alas, it seemed that Andou specifically gravitated to the sort of attractions that turned up on game shows—or at least, that was my best attempt at an explanation for his interests.

“Oh, man... I bet falling off that thing would make for such a good shot...”

A “good shot,” really...? And is it just me, or is he already assuming that he’ll be falling off it? I was right: his mind was firmly stuck in variety-TV land.

On one side stood a boy who was thinking entirely in terms of game shows that subjected comedians to slapstick contests of physical prowess. On the other stood a girl wearing a swimsuit that would turn transparent when exposed to water, special-made for the sake of pornography. I could only assume at this point that I was trapped in a smutty late-night TV program—one late enough that they could slip all sorts of questionable content past the censors, specifically.

“C’mon, Sayumi! Hurry up!” Andou shouted as he led the way up toward the massive log. We had to climb a fair distance to reach its top, and as soon as we got there, he stepped right out onto it without hesitation.

“Whoa! This thing’s crazy slippery! I mean, like, crazy slippery!” Andou yelped. It had only taken a single step for his ebullient confidence to vanish into nothingness.

Upon a closer look, I noticed that water was being constantly pumped onto the log to keep it slick. Andou, in an attempt to cope with the unsure footing, got down onto his hands and knees and tried crawling across, trembling all the while like a newborn puppy.

“Wh-Whoooah! H-Holy crap, this is scary! I can’t stand up! I’m barely balancing as-is! And I’ve only taken a single step!”

“...”

“S-Seriously, just one step! I’m so close to the starting point, you could totally reach me if you wanted to! Oh nooo, you could push me at any second, and I wouldn’t be able to do anything to resist! I’d fall right away!”

“...”

“Sayumi! No matter what happens, do not push me! Do you hear me? No matter what!”

“...”

Please, don’t look at me like that. The weight of your expectations is too much to bear...

Andou made a habit of complaining about how Hatoko “never shuts up about comedy,” but Andou himself was extraordinarily proactive when it came to staging off-the-cuff comedy routines of his own. Perhaps, I reasoned, what he’d really missed when he came here with Chifuyu and her friend was the opportunity to indulge in this sort of slapstick cliché. It would, after all, be hard for an elementary schooler to pick up on the unspoken signals he was sending.

Personally speaking, I wasn’t especially interested in indulging him...but if I’d left him to fend for himself, he would have just fallen into the water on his own anyway. Just trying to keep his balance already had him trembling, after all. It would’ve been amusing in its own right for him to fall before I could even push him, but I decided to prioritize the classical form of the joke instead.

“Oops,” I said as I shoved Andou’s back with both my hands, as hard as I could.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaahhh!” Andou screamed, putting on a textbook show of comedic terror as he plummeted into the water below with a wonderfully satisfying sploosh. “Pfffhah! Hah, hah! Damnations! You got me good this time!” he bellowed with rage. His expression, on the other hand, had “Thanks for that!” written all over it.

W-Well. I suppose what really matters is that he’s having fun.

“Okay, your turn, Sayumi! It’s my turn to be the pusher!” Andou called up to me.

I’m sorry—since when has the “Don’t you dare push me” game been something you take turns playing?

Andou climbed out of the pool and raced back up toward the rolling log. He clearly had every intention of paying me back and pushing me off it. I, meanwhile, obviously had no intention of letting that happen.

“Okay, Sayumi, get ready for— Whahuh?!” Andou yelped with shock. By the time he’d made it back to the log, I was all but finished crossing over to the other side. “N-No friggin’ way... You just walked straight across it?! But the footing was terrible! And you were walking like a model strolling down a runway, even!”

“Precisely,” I said. “The worse your footing gets, the more important your posture becomes. Focus on the soles of your feet, keep your eyes wide open, and pay careful attention to each and every step that you take. If you can master that, then you’ll be able to walk on even the most perilous of roads with ease.”

“Wh-Whoa! That sounds really convincing, actually...”

“It is said that all things in this world arise from a single point of origin, and however much they may change in form, that origin will never waver. Thus, if you can learn to ascertain that origin, all things in this world become paths for you to walk, whether they be the surface of water or the air itself!”

“Whoa! Now it sounds super sketchy!”

“To be is to not be, and to not be is to be. All is ever-shifting, and all is ever formless. There is more to this world than that which we see with our eyes. Empty your mind, and you will find that nothing is impossible.”

“And now we’ve gone full spiritualist!”

Well. In truth, all that I had done was walk carefully and take my time to ensure I didn’t fall. The rounded surface of the log was rendered quite slippery by the water flowing across it, but all it took to overcome that impediment was a little concentration. It was, after all, an attraction that had been designed for a water park. Of course they wouldn’t make it impossibly difficult to get across.

As to why Andou had flown into a panic, gotten down on all fours, and trembled like a leaf...I could only assume that his inner comedian had taken the wheel and dialed up the intensity of his reaction. What other comedy clichés could I have him play out? Perhaps I’ll have him eat something incredibly hot and see how he reacts to that.

“Aww, c’mon,” Andou sighed. “You should try using your mind before you empty it next time, Sayumi! If you make crossing the log look that easy, you’re gonna make it look like I was totally hamming it up on my turn!”

He had, in fact, been totally hamming it up, so I didn’t see a problem with that. Regardless, Andou kept grumbling as he held out his arms to balance himself and crossed over the log without issue. As expected, his newborn fawn act had been a complete and deliberate overreaction. I wasn’t planning on calling him out on it, though. After all, I was rather fond of watching his overblown reactions.

“He he he,” I giggled softly, then crouched down and took hold of the log—which Andou was still only halfway across—with both hands.

“Huh? Er, S-Sayumi...?”

“Now then, Andou,” I said as I flashed him the best smile I could muster. “I’m sure you’re familiar with the principle of comedic repetition?”

Then I shook it. It was a simple obstacle designed for children to surmount, yes, but I had a feeling that this single added factor would make its difficulty skyrocket. And, sure enough, Andou lost his footing almost immediately and plummeted toward the pool once more.

“Wait, wha— Ah. Aaaaaaaaahhh!”

This time, there wasn’t anything phony about his form as he fell or about his bloodcurdling scream. It was all very authentic.

Yes, that’s much better. This is how comedic pratfalls should be. Staged, exaggerated incidents have their own appeal, to be sure, but in the end, nothing beats unvarnished reality.

He he he.

Andou dragged me here and there throughout the water park, subjecting me to dangerous attractions of all shapes and sizes, and I pushed my ability to concentrate to its absolute limit as I dodged one imminent crisis after another. I’d managed to spend the better part of the day at the pool without being splashed by so much as a drop of water so far, and without letting the boy who accompanied me catch on to what I was doing either.

I was, frankly, astonished by my own accomplishment. Speechless, even. It seemed that I was quite capable when push came to shove. I had found my resolve, and I had spared no effort in realizing my goal, but not even I’d anticipated that it would turn out quite as well as it had. With my virtue facing a moment of crisis, my mind had sharpened itself to a razor’s edge, and with every predicament and near-death situation I overcame, I felt myself surpassing limits within me that I’d long since assumed were insurmountable.

Perhaps I was “in the zone,” as they say. Alternately, perhaps I was experiencing a runner’s high—or rather, considering the nature of the state of affairs I’d tumbled into, a nudist’s high. Whatever the case, a switch had been flipped within me, and I’d gained the ability to sense the movements of any and all water within my vicinity as clearly as if I were touching it with my own two hands. I felt confident that if I were to walk out into a rainstorm in this state, I could dodge every drop as it fell from the sky and emerge from the tempest bone-dry.

Practitioners of kendo have a saying: first comes vision, then footwork, then spirit, then strength. In other words, the most important ability for a kendo practitioner is the ability to observe—to perceive the world around you. At that moment, it felt like my perceptive ability had broken into an entirely new and unexplored realm. My eyes were opened, in a very literal sense, to a new form of strength. I could see everything—everything in this world was as if it rested in the palm of my hand, as if time had come to a stop.

Of course, one might wonder what the point of all this pontificating was. Why was now the time I was going through a power-up the likes of which one normally only saw in battle manga? I certainly hadn’t wanted to discover a new wellspring of strength within me, and even if that had been an aspiration of mine, I would’ve preferred to have had it happen under a slightly more dignified set of circumstances. I would’ve traded my newfound powers of insight for the power to keep my swimsuit opaque any day of the week.

On a related note, I was deeply regretful of the fact that I had not been supplied with a swimsuit that would fall to pieces when exposed to water. If that were the gimmick I’d been dealing with, I would have been able to use Route of Origin—the power to return anything to the way it was meant to be—the moment my swimsuit came into contact with water, repairing it instantly. The one I was wearing, however, would only become transparent when wet. I could repair something that was broken, but I could not turn something that was transparent opaque.

To be fair, I imagine that in some people’s minds, the swimsuit was meant to be in its nontransparent state. I, unfortunately, was of the opposite opinion: in my mind, it was meant to be see-through, if anything. After all, it was incredibly obvious that it had been made specifically for the sake of that quality. I’d been told that that style was typically used in pornography, so it stood to reason that the transparency was the entire point.

Within my circle of supernaturally gifted friends, the general consensus was that my power, Route of Origin, was the most broadly useful of all of our abilities. Unfortunately, its capabilities were based upon my subjective perspective at a foundational level, and that was something I couldn’t adjust freely. As such, the swimsuit Sagami had chosen had driven me into a corner. Not that I thought he’d done it on purpose, of course. He hadn’t known about my power in the first place, so it was clearly an unfortunate coincidence.

“All right, Sayumi, I think it’s finally time for today’s main event!” said Andou, pulling me out of the contemplative state I’d lapsed into. “Let’s give that one a ride!”

Andou pointed at the park’s headline attraction: an enormous water slide that occupied an entire section of the pool area. It looked like a massive blue pipeline that corkscrewed and twisted its way through the air. It called to mind the hydra, a sea serpent straight out of Greek mythology.

“Y-Yes... I suppose that would be on the agenda, wouldn’t it?” I stammered.

“You bet!” said Andou. “Heck, I’d almost say I came here today specifically to ride that thing! Grade schoolers aren’t allowed on it, so I didn’t get to try it out the last time I was here.”

I had assumed as much. I knew perfectly well that Andou wasn’t the sort of person who’d abandon Kuki and Chifuyu so that he could run off and enjoy himself on his own. That being said, while the water slide may have been the day’s main event from his perspective, it looked more like a final boss from mine. It was a truly monstrous foe, on such a different level from all the attractions we’d experienced up to that point one could hardly even compare them.

No matter how you look at it, there’s simply no way to descend a waterslide without getting wet. It’s outright impossible. Utterly inconceivable. And yet...I couldn’t help but think that, in my current state, I just might be able to manage it. With the new powers that had manifested within me over the course of the day, the impossible could, perhaps, become possible.

Thankfully, this particular water slide was one of the larger varieties that was ridden in an inflatable raft. In other words, if I could just perceive every drop of water that our descent propelled in my direction and deflect them with carefully placed palm strikes, there was an ever so slight chance that I could emerge from the ordeal unscathed. It was a preposterous notion, to be clear—impossible by any reasonable standard—but I was still riding my nudist’s high, and it felt like I could achieve any feat, no matter how superhuman.

Yes, indeed. I accept this trial. I shall confront it with all my might!

As the flames of determination burned bright within my breast, Andou glanced at the line for the waterslide. “Oh,” he grunted.

“Is something the matter?” I asked.

“Nah, it’s just... Umm, well, I was just thinking there sure are a lot of couples in line, that’s all,” he explained.

Looking over, I found that he was right. There were indeed quite a few pairs of men and women waiting in line together. The slide allowed its patrons to ride two to a raft, which presumably made it a popular attraction for couples like them.

“Wonder if people think we look like a couple too?” Andou somewhat bashfully muttered. It seemed like he hadn’t intended to say it—like the words had slipped out before he’d thought them though—but in spite of their offhanded nature, they grabbed a hold of my heart and shook it violently, sending all that concentration I’d built up to confront my final boss with into a state of turmoil.

“I... Wha?” I grunted.

“Oh. Sorry! I didn’t mean it in, like, a weird way or anything,” Andou babbled. “It’s just, like... Honestly, I’ve been wondering if we look, y’know, like that since we were on the bus. L-Like, it was full of couples and all, so... I just kinda got all awkward about it...”

I let out a gasp.

But, that can’t be... Huh? W-Wait, wait, wait, does that mean Andou and I had been thinking along the same lines the whole bus ride? But...that can’t be true! He hadn’t looked like he was preoccupied at all! That’s the whole reason I’d felt so ridiculous for making such a big deal out of it...and now you’re telling me he really had felt the same way? He’d felt the same excruciating awkwardness I had? Why did he have to do such a good job of hiding it, then?! I’m well aware of how self-centered it is of me to think that, but how am I supposed to stop myself...? But, no, I shouldn’t be making such a big deal about any of this in the—

“I mean, ’cause, y’know... You’re just so pretty, right? Your figure’s great too, and you’re pulling off your swimsuit so well... So I sorta just thought people must be looking at us and thinking, ‘Man, why’s a girl like her walking around with a schlub like him?’ and I started feeling kinda bad for putting you in that sort of position, or, y’know, something like that...”

I gasped again. Twice.

“Pretty”?! D-Did he just call me pretty?! To my face?! Why now, of all the times?! What is this boy thinking?! And anyway...commenting on how a girl has a good figure—or on her physical traits in general—could easily count as sexual harassment in this day and age, so he should be more careful about running his mouth in that direction! And I’m not just saying that because I’m embarrassed. Absolutely not! Maybe I have put considerable effort into maintaining my figure, and maybe it does feel nice to have it complimented in light of that fact, at least to some very minor extent—but I’m Takanashi Sayumi! I am by no means a woman who would fall prey to such empty flattery! What has he even been trying to say this whole time, anyway? What does he mean “Or, y’know, something like that”? If not that, then what?! Would it kill him to be decisive for once in his life?! Stop muddying the waters and tell me what you truly mean—what you truly think of me! Ah...no, that isn’t what I meant! Pull yourself together, Takanashi Sayumi! You’ve drifted far off topic and jumped to perilously hasty conclusions! Ahh... I don’t even know what’s happening anymore. And moreover, this is no time to be letting myself be distracted like this! I’m supposed to be devoting myself heart and soul to fending off the ever-formidable foe that is this water park, not—

Splash!

“...Huh?”

It was—and, I was sure, would forever remain—the greatest mistake of my life. All too suddenly, the world had poured cold water on my plans in a very literal sense. The line for the waterslide was situated directly next to the end of the slide itself—in other words, where the rafts and their passengers splashed down into the pool. Those rafts, it seemed, traveled at quite the pace, and the splashes resulting from their impact were proportionally tremendous.

Needless to say, that explosion of water sprayed all over the nearby line. I imagined it was deliberate on the designers’ part—a way to alleviate the boredom of the wait, or something to that effect. After all, waiting around is a lot more exciting when a massive splash could hit you at any given moment. The people in front of us were soaked to the skin, but they were all smiling happily, as if this were exactly what made going to the pool such a fun experience. Andou was smiling along with them.

I, however, was not.

“A-Ahhhhhhhhh!” I shrieked in undignified terror as I crouched down on the spot, wrapping my arms around me in a desperate attempt to hide my chest and groin...though unfortunately, covering my rear end at the same time was beyond me.

How could I have failed so utterly? All it’d taken was the slightest wavering in my heart for the powers of concentration I’d honed so sharply to go dull in an instant. Suddenly, I’d no longer had any sense of my surroundings and had wound up floating off into my own little world.

Normally, getting distracted and getting a bucketful of water on your head would be a funny little mishap, but not today. Today, it was an irreparable mistake. I was completely soaked. Every nook and cranny of my body, from head to toe. I could tell that every inch of my swimsuit had been thoroughly drenched.

Well, then. It’s all over. The pure-white fabric of my bikini was assuredly already translucent, rendering me into an obscene spectacle for all the people around us to gawk at. Their gazes poured down upon me like the very wave that had exposed my foolishness in the first place.

“Uh...Sayumi?” said Andou. My reflexive scream had been yet another colossal failure. Thanks to it, he—and everyone else nearby, for that matter—was staring right at me. I couldn’t even begin to count how many eyes had turned upon me, ready to witness my shame.

“I... Ah... D-Don’t look at me! Look away, please! I’m begging you...” I whimpered helplessly. All I could do was curl up in a ball, clamp my eyes shut, and plead for mercy.

The shame of knowing that I’d exposed myself in public was unbearable. It was the sort of shame that strained my dignity as a human being to its breaking point. I just didn’t know what to do anymore, and I could feel tears pooling in my eyes. Someone. Anyone. Please, help me...

“Sayumi! Hey, Sayumi!”

I felt someone shake me by the shoulder, and looked up with a start. My eyes met Andou’s. He was looking down at me, clearly concerned.

“Andou... This isn’t what it looks like,” I said. “It’s not what you think, I swear... I’m innocent...”

“...”

“D-Don’t stare at me like that, please! Just don’t... I’m so humiliated... I might die of shame...”

“...”

“U-Ugh... I-I’m finished... No one will ever dare to marry me anymore. Andou, please...have mercy and take me as your bride... I’ll do anything, so please...”

“Umm, Sayumi?” said Andou. The combination of humiliation and despair had driven me to something akin to a bizarre, backward semi-proposal, but his reaction was quite restrained. “What’re you doing, exactly?” he asked, sounding entirely mystified.

I cautiously, fearfully opened my eyes, and found him still looking at me, obviously concerned about my well-being. The people around me seemed less curious and more plain old confused. Most of them, in fact, had apparently lost interest in me already and were returning their focus to the line for the slide.

That’s...strange. Is a girl wearing a see-through swimsuit really that uninteresting? I wondered as I dropped my gaze downward...then froze, aghast. The pure-white bikini I was wearing was as pure and as white as it had always been. It wasn’t see-through. Not in the least.

I was not, in fact, bewildered. It felt like one moment my mind had been boiling hot, and the next, liquid nitrogen had been dumped over me, instantly returning me to a state of calm, collected logic. I understood what had really happened immediately.

“Umm, hey, Sayumi? Do you, like, hate water slides, or something? Or are you scared of heights...?” Andou asked, but I didn’t reply. I couldn’t even hear him anymore. The shame that had dominated me, from the top of my head to the tips of my toes, was rapidly morphing into an altogether different emotion.

It was the first time I’d ever felt this way. The first time I’d ever truly, genuinely understood how it felt to want to murder someone.

“Aha ha ha ha ha! Now that was a show, Takanashi! Not only did you take me—of all people!—at my word, you did such a good job trying to make it through the day! You were adorable, honestly! You just earned yourself a ton of new fans, I promise! And, I mean...really? How could you have ever believed that swimsuit could turn see-through? It has pads in it to stop that from happening and everything! Trust me, you’d have known if it were one of the swimsuits they use for that sort of porn the second you put it on. You’re clever, and you know all sorts of things, but I guess I’ve got a leg up on you when it comes to sexual stuff, at lea— Gouf?!” Sagami croaked as I stepped right up to him and punched him in the face.

We were on a pathway connecting the pool area to the restrooms. Andou had told me that he “needed to visit the little boys’ room,” and while I was waiting, I’d spotted Sagami as he’d seemed to materialize out of nowhere from the shadow cast by one of the nearby attractions. Presumably, he’d been watching us from back there the whole time, and his smile had been so profoundly upsetting that I’d sprinted toward him as fast as my legs would carry me and driven my fist right into his face. There was no finesse or art to the blow—I’d simply pulled back my arm and let him have it, throwing all my strength into the swing.

Unilaterally punching a defenseless opponent who wasn’t even behaving aggressively flew in the face of all the teachings that had been instilled in me over the course of the many, many lessons I’d taken, and it may very well have undone the martial revelation that I’d experienced shortly beforehand, but I simply couldn’t have cared less. I wanted to punch that man so badly that a sacrifice like that seemed a small price to pay.

Sagami took the strike head-on and was sent flying across the poolside, half rolling, half sliding his way along the ground until he finally collided with a wall and let out a sputtering shout that came out sounding something to the tune of “Hogwarpfhts!” It was almost remarkable how much his grunt of pain had resembled the name of a certain magical academy.

“Oof, ouch... Ahh, crap! I really blew it,” Sagami muttered as he staggered to his feet. “If I’d known I was gonna go ‘gouf’ when I got hit, I would’ve tried to be ready to go ‘z’gok’ when I landed...”

Is that really the part that he regrets? There was a mountain’s worth of more significant things he should have regretted first, by my best estimate. “Having been born” would have been a good start.

“Seriously, though, that hurt!” said Sagami. “What are you thinking, Takanashi? Violent heroines went out of fashion years ago!”

“The archetype you’re referring to only applies when a heroine behaves excessively violently toward the protagonist or one of her other friends, beating them senseless because she can’t express her true feelings in any other way. It does not apply when a heroine bludgeons an enemy in a clear and deliberate attempt to inflict grievous bodily harm upon them. In those cases, no amount of violence is beyond the pale,” I retorted.

“Ha ha ha! Well, you’ve got me there,” Sagami said with a flippant chuckle. He didn’t seem shaken in the least. “Anyway, you really know how to punch a guy out! You got me right in the face, but none of my teeth are broken, and I’m not even bleeding! I’m impressed, honestly. That hurt even less than it did when Andou punched me back in middle school.”

“You’re not upset, I see,” I observed. “I succumbed to my anger and knocked you off your feet, yet you don’t seem to care at all.”

I’d fallen victim to Sagami’s fast-talking and ended up behaving in a genuinely humiliating fashion...but upon further consideration, I had also deliberately joined forces with him and agreed to follow his orders. That isn’t to say that I regretted punching him by any means—and in fact, I would’ve gladly given him another punch or two if given the opportunity—but from his perspective, I had to imagine I was biting the hand that had fed me.

“Nope, I’m not,” Sagami said blithely. “I did something bad enough to earn that punch, after all. Or I guess you could say that I tried it because I wouldn’t mind getting punched after it was over. I just wanted to see what would happen. To watch what would happen.”

“To see what would happen. To watch what would happen.”

Sagami gave me a polite, respectful bow. “Thank you very much, Takanashi,” he said. “I really enjoyed this.”

“I haven’t done a single thing for the sake of your enjoyment today, for the record,” I replied.

“True enough! You spent the day working your hardest to get with Andou, after all.”

I found myself at a loss for words, while Sagami lowered his sunglasses and tipped his hat to hang low over his eyes. “All right, I think that’s enough for now,” he said. “The rest of the day’s up to you—I don’t have any orders in particular left to give. Feel free to get out there and live it up! I’ll be pulling out here. Wouldn’t do to overstay my welcome, after all.”

“You’re finished already?” I asked.

“Oh? What’s this? Don’t tell me you were hoping I’d stick around and keep messing with you? Aren’t you a greedy little girl!”

“...”

“Ah. I, umm, I-I was just kidding! Don’t actually punch me again, okay?”

I lowered my fist, and Sagami let out a sigh of relief. Needless to say, I wasn’t even remotely interested in being messed with by him any longer. That was one role I had no desire to be typecast in. That being said, the fact that he was leaving and telling me to do whatever I felt like was, in and of itself, suspicious. Had he really followed me all the way to the pool just for the sake of the (fake) see-through swimsuit scheme?

“Oh, please, have some faith in me! I swear that today’s plot is well and truly over. There’s only so much you can cram into a single day, after all,” Sagami said. “Haste makes waste, you know? A guy like Andou demands a slow and steady approach. There’ll be plenty of events that’ll help you get close to him from now on. You know, the cultural festival, Christmas, those sorts of things. Right now we’re just sowing the seeds for our future operations.”

I was ever so slightly taken aback. I’d been convinced that at least half of Sagami’s motivation for shoving his way into my love life—actually, make that ninety percent of his motivation—was simply for the fun of it. Shockingly enough, however, he seemed to have a serious long-term plan thought out. I’d been under the impression he was taking this about as seriously as a manga fan would take the sketch-comics they doodled in the margins of their school notebook, and I still wasn’t certain I was wrong about that, but at the very least, he apparently had some intent to see it through and turn his doodling into a finished product.

“Yeah—you’ll have to take it slowly and carefully,” Sagami quietly muttered as he turned his back to me. “Otherwise, you’ll never stand a chance of dragging Kanzaki Tomoyo out of the main heroine slot.”

For just a moment—just a single, fleeting instant as he said her name—the smile seemed to vanish from Sagami’s face. In that brief instant, I glimpsed a deep, almost abyssal darkness hidden away behind his ever-present flippant grin.

“As it so happens, I’ve known about Kanzaki Tomoyo since quite a long time ago.”

“You might say I’m an acquaintance of her brother.”

Kanzaki Tomoyo. Sagami viewed her as the main heroine of our story, while she didn’t seem to see him as anything more than Andou’s friend. I’d never seen the two of them exchange so much as a word, and to my understanding, they’d never been placed in the same class either. In spite of all that, I got the impression that Sagami had some sort of axe to grind with regard to her. What, I wondered, could it be that tied the two of them together? Or could it be that Sagami’s ties weren’t with Tomoyo herself, but rather with her brother?

“Oh, right! Try to keep what I told you the other day in mind, okay?” said Sagami.

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

“Whatever you do, don’t let Andou figure out that the mysterious girl from his past is none other than Kanzaki Tomoyo.”

When Andou was in the eighth grade—when he’d renounced his chuunibyou and despaired at fiction’s false nature—he had ultimately been dragged back into the world he’d abandoned by a single girl. It was thanks to her influence that the Andou I knew had come to be. She’d given him the rules he lived by and become the root of his identity. Her name was Kanzaki Tomoyo.

“Andou hasn’t shown any sign of figuring it out so far, and it doesn’t look like Kanzaki plans on opening up about it any time soon either, but who knows how long that’ll last. Now’s your chance to do a little work behind the scenes and make sure the truth never comes to light, in my book,” Sagami said, driving his point home as he walked away from me.

Oh, I see. Yes...I finally understand.

I knew now why Sagami had chosen me. I understood why he was laying the foundation to turn me into the main heroine...and if I was right, he hadn’t had any particularly compelling reason to pick me in particular at all. In fact, I would almost go so far as to say that he didn’t care who he picked...so long as she wasn’t Kanzaki Tomoyo.

Sagami’s ultimate objective was to take a girl who stood out front and center—the sort of girl who would be plastered across the cover of the first volume of a light novel series—and steal that position of importance away from her. He wanted to flout the conventional, ridicule the clichéd, defy the expected, and desecrate the sacrosanct. He wanted to raise the flag of rebellion against storytelling on the whole.

Andou and I spent the rest of the day simply enjoying our time at the pool. It was a perfectly ordinary and entirely wholesome afternoon. Never before had I realized what a wonderful thing it was to frolic about in the water while wearing a perfectly normal swimsuit that would pose you no problems, no matter how wet it got. Viva ordinary swimsuits!

“Man, today was seriously a blast, huh?” said Andou.

“Indeed,” I replied. “This will make for a wonderful summer memory.”

We’d changed out of our swimsuits and picked up souvenirs for our families from the water park’s gift shop, and with that, our outing was complete. We’d made our way back to the bus stop, where we were currently waiting.

“I honestly didn’t think you were the type to cut loose like that, Sayumi,” said Andou.

“Well... I have my moments,” I replied. All of the frustration that had built up in me over the course of the morning had led me to act in a manner that I must admit was rather unlike me in the afternoon. I’d run wild, enjoying all of the park’s attractions to their fullest. “Of course, you’re hardly one to talk,” I added as I glanced at his hand. “You wouldn’t have bought that wooden sword if you weren’t cutting loose at least as much as I was.”

Why a pool had been selling wooden swords in its souvenir corner was beyond me, but questioning it out loud would have felt somehow wrong. The purpose of those wooden swords, and the reason every souvenir stand in Japan seemed to have a selection of them on sale, was an eternal mystery. The question of why anyone would purchase something so utterly useless, on the other hand, was easily answered: because boys are just dumb like that.

“Oh, you mean Obsidian Orca?”

Annnd he’s already given it a name. Of course. “Obsidian” on account of its black coloration and “Orca” on account of the fact that he bought it at the pool, I presume.

“Mwa ha ha! The Obsidian Orca is a legendary sea beast the likes of which only the white whale itself, Moby Dick, could ever hope to compete with! This blade of mine was forged from one of that mythical beast’s fangs!” Andou declared.

“And how, precisely, was a wooden sword forged from a whale’s tooth?” I asked.

Andou broke eye contact. I took that as a clear sign that he really didn’t want me to dig any deeper into his story’s inherent self-contradiction.

“Did you buy a wooden sword when you came here with Chifuyu and her friend, as well?” I asked. If he had genuinely bought two wooden swords from the same gift shop, I would have been forced to seriously question his sanity, but thankfully, Andou shook his head.

“Nah, I didn’t. I kinda wanted to, but, like...y’know... Not even I’m brave enough to escort a couple elementary schoolers around while carrying a wooden sword, y’know?” he explained despondently. He could have a surprising degree of common sense about that sort of thing, sometimes. Or at least, he was timid enough to make it seem like he did.

“For the record, I’m no more excited to be walking around with a boy holding a sword than they would have been,” I said.

“Okay, but, like... I guess I figured you’d let me get away with it? You’re always really understanding about this stuff when push comes to shove, y’know?”

Well, this raises questions. Just what sort of person does he think I am?

I paused for a moment.

No...really. What sort of person does he think I am? I questioned internally as I watched Andou deliver his interminable lecture on the appeal of wooden swords, his face lit by the glow of sunset. What do you think of me, Andou? It’s been just a little over a year since we first met. I had no interest in you at all at first. Over time, I came to think of you as something akin to a cute little brother, and eventually, I came to notice your kindness and see you as the boy you are...and now, I can’t look at you in any other light. You drew my heart to you, threw it into turmoil, and finally stole it away from me. You made me want to understand you to such an intense degree that I’d even resort to the most despicable means available to me to make it happen...

“Oh! Here comes the bus,” Andou said, then he started quickly rolling Obsidian Orca back up into the wrapping paper it had come in.

Our fun little outing had come to an end. All that was left was to climb onto the bus and ride it home...but I wasn’t quite finished yet.

“Andou?” I still had something left that I had to say. Something that I was meant to say.

“What is it?” said Andou. “Oh, wait, don’t tell me—you want to hear all about my wooden sword collection?! Well, in that case—”

“Kanzaki Tomoyo,” I said, going out of my way to use her full name. The full name of this story’s main heroine.

“Huh...? What about Tomoyo?” Andou asked, sounding rather bewildered.

I didn’t stop. I kept speaking, before my resolve deserted me. “Andou,” I said, “are you aware of the novel that Tomoyo has been writing in her spare time?”

“Yeah, of course,” said Andou. “I dunno if I’d put it that way, though? Like, she’s seriously trying to be an author and submitting her stuff to contests and everything, so saying she’s ‘writing in her spare time’ feels kinda, y’know...”

“No, that wasn’t what I intended at all,” I said. “I wasn’t referring to the works she’s submitted. I meant the novel that she’s been writing in her spare time, purely for herself.”

“For herself...?” Andou repeated as he cocked his head. It seemed he was having a hard time grasping the concept I was alluding to.

If you were to take a sample of ten individuals who identified as novelists, you would likely find that every one of them took a distinctly different approach toward their writing. Some novelists never write a word for any purpose other than their work, while others write in a nonoccupational capacity as well, purely for their own enjoyment. To my understanding, even some professional authors had started uploading works that they’d written for themselves online recently. Some of them were surely aware that doing so could benefit them in the long run, of course, and the line between stories written for work and stories written for fun could be a rather blurry one, but the distinction remained.

“Some time ago, Tomoyo happened to mention to me that she was writing a story entirely for her own self-satisfaction, unrelated to the stories that she tries to write with a professional mindset for the purpose of publication,” I said.

“Oh, huh,” said Andou.

“You should ask her what it’s about, when you have the opportunity. She gave me a quick summary of the plot...and it was a remarkably entertaining story.”

“Yeah, I’ll do that. When I get a chance, I mean. But wait, why’re you bringing Tomoyo’s novel up now?”

“No particular reason. It just sprang to mind.”

With that, we climbed onto the bus and departed for home.

A short while after I alighted from the bus and said my goodbyes to Andou, as I was walking home, I pulled out my phone and dialed Sagami’s number.

“What do you think you’re playing at?” he asked immediately, before I had said so much as a word. His voice was low in pitch, and I felt like I could hear a distinct trace of anger in his words. I’d never heard Sagami speak in a tone like that before.

“Whatever might you mean?” I asked.

“Please don’t play dumb with me, Takanashi. I’m talking about what you said to Andou at the bus stop,” he said. That confirmed my suspicion: Sagami had, in fact, been observing us long after he’d claimed that he was going home. “So, Kanzaki Tomoyo’s been writing a novel for fun... That was news to me, but considering the timing with which you chose to bring it up, I have a pretty good idea what it is you were trying to do.” Sagami spoke quickly—a little impatiently, even.

I could understand why, to be fair. After all...I, his coconspirator, had just stabbed him in the back. I had just ruined his entire master plan. I imagined he’d had all sorts of scenarios laid out for the cultural festival, Christmas, and plenty more events to come, but I’d just torn down the foundation that all of them rested upon, leaving his palace of lies to crumble to dust beneath him.

“I specifically told you not to do that, so why?” he asked.

“Oh, my, so that wasn’t reverse psychology? I was so certain that you were only being that emphatic because you wanted me to tell him. I suppose my comedian’s spirit has led me astray.”

“...”

“I’m kidding.”

“Are you trying to redeem yourself? Paying the price for your misdeeds?” Sagami asked, brushing aside my teasing and going right back to his usual style of theorycrafting. “Do you regret having gone along with my plan to take advantage of Andou’s good nature and drag the story of his darkest moments out of him?”

“I do not,” I replied. Repentance, regret, shame, remorse...I’d certainly felt all of them, at one point or another, but they weren’t what had driven my act of betrayal. “I simply couldn’t live with myself. I could not accept the idea that I was the sort of woman who would let herself be used and toyed with by a person like you,” I said. “Sagami. As of this day, I will no longer play the part of your puppet. I thank you for everything you’ve done for me, and I wish you all the best in your future endeavors.”

A period of silence ensued. Eventually, though...

“Heh...ha ha ha!”

...I heard a weak, lifeless laugh.

“Well, you got me, all right! And to think I taught you about Andou’s past specifically because I thought you’d find a way to keep the truth hidden... I never imagined that you’d be the one who’d make him figure it out. That’s a bit too ironic for my taste,” Sagami spat. “I think I overestimated you. I thought you were smart and calculating...but I guess when romance is concerned, you turn into an honest idiot.”

“I’ll decide what counts as smart and what counts as idiocy for myself, thank you very much,” I replied. “That being said, at the very least, I’m certain that staying quiet and continuing to do your bidding would not have been a smart decision by any means.”

“Are you really sure about this? You know that you stand no chance of ever being the main heroine without my help, right? When an author has their main heroine picked out from the start, it takes one hell of an outcry from the fans to get anyone else paired with the protagonist.”

“That’s more than enough of your meta commentary, Sagami,” I declared, my tone full of undisguised disdain. “I’m sick and tired of enabling your little game of pretend reader.”

I didn’t care about the main heroine, rom-com tropes, or foreshadowing. I was sick to death of hearing him ramble about his incomprehensible values and perspective, and I was putting an end to it.

My name is Takanashi Sayumi. I am not a character in some story, and I am not a heroine in a light novel that stars Andou Jurai as its protagonist. I am a human being of flesh and blood—a perfectly ordinary third-year in high school who has had the misfortune of falling for an underclassman in her club.

“I do have one more thing to thank you for, Sagami. If it weren’t for you, I never would have had the chance to help Andou meet with the mystery girl from his past. Because of your meddling, though, it seems I’ll be able to make the dream he’s been pursuing since he was in the eighth grade come true.”

“And what if he ends up going out with her? What then?” Sagami asked.

“I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.”

“Is this your idea of sportsmanship? Ha ha ha! You know, you’re exactly the sort of person who’ll never win at the game of love. If you don’t learn to be more egoistic, you’ll be a loser for the rest of your life. You’re standing at the top of a slippery slope, but it’s not too late to turn back, you know?”

“Even if that were true, I would still choose the same path. I’d never be able to look my adorable little underclassmen in the eye if I were to disgrace myself in the way you’re suggesting, and that’s something I’d rather avoid at all costs.”

“I just...don’t get it. Why? What drives you to sacrifice so much for the sake of your friends?”

My answer was obvious. I held my head up high, posture perfect, and felt a sense of bright, shining optimism as I answered him without hesitation.

“Because I’m their president.”

☆

“Well...drat.”

I plopped onto the bench by the water park’s bus stop and stared up at the sky. Before I knew it, the sunset had faded and the sky above me had been filled with stars.

To sum up my situation: I’d tailed Andou and Takanashi for the entire day, and I’d missed the last bus home as a result. The shuttle buses that ran to the park, it turned out, stopped running surprisingly early.

I’m sure screwed now, aren’t I? I wonder how I’ll get home? How many hours would it take to walk back from here? But, well, we can worry about that later. For now...

“This just goes to show that broadening your horizons isn’t worth the effort.”

The Make Takanashi Sayumi the Main Heroine Project had ground to a spectacular standstill. Things had failed to go my way so thoroughly it was actually almost refreshing.

Sheesh. I always knew I wasn’t meant to be a creator, and this just proves it. It wasn’t at all uncommon for readers to start writing a novel or a manga on a whim, and it also wasn’t uncommon for those works to peter out in a pathetic anticlimax, just like mine had. Of course, some of the countless readers out there managed to overcome those setbacks, rally their spirits, and put in months or even years of hard work and effort...and those readers, presumably, were the ones who managed to work their way over to the creators’ side of the equation.

Every writer was once a reader. Every writer started from that same point. I, however, wasn’t that sort of person.

I was the sort of person who’d say “Man, this manga’s art looks like garbage” despite never having even touched a dip pen; the sort of person who’d say “Even I could write a light novel that’s better than this” then give up after two or three lines; and the sort of person who’d say “Wow, this game is some hot trash” even though I couldn’t program to save my life. That’s the sort of reader I was.

It felt like Takanashi had gotten the better of me, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little frustrated and indignant about that, but when all was said and done...

“Yeah... Trying to get out of my comfort zone and do something I’m not used to really was a bad idea.”

If something looked interesting, I’d experience it by watching someone else do it from the sidelines. I’d let someone else make my entertainment for me. I wouldn’t be able to have a hand in any of the stories I experienced that way, sure...but in a sense, one might say that was how stories were meant to be.

Oh, I get it now. Well played, Takanashi. You’ve returned your story to the way it was meant to be without even using Route of Origin. I’m impressed, really. I might just go and fall for you.

“Oh... But actually, I dunno about falling for a senior. Not super into how she’s taller than me either...”

But those questions could wait. For now, I pulled out my phone and called up an acquaintance of mine.

“Ah, hello? Is that you, Kiryuu? It’s me, Shizumu of the Sagamis... I mean, sure, you can call me Innocent Onlooker if that makes you happy. Anyway, you know the local water park? I’m there right now, and I missed the last bus out. Think you could come give me a ride? ...What? Who said anything about your Dame Dolor? Absolutely not! You wouldn’t catch me dead biking tandem with a guy. Can’t that hag— I mean, can’t Saitou Hitomi drive the two of you out here? She’s your chauffeur, right? I’m actually in really serious trouble here, so seriously, please come get me!”

That’s when a thought struck me.

“Oh, and while we’re at it, why not catch me up on things? How goes the battle between Hearts and Fallen Black?”

I’d grown tired of the slice of life rom-com I’d been reading...so I decided to jump ship and start reading a supernatural battle story instead. After all, reading all sorts of stories, jumping indiscriminately from one to the next, isn’t unfaithful or insincere in the least. No, it’s just how readers are.