Before I knew it, our time at the beach had come to an end. The pn of getting closer to Sayaka-chan during our time there hadn’t worked, mostly because she always had something else on her mind. Regardless, I was happy that I was able to spend so much time together with her. With just one night remaining before we returned to our uneventful lives, I had all but given up on something happening between us.
No matter how I looked at it, we were still in a better pce than we were just a couple of months ago. She trusted me enough to go alone with me to a pce far away from home, and she didn’t seem to have any problems with living with me. While our friendship may have stagnated, it was preferable to the silent treatment she gave me for a while.
Leaving the beach was probably for the best, though. After nearly a month of living together, I was reaching the limit of my ability to hold in my feelings. Seeing her in a swimsuit multiple times a week, and having her scent permeate every part of our apartment was driving my hormones crazy. It took every ounce of my restraint not to sniff her pillow whenever she was at work. How was it possible for someone so pin and pure to have such a lewd scent?
The presence of her panties being just meters away at any time pushed me to my absolute limit. Despite the rumors about me being an unfaithful slut, I was never that interested in doing that stuff. Even when I was with my ex, we never went further than holding hands. My crush on Sato-san was based purely on his personality, and the idea of doing physical things with him never felt real to me. They were just empty words I said because it was how teenage girls, especially gyaru, were supposed to be.
Now that my crush was the purest, most innocent girl in the world, my hormones were in overdrive. Logically speaking, it made no sense for me to have such impure thoughts about a girl whose most risqué outfit was a high-waisted bikini that covered more than some one-pieces. There was nothing inherently sexual about her, especially since she was retionship averse. She may not have been as adamantly against romance in general with her newfound sexuality, but that didn’t mean she was eager to get into a retionship.
Yet there I was, sitting in the living room of our shared apartment, staring intensely at the bra that was hanging halfway out of her undry basket. It was unremarkable in every way, probably the cheapest one she could find or came in a multi-pack that was on sale. Despite its quality, it was the most visually appealing bra I had ever seen.
Sky blue and white stripes, with a small ribbon bow situated between the cups; it was an enrapturing sight to behold. The signs of wear were just beginning to show, with a few threads poking out of pce. From my vantage point, I could make an educated guess of the cup size; possibly a B but more likely an A. Based on her petite frame, the band size was most likely to be on the small end of the spectrum. The embodiment of perfection.
The kind of bra that could be worn for any occasion, it was the epitome of function over fashion. Based on her undry habits, it was likely that she only owned a handful of bras, but that one was undoubtedly my favorite. The image of the humble Sayaka-chan wearing such an unintentionally sexy undergarment was melting what was left of my brain.
We hadn’t kissed, we weren’t even dating, but I couldn’t stop myself from daydreaming about lewd situations with her. If she knew the kind of things that were going on inside my head, she would’ve called me a pervert and a number of other deserved insults. Just because she was interested in women, and even if she was attracted to me, didn’t mean she would’ve been comfortable with me thinking of her in such a way.
Since the day she came out to me, the topic of her sexuality never came up again. One thing that separated homosexuals from heterosexuals was the incessant questioning about who they were attracted to. Society couldn’t seem to understand that homosexuals weren’t different from anyone else, and that they were more than just their sexuality. Asking her questions about it would have made me no better than everyone else, especially if I asked about how comfortable she was with physical intimacy.
Not only that, but asking whether she had lewd thoughts would’ve been extremely creepy and weird. The st thing I wanted to do was make her feel uncomfortable around me. Thus, the herculean effort to restrain myself around her was paramount to keeping our retionship from breaking apart.
“What are you looking at,” Sayaka-chan asked with a puzzled look pstered on her face.
“When was the st time you bought a new bra,” the words spilled out of my mouth until it was too te to hold my tongue.
“Uhh, I don’t know. Maybe when I started high school. Why?”
It was a valid question, and one that I should have been prepared for. Unfortunately, my brain was completely fried, and my mouth moved as if it were separate from my body.
“I kind want to see you in something sexier.”
An eyebrow raised in reaction to my admittedly odd question. “Why would you want to see that?”
Finally, my brain caught up to my mouth and I was hit with a wave of regret and embarrassment. It was past the point where I could py it off as a joke, but I wasn’t mentally prepared to expin away my idiocy.
“W-well,” I stuttered. “…Gap moe! Yes! That’s what it is! You usually dress very conservatively, so it would be totally out of character for you to wear some sexy lingerie underneath.”
“Alright… But why,” she questioned. “Like, why would you want to see that?”
“Well, wouldn’t you like to see me wearing something frilly and cutesy? Like, imagine me wearing one of those lolita dresses. It’s such a change that it becomes irresistible!”
“Hmm…” she hummed, pondering the scenario that I painted for her. “It’s not that weird. You have a nice figure, so I think you could pull off any look.”
She really wasn’t helping my pathetic excuse gain traction. The thought crossed my mind that I could come out to her and expin it away as a passing fantasy, but that would’ve led to more uncomfortable questions.
“That reminds me; you never answered my question about whether you find me attractive,” I turned the interrogation around on her. “Would you like to see me in some sexy undies?”
“You’re objectively attractive,” she answered, unmoved by my futile effort. “And your underwear and swimwear already leave very little to the imagination, I don’t think it can get much worse.”
“You’re no fun,” I pouted. “I guess I’m not your type then. Are you more into masculine girls?”
“What are you talking about,” she asked with a hint of vitriol and annoyance in her tone. “Why are you asking about my type?”
“Well, we haven’t really talked about it yet. You’re more open to romance now, so do you have a type of girl you’re attracted to?”
“Do I need to have a type? What’s your type, if you’re so eager to discuss this?”
Things had been so peaceful between us since we got to the beach that I forgot how good she was at deflection. To her, a conversation was nothing more than a game of tennis. Each time someone hit the ball onto her side, she was quick to return it to her opponent’s side. When the conversation got to a point that put her at a disadvantage, she’d break out the spikes and vicious backhands to go on the offensive. She was a true master, while I could barely figure out ping pong.
“I don’t really have a type, at least not a physical appearance that I prefer,” I answered, being very careful with my wording. “Personality and compatibility are much more important to me than how someone looks.”
“Compatibility,” she repeated in a low mumble. “So, ideally, you’d want to be with someone who has simir interests as you.”
“Doesn’t everyone want to share some simirities with their partner?”
“In that case, you’d want to date someone who’s also a gyaru otaku,” her voice had a tinge of worry in it that gave it a slight quiver.
“They don’t need to be exactly like me, but they’d at least be open to my interests or like some of the same stuff as me. For example, you’re not an otaku, but you read yuri.”
Her cheeks became flushed, and she began to fidget with the pages of the book she had been reading. She wasn’t good at hiding her feelings, and she was an awful liar, but I didn’t want to push my luck with her temper. I had to bite my tongue to hold back from pointing out her physical ticks that gave away her nerves.
“Now it’s your turn, Sayaka-chan. What kind of girl do you prefer?” The question would either lead to an interesting discussion or it would end the conversation for the night. Either way, I was no longer on the defensive!
Before she could answer, there was a loud knock at the door that signalled an end to my chance to learn about Sayaka-chan’s preferences. She opened the door and Touka and Himari-chan walked in without waiting to be invited to do so. Himari-chan had a rge bag slung over her shoulder, which gave off an ominous vibe.
“I hope we didn’t interrupt anything,” Touka teased my hopes. “We thought it would be fun to spend your st night here together.”
As if on cue, Himari-chan id the bag on the table and pulled out a board game, a deck of cards, a six-pack of hard lemonade, and a bunch of chips and candy. It was an adult’s idea of what high school kids would find fun, but I appreciated the effort.
“The drinks are obviously not for you,” Himari-chan unnecessarily crified. “Why don’t we py some games to get the night started?”
Sayaka-chan spoke up before I could attempt to push back. “I’m up for it. We can start with the board game.”
“If Sayaka-chan wants to py, then I’ll join in,” I begrudgingly agreed. There was nothing I could do but accept that I wouldn’t be alone with Sayaka-chan for most of the night.
Touka set up the board game and the four of us surrounded the table. The game was a basic real-life role-pying adventure that allowed pyers to get married, buy a home, and choose a career. There were also spaces that required the pyer to draw a card that had some kind of scenario on it. Some were good, such as the character winning the lottery or going on vacation, while others had unfortunate situations like getting divorced or being fired from their job. It was a straight-forward concept that removed the need for complex critical thinking to make difficult decisions.
The game wasn’t enough to monopolize my attention, so my mind tended to wander whenever it wasn’t my turn. While Touka flirted with Himari-chan at every possible opportunity, Sayaka-chan seemingly forgot that I existed. The most we talked was when she informed me that it was my turn when I was zoned out. My mind was preoccupied imagining Sayaka-chan in her underwear and inserting myself into the game as her spouse.
After the third game, they finally packed up the board game. Not only did I not win, but I also didn’t even finish higher than third in any of the three games. To make things worse, all that was talked about for the duration of the games were subjects reted to what was happening in the game. It’s not like I could have talked about what I wanted to anyway, especially with Touka and Himari-chan hanging around.
“Alright, I’m bored of this game,” Touka finally procimed. “How about something with higher stakes?”
She pulled out the deck of cards and waved then around jauntily. The reason she came here in the first pce was probably reted to her next idea, and I had sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.
“How about we py some truth or dare? We’ll py old maid and whoever loses must choose to either answer a question honestly or do whatever the winner tells them to do. Are you in?”
“I’ve never pyed it before, but it sounds like fun,” Sayaka-chan answered, which made it impossible for me to refuse.
Touka shot me a sly grin and a wink, which confirmed my suspicions that she pnned the whole thing. She was probably hoping to embarrass me or coerce me into a confession, so I needed to be careful not to lose.
“Do you want a sip,” Himari-chan nudged my elbow and held out her drink. “You may need it. Touka didn’t tell me she was doing this, so I suspect she’s scheming something.”
“Thanks,” I quickly took a rge swig of the lightly alcoholic beverage to mentally prepare for what was to come. “Do you think it would be better to choose truth or dare if I lose?”
“Dare. It’s better to kiss her than admit you’re in love with her,” she whispered with one eye on Touka, who was speaking to Sayaka-chan.
“I don’t want our first kiss to happen because my aunt told me to,” I retorted in a hushed voice. “Can’t you control your girlfriend a bit?”
“Nope. I kinda want to see what she does, so I can’t help you out this time.”
“You’re useless,” I mumbled.
“Okay, let’s get this game started,” Touka said enthusiastically as she delt the cards.
My initial hand was very good, with a bunch of duplicates right off the bat, and I wasn’t the unlucky one to have received the joker, which was the dreaded old maid. A lot would need to go wrong for me to lose, so I was confident that I wouldn’t become the victim of Touka’s mischievous whims.
Fortunately, I came in second to Touka, which meant that either Himari-chan or Sayaka-chan would be subjected to my aunt’s idiocy. If her girlfriend lost, she’d probably make her do something embarrassing or inappropriate, which would be awkward, but not the worst thing in the world. However, I should have been better prepared for the actual outcome.
“Sayaka-chan lost,” Touka announced gleefully. “What’ll it be: truth or dare?”
“I guess I’ll go with truth. I don’t want to do whatever weird thing you have in mind.”
“Truth it is then! Do you have a crush on somebody?”
Touka wasn’t going easy on Sayaka-chan, despite how uncomfortable she looked. Her cheeks turned bright red, and she averted her eyes to stare away from everyone in the room. She wasn’t good at lying, nor at hiding when she was embarrassed, so Touka was thoroughly enjoying herself.
“Umm… I might have someone I like,” Sayaka-chan muttered bashfully.
Despite how cute she looked when she was embarrassed, I couldn’t focus on anything other than the news that she had a crush on someone. My mind immediately began to race as I tried to deduce who it could’ve been. Selfishly, I wanted to believe that I was who she liked, but I didn’t want to get my hopes up too much.
“Heho! That’s unexpected,” Touka responded much too happily.
“Alright, let’s not linger on something that was obviously embarrassing for Sayaka-chan,” Himari-chan gracefully chimed in.
“Fine, fine, let’s just py again.”
While Touka happily shuffled and dealt the cards, I noticed Sayaka-chan gnce in my direction a few times before quickly adverting them again. If I was being bold, I would’ve assumed that she was doing that because she wanted to see how I reacted to her admission. Little did she know, I was already trying to figure out who it was she liked.
Since she recently came out to me, I knew that her crush had to be a girl, but that didn’t help much since she rarely hung out with boys. The most obvious choices were Aoi-chan and me, since we were the closest people to her, however it was possible that she liked Himari-chan. She hung out with her nearly everyday for the entirety of our time at the beach, and they seemed to have a good retionship. The embarrassment she expressed could’ve been from knowing that her crush was older and dating someone else.
It was unlikely that she liked Himari-chan, but I had to occupy myself with possibilities other than myself. There were plenty of signs that she had feelings for me, but there was no irrefutable proof. If I asked her out only to be rejected because I got the wrong idea, I’d assuredly die from embarrassment.
Unfortunately, since my mind was preoccupied with figuring out who Sayaka-chan’s crush was, I wasn’t focused on the game. As such, I predictably lost, which meant I was now on the hot seat. The only upside was that Touka wasn’t the winner.
“Sayaka-chan won, so she’ll be in charge of your punishment,” Touka snickered creepily.
“Truth or dare, Sasaki-san,” Sayaka-chan asked, no longer showing signs of the embarrassment she felt earlier.
Since it was Sayaka-chan, I felt like I would be safe no matter what I chose. She wasn’t the type to take joy in another person’s misery, and she wasn’t creative enough to come up with anything too extreme. However, I felt that one of the two options was inherently safer.
“Truth,” I answered, confident that she wasn’t going to ask me anything that would reveal my true thoughts.
“Why were you really staring at my bra,” she asked with a completely straight face.
“Eh!?” I excimed in disbelief. “W-what are you implying?”
“It’s my question, not yours, so you need to answer it truthfully.”
“…Damn,” I mumbled to myself. “The truth is… I was imaging you wearing it in lewd scenarios.”
My answer was met with three agape mouths and unblinking stares of disbelief. If I had to guess their individual reasons; Touka was shocked that I’d admit such a thing, Himari-chan didn’t expect me to tell the truth, and Sayaka-chan couldn’t believe that I had perverted thoughts about her. Perhaps it would have been better to lie, but my brain wasn’t able to come up with a believable expnation.
“I didn’t expect you to have those kinds of thoughts about me,” Sayaka-chan said lifelessly, numb from the bombshell I apparently dropped on them.
“Why didn’t you just lie, you idiot,” Touka groaned. “Literally any other answer would’ve been just as believable.”
“You got all of that from looking at a bra,” Himari-chan ended up being the most level-headed, but was still dumbfounded.
“Excuse me for staying true to the rules of the game,” I snapped back, desperate to move past the awkward moment. My cheeks were on fire and my heart was beating out of my chest, so sitting in the awkwardness was a risk to my health.
“Were you involved in these lewd scenarios,” Touka asked mindlessly, as if it were a rhetorical question she asked herself.
“That’s a different question!”
“If you weren’t, then you would’ve just said that,” Himari-chan pointed out. “Was she wearing the bra the whole time, or did you take it off in these fantasies?”
“Why do you keep asking more questions!? You didn’t give Sayaka-chan the third-degree when she said she had a crush!”
“Yeah, because having a crush is a normal thing to talk about,” Touka stated in an accusatory tone. “You’re over here talking about sex fantasies centered around a freaking bra!”
“She asked about it! What was she expecting me to say? That I liked the pattern?”
“Umm, I thought you were judging me for how small my breasts are,” Sayaka-san meekly crified.
“It sounds like she’s into that,” Himari-chan added with a smirk. “Has your aunt been influencing you?”
“We both know she prefers ass.”
“So, you prefer boobs then,” Touka teased with a toothy grin. “You’re more of a pervert than you let on.”
“Can we please just move on from this? I don’t appreciate being shamed for my private thoughts.”
“Are you topping in this scenario, or do you like the idea of the cute and innocent Sayaka-chan taking control?”
“Why would I answer something like that!? Can’t you have some mercy on your niece?”
“Let it go, Touka,” Himari-chan came to my defense… Or so I thought. “She’s obviously a top who wants to make Sayaka-chan feel better than she’s ever felt before.”
Unable to handle their continued teasing, I smacked my head against the table and moaned in defeat. They had successfully worn me down and I just wanted to sleep and pretend that night never happened. Sayaka-chan just had to ask the one question that would lead to my eventual demise.
“Looks like we killed her,” Touka ughed at my mencholy. “Whelp, we’ve accomplished what we set out to do. Let’s leave these two to avoid ever discussing tonight’s events.”
“We didn’t pn for Rina-chan to embarrass herself to this degree, but I don’t think our presence is going to make anything better.”
Without another word, Touka and Himari-chan packed up their things and left Sayaka-chan and I to sit in our discomfort. They were going to see us off in the morning, so it’s not like it would be our final interaction with them, but interacting with them wouldn’t be as light-hearted as before. They created a mess and now I had to figure out how to clean it up without revealing too much.
“Can we pretend that never happened,” I asked in a show of futility.
“I don’t think that’s possible,” Sayaka-chan’s cold tone sent a shiver down my spine. “We’d just be avoiding something that would impact all our future interactions. I’d prefer to clear the air sooner rather than ter.”
“Ugh. What exactly can I say to make tonight less awkward?”
“All you need to do is answer one more question. Do you want to do lewd things with me because you want to try it out or do you have feelings for me?”
My head snapped up from the table and my eyes locked on Sayaka-chan. What she was asking would have a much worse impact on our retionship than before. Depending on what I said, she may have avoided me altogether or at least reduced the amount of time we spent alone.
My throat was dry and it hurt when I attempted to swallow. The thumping of my heart resonated in my ears as a chill shot through my spine. Sweat pooled on my palms as I fidgeted with my hair as the nerves built up within me.
“……………I’m in love with you, Sayaka-chan.”
~~~~~~~~~~~
Sorry for the long wait for this chapter. Some personal issues came up and then I contracted covid, so I wasn't able to write as much as I wanted to. I hope this chapter was worth the wait!
