CH 126

Summer, Sea, and Swimsuits

Translated by LyraDhani

Edited by LyraDhani

The school had entered summer vacation, and Tsugumi, who had successfully snatched a vacation from the government, traveled with his classmates to a town far away by the sea.

They planned to rent a cottage on a private beach owned by one of the participants and enjoy the trip for a few days. It was the summer of his third year in high school–because it was the last long vacation before the exams, his classmates seemed to be going off the rails.

When this summer was over, even the usually cheerful people would lose their time studying and getting along with each other. …Well, he still thought they would find time to make a fuss, but that was all.

Today was the third day after all the silly events–it was the free time to move around individually. The other friends seemed to be out shopping at tourist attractions or, as mentioned before, picking up girls, but Tsugumi didn’t have the mood.

After turning down many invitations, he decided to go swimming on the beach, alone at the cottage where he was staying. It would be nice to just sit out in the waves and not be disturbed by anyone.

As he opened his bag to get a change of clothes, he noticed a paper bag in the back that he didn’t recognize.

“Hmmm? What’s this… who did this? Could it be Akiyama?”

Curious, he took out the paper bag and looked inside, and found something unexpected.

With a bitter look, he took out the contents. There was a black-colored woman’s swimsuit–the so-called flare bikini with a lace pareo attached.

“….”

Tsugumi calmly put the swimsuit back in the paper bag and looked around warily. …If anyone saw it, he would be slandered as a pervert.

After confirming once again that no one was there, he let out a sigh of relief. It was too much of a surprise.

Thinking this, he clicked his tongue loudly and noticed that a small note had fallen at his feet. Feeling ominous, he picked up the note and read it over. He looked at the note from one end to the other, and then, with a face like he was about to punch the wall, he muttered.

“Don’t be silly, you damn rabbit…”

The note, crumpled in his grip, fell to the floor. The note read [As promised I’ve prepared special clothes for the summer and I’d love for you to wear them. p.s. It is preferable to take a picture with the sea in the background. From your brother]. In other words, it was that kind of thing.

“He said, ‘I’ll give you summer clothes’ and I certainly nodded my head at that. But I thought it would be a yukata or something. I didn’t expect a swimsuit… And it’s for women… Damn it, I shouldn’t have promised to wear it and take pictures when I received it!”

Tsugumi howled in a small voice as he kneeled down and slammed his hands on the floor. The other day, Shiro suddenly fidgeted and said, “I want to give my cute little brother some summer clothes,” and he felt bad about refusing, so he made a lighthearted promise which turned out to be a bad thing.

–Shall I pretend I didn’t see it? Even so, Tsugumi shook his head slightly as if he had given up. Even if Shiro wasn’t Tsugumi’s contract God, God was still God. Even if he felt like he was being tricked, there was no way of knowing what would happen if he broke a promise made to God.

“You’re joking… It’s not the same as men’s beach pants, you know? There’s no way I could walk out the door dressed like this in my underwear, in my female form. I’d still rather be gothic lolita…”

There was a difference between walking around in cute clothes and wearing a swimsuit. That thing was no different from underwear.

…As a man, Tsugumi really didn’t understand how women in the world perceived the difference between swimsuits and underwear in the first place. They were about the same in terms of exposure.

With a blank expression, he raised the swimsuit in front of him. Fortunately, the frilly fabric hid the chest area, and the waistcloth hid the thighs to a certain extent.  In exchange, the belly was fully exposed, but he could compromise. …It was also disgusting that it attacked the very edge of what he could tolerate.

“I’m going to wear this… Ah, I really don’t like it.”

He’d been with his post-transformation body for what seemed like almost a year now, so he wasn’t going to say that he was embarrassed to change clothes in a woman’s body now.

However, he still resisted the swimsuit. –This was because his face post-transformation looked so much like Sakura-oneechan that it felt like he was forcing his sister to wear revealing clothes.

–But I made a promise. It looks like it will be troublesome if I break it, so I guess I have no choice but to wear it…

While thinking so, Tsugumi slightly opened the curtains and looked outside. No one was swimming at the beach today, probably because they had spent the last two days playing on the beach.

Apparently, everyone else went sightseeing in town or headed towards the beach where the public was. In other words, now was the perfect time to take pictures at sea without anyone looking.

“Haa, I guess it can’t be helped.”

Saying that, Tsugumi let out a big sigh. Then he slowly got to his feet, grabbed his swimsuit, and walked into the bathroom.

◆ ◆ ◆

“…Even so, it’s really unsettling.”

Muttering this in a slightly higher voice than he did in male form, Tsugumi picked up the lace cloth wrapped around his waist and looked down at his own outfit which showed off his skin tone. He looked at the whole thing in the mirror and was annoyed that it looked reasonably good on him. He couldn’t bear it anymore so he wore a thin men’s hoodie on top, but he still felt uneasy.

On top of that, his chest was thumping in an irregular heartbeat, probably due to nervousness and guilt, and he couldn’t calm down. How will you take responsibility for me if I awaken a strange preference?

So while chuckling to himself and keeping a cool head on the surface, Tsugumi went outside the cottage. He couldn’t do it without making a joke.

The glaring sunlight reflected off his white limbs. …He didn’t see anyone so far, but he still needed to be careful.

Stretching out a thread and carefully searching for people around, he quickly ran to the beach. Perhaps, he might have searched more desperately than when he was fighting against Demonic Beasts.

When he reached a rocky place where he could hide, he breathed a sigh of relief.

“–Good, there’s no one here.” 

He murmured while sneaking around and taking a selfie with the sea in the background as instructed. He supposed it was a little amusing that his smile turned out to be a little twitchy.

…Why would Shiro want these photos in the first place? No matter how good his appearance was, a swimsuit photo of someone he knew was a man on the inside would be nothing more than a joke.

“No, I’m sure he is simply the type of person who wants to preserve memories in various forms. His behavior is similar to that of a classmate who has a habit of collecting.”

Unlike Bell, who preferred perishable items such as food, Shiro tended to focus more on memories. Like people, Gods might have a variety of personalities, but being so mundane might be a rarity.

After successfully completing his mission, Tsugumi quickly changed his clothes and began walking along the beach to release his transformation, but he stopped dead in his tracks when he sensed the presence of someone in the distance.

Hiding behind a rocky shore, he stretched his thread and picked up the sound from his fingertips. It was hard to hear, but he could hear the voices of several young men and women. …Maybe someone was coming back to the cottage.

The moment he thought of this, words like “my acquaintances will find out,” “in a swimsuit,” and “social death” popped into his head one after the other–A temporary panic set in.

Panicking, he shoved his cell phone into the pocket of his hoodie, and with a fluid motion, he jumped into the sea.

◆ ◆ ◆

…Thinking about it calmly, he could just return back with transportation. He swam desperately and got lost.

Tsugumi thought about this with dead eyes as he swayed in the waves far off the coast. He ran away here in a hurry and had completely forgotten about his own skills. Even though he had never been this flustered against a Demonic Beast…

He dove deep into the sea, grunting with self-loathing. Perhaps his mind floated away because he wore an outfit he wasn’t used to. At least, his cell phone was completely waterproof so it could be used underwater. If his cell phone had also been damaged, he would have never recovered.

With a gloomy feeling, he turned around in the water and looked up in the direction where the light was shining. Tsugumi stopped moving when he saw that spectacle.

–How beautiful!

The surface of the water glittered and reflected the sparkling light, and fish of all shapes and sizes swam freely, paying no attention to Tsugumi. The painting-like scenery caught his eye.

After gazing at the scene for a while, Tsugumi smiled wryly. When looking at the magnificent scenery created by nature, his own petty concerns became insignificant.

–Oh well. Now that he’d accomplished my goal, he wanted to go home and change. This was the end of his troubles this time. He needed to switch things up and enjoyed the trip.

Tsugumi took his cell phone out of his pocket, pointed the camera at the water, and took a picture. This was more valuable than a photo of him in a swimsuit.

And just as Tsugumi was about to rise to the surface, a round shadow suddenly appeared above his head. He wondered and reached for it.

“Puha. What is this… a girl’s hat?”

The true identity of the round shadow–Tsugumi tilted his head at the cute straw hat in his hand. Then he noticed there was a cruiser a little far away. The cruiser was heading slowly but steadily toward Tsugumi.

Squinting, he saw a woman with long hair and a little girl pointing at him with binoculars. Maybe that girl’s hat had been blown here by the wind or something.

…The other side could see him so he couldn’t just run away. But he didn’t want people to see him like this, he pondered on what to do.

As Tsugumi was worrying about this, he could clearly see the face of the person riding the cruiser. Tsugumi’s movement stopped when he saw that face that he had seen somewhere. …In a way, it could be said that the option to escape had disappeared.

Then, as the ship approached while slowing down, the woman stared dumbfoundedly at Tsugumi and asked him a question, looking deeply puzzled.

“–Um, what are you doing in a place like this, Hagakure-san?”

“…As you can see, I am swimming, Hitsugi-san…”

When Tsugumi answered with a twitching smile, Hitsugi Airi, formerly ranked sixth in the Jukka, asked “In a place like this?” with a puzzled look and held out her hand to Tsugumi in the water.