The Swimsuit Episode (Part 1)

It was evening by the time Miyako left Gift Publishing, wondering whether she should go home, pay a visit to Nayuta, or go hang out at Itsuki’s apartment for a while.

“Wait a second, Myaa!”

She was flagged down by a prim-looking girl—Kaiko Mikuniyama, age twenty and wearing a large and childlike ribbon (or something closely resembling it) on top of her silky black hair. She would be making her professional debut as a manga artist shortly, handling the comic adaptation of Itsuki Hashima’s All About My Little Sister.

“Oh, Kaiko! Good evening.”

“Good evening to you, too, Myaa!”

The two had come to know each other in late June, just over a month ago. Kaiko, who turned out to be a specialist (some would say fetishist) in the realm of ladies’ undergarments, received a stern lecture from Nayuta after trying to turn all the nude scenes from All About into lingerie catalogs. Miyako was just accompanying Nayuta that day, but one thing led to another, and she wound up becoming Kaiko’s first (nude) model. The fact that All About hero Ichika Akatsuki’s boobs, as depicted in the manga, were just straight-up Miyako’s boobs was a secret Itsuki still wasn’t aware of. Even with all this chaos, the two girls, being close in age, hit it off enough to exchange contact details and go out to eat now and then.

“How is your job at the publisher going, Myaa?” she asked once they had both settled into a nearby diner for a quick bite.

“Mmm, it’s not that bad, really. Nothing super-challenging about it, and there’s actually a lot of downtime.”

“Ohh. That kind of thing, huh?”

“Yeah. Are you out doing work, Kaiko?”

“We’re discussing my rough draft of All About, chapter four.”

“Whoa, the fourth one already? Going along well, huh?”

“Luckily, yes,” Kaiko bashfully replied.

The manga version of All About was set to debut in the September issue of Comic Gifted, due out August 20. Having three chapters done before chapter 1 even debuted was extremely smooth sailing.

“Is chapter four going well?”

Kaiko’s face darkened slightly. “Well, to be honest, I have some issues to deal with.”

“Oh… Did they turn down your draft chapter?”

“No,” she said as she took her sketched-out draft copy of chapter 4 from her bag and handed it to Miyako. “This is the draft so far.”

“Ooh…”

Miyako took a look. As always, it was remarkably detailed for a sketched-out proposal, right down to the characters’ clothing and facial expressions. She found herself staring intently at it. This chapter, set around the midpoint of Volume 1 of the novel series, featured the main cast taking a trip to a swimming pool.

“They gave me the okay on this draft, so I’m going to keep working on it once I make it home…”

“Uh-huh,” Miyako said, thumbing through the pages.

“…Do you own any swimsuits, Myaa?”

That broke her concentration. She looked up at Kaiko.

“Wh-why do you ask? Um… I have my old swimsuit from high school, but I haven’t been to the beach or the pool or anything since I entered college, so I dunno if it’s still usable…”

“Ah, I see…”

“But why are you asking about that?”

“Well…” Kaiko grimaced. “I’ve never drawn swimsuits before…”

“Oh, you haven’t?”

“No. So I’m a little anxious… You know, about whether I can draw them right for chapter four or not.”

“I see… Oh?”

A question mark appeared over Miyako’s head. She flipped through the pages in search of an answer.

“But you drew them just fine in here.”

The draft was filled with Ichika Akatsuki, Yukiko Onizaki, and a small horde of other beauties running around and splashing one another at the pool. The art was practically shimmering with energy. But Kaiko just shook her head.

“No, I’m not doing it right at all.”

“Well, whether you think so or not, I’m telling you—”

“Those are actually underwear.”

“Um?” was the best response Miyako could manage.

“Remember the original novel? Ichika didn’t wear a bikini. She had a one-piece swimsuit on.”

“Ohh, right, maybe so.”

She couldn’t remember, but it sounded right. And the Ichika in this draft was certainly in a bikini, along with everyone else poolside, including the lifeguard sitting at her post. That was a tad unnatural.

“So you’re picturing this as everyone in lingerie, not bikinis?”

“Right.” Kaiko nodded. “I didn’t know how to draw swimsuits, so after agonizing over it, I went with this as kind of a desperation measure. And I got away with it in the pencil sketch, but once I start inking this, I’m gonna have to change them into swimsuits…”

“Ahhh…” Miyako took a closer look at the girls in the draft. Now that Kaiko had told her this was lingerie, if you paid close attention to each character—then yeah, all right, it looked like underwear. But in a poolside scene like this, people would surely assume these were swimsuits if they didn’t know better, right?

“…Well, what’s the big deal?” she casually asked. “Just draw it like your lingerie.”

Kaiko’s eyes burst open. “Oh, that’s a ridiculous idea, Myaa! Going to the pool in your underwear… That’s just sick!”

Miyako was stricken by the impulse to remark on the tied-up pair of panties serving as the ribbon on Kaiko’s hair. She just barely managed to resist.

“I don’t know, though… I mean, in the finished art, I don’t think you could tell the difference between panties and bikini bottoms…”

“Oh, you could, you definitely could! The texture of the fabric is totally different. The transparency when it gets wet, the way water droplets wick off it… It’s completely obvious at a glance!”

“Is it…?”

“It is!”

“Hmm…”

Certainly, maybe you couldn’t spot the difference with an average artist, but bring in Kaiko’s natural gift at perfectly depicting the look and feel of fabric, and eagle-eyed readers might notice something was amiss.

“…So I guess you’ll have to look at real swimsuits to draw them, huh?”

“You really think so, Myaa?” Kaiko earnestly asked.

“I… Yeah?”

Miyako nodded. She was already having a bad feeling about this, as Kaiko leaned up and off her seat.

“In that case, Myaa, would you mind serving as a swimsuit model for me…?”

Even with that bad feeling, Miyako breezily agreed. It had to be better than last time, where she got stripped and scrutinized from every angle possible.

The next day, Miyako reported to Nayuta’s hotel room, swimsuit in hand. This, they decided, was the most suitable place for going around in swimsuits without it getting awkward. She had brought along a swimsuit purchased in high school, trying it on the previous night to make sure it still fit fine. It was a one-piece, matching with the original All About setting.

“Oh, you’re right on time, Myaa,” Nayuta said when she opened the door, acting oddly excited. She was nude. Kaiko, who was already there, gave Miyako a polite bow. She was also nude.

“Thank you again for this, Myaa.”

“Um, sure.”

“Right, let’s get your clothes off.” As always, Nayuta stripped Miyako as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

“You…want me in a swimsuit, right?” the naked Miyako asked as she reached for the one she brought.

“Yes… Hmm. Which one should we start with?”

Kaiko plunged a hand into a large department-store bag.

“…Start with?”

Miyako suddenly felt very uneasy about this. There were actually four bags in the room, both seemingly full of merchandise.

“I think we’ll begin with this, Myaa,” Kaiko said as she took out a bikini with a worryingly small surface area.

“Um… Don’t tell me those are all swimsuits?!”

“Yes,” replied Nayuta to the half-panicking Miyako. “Miku and I went shopping this morning.”

“Good thing the store had a pretty wide summer selection,” Kaiko cheerfully added as she tore open the plastic packaging. “It’s hard to believe how many swimsuits there are out there. I had zero interest at all in them before now, but you can really lose yourself in this world.”

“Yeah, but you didn’t have to buy that many!” Miyako shouted. “I thought you wanted to look at the texture of the fabric! Can’t you just do that with the one I brought along?!”

“This is an important part of the story. I want to show off Ichika in the best swimsuit I can find for her, so I’ve got to make comparisons with a real-life model.”

“But she’s wearing a one-piece in the novel! That’s a bikini…or I don’t even know if you can call it a bikini at this point! Won’t people yell at you if you change her suit to that?!”

“No need to worry. I asked Hashima if I could change the swimwear around, and he kindly agreed to it.”

“After he carried on for that long about lingerie in his nude scenes?!”

“Itsuki doesn’t care that much about swimwear,” Nayuta countered. “Or lingerie.”

“It didn’t seem like he remembered what he had Ichika wear in the novels anyway,” added Kaiko.

Miyako shook her head. “He just wants them naked, huh…?”

“So!” Kaiko handed Miyako the micro-bikini in her hands. “If you could, Myaa!”

“N-no! There’s no way I’d wear something like that! It’s embarrassing!”

But despite the nude Miyako’s staunch denial, two or so minutes of sincere pleading on the nude Kaiko’s and Nayuta’s parts was all it took for her to reluctantly mutter “Ugh, whatever…” and agree to it.

So they began with the micro-bikini. Then one with a ridiculously high-cut bottom. Then an equally ridiculous low-rise one, which Miyako worried would reveal some things it shouldn’t. Then an athletic swimsuit. Then a full-body suit. Then a V-shaped sling swimsuit. Then a regulation blue one-piece usually seen in school competitions. Then one with large holes in the rear. It went on and on. There were a few sensible selections—a cute one-piece like the one Miyako brought along, plus a bikini with a pleated top—but the great majority weren’t.

Miyako had to ask where they got all this stuff, as the idea of a high-end department store selling sling bikinis and blinding-white school swimwear seemed unlikely to her. Just as she thought, they had also stopped by some cosplay and adult-goods shops. The department-store bags were just a bluff to put Miyako off her guard.

Thus, Kaiko and Nayuta continued to use Miyako as their personal dress-up doll, asking her for a wealth of poses. They even put her in the bath to see how the fabric changed when wet.

For Miyako, it was exhausting—but it paid off. Chapter 4 of All About My Little Sister wound up packed with incredible, ultrahigh-quality swimsuit shots. And when Miyako read the final submission several days later and discovered that the swimwear saga lasted a whopping three pages before one of the series’ villains launched a magic tornado that instantly tore all the suits off their bodies…well, the tale of her unbridled rage can wait for another time.