“It’s along the bank of the Ribou River,” Mira told me. An artificial branch of the river had been created, which had been turned into a pool by amassing water there.
“Oh right, let’s go to the pool together, Mister Yusuke!” Meryl exclaimed.
“That’s a good idea. As thanks for always helping us, we’ll show you the way.”
Going to the pool with Meryl and Mira, huh? That sounded like fun.
“If you see me in a bathing suit, Mister Yusuke, then you— Eek!”
Meryl squeaked, and both of their faces suddenly went pale.
“You hussies,” a displeased husky voice reverberated from behind me. “This is what happens the second I look away.”
So, she’s back...
“Welcome back, Minerva.”
“Good to be back... I am unamused by seeing you discuss such shameless things in broad daylight.”
“We were only talking about going to the pool together,” I told her. “And I’m not going anyway.”
“Huh? Really?”
“I have work to do.” I shrugged. If you had a girlfriend, you shouldn’t be going to a pool with other girls in the first place. And no matter what, Michelle couldn’t go to the pool. I’d feel too bad if I was the only one who got to enjoy it.
“I-I see...”
“More importantly, I have a new product. It’s called Shaved Ice. You want some too, Minerva?”
“Ice?” Michelle asked, a little surprised. “That reagent-colored thing is ice?”
“It’s tasty if you eat it. Here, just try it.” I gave her my own melon-flavored Shaved Ice.
“Hm... (An indirect kiss! My reward!!!)” Michelle quietly brought a single scoop of it to her mouth.
“How is it?”
“It’s so good, I’m getting dizzy...” Then she paused. “Wait, huh? My head hurts!”
I’d been sure Michelle would like it since she had such a sweet tooth. I had even poured on a little more condensed milk than necessary.
“Your head hurts if you eat cold things all at once,” I said, “but drinking some lukewarm water will fix that right up. Just a bit of trivia for you.”
After that, other customers came to my store as well.
“Mister Yusuke, what is this sign?”
“It’s my new product, Shaved Ice. Do you wanna try it?”
It looked like today would be another busy day.
✦ ✦ ✦
It didn’t get cooler even when the sun started to go down. At this rate, we were in for a sweltering night. Michelle, who had returned to the surface for the first time in a while, invited me over to have dinner at her place. She prepared food that was refreshing and easy to eat, like cold pasta and cold vegetable terrine. Recently, Michelle had relaxed enough that she’d even begun leaving some of the little prepwork things to me, so I had gotten better at washing ingredients and cookware. We would stand in the kitchen together, talking over things like recent events or her research as we cooked.
Michelle was especially fidgety once we had finished dinner. It seemed every time she began to say something to me, she would swallow the words back down.
“What’s the matter?” I asked. “You look like you have something to say.”
“Well... It’s more like I can’t make up my mind...”
“If you’re trying to be considerate of me, you don’t have to hold yourself back.”
“Okay. Just wait here for a bit.”
Michelle eagerly withdrew into an inner room. Did she have something she wanted to show me? It’d be interesting if it was something like an artifact she’d found in the dungeon depths, but I’d be a bit scared if it was some grotesque discovery. People in this world were okay with that kind of stuff. The circumstances they lived in were different from the Japan I’d known in my previous life, so their sense of values and opinions regarding life and death were also much too different. A lot of time had passed since I’d arrived here, so I had gotten pretty used to that disparity, but things like keeping disgusting monsters as pets were normal. I wanted to avoid seeing weird things as much as possible.
“Sorry to keep you waiting...”
Hearing a tiny voice, faint as a mosquito’s whine, I looked up and there was Michelle standing in the doorway. I was so surprised, all my words escaped me. I mean, she was in a bathing suit.
“You didn’t go to the pool for my sake, right, Yusuke? So...”
I didn’t really know what she meant by “So...” but I didn’t care. There was no need for logic and reason when faced with a black bikini. The cloth didn’t cover much and Michelle’s skin was so dazzling, I couldn’t look away. She was gorgeous and sexy, alluring and...arousing. I’d expected to be shown something creepy enough to shorten my lifespan, but I’d been dead wrong. On the contrary, the glorious sight of Michelle in a bathing suit might just have extended my life by an extra ten years.
“You’re beautiful.” I was a man of common sense, so I only complimented one aspect of her. It was wisest to keep the word “arousing” to myself. “When did you buy something like this?”
“I made it myself, last week. I wanted you to see it.” Michelle was talented, so she was even good at sewing.
“I made a matching one for you too. Not that we can go to the pool together...” She handed me some black swim trunks. “It’s embarrassing if I’m the only one in a bathing suit, so you wear yours too...”
“S-Sure...” Was it just me or had the temperature on this steamy night gone up a few more degrees? My head and body were so hot that even my Shaved Ice wouldn’t be enough to cool me back down.
“Michelle,” I said, “can you fill the bathtub with some cold water? It’d be like a stand-in for a pool, right?”
“Oh! I’ll be right back!”
Michelle ran off, her big breasts bobbing. She looks happy... Since she was a wanted criminal, it had probably been many years since the last time she had gone to a pool. Thinking it’d be fun to float them in the water, I took out several Water Balloons from among my products.