Chapter 1: Our First Summer

Chirrrp, chirrrp. The cries of cicadas echoed around him. Shiraseki Kai stood in place, half naked, underneath the heat of the summer sun.

No matter how hard he tried to maintain his poker face, he could hear the alarm bells of his heart ringing from the inside out. In his right hand, he held a waterproof digital camera that he’d received from Misako, and his empty left hand was stained with nervous sweat.

Splash! The loud sound of water brought him back to reality. When he looked over, he saw a lifeguard scolding an elementary schooler for having jumped into the lazy river.

Kai would have surely been reported once or twice for standing around half naked with a camera had he been in the middle of town. However, the same could not be said for his current location; at the pool, it wasn’t out of place at all. Although he couldn’t help but worry if his swimming trunks—the first pair he’d worn in years—looked okay, or if his lanky, untanned body was an unseemly sight, there wasn’t anything he could do about either of those now.

“Ah! There he is! Kai-kun!”

“—Unpunctual, apologies. We made you wait, Kai.”

Kai turned around to face them and froze in place before he could reply. Yet still, his eyes managed to move just fine. Blue and red, he thought dazedly. A blinding contrast in skin tone accompanied these colors.

“Kai-kun?”

“Oh, s-sorry...!” Kai stammered, all while wondering what he was apologizing for.

Nanaka tilted her head curiously. She was wearing a blue bikini with a variety of colorful flowers printed across the fabric, and it fit her bright personality well. Her arms and legs had a healthy tone as they smoothly stretched out and unabashedly exposed themselves under the sun.

In addition, the openness of her current wardrobe helped her shapely chest—which was neither too large nor too small—to assert its presence more boldly. Or rather, perhaps it was simply that Kai’s gaze happened to be drawn to it. Yeah... That’s probably it, he thought.

“Needless apology is a weak strategy,” Akane observed. “Have you forgotten what I’ve taught you?”

“N-No... I’m sorry, Akane-san.”

“Don’t apologize right after I tell you that,” Akane warned him, as she folded her arms.

Akane had on a halter neck swimsuit. It was a deep wine red color, which offered a more mature impression than Nanaka’s swimsuit. There was a thin layer of black mesh covering the bit between her chest and neck. One single layer. The lone layer partitioned off a section of skin to contrast with the smooth white everywhere else, and only served to embellish her beauty such that Kai couldn’t take his eyes off her.

“...Kai? What’s gotten into you?” Akane asked.

“Um, well...” I was enchanted, he thought. Of course, he couldn’t say that out loud.

“I think...” Nanaka began, “I understand how you feel, Kai-kun.”

“Is that so?” Akane questioned.

“I’ve been thinking this since we went out to buy our swimsuits together, but, Akane-san, that swimsuit is... um, it’s kinda... sexy?”

“But Nanaka,” Akane argued, “it covers more than your swimsuit, doesn’t it?”

“You’re not wrong, but...”

Akane touched the mesh with the tips of her fingers and glanced down at her chest to see for herself. Then, turning to Kai, she asked, “Do you agree?”

The way she had turned to him was so unfair.

“............Yes.” Kai struggled with himself for a moment, but he couldn’t think of any other reply.

“...I see.” Akane took another second to look at herself and then looked away, ever so slightly. “Don’t... stare too much.”

“A-Akane-san,” Nanaka continued in surprise, “you get embarrassed too...?”

“Did you think I was some sort of robot?”

“No, of course not. It’s just... you know?”

Look, can you stop turning to me at times like these? were Kai’s honest thoughts, but it was also true that he had never seen Akane avert her eyes in embarrassment before. That being said, it was the tiniest of differences; her expression had hardly changed at all.

Still, it meant that the gap between them had grown smaller than it had been when he was at Tsukigase; they were close enough now that Kai could notice the tiny difference. It was strange to think that they’d grown closer after he transferred schools.

“Kept’cha waiting!” Aya yelled.

“...I don’t want people thinking I came here with this idiot.” Eru was annoyed to her wit’s end, and a tinge of anger made its way into her voice. She was wearing a black swimsuit and a large hat, in order to ward off any repulsive sunlight. Her swimwear was a bikini, but the bottom piece was in a pareo style and almost looked like a dress. Eru’s ample bosom was already evident enough when she wore her uniform, and the centerpiece of her current attire was a bottomless canyon.

But the issue at hand... was Aya, who was standing beside her.

“What’s wrong, senpai?” Aya asked teasingly. “Is this what you’re into?”

...Sigh. Kai couldn’t help but exhale. Aya was walking alongside Eru with her hands behind her head... in a school swimsuit. She was short and, frankly, had a childish figure, so it fit her terrifyingly well. It might have been more accurate to say it happened to fit her.

“By the way, this is an option, too.” Aya rummaged through the vinyl bag she was carrying in one of her hands and pulled out something which she held up to her nearly two-dimensional chest. She moved her hand away to reveal... “Oushima,” written in giant childish lettering. Also, she had a smug grin plastered on her face.

“How’s this?” she goaded.

“Are you stupid?” Kai replied curtly.

“Oh! Nice reaction!” Aya cheered. “I knew I could count on you to say the punchline with those dead eyes of yours!”

Kai hadn’t the faintest intent to make her happy, but it seemed he’d played right into her hands.

“Well, come on,” she continued. “We all know you need at least one person to play the fool.”

“I don’t think anyone on this planet has ever made that a rule,” Kai retorted.

“By the way, there’s one more gimmick here,” Aya pushed on.

Kai winced, thinking, There’s more?

“On my back here,” said Aya, turning to show off a zipper. “If I pull this down...” Zzzip! The sound of the zipper rang out and the school swimsuit dropped to the floor. Underneath, she was completely... clothed. She had on the one-piece swimsuit that she had meant to wear all along.

“It’s standard for the splash art to change when you evolve your unit,” Aya declared.

“But you didn’t evolve or anything...” Kai commented.

“That’s enough fooling around,” Akane cut in. Aya shrugged her shoulders with a smug grin, like a child being scolded by her mother. Akane continued, “We’re all here now. Let’s begin by taking the photographs Kai’s elder sister requested of us. Kai, I leave the arrangement to you.”

“R-Right,” he agreed uneasily while thinking, Honestly, you could just ignore any request from that sister of mine. While Kai would have liked to say so, he knew Akane would never agree—that’s just the kind of person she was. She couldn’t break a promise, even if what she’d promised to do was utter idiocy.

“Uhh, alright, can I get you all to line up over there?” Kai turned toward the four of them as he fumbled with the unfamiliar camera. Though they each had their own peculiarities, it didn’t change the fact that they were all cute girls, and the scene on the other side of the viewfinder reminded him of an idol group photoshoot.

“Here I go,” he announced. Three, two, one, and the shutter snapped at the end of the countdown.

Kai checked the photo immediately. Misako had begged him for this ridiculous photo session with tears flowing down her face, saying, “This is my lifelong dream...! Kaaaaaaaaaaaai...!” However, the picture was so good that, just this once, Kai felt like he might even thank her later.

“I-I think it turned out great!” he reported.

“There’s still more to go, isn’t there?” asked Nanaka, who had run over to him and carried the camera off.

“Huh?” asked Kai, feeling confused.

Meanwhile, Nanaka had stepped in front of a mother and child and asked the mother something... Well, Kai knew what she was asking for. This was another one of Misako’s lifelong dreams, and it seemed there was no getting out of it.

Make sure to take a group picture with everyone in it, she’d told them. Oh, of course, that includes a beet-red Kai, okay?

Apparently, Nanaka was doing her best to honor that stupid request. “C’mon, Kai-kun!” she said as she took his hand and began running toward the others.

The blazing sun was surely far hotter than the warmth of Nanaka’s hand, but the sensation in Kai’s fingers was the more intense heat.

“Kai,” said Akane, “you ought to be in the middle.”

“No,” he protested. “I’m good on an edge...”

“Senpai, you’re the tallest one here,” Aya pointed out. “I’d like it if you sat down. You’d have us all around you. Wouldn’t that be cool? This is a grade-A harem, you know?”

“Dear, you’re the only one who’s short here,” Eru objected.

“Shut up!”

“Hey...! You fool, don’t slap my chest! They’ll spill out!”

Spill? What’s going to spill? How? Huh? Aya and Eru were duking it out above Kai’s head, and he made great efforts not to imagine what was happening there.

Instead, he looked forward to see the lady with the camera holding her hand to her cheek with an entertained look on her face. “Oh my, you’re a popular one, aren’t you, mister?” she teased.

No, um... sorry. I know I stick out like a sore thumb, but I don’t have anywhere to run or hide... Kai wanted to make excuses, but couldn’t manage to speak up.

“Alright, here it goes.” The lady took their picture and, sure enough, Kai was the only one whose face was red. The image of Misako dying of laughter floated into his mind.

◇

Although she was sitting at home, torturing herself over her manuscript, this was all Misako’s fault. As soon as summer break had begun...

“Sir! Take a gander!” Misako noisily came over and fanned out five tickets, bringing the makeshift fan up to cover her face with a flair of grandeur as she shot Kai a seductive look through her glasses.

“I don’t wanna,” said Kai. From her speech and mannerisms, he surmised that she was writing a novel based around courtesans. He had a bad feeling about this, so he proactively tried to shut her down. His long history with his sister led his instincts to be right most of the time...

But of course, there wouldn’t have been any trouble at all if Misako could be stopped that easily. “Woe is me...” she faked a sob. “What a cold gentleman. I pray you, lend me your ear for but a moment... Nom.”

“Wah!” Kai yelled. Anyone would do the same if their sister suddenly nibbled on their ear.

“...To repel me away so,” she continued laboriously, “I shall be brought to tears...” Misako deliberately crumpled herself up on the floor and pretended to cry. Ever since Kai had ignored her and she had really begun bawling, his resistance to tears had shot down significantly.

“...What is it?” he asked suspiciously. “The thing in your hands.”

“I’m glad you asked!” Misako hopped to her feet like a grasshopper, blowing away any semblance of meekness that she had previously shown. “This here is...”

To summarize the lengthy, heroic epic of a conversation they went on to have: essentially Misako had won a drawing at the market for a vacation. There was a place called Yuzawa that was famous for its ski slopes in the winter, and she had received day-passes for the pool located there.

Five of them, which Misako now began to line out onto the table one at a time. “This one and this one are for me and for you,” she began. Flop, flop.

“This one is for the oh-so-cute Nanaka-chan.” Flop.

“This one and this one are for the overly cheery Oushima Aya-chan and Kuroba Eru-chan that a little birdie told me about!” Flop, flop.

And like that, all five tickets were soon laid out.

“...But I don’t want to,” Kai protested.

“Kai?” said Misako. “I only reveal my hand after I’ve set my trap, you know?” Then she puffed out her chest with pride and shoved her phone in Kai’s face.

The LIME messaging app was opened to a conversation with Nanaka, and her response to everything Kai had just heard was, “I’m SUPER looking forward to it!” accompanied by the stamp of a laid-back seal. What’s more, she continued on to say, “I’ll make sure to ask everyone else!”

Kai figured that Aya would probably be on board for something that seemed this fun. And while Eru wouldn’t exactly be the first person to say yes, it was a different story now that Nanaka was confirmed to be going.

I see, Kai thought with resignation. He knew better than anyone else that he wasn’t the sort of person who could raise a concern once he’d been backed into the corner like this, and Misako was well aware of it, too. The pieces had already fallen into place.

She got me, he realized. Then he thought, Wait, when did she exchange contact information with her, anyway?

“Nanaka took my first ‘Shake it!’” Misako said, smugly waving her phone around.

◇

And yet, Misako wasn’t at the pool, and the reason could be summed up in one sentence: her manuscript was seriously in trouble.

For a woman who lived solely on a mix of worldly passions, desires, and instinct, there was no other reason why she would give up on the pool. Despite her actions, Misako was shockingly serious when it came to her novels. Unlike her crocodile tears from before, she had legitimately started bawling this time, but there was no helping it now.

And so, with Misako unable to join them, they came to the pool without her.

“—Rest, accompanied,” Akane was saying. “Tired, Kai?”

“I wouldn’t say I’m tired...” he denied weakly. “I think I’ve already had my share of fun.”

After taking the group photo, they’d all gone down the water slide over and over, then had a serious shootout with the water guns that Aya had brought, then raced down the lanes to see who had to pay for lunch, and at some point they’d suddenly remembered the water slide and gone back... It felt as though he’d enjoyed a lifetime’s worth of pool experiences.

Kai had never so much as gone to the pool with people he considered to be friends. This was the first time he had experienced a summer like this, so he couldn’t tell if this was normal, or if they were being too wild.

Listening to the hubbub of the pool soothed his exhausted body, but the heat followed him even into the shade, and his sweat continued to flow. It was certain that he would have been more comfortable in a cool, air-controlled room. But for now, Kai was enveloped in a pleasant sensation of satisfaction that he would surely lose if he did move.

“I see,” said Akane, sitting across from him at a shaded table by the poolside. Her hair was clumped together to stop it from spreading out in the water, and it was draping across her right shoulder. One or two tiny droplets of water slid across the surface of her swimsuit.

When they found out Misako couldn’t come to the pool, Nanaka had said, “I’m gonna ask someone!” and lo and behold, it was Akane, of all people. In the past, she wouldn’t have been able to come with how busy she was at her club, but this summer, she’d retired from the Tsukigase High Social Game Club after completing Rondo’s massive overhaul.

“For a long time, I had thought it was strange,” she said.

“What was?”

“There were many users who looked forward to characters in swimsuits, were there not?”

“There were,” Kai agreed.

“Yet, to be honest, I did not understand that feeling. I could comprehend the line of thought that users wanted sensual outfits,” she went on thoughtfully, “but in that case, there was no reason it had to be swimsuits in particular...

“However, I think I can understand now—spending time with the people close to you in swimwear is so joyful, after all,” Akane concluded. “I’m sure the users wanted to see their favorite characters look so happy.”

Akane felt as though she should have come sooner. Her smile was refreshing to look at, as though she had purged all her inner demons; Kai felt like he could almost see straight through her.

“Still,” she added, “you’ve changed quite a bit.”

“...Me?” said Kai.

“If this were the old you, you would have forced yourself to appear to be fine when I asked you earlier if you were resting, and would have ran away back into the pool.”

“Would...... I have done that?” he wondered.

“At the very least, I think so,” Akane told him. “Those kinds of changes are often imperceptible to those they affect. They say that a change in environment can alter a person... How vexing.”

“...Vexing?” Kai attempted to ask what she meant.

But it seemed Akane was done with the topic, and she fixed her posture to change gears as she began, “Now...”

Kai had seen this look in her eyes many times at Tsukigase. It looked like it was time to get to business.

“We have received an invitation from Summit,” she announced.

“...Is that the real reason you came here today, Akane-san?” Kai wanted to know.

“No, I came here today because Nanaka invited me. Had I not had this opportunity, I would have found some other means by which to contact you.”

“...I see,” Kai said neutrally. “So you were invited to Summit.”

“—What’s Summit?” asked Nanaka, who had slowly crept up on him.

Kai jumped up when she pushed a cold can of juice onto his neck. “Wah, that’s cold!”

“Ahahaha, nice reaction, Kai-kun. Ah, here’s one for you too, Akane-san!”

“Don’t mind if I do,” said Akane. “Good timing, Nanaka. What happened to the other two?”

“They said they couldn’t handle the heat anymore, so they’re in an indoor break room.” Nanaka gave them a dry smile while handing one of her three cans of juice to each of Kai and Akane. She then opened the last one for herself and sat down next to Kai.

He turned toward her when he heard the satisfying hiss, and a drop of water fell from her hair and shattered across the base of the soft, white mountains below. Calm. I have to stay calm. Kai closed his eyes and repeated his mantra in his mind two, three times before locking eyes with Nanaka.

“The official title is ‘School Game Developer Summit,’” he explained, “but that’s really long, so most people call it SS or Summit. To put it simply for you, it’s basically a development competition.”

“A development competition...” Nanaka mused. “That’s different from the management competition from before, and it’s the one where you have to make a game from scratch, right?”

Among the regular contests held between social game clubs across the country, management competitions were based around improving an existing game. Meanwhile, development competitions involved making a brand new game from the ground up. Summit was an event specializing in the latter, and its mission statement was to stimulate the improvement of students’ development skills over the course of summer break.

However, there was supposed to be a stipulation that they’d improve the skills of students who were already at a certain level.

“So are we gonna enter or something?” Nanaka asked.

“Not quite,” Akane told her. “Summit is not something you can enter because you would like to. Only teams who have proven their ability in the routine competitions are invited to participate. The Rondo team was invited due to their work on the overhaul the other day, but... as you know, the nucleus of that project was your group. Personally, I think it would be natural for you to accept the offer instead.”

“But that’s—”

“There’s no need to worry about the logistics,” she went on. “I’ve already talked to the organizers on Summit’s end. It seemed they were already aware of Meikun’s status in our joint development, and talks proceeded without issue.

“Of course, you have the final say, but... there are certainly merits if you accept,” Akane pointed out. “Though you dodged disbandment, your school’s student council will likely consider demanding results in development competitions, as well. However, simply participating in Summit is more than enough to be considered an achievement.”

There would be no formal issues with Meikun High’s participation. Additionally, there were the benefits that came with it, as Akane explained. There wasn’t anything to lose by participating; that much was nearly guaranteed. The only issue was that Summit was generally an event to which only the country’s top social game clubs were invited. In baseball, the equivalent would be the Spring Koshien Invitational.

Frankly, Kai couldn’t deny that the Meikun Social Game Club wasn’t quite on the same level as the other participants. If they declined the offer based on an evaluation of their own abilities, it would make Akane look like a fool for recommending them. However, it was the same story if they showed up and dropped the ball.

“...Are the members at Tsukigase okay with this?” he asked.

“Of course... Rather, they are currently in a state of turmoil as they attempt to keep up their management post-overhaul,” Akane said. “It’s embarrassing to admit, but they are in no state to participate in Summit themselves.”

“I see,” Kai replied. If that was also taken care of, then it truly was their decision to make. What to do...

“Kai-kun?”

“Y-Yes?!” Kai unconsciously raised his voice as Nanaka tapped his shoulder.

“Is this something that’s kinda rare?”

“Um... yeah,” he told her. “I mean, I’ve never gone to one, either.”

“I see!” Nanaka exclaimed. Leaning over toward Akane, she went on to say, “We’ll do it!”

Akane relaxed her eyes slightly and turned to Kai. “Kai, is that fine with you?”

Kai hesitated, and found himself unable to respond right away, but when Nanaka’s fearless face came into view, it took his breath away. He knew that she had her own thoughts and considerations, but Nanaka’s smiling face almost appeared to be having fun.

Making eye contact with Akane, Kai reset with a small breath in and a small breath out. “...Yes,” he said, and gave a solid nod alongside his answer. “It’s true that this is a rare opportunity. I’ll do my best.”

It wasn’t as though he wasn’t scared: their ability was lackluster; they had no experience; they might stick out; and they could betray Akane’s expectations of them. Once Kai started thinking negative thoughts, there was no end to them. The more he thought, the more negativity he uncovered. But at that rate, he’d never get anything done.

...She really is blinding, he realized.

Akane had told him that he’d changed, but it wasn’t true. He might have made excuses like ‘I’ve never done it before,’ or ‘I might embarrass you,’ to run away—if Nanaka wasn’t with him. Saying he’d changed when he was still like this was merely an overestimation.

Kai could still see Nanaka happily grinning out of the corner of his eye, and he felt a faint shard of shameful restlessness appear. Ever since that day, she had been running straight forward like a beam of light. He wondered whether or not he was really worthy of seeing her smile.

“It’s settled!” Nanaka exclaimed. “Okay, I’m gonna go tell Eru and Ah-chan, too!” With that said, she rose from her seat and ran off, her back illuminated by light reflecting off the pool water as their view of her got smaller and smaller.

Akane’s gaze followed her, and she gently squinted her eyes, saying, “I’m looking forward to it.”