“Nothing may prevent me from reaching my objective, even the deathly sunlight.”

“Hmm…”

“Contained within these robes, there is a power capable of overthrowing the order of this world. You puny humans should not toy with me. Fufu.”

I had no idea what was going on in the mind of the peculiar girl whose attire completely collided with what was adequate in our current situation. Then again, I was already used to seeing her like that. She didn’t care about the general standards, somehow she didn’t seem to mind the unpleasant stares from people surrounding us resulting from that despite her timid nature.

Compared to earlier, she had toned it down slightly… but it was still far from satisfactory. Her short skirt was black just as the top contained in the unfastened, baggy coat. Her left eye was hidden before the world just as usual, but surprisingly, her long, blonde hair was not coated by the cat-ear hood today.

“Err… Lumiya…?”

Her real name was Himawari, but I still kept referring to her by the name she had made up on her own. It only brought additional unnecessary confusion, but I was afraid of changing that. Either way, she didn’t seem like she would allow that. What a weird girl.

“I-I’m listening to you, human.”

“I-I’m sorry for asking, but have you for sure brought a proper… swimsuit?”

She was sitting right next to me. The train wasn’t overflowing with people, but it wasn’t empty either. I hadn’t taken such a long train trip in a very long time, so there was some additional excitement that I enjoyed, especially that the girl was accompanying me. Unfortunately, it brought a nearly equal amount of anxiety.

“W-worry not… of course I have prepared myself accordingly.”

Our destination was the beach. It was something that I wanted to try out ever since summer kicked in, but no one in my family had been willing to go with me. The only other option… which should have been the first thing to ever consider, was to gather a group of friends.

But unfortunately, I did not have friends. Except for one. As to whether she really was my friend, or only an acquaintance, partner, colleague, classmate, master, girlfriend, sister, companion, familiar, let’s spare this pointless and arduous monologue for now.

Another problem had, obviously, arisen. The destination was the beach, but she was a girl—and it wasn’t like anyone else would be accompanying me, it would only be me and her, a boy and girl, alone together.

It was only certain that merely thinking of it would bring me an immense amount of embarrassment. Disappointed, I had been almost on the verge of giving up on the entire idea, but…

“…”

At about 11 pm, I had been sitting on the bed while overthinking various ideas instead of sleeping. I had thought it was impossible, because someone like me would never be able to gather enough courage to ask her out. It would be no different from a date, I had been sure.

There were two possible approaches to that: “No, I’m too embarrassed to do that!!” or “So what?”

Normally, I would have chosen the former, but then, I had decided to consider the latter. Wording it like that might have made it look easy, but that night hadn’t been easy on me at all.

It would mean that a date with her was something I wanted to accomplish.

Sure, almost every outing until now could be called a date, especially the restaurant one, but I had been distancing myself from that word as much as possible. I saw her as a peculiar person I knew and grew somewhat close to, but I avoided dwelling on the relationship between us since it led to lengthy and unsettling monologues inside my mind.

I might have been pathetic, I might have simply given in to the outdated instincts inside me, but all the time I had spent with her, allowing me to get to know her relatively well, led me to an awfully generic and laughable conclusion.

It had been about four months since I came across her—I had not the slightest idea if it was enough. Either way, I had already learned that the relation between us was not meant to be measured by human standards.

I felt something towards her.

In fact, it had been like that from the very first day. Ever since I stumbled across her on the staircase, there was something that attracted me to her.

She was peculiar, even weird. She had an eyepatch over her left eye and wore strange and inappropriate clothes just because she liked it. It was not normal, some people would even suggest a therapy for her, and maybe it wouldn’t be a bad course of action at all—her behavior did put people off, which led her to have no friends at all.

For some reason though, the exact same thing had a completely opposite effect on me. It was something that made her original. Her behavior, although strange, was adorable at the end of the day. She rarely spoke or smiled, but when she finally did, it was a big event. Just being able to see that was something that filled me with happiness and satisfaction.

Maybe another thing that I liked about her… was that we were actually very similar. Under her peculiar, often clumsy act, she was easily embarrassed and cowardly, although outstandingly talented. It was just as though she had been hiding, protecting the treasure, her true self, from other people. Apparently, it hadn’t worked on me.

That’s why I was happy by her side and kept fighting with my anxiety despite it being difficult—those past three months might have been the most enjoyable time of my life thus far, and it was only because of her.

That said, it was only how things looked on my side. I couldn’t help but wonder, what she thought of me? Indisputable facts were that she had been putting up with me thus far and agreeing to every meeting I proposed, so I could be sure of that she didn’t hate me, at least.

But how much did she actually like me?

Today, I was going to be having fun with her to the fullest. That would make the day truly unforgettable, most likely the best in my entire life, even considering the days to come. Or at least so I had planned, but how it would actually turn out, I had to wait and see… or rather, I had to work towards it, trying to overcome all the anxiety and awkwardness.

•

“Ugh… f-fufu, it’s not enough to scratch me, you foolish sun!”

Having gotten off the train, an image of the bright summer sea opened before our eyes. The beach was, just as expected, filled with people, but it could have been way worse.

“Haha…”

That feeling was amazing. As sweltering heat embraced my body, numerous cries of joy and the pleasant sound of waves washing against the shore reached my ears. Moreover, the girl was keeping me company, sometimes making her usual, exaggerated remarks.

Before the entrance, there was a pretty large rest area. I could guess that it contained toilets and lockers, but they most likely were not free. We could do without them, probably.

The girl that walked alongside me was dressed in a very strange manner, completely black and covering as much of her body as possible. It made me wonder how would her swimsuit look… if she had even brought one, that is. And was she going to swim with that eyepatch on?

We entered the changing rooms that were, fortunately, free.

“I shall transform now.”

“Transform, huh…”

We went in our respective directions.

•

I changed into my orange swimming trunks that had totally nothing interesting about them, aside from the fact that I had bought them just a few days ago particularly for this occasion.

It seemed that I had been faster than her as I waited under the roof of the rest area that had quite a lot of people passing through. Paying no heed to them, I just stared at the tiled floor, a little bit nervous. Soon, I would see her in a swimsuit for the very first time ever. It appeared that she avoided leaving exposed parts on her body to an extreme, so seeing her even in a regular swimsuit would be a rare sight.

“H-human. Complete…” a voice reached me from behind, prompting me to turn around.

The girl stood there, fidgeting and directing her single eye to the side. Even though I expected that, I was surprised when I saw her. On her left eye, there was the black eyepatch—it hadn’t changed. Her hair was blonde and long, just as before.

What she wore couldn’t be exactly called a swimsuit. In fact, she could have walked around the city in that and she would earn less strange looks than in that weird black outfit with cat ears she had earlier.

It was basically a black, frilly dress. The cloth it was made of probably made it suitable to use in water, but I wasn’t knowledgeable in those things.

“A-and…?”

It intimidated and left me speechless. She was… quite cute in that.

“G-good. Looks good.”

“I… I see…” she bashfully looked aside as she scratched her flushed cheek. She didn’t appear condescending in the least like that.

“R-right…” I caught the scratching illness from her and began scratching my nape… don’t worry, it wasn’t itching.

I felt so incredibly awkward—I wanted it to end already, so without a word, I turned around and started walking toward the beach, hopefully with her following me.

The beach was filled with people, but it was quite easy to find an empty spot. We decided to place all our things there. Surprisingly, she even brought an umbrella… I thought that she avoided this thing at all times.

Now, there were only two of us. We weren’t going to do all the fireworks or watermelon things, because I think that we needed a few more people for that. For example, if there was only me directing her, she would find the watermelon easily unless I decided to toy with her… but I wouldn’t, probably.

Did that mean that all we could do was lay idly under the umbrella and sometimes jump into the water? Not really. There were numerous other things we could do at the beach, for example going to a nearby seaside restaurant. They weren’t that expensive.

But first, I had to break through the barrier of awkwardness.

“L-Lumiya… can you swim?” I asked her a pointless question—I doubted that she would tell me the truth if she didn’t, and stuttering of any kind was not a reliable signal in this situation that was awkward in general.

“Who do you think I am, human…”

“Right…”

After a moment of silence, she continued hesitantly, avoiding looking at me:

“I-I can swim, somewhat…”

But could I swim? Well, if I had to say, I would answer… somewhat.

“Human, are you not afraid of the creatures living in water?”

“Well… I’m probably afraid of them, but there’s nothing dangerous near the coast, so I don’t have to worry.”

“You’re right…”

Staring at the wide and endless sea where some people, including kids and couples, were having fun near the coast, I made a suggestion:

“Maybe… let’s go into the water, shall we?”

“I… approve.”

Thus, I rose from the ground. The awkwardness made me walk stiffly, which could have looked funny. She was, in fact, similar. The sand was warm, but it did not scorch my feet—it would be a quite pleasant feeling if it wasn’t for the sun that made me sweaty everywhere and longing for shade.

The peculiar girl in the fluffy black dress followed me as I entered the water—it was quite cool, but it was exactly what I was looking for under the deathly rays of sun. We were more than friends at this point, weren’t we?