The first button popped open.
The loose collar slumped down, exposing the elegant contours of his collarbone directly to the glaring sunlight.
The skin beneath was dazzlingly white, practically glowing against the coastal backdrop.
Tōhō Getsukai let out a soft sigh, feeling the ocean breeze brush against his neck.
“It really is cooler to take off your clothes before getting into the water.”
His fingers slid down to the second button.
With a soft click, it popped open as well.
The front of his sun-protection shirt parted wide.
The thin base layer underneath clung tightly to his skin, faintly tracing the lean, sculpted lines of his waist and abdomen.
There was not a single ounce of excess fat to be found, just a clean, sharp transition from his chest down to his waistline.
He raised his hands, grabbing the hems to pull both layers over his head.
Before the fabric could even clear his stomach, two sharp cries tore through the peaceful sound of the crashing waves.
“No, no, no, no!!!”
Getsukai’s hands froze in mid-air, entirely against his own volition.
Two palms slapped against him from the left and right simultaneously.
One hand grabbed his hem in a death grip and yanked it downward, while the other precisely locked onto his wrist like a vice.
Ran Mouri and Sonoko Suzuki had dashed across the sand with the explosive speed of Olympic sprinters.
They now hung off his left and right sides, panting heavily.
Their faces carried the sheer, desperate relief of bomb squad technicians who had just snipped the final wire on a nuclear countdown.
“Sister Tōhō, you absolutely cannot take that off!!” Ran clutched the hem of his shirt with both hands.
Her ten fingers were locked tight, her entire body weight practically anchoring him down by the waist.
“That’s right!
Absolutely not!
It is against the law!
Against the law in every conceivable sense!” Sonoko held his belt hostage with one hand and threw her other arm across his chest as a physical barricade.
Getsukai looked down at his left side, then slowly turned his head to the right.
Both girls were flushed a deep, frantic red.
Tiny beads of sweat gathered on the tips of their noses, and their chests heaved with rapid breaths.
What kind of situation was this?
“…Have you two seriously never seen a guy take off his shirt at a pool or a beach before?”
“That is not the same thing!” Ran looked up at him.
The rims of her eyes were actually flushed red, her voice trembling with absolute urgency.
“How is it not the same?”
“It just isn’t!”
Fine.
A classic case of unreasonable circular logic.
Getsukai paused for a moment, deciding to approach this with earnest, educational patience.
“I am a boy.
For a boy to take off his shirt to go swimming is basic, fundamental human behavior.”
He gestured vaguely to himself.
“You have both taken biology, right?
The male chest has no secondary sexual characteristics and requires no covering.
This is basic science, not some rule I just invented.”
Perfect logic.
An unassailable, airtight argument.
And it was immediately vetoed by two beautiful girls resorting to brute physical force.
Ran let go of his hem, reached up, and grabbed his collar with both hands.
Her fingers worked frantically to pull the open front completely closed, pinching the fabric so tight together that not even a millimeter of his collarbone remained visible.
“Even if you are a boy…
Sister’s body absolutely cannot be seen by anyone else!”
“There is no one else here.
It is literally just the two of you.”
“That still will not do!”
“Why?”
“Because—” Ran stammered.
Steam practically billowed from the top of her head.
Her lips opened and closed twice, completely failing to form a coherent explanation.
Sonoko immediately picked up the slack from the side.
“Because it is way too much of a foul, hey!!
It is going to show entirely too much!”
Planting one hand firmly on her hip, she pointed an accusing finger at the spot where Getsukai’s collarbone had just been exposed, speaking with absolute righteous indignation.
“Sister Tōhō, look down at yourself!
Just look at this collarbone!
Look at this waistline!”
She threw her arms up in exasperation.
“If a figure like yours were fully exposed to the world, never mind boys or girls, the very concept of gender itself would be ruined on the spot!”
She grabbed his shoulders and shook him slightly.
“The fragile hearts of the two young maidens present simply cannot withstand this kind of visual critical hit!
You have a moral obligation to be responsible for our safety!”
Getsukai looked down at his own chest.
Hmm.
He was indeed quite pale.
But that was hardly the point.
The real issue here was the glaring double standard.
“So let me get this straight.
It is perfectly fine for the two of you to run around wearing bikinis, but it is a criminal offense for me to take off my shirt?”
“That goes without saying!” Sonoko declared proudly.
“We are just ordinary beautiful girls.
If we take our clothes off, we take them off.
But what level are you, Sister Tōhō?
You are a walking nuclear weapon!
Can nuclear weapons just be casually test-detonated on a public beach?
Absolutely not!”
What kind of bizarre, twisted theory was that?
Getsukai looked at the two girls clinging to him.
One had red-rimmed eyes and was desperately clutching his collar together.
The other had her hands firmly planted on her hips, fiercely guarding his belt line.
Between the two of them, their combined swimwear probably contained less fabric than a single sleeve of his shirt.
Yet here they were, trembling with genuine anxiety, fighting tooth and nail to stop him from exposing even an inch more skin.
A sudden wave of amusement washed over him, mixed with a deep sense of helplessness.
Truthfully, he also felt a little bit flattered.
“…Alright.
I will not take it off.”
Two heavy sighs of relief echoed over the sand simultaneously.
Ran finally let go of his collar.
All the tension drained from her body at once, and she slumped softly against his shoulder, trying to catch her breath.
“You scared me to death…”
“You are far more nervous about this than I am.”
Sonoko wiped a sheen of sweat from her forehead.
Suddenly remembering something, she spun around and sprinted over to their luggage piled on the sand.
She rummaged through a large tote bag and pulled out a neatly folded piece of black clothing.
She marched back and shoved it into his hands.
“Here!
Wear this!”
Getsukai took the garment and shook it out.
It was a tight-fitting, UV-protection rash guard.
It had long sleeves and was made of a highly elastic, stretchy material.
The collar was designed to sit right below the Adam’s apple, offering maximum coverage for the torso and arms.
He checked the inner tag.
Women’s size Medium.
He reached for the hem of his sun-protection shirt.
Ran and Sonoko both gasped, instantly spinning around to face the ocean.
Moving with lightning speed, Getsukai pulled the shirt over his head, slipped his arms into the rash guard, and yanked it down.
He grabbed the zipper at his waist and pulled it all the way up to his collarbone with a sharp zip, clicking it securely into place.
“Alright, you can look now.”
The two girls turned back around.
And immediately froze in stunned silence.
The highly elastic fabric of the tight rash guard clung ruthlessly to every single inch of his torso.
There was no excess fat to hide, no unnecessary folds in the material.
The black fabric traced an impossibly smooth, elegant arc from the line of his shoulders all the way down to his waist.
Narrow waist.
Thin, delicate shoulders.
Long, slender limbs.
His originally loose sun-protection shirt had done a decent job of hiding his physique.
But now, forced into this skin-tight style, the garment only served to aggressively highlight his unreasonably perfect body proportions.
Especially that waist.
The segment of his waistline squeezed tight by the black fabric was so incredibly slender that the two beautiful girls standing before him in bikinis instantly fell into a pit of deep self-doubt.
Sonoko turned her head away, slapping a hand over her mouth.
Her expression was one of pure agony.
“What is wrong?” Getsukai looked down, tugging slightly at the hem of the rash guard.
Sonoko spoke in a muffled, defeated voice.
“…Why is it even more deadly when it is covered up?
This defies all logic.”
Ran simply stared blankly at his waistline for five full seconds.
She slowly shifted her gaze down to her own waist, then back up to his.
Down.
Up.
Down.
Up.
Three times.
Finally, she reached down and silently pinched the flesh at her own side.
“Sister…
what exactly is your waist measurement?”
“I do not know.
I have never measured it.”
“You are lying.”
“Let us just go play in the water.
If we do not go in now, the sun is going to set.”
He turned away from their piercing stares and walked toward the shoreline.
His bare feet sank into the fine, sun-baked sand.
The black rash guard tightly wrapped his entire upper body, but below the waist, he still wore his loose, ice-silk wide-leg pants.
He had rolled the cuffs up past his knees, leaving his smooth calves and feet completely exposed to the elements.
A gentle wave surged up the beach, washing cool water over the tops of his feet.
His ten toes spread out instinctively in the refreshing seawater, the tips mingling with the bubbling white sea foam.
The sound of rapid footsteps kicking up sand approached from behind.
The two girls chased after him from the left and right, their arms completely loaded down with swimming rings and foam kickboards.
Ran splashed into the shallow water right beside him, kicking up a spray of salty droplets.
She tilted her head, stealing a quick, covert glance at the side profile of Getsukai’s waist squeezed by the tight rash guard, before violently snapping her eyes back toward the open sea.
Sonoko bounced over from his other side.
Without a word of warning, she shoved a large pink swimming ring directly over Getsukai’s head, letting it settle around his neck.
“For Sister!
It is a limited edition!”
Getsukai looked down at the plastic tube trapping his arms.
The swimming ring was bright pink, heavily decorated with a cartoon rabbit and bold letters spelling out World’s Cutest.
“I know how to swim.”
“You still have to wear it!
What if you get washed away by a rogue wave!”
Getsukai sighed, carrying the ridiculous pink ring as he waded deeper into the waist-high water.
The ice-silk pants soaked through instantly, the wet fabric clinging heavily to his legs.
Sonoko and Ran followed closely behind, stepping through the gentle waves.
They stuck to his sides like glue, flanking him left and right.
The shadows of the three of them stretched and overlapped across the shimmering, sunlit surface of the shallow sea.
Sonoko suddenly leaned in close, lowering her voice to a conspiratorial whisper.
“Speaking of which, Sister Tōhō, you really do look better in that tight rash guard than I do in a bikini.”
“Thanks.”
“That was not a compliment!
That was an accusation!”
[Akarin’s Note:
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