2.32: ChangingThe bus ride to Shirasuna felt longer than the entire semester. We were all impatient to hit the beach and soak up some sunshine.

  Aoi-chan sat with me, with Yuna sitting across from us beside Riko. The two of them kept gncing our way. During the most boring stretches of the ride, Aoi-chan leaned against me, sometimes resting her hand on my thigh a little too intimately for my heart to handle. I’d always blush, torn between embarrassment and enjoying the warmth of her body against mine, leaning my own head against the window. I wasn’t sure which view was better, Aoi-chan’s sleepy, bored face or the scenery rolling by outside as the bus skirted the coastline.

  We stopped at a couple of rest areas on the way and snacked lightly, but very few wanted to ruin their appetite before our real vacation even began.

  As I started drifting off, there was a ruckus.

  “Shirasunaaaaa!” someone yelled from the back as our destination finally came into view. Aoi and I jolted fully awake.

  Everyone screamed in excitement, surging toward the right facing windows together.

  Riko and Yuna dashed across the aisle to our side and practically pressed us into the gss as the four of us stared out expectantly.

  All thoughts of desks, chalkboards, and exam papers vanished from my mind, repced by blinding blue water and a long strip of pale sand that glittered under the mid-morning sun. The boys in particur practically pstered their faces to the windows.

  “Is that a beach or heaven?” one of them excimed. “Just look at that sand gleam—”

  “Forget the sand,” another said. “Think of the swimsuits!”

  A chorus of idiotic ughter followed.

  I tugged my sunhat down over my eyes and tried to sink into my seat. Dumb as they sounded, they weren’t entirely wrong.I was excited to see Aoi-chan in her swimsuit. My own instincts weren’t all that different from the boys in that respect.

  But the thought of them seeing me in one…

  My stomach flipped.

  And then there was Aoi-chan.Her seeing me was one thing.But those boys… Ab-so-lu-te-ly not!

  Even worse, Yuna and Riko had both been staring at me the entire bus ride, each for their own impossible-to-understand reasons.

  I slumped lower.

  Why was I the one feeling most watched?

  “Sumire,” Aoi murmured from the seat beside me. “You’re turtling up.”

  I hunched further.

  “Stop doing that!” She nudged my arm lightly. “Sumire-chan. Don’t disappear in your sunhat! We haven’t even set foot on the sand.”

  “Maybe I should just stay on the bus,” I muttered.

  “There’s no way you’re going to do that. Who knows where you’d end up,” her voice softened, but sounded slightly amused. “You’ve been working hard. You deserve to enjoy this too, you know?”

  Our bus hissed to a stop. Outside, teachers shouted instructions over the rising tide of the students’ excited voices. The doors folded open with a wheezing noise.

  “Okay, everyone,” Kurosawa-sensei called, cpping once to get control of the excited crowd. “Line up! Don’t forget your bags. We’ll gather in front of the hostel to distribute the room key cards. Decide among yourselves who you want to room with. Rooms will hold four to eight students apiece. No co-habitation,” she added sharply, eyeing several boys who immediately defted. “We will be watching for inappropriate behavior. Take good care of your keys. After dropping off your luggage in your rooms, we’ll meet outside the changing rooms.”

  A wave of chatter rolled through our css as we followed her to the front courtyard of the seaside hostel. It was a tall, modern building with rows of balconies facing the ocean. The air smelled of salt and sun lotion.

  “Room leaders, come forward,” Kurosawa-sensei said, holding a small stack of pstic cards that she’d gotten at the front desk.

  Aoi, being Aoi, walked up immediately.

  Riko followed without hesitation.

  Yuna drifted behind them silently, as if she’d been tugged along by invisible strings tied to me.

  I hurried after them, clutching my bag.

  We ended up forming a group with two additional cssmates. Megumi practically begged to join us in our room and the quiet, dependable Hinata accepted her invitation with a soft nod.

  Kurosawa-sensei handed Aoi a keycard beled Room 304.

  “This one has six futons and a bathroom. Keep the room clean,” she instructed.

  Aoi saluted crisply. “We’ll defend it with our lives.”

  “Kurobane-san,” Kurosawa-sensei sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose, “the request was for cleanliness, not a samurai’s oath to a shogun.”

  Riko actually cackled, lifting a hand for a high five at Aoi-chan.Aoi eyed her like it was some kind of a trap, but shrugged and smacked her palm anyway.

  We filed out of the cool lobby together and rode a slightly shuddery elevator up to the third floor that faintly reminded me of another elevator.

  It was probably a horror movie that I saw sometime… but I can’t think of any that were about haunted elevators.

  At the end of the third floor hallway, we found our room. It was a long space with neatly folded futons stacked at one end. Sliding doors opened onto a wide balcony, and a faint ocean breeze drifted in through the open windows.

  Megumi squealed immediately, pressing herself against the gss. “We have an ocean view! Amazing!” She tugged the doors open, letting the sea air rush in to stir her hair.

  I smiled and took a slower look around the room, myself. The bathroom was clean and tidy, with a bathtub and shower, a toilet with a bidet, and a sink with an outlet for hair dryers, curlers or irons. All the usual hotel staples were lined up neatly. Little bottles of shampoo and conditioner, toothbrushes, foldable hairbrushes, lotion, and more. A rge mirror hung above the sink for styling.

  The main room was stocked with a small refrigerator for drinks or food that we might bring to the room, overhead lights, a book shelf stocked with manga and assorted novels, a closet and individual reading mps positioned for our futons. A water heater for tea sat on the counter with an assortment of packets, including instant coffee. There was also a television set tucked into one corner and a low table in the center with folding floor chairs leaned against the wall nearby, leaving plenty of open space for ying out the futons ter.

  Hinata set her bag down neatly. “Our room’s really nice!”

  Aoi tossed her luggage into a corner like she owned the spot.

  Riko pced hers along a wall. “Not bad at all!”

  Yuna unpacked neatly and slid a waterproof first-aid bag onto the shelf. She paused, sniffing the air with clinical focus.

  “The ventition’s excellent,” she murmured, satisfied. “No trace of mold at all in the air.”

  I stood by the sliding doors, taking it all in, my heart fluttering with a warm, unreal happiness at being here with all of them. But beneath that glow was a tiny, inexplicable edge of uneasiness.

  I don’t belong here with them… My cheeks heated.

  “You’re that happy to be here?” Riko asked, cpping my shoulder and sweeping her arm at the entire room and the ocean beyond it. “Pretty cool, right?”

  I nodded, smiling despite the strange tiny knot inside my chest.

  “It is!” I couldn’t imagine a better vacation. The sun, the sea and swimsuits.

  “All right,” Aoi-chan said, snapping her fingers. “Everyone finish dropping off your stuff. We’re heading downstairs in five.”

  Riko crossed her arms with a grin. “Yeah, yeah, Captain Kurobane-sama. No dawdling, I get it.”

  The corner of Aoi’s lips quirked up.

  Yuna checked her watch, brightening, her eyes sparkling with excitement. “Actually, we have less time than that now. Come on, let’s just go now. I don’t want to miss a single minute.”

  Megumi shrieked like she was about to explode. “RIGHT?! The ocean!!! What are we doing?!”

  “Whatever we want to do. Once we hit the beach it’s up to each of us,” Aoi shrugged. “You’re with me, Sumire. We’ll probably get some training in.”

  Hinata looked at Aoi curiously. “Training?”

  Megumi’s face subtly flushed pink.

  Riko arched her back. “They’ve been working at teaching Shinohara-san martial-arts.”

  “Eh? Really?!” Megumi asked, grinning. “Cool.”

  “You were thinking it was something else that they were doing.” Yuna tilted her head at Megumi.

  “Nah… I was just excited to get ready. Everyone grab your swimsuits and anything else you’ll need to swim!” Megumi yelled, rummaging through her bag for hers.

  “Don’t forget to bring suntan lotion.” Yuna said.

  We grabbed our bags, shoving them wherever there was space, dividing up the room. My spot ended up naturally next to Aoi’s, with Riko ciming the space on my other side.

  We grabbed our swimsuits and other things and practically flew back downstairs toward the changing rooms…

  …Toward the beach, the sunlight, and whatever chaos our first day by the ocean was about to bring.

  We spilled out into the light, heat, and noise outside.

  A salty wind rushed over us, cool and sharp against my skin. The sun baked the sand, warming everything it touched. The roar of the waves rolled beneath it all. The air was full of chatter and squeals of excitement, the thump of shoes on pavement, and the soft rush of bare feet kicking through sand. Gulls cried overhead and the air itself tasted like summer.

  “Whoa…” I gasped.

  The beach stretched out in both directions, crowded but not packed, dotted with umbrels, coolers, and inftable rings. Beyond it, the sea shimmered in shifting yers of white and blue, sunlight breaking across the surface in restless patterns.

  “Yatta!!!” Aoi burst out, bouncing on her toes. She hugged the bag with her swimsuit pressed to her chest. “Finally! The sun, the sand, and some room to breathe!”

  The boys immediately clustered together, whispering loudly enough that pretending not to hear things that they were saying was impossible. They were already debating who would “rank highest” in Css 2-B’s swimsuit lineup. I tried to tune them out, but their lewd specutions seeped through anyway, prickling under my skin.

  “Arisugawa-san’ll definitely be top tier.”“What about Kurobane-san? She’s super stacked and really athletic… that body!”“Tachibana-san’s no slouch either… seeing her will complete me!”“And… What about Shinohara-san?” another voice added, a little too eager. “I like shy ones like her the most.”“Yeah… She’s really cute.”“Enough to give you a heart attack.”“Or a never-ending nosebleed.”“It’d suck to bleed to death like that.”“Worth it.”

  Their eyes were unmistakably on our group.

  My face heated instantly. On instinct, I stepped behind Aoi’s shoulder like she was a human shield and I kept the brim of my hat low to hide my reddened face.

  “Rex, Susu,” Aoi murmured, leaning back just enough, putting her arm around my waist. “It’s not that big of a deal to be stared at. They’re boys. If they stare too much, I’ll kick sand in their faces until they beg for mercy.”

  “That’ll just make them like you all the more,” I mumbled, mortified.

  She ughed under her breath, low and wicked. “Oh… if they like that, I’ll give them the full sado experience.”

  The boy’s reactions were varied. Several of them quivered and a couple of them looked like she’d shot them through the heart.

  We were herded toward the changing rooms. It turned out to be a low, weathered-looking building just off the beach, with outdoor showers and a couple of rge, separate rooms waiting inside.

  “The girls’ changing room is on the right, boys stay on the left! Move, move, move!” Kurosawa-sensei yelled as though we were members of the JSDF, cpping her hands.

  The girls surged rightward in a squealing flock. I went along with them, my heartbeat starting to flutter faster now for reasons unknown.

  Why am I so nervous about changing with other girls? It’s no different from the locker room… or is it?

  The inside of the changing room was pure chaos. Bags were everywhere. Girls were shimmying out of their uniforms everywhere, comparing their swimsuits, squealing over each other’s choices, and admiring each other’s bodies in ways that felt almost too lewd to watch up close.

  The styles were scattered across the spectrum. Striped bikinis, frilly two-pieces, elegant one-pieces, sporty racerbacks, sarongs, ce accents. Everything mixed together in a kaleidoscope of feminine self-confidence on full dispy.

  I stood nervously in front of one of the rental lockers, the kind where the key popped out when you cimed it. I cimed mine, leaving the key in for now, working up my courage.

  Okay. Moment of truth...

  DOKI-DOKI

  I opened my bag and pulled out the swimsuit my mother had packed for me. I hadn’t dared peek before.

  Mom wouldn’t steer me wrong, would she?

  My jaw dropped at what I saw.

  It was a two-piece in soft pastel colors, cute and very feminine. Not ridiculously tiny… but absolutely more daring than anything I’d imagined putting on my body in public.

  I wanted to hide under one of the benches, my throat tightening.

  A tiny, terrified flutter went off in my chest, my fingers trembling around the skimpy cloth and my palms dampened with sweat.

  “Why’d she do this to me…?” I whispered hoarsely to myself, as if saying it aloud would somehow make it feel less real.

  Just put it on, I told myself. Everyone else is putting on theirs and some of theirs are much more revealing than this… It’ll be weird if you don’t act properly.

  My fingers still wouldn’t cooperate. They just twitched uselessly, jerking.

  A quiet shadow fell over me.“What’s wrong?” It was Aoi’s voice.

  I flinched, clutching the swimsuit to my chest. “N-nothing. Just… um. Thinking…”

  She blinked slowly. “Thinking… about what?”

  “Yes. Um…” I blushed, looking away. “The best way to um… put um… change…”

  “Uh-huh.” She gave me a long, assessing look. “Sumire…”

  “…What?”

  “Are you scared of your swimsuit?”

  I stared at the two-piece set in my hands, then at the floor. “… yes.”

  Aoi leaned one shoulder against the locker beside mine, her expression softening. She was still in her uniform, her tie loosened, her sleeves rolled up… looking absurdly calm, as if she had all the time in the world to deal with my little meltdown.

  “Your mom picked that for you? Really?” she asked gently.

  I nodded, my cheeks burning. “She put it in my bag. I was too indecisive… So I asked Mom what she thought I should wear. And then while she was picking what she thought I should wear, I excused myself. I really don’t know what she’s thinking…”

  I extended my fingertips like cws, almost dropping my swimsuit. “Does she want me to become a gravure idol or something? What kind of a mother wants that for her daughter?!”

  Aoi smiled faintly. “Your mother has taste. She’s still young at heart. What she was thinking about wasn’t so much wanting to push you into the idol industry so much as building up your self-confidence.”

  “But… but… but… Just because I was a little indecisive doesn’t mean that she needed to go and choose something like this…” I hissed. “If I wear this out there and people look at me saying too loudly, she’s so sexy, I’ll die. I’ll literally die, Aoi. I’ll bury myself in the sand and probably fossilize on the spot.”

  “Hey.” She dipped her head to catch my eyes. Then she stepped in close behind me and folded her arms around me in a firm hold—gentle, but completely inescapable. By reflex, I tried to break free the way she’d taught me, but she already had me locked in a grip she hadn’t shown me yet.

  She guided my face toward the rge wall mirror reflecting everyone and tilted my chin up.

  “Look hard at yourself,” she said quietly. “Do you like what you see, Sumire-chan?”

  I blushed and squirmed against her hold. “I… I don’t know…”

  “What do you see, Sumire-chan?” she pressed.

  Aoi leaned her cheek against mine, her breath warm on my ear.

  “… I… I guess I’m kind of pretty… but…”My cheeks were flushed, my long brown hair spilled over my shoulders, my big green eyes looked soft, uncertain.

  “You’re allowed to like yourself and be confident.”

  “I don’t know if….”

  She paused, then spoke quieter, right against my cheek.“Can I be completely honest with you?”

  My heart tried to break out of my ribs. “O-only if it’s not too honest… I guess.” I blushed harder.

  “The first time I saw you in your gym shorts,” she said, “I couldn’t stop staring at your legs. Oh, kami!”

  Heat roared into my face. “A-Aoi—!”

  “I’m being absolutely honest. Kind of lewd, I know… but you have that kind of an effect on people. Especially me,” she said calmly. “It’s probably something in your eyes. Everyone that sees you knows how gentle and sweet you are. Hehehe… You were always so self-conscious whenever you put on something kind of revealing. You kept tugging at your shorts self-consciously. It was so incredibly cute to watch. But what I remember most while thinking about you is… ‘She has no idea how absolutely lovely she is.’”

  The room seemed to shrink around us. Everyone else seemed to vanish. I clutched the swimsuit tighter against my chest.

  “You’re different… very different from everyone,” Aoi went on. “Anyway, you are absolutely hot. Don’t get a big head or anything. Not just that… you move better than you used to now, more graceful and assertive than you were. You’re definitely stronger. This is your body, Sumire. Yours. No one else’s. If you want to wear this swimsuit, wear it with pride. If you hate it, we’ll march right back to Sensei and demand a school-issued wetsuit instead.”

  The image that came to mind was so ridiculous I snorted. “That would be even worse! The boys would fetishize me so hard—!”

  “I would too. So don’t make me. I’m perfectly happy with seeing you in that swimsuit,” Aoi said it completely seriously as though putting on this swimsuit would be less sexy.

  A ugh escaped me… tiny, startled, but genuine. It broke the tension like a bubble popped with a fingertip. And with it, a little of the fear slipped away, but not all of it.

  “What if I look… weird to people instead of what you think–?” I whispered.

  Aoi’s eyes softened in a way that made my chest tighten. “You could never look weird to me. I doubt anyone else would think that either.”

  “Y-yeah… but you’re biased, baka…” I muttered, my ears burning.

  “Completely,” she admitted without shame, straightening a little. “But I’m willing to bet others will react the same way. Anyway, let’s make a deal.”

  My stomach flipped. “What kind of deal?”

  “We’ll change at the same time… not that I’m saying I won’t peek at you,” she said with disarming bluntness. “When we’re both ready, we’ll step out together. If it’s really unbearable to wear your swimsuit, we go back in and figure something else out. No one’s forcing you to keep wearing something you hate. Your mother didn’t say you had to actually wear it.”

  I hesitated. The noise of the room swelled around us, ughter bouncing off the tiles, zippers zipping, fabric rustling, someone squealing over a cute bikini on the far side. A couple of the girls around us stared at us. It wasn’t surprising, the way that I’d been acting and how Aoi had been holding me from behind.

  All the carefree confidence around me only made my nerves flutter all the more.

  “…Fine,” I said weakly. “But if I die, you have to cast a resurrection spell on me.”

  “I’m sure that there’s a number of ways to get you back on your feet. I have my ways–” Her fingers twitched at me in a way that made me flush and draw back, standing on one leg. She winked, pyful and warm enough that my lone supporting leg wobbled.

  We both turned toward our lockers. I tried my absolute best not to stare at her as she started changing… I tried… but the occasional glimpse slipped through anyway. It wasn’t as though I hadn’t peeked before, but Aoi’s body was just unfair. The sight of her did all kinds of things to me. She was strong, sculpted and feminine in all the ways that made my brain short-circuit. She was peeking at me too, though far more discreetly, focusing mostly on getting undressed and into her swimsuit.

  My face burned hotter with every second.

  Her body is just so gorgeous…I swallowed nervously.Does she really… Well… She did say that I’m hot but…

  Recalling her words alone nearly fried every neuron in my brain.

  Changing felt like defusing a bomb inside my own skin.Shoes off. Bzer off. Blouse off. Skirt off. Stockings off. I hesitated when I reached my underwear, going so far as to keep the sunhat on to hide my face. Mom had insisted on me taking it, telling me that I’d thank her ter for it, and she’d made me promise to use plenty of sunscreen so I wouldn’t come back sun-roasted.

  Don’t think about the mirrors. Don’t think about anyone else’s eyes that might fall on me. Just put the thing on.

  The swimsuit hugged my body in a weird way. My stomach was totally bare, my shoulders barely covered, the pastel fabric clinging in all the pces I wasn’t used to anyone seeing. The straps felt too thin. The bottoms were cut too low, as I was afraid. The bikini hugged my hips below my waistline, making me feel naked. My heart pounded so hard I was amazed no one mistook it for a jackhammer. At least the top adequately covered my chest, but it felt like I was wearing my underwear. The biggest difference was the bows at the sides of the bottom.

  “Okay. That’s it for me. I’m ready. Are you, Sumire?” Aoi’s soft voice came from behind me.

  I swallowed. “I guess so.”

  “Ready to really get a good look?” she asked impishly.

  “On… three?”

  We counted together.

  “One… two… three.”

  We turned toward each other.

  Aoi’s breath caught. I heard it.

  And mine stopped longer.

  Her bikini wasn’t just simple, it was devastating.

  A sleek, dark indigo two piece that hugged her like it had been tailored by divine hands. With a sharp athletic cut, thin supportive straps plunging just enough to make my knees forget gravity was a thing.Her bottom was high on the hips, tied at the sides with small, wicked bows, the kind of cut only someone confident about her body could pull off.Her toned stomach was shown off to great effect. Not just that, it showed off her smooth waist, the curve of her hips, the definition in her thighs and more.

  She looked like a track star turned swimsuit model.It was as though she’d stepped out of a summer romance manga purely to tear apart my sanity.

  She stood there, her hands on her hips, the faintest blush touching her cheeks but her eyes were predatory as she gazed at me.

  Aoi Kurobane. My girlfriend.

  In a bikini that could legally be weaponized.

  Her gaze traveled over me slowly, then steadied when it reached my eyes. For a heartbeat she just gazed at me.

  My stomach flipped. “S-stop staring at me like that…”

  “Sorry,” she said hoarsely. “You’re just… so beautiful.” Her words nded like a physical touch.

  My spine tried to fold over. “Aoi…”

  “You don’t have to believe me yet,” she added quickly. “But at least know that I do think that you are.”

  My chest felt too full, my spirit wanting to tremble and float out of my body.

  Somewhere to the left, a familiar chittering sound piped up.

  I looked down and my jaw dropped.

  Pon-chan?

  A small, furry head popped out of the front pocket of Sensei’s unattended beach bag, his beady eyes gleaming with mischief. He wriggled himself free, dropping to the floor with a soft thump, and took off scampering between people’s feet.

  “Ah—! Pon-chan?!” I yelped.

  Heads turned. A few girls screamed as the ferret rushed past, brushing bare ankles.

  “W-what was that?!”

  “Somebody smuggled a weasel on this trip?!”

  “He’s not a weasel, he’s a ferret!” I blurted automatically, clutching my towel to my chest as I chased after him.

  Pon-chan zigzagged through towel piles, diving under a bench, then sprang up onto it and unched himself at the nearest unsuspecting swimsuit strap.

  “Pon-chan, no—!”

  He tched onto a string bikini tie, tugged at it, and bolted away again, leaving behind a trail of shrieks and a mad scramble to catch falling fabric as breasts and bottoms were exposed.

  “A perverted animal!!” someone howled.

  “I am so sorry!” I excimed, lunging after him.

  He bounded from girl to girl, driven by some unholy mix of adrenaline and curiosity. Hands swatted at him. Towels waved. The room descended briefly into spstick chaos.

  Aoi caught my hand mid-chase. “I’ll grab him. You apologize to everyone before they riot.”

  “He must have somehow escaped his cage even with that carabiner on it and jumped into Sensei’s bag before we left!” I wailed.

  “Yeah… the scamp,” Aoi said, already weaving through the chaos with focused determination. “Pon-chaaaan, come here, you little menace!!!”

  Even as mortification burned through me, a small, insane part of me thought…

  This is what normal school memories are supposed to feel like, isn’t it?Silly and loud. Kind of out of control!

  I couldn’t help giggling.

  Relwing