As I recollected Yoshino walking away, as if a load had been taken off her shoulders, I shot a glance at Isana. She didn’t have the capability to achieve happiness through something as basic as romance anymore. Both I, the one she’d fallen in love with once, and she, the person who’d fallen in love, thought that, so that must’ve been the case. Right now, I had a bigger responsibility to her, bigger than being her boyfriend would’ve ever been. In order to respond to her expectations, I needed to take responsibility as the one who’d removed her from the path of being a normal high school girl.
“So? What’s your conclusion from your experiment?” I asked.
“Hm?” Isana asked, tilting her head.
“You were testing your feelings, right? You saw both me and Yume and were wondering how you’d feel, right? So what’s your conclusion?”
I also had the responsibility of accepting the results of her experiment. No matter what they were, I had no right to say no as the person who’d turned her down.
“Well...” She fell into thought as she looked at the boundless, bright sky. As she did, I couldn’t help but feel nervous in anticipation. But eventually, she mumbled in a voice as soft as a droplet of rain. “I don’t remember...”
“Huh?” I couldn’t help but furrow my brows at her response, especially since she was wearing a serious expression.
“Yume-san was so hot... I completely forgot,” she said, leaving me at a loss for words. “B-But surely I can’t be blamed! Especially not after she seductively said that the continuation would be when you returned home! It’s too hot, especially when she acts all prim and proper all the time! I was so aroused that I couldn’t stay still back then!” So that’s where that rustling in the bushes came from. “Now I’m unable to see Yume in any other light than a dirty one! Even last night, I was frightened that I might get a nosebleed from hearing her bust size!”
“Now that I think about it, I heard that on the morning of the second day, you found your way into Yume’s bed.”
“That was most likely done unconsciously... I was worried my heart was going to give out the moment my eyes opened and Yume-san’s face came into view.” Isana’s hands began to tremble as she looked at me with an intense gaze. “When you return home today...something’s going to happen, isn’t it? After all, four days’ worth of that...well, it’s bound to happen, right?”
“Whatever you’re picturing’s not gonna happen—not right after this exhausting trip.” Besides, our parents are gonna be home.
“In my fantasies, Yume-san is really something... I have high-quality images saved in my brain from seeing her naked in the bath. I apologize, but I’m going to be feasting on this fantasy for a bit.”
“There are no calories in fantasies.”
“Of course there are... The amount of satisfaction varies by the fantasy.” Then she gasped as if struck by inspiration. She quickly flipped the page of her sketchbook from her sketch of Shuri Castle to a blank one and fervently began sketching something new.
“What’s up? Think of something?” I asked, taking off my friend hat and putting on my manager one.
Isana didn’t stop for even a second while answering me. “Mizuto-kun, you told me that I need something like a poster girl, right?”
“Yeah... An original character really makes the difference between artists.”
I was already coming up with plans for Isana to start drawing manga, but I didn’t want her to become a full-blown manga artist. I wanted her to build up her skills by experiencing what it was like to draw manga.
But just throwing her into it and making her figure out how to do paneling would’ve been too difficult, so I wanted to take things step-by-step. First, I wanted her to start by drawing pictures with speech bubbles, but to do that, she needed recurring characters.
“How about we go with her?” Isana asked.
Before I knew it, she’d drawn a rough sketch of a girl and was now showing it to me. It was a cute high school girl with long black hair and a beret; she reminded me of Yume. Her caped school uniform looked like something out of a fantasy series.
“What kind of character is this?” I asked.
“A beautiful genius detective with an incredibly powerful sex drive!”
✦ ✦ ✦
I had no words. It was a very blatant combination of everything she’d experienced on this trip.
“Though she’s extremely calm and brilliant during a case, when she’s alone with the protagonist, she becomes very loving and horny! Oh, right! How about we make the main protagonist’s fetish revolve around deduction?! She’ll be like, ‘While watching your eyes move, it’s become clear that you’re turned on by my thighs!’ And then she’ll flip her skirt! Isn’t that an amazing idea?!”
Isana’s too much of a lust monster. But that’s better for this kind of thing. Thinking about what it might do for her brand, though... I’m not sure. Currently, Isana’s a more SFW artist focused on the refreshing golden years of teenagers.
“The answer’s a yes, of course, right?! Allow me to draw this!” she insisted. “I’m simply going to draw it anyway!”
“Ugh, fine, fine! There’s no point trying to stop you anyway!”
And thus, this character, who’d been spontaneously born, would go extremely viral at a later date, and would be the reason Isana would receive a certain DM, but that’s a story for another time.
“I’m deeply, deeply sorry!”
While we were waiting to board the plane at the Naha Airport, Isana fessed up to Yume.
Ultimately, Yume’s reaction was to go beet red and hide her face with her hands, unable to say a single word.
Isana tilted her head, shooting me a look of confusion as I stood there, here as an observer. “Does this mean...I’ve been forgiven?”
“I don’t know how you could interpret it that way,” I said.
“I’m so embarrassed... When I think about how someone I know saw me like that, I... Ugh... I wanna die...” Yume groaned.
Oh... I see what’s going on here. It’s true that there’s a pretty big difference between how she acts in public versus when she’s snuggling up to me.
Isana crouched next to Yume, who’d curled up into a ball, and began speaking in a reserved voice. “I-It’s no problem! You were adorable!”
“I really don’t want my friends to see me like that!”
“I think it’s good to have a way you act only around your boyfriend! From now on, no matter how strict or harsh you are with me, I’ll simply remember how you’re probably snuggly like a cat when you’re with your boyfriend.”
“Just kill me now!”
Despite Yume enduring some psychological scars, our school trip came to a close. I was sure that we’d remember this trip many times more from here on out—especially Yume, who’d probably never end up forgetting this trip, even if she wanted to.