Chapter 2
The skies were clear the next morning too.
“Morning! I’m super excited!” exclaimed Shirakawa-san when we met up at the station platform.
Her getup was fully suited for a midsummer beach visit. She was wearing a strange top that completely exposed both of her shoulders but somehow still had frills on her upper arms. There was some kind of southern plant all over it... Was this what you’d call a floral print? Anyway, her look totally inspired a feeling of eternal summer.
Her distressed jean shorts were on the short side, and I was worried they might gradually fall apart and put her underwear on display.
Between her outfit, her large bag, and the wide-brimmed straw hat on her head, it felt like she was going on a trip to Hawaii.
“I was so excited that I even went through all my summer clothes to pick out things that matched just right! And I got a new bikini!” reported Shirakawa-san in high spirits. “Hey, whatcha think?”
“Yeah, it suits you,” I replied.
A smile like a blooming sunflower appeared on Shirakawa-san’s face. “Yay!” Getting so happy that I could totally imagine her starting to jump around at any moment, she grabbed my arm. “Let’s go, let’s go! Let’s hurry on a train and go to that beach!”
At Shirakawa-san’s suggestion, we were headed to Enoshima today—an island southwest of Tokyo. Apparently she’d stopped there while on a car trip with her family when she was young and wanted to go there again after all this time.
“Shirakawa-san, do you often go to the beach in summer?” I asked.
We were lucky enough to immediately get to sit side by side on the train we boarded at Station A.
“Nah. I’ve only been going to pools recently...”
“Really? You look the type to be into that sort of thing,” I said.
“Yeah, I do like beaches... But when you go as just girls, it gets annoying how guys try to hit on you.”
“Huh...”
My face stiffened as I involuntarily imagined a good-looking surfer trying to pick her up. He’d totally be overly familiar and say something like “It’s fine, let’s go” or whatever and then wrap an arm around her bare waist... Just picturing it was way too draining.
Would she have gone out with such a guy if he confessed to her while she was “available”? And then she’d get cheated on...
“So I can’t go unless I have a boyfriend, and I’ve spent a lotta summers without one recently.”
I went silent at that.
“But this year, my uncle...” Shirakawa-san was going to continue, but she stopped upon seeing my face. “Ryuto?”
“Yeah?”
“Is something wrong...?”
“Huh?”
She knitted her brows a little. “Um, like, I’ve recently started to figure out, like, what you’re thinking, or how you feel, I think.” As I wondered what she was trying to say, Shirakawa-san stared at me. “When I talk about my exes, you look like you have a few mixed feelings, right?”
“Oh... Uh, well...” I began to panic, thinking she’d found me out.
“You have nothing to worry about,” said Shirakawa-san with a serious look on her face. “I don’t have any connection to any of them. I always delete my LINE account when I break up with someone—’cause that’s the only way they know how to reach me. I get soooooo many complaints from my friends, though.”
“Y-Yeah... I know...”
It wasn’t like I didn’t believe her. This was just a matter of how I felt.
“Sorry I made you worry. It’s not like I’m doubting you or anything,” I added.
“Really?”
“Yeah. It’s my first time having a girlfriend, so there’re a lot of things I’m not used to... I think I’ll eventually be able to do stuff normally, after some time.”
“If you say so...?” She didn’t seem fully convinced, but it appeared she decided to end the topic. “So, like... Wait, what were we talking about?”
“Huh? I dunno...” I replied.
“Oh well. Oh yeah, I started playing a new game last night...”
After that, Shirakawa-san started talking about a mobile puzzle game. I downloaded it too, and we played while sending each other lives, and before I knew it, we’d arrived at Fujisawa.
After transferring to the Enoden train line, we still had five more stations until we got to our destination. Thus, roughly an hour and a half after getting on a train at Station A back in Tokyo, we arrived at Enoshima.
***
And so, we arrived at a beach in Enoshima. It was full of people, and the sun was shining brightly from above. I saw gyaru in sunglasses and rough-looking older guys with undercuts striding around in swimsuits with loud, cheerful music playing in the background. It was enough to give a gloomy guy like me cold feet.
We somehow made our way to a beach hut and rented lockers to get ready. I got changed more quickly than Shirakawa-san, so I waited for her outside, feeling restless.
Her bikini... Her bikini... The mere thought of it was raising my blood pressure. This beach was already so hot that the soles of your feet could burn if your flip-flops came off, and thinking about getting to see Shirakawa-san in her swimsuit...I was worried I might collapse with a heatstroke.
It’s fine. I’ve done enough mental prep yesterday, so even a virgin like me should—
Then...
Lithe hands covered my eyes. “Guess who?” suddenly teased a cute, cheerful voice by my ear.
That fruity-or-floral scent filled the air.
“Sh-Shirakawa-san?” I was so shaken up that I ended up making it sound like a question. It obviously couldn’t have been anyone else.
Sure, it was only her hands, but this was still unexpected contact with her skin. Between that and feeling her breath beside me, my brain felt like it could start boiling over.
“Bingo!” came the reply.
My vision became clear again, and I turned around. What I saw there—
“Ta-da! Whatcha think?”
—was Shirakawa-san in a bikini.
I’d planned to praise her swimsuit no matter what kind she wore, but I couldn’t help going speechless at the sight. It was better than I’d imagined.
Her bikini had a flower pattern, and its outlines accentuated her shapely body. There were plenty of girls wearing hoodies and leggings to avoid sunburn, and Shirakawa-san’s graceful figure in her bikini went past sexiness straight into the healthy territory.
I couldn’t take my eyes off her bikini top supporting her heavy-looking breasts. I normally only got peeks of her cleavage in her school blouse, and those made me excited enough. Now, I could clearly see both her cleavage and the shape of her breasts. Below them, the lines going from her hips to her thighs were soft and wonderful.
A girl with such a divine body was my girlfriend... Our school didn’t have a pool, so none of my classmates had probably seen this side of her.
My heart already raced on a regular basis just from being by her side, so if I got to spend an entire day with her looking like this...and if, by some chance, our skin came into contact... Ah, damn it. I was going mad from thinking so much. My swim trunks were thin, so I wanted to avoid getting too aroused.
“Huh? What? Is something weird?” asked Shirakawa-san, checking all over herself.
Seeing her like that, I set aside my internal celebration of her figure and shook my head in a hurry. “Not at all! It’s just, um...!”
“What? Go on, go on,” replied Shirakawa-san, drawing near without hesitation. She looked curious about what I was thinking.
I wouldn’t be able to keep looking away from her captivating, practically naked body.
Ah, she totally knows what she’s doing. She knows I’m too embarrassed to say anything. It’s frustrating, but there’s nothing I can do...
“Hey now! Is it fun to go on a beach date with a girl in a bikini?” Shirakawa-san continued to tease me, making me wonder if my reactions were really that funny.
“Sh-Shirakawa-san...!”
“Aha ha! Ryuto, you’re all red!” Saying that, she took my hand and pulled me toward the water’s edge. “C’mon, let’s go! The summer will end if you don’t hurry!”
“I-It’s only just begun!”
Still feeling embarrassed about my restless heartbeat and my burning cheeks due to the warmth of her hand, I somehow managed to say that much.
“Hey, Ryuto, could you rub sunscreen on me?” asked Shirakawa-san once we’d placed a blanket on the beach and put down our things. “I can’t reach my back... Could you help me?”
Wh-What?!
“S-Sure.” I gulped and nodded.
She wanted me to rub sunscreen on her...which naturally meant I’d be touching her skin.
“Thanks! Here, use this,” replied Shirakawa-san, handing me a bottle of sunscreen and lying on her stomach on the towel.
Unlike the front of her bikini top, which had some cloth, the back of it only had a single string. Saying that her upper body was practically naked before my eyes wasn’t an exaggeration at all.
Her fair, delicate back... Her hips, somewhat small but still curved and raised in all the right places... Damn. My brain is totally going to boil...
“O-Okay, I’ll get started, then...” I said.
“Great! Please do!”
In contrast with me freezing up from nervousness, Shirakawa-san spoke in a relaxed, cheerful voice.
As I touched her back with my hand with sunscreen on it, it smoothly slid over her light skin. Obviously, it was a little bit warm. The feel of it made me want to rub sunscreen on her forever... Of course, Shirakawa-san would find it creepy if she knew I was thinking such things, so I pretended I was only doing my job and wordlessly put sunscreen on her.
“Oh, rub it under my top too! Just move the string out of the way,” said Shirakawa-san, appearing to have noticed the fact I was somehow avoiding that area.
“Wha... Hwat?! Okay, got it.” I ended up making a weird sound since I was so flustered—I hoped she didn’t notice.
My heart racing, I pulled up the string on her back with my left hand and stuck my sunscreen-covered right one under it. It was still just her back, so why was my pulse rising so much?
“Ngh!”
Hearing Shirakawa-san’s sudden muffled laugh, I stopped moving my hands.
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