"Wh-Why is Asakura-kun here...?"
Having successfully escaped the clothing trap with Asakura's help, Hitori clutched her chest and asked pitifully, looking like a delicate flower in need of protection.
"To pick you up, of course," Asakura replied matter-of-factly.
"Th-Then why didn't you come over to help me just now instead of watching from the side?"
"Admiring my girlfriend's helpless and lewd appearance is also part of my Way of the Gentleman!" Asakura said with an air of righteous indignation.
"Abba abba..."
Hitori fell into a state of confusion, but perhaps because she had been with Asakura for a long time now, she had more or less grown accustomed to his presence, allowing her to calm down quickly. She paused for three seconds—likely recalling where the conversation had left off—and then immediately put on a look of grim determination. "N-No! I'm not lewd!"
"Really?"
Asakura took out his phone and showed her the photo he had just taken.
Looking at the version of herself on the screen that she had never even imagined, Hitori began to tremble all over, and her voice became even more abstract. "Ah-Wahhh ah-Wahhh-Wahhh..."
"Hey!" Asakura tapped the girl's forehead with a knife-hand strike.
"Ouch!"
Thus, the girl was once again forced to interrupt her process of becoming an abstract entity.
"Don't worry so much about that kind of thing." Asakura nonchalantly retracted his phone, mercilessly cutting off Hitori's thoughts of deleting the photo.
"B-But..." Hitori looked at Asakura hesitantly. "I-I'm so sorry for letting you take a picture of such a filthy thing..."
"Don't say that. I actually quite like this photo."
"Ah-Wahhh-Wahhh-Wahhh..."
"And if everything goes well, you see," Asakura started, sounding a bit embarrassed himself, "won't we get married sooner or later? In that case, we'll experience much more 'intense' things. If you don't start getting a little used to small things like this now, it'll feel like I'm the only one putting in effort when the time comes, which would give me a weird sense of guilt..."
"M-Much more intense things..."
Hitori stared blankly at Asakura and swallowed hard, her mind racing with god-knows-what.
A moment later.
"Hitori, nosebleed, nosebleed! Quick, get a tissue!"
"Abba abba..."
A flurry of panic ensued.
Looking at Hitori, who sat with a napkin stuffed up her nose and her head hanging low as if she had committed a crime, Asakura didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
"You little pervert," he said.
"I-I-I... ugh," Hitori seemed to want to refute him, but seeing herself in this state, she couldn't find the words. She could only say dejectedly, "I am... a little pervert... I guess..."
"Alright, hurry up and pack your bags, or we'll miss the Shinkansen."
Seeing the girl look like she was about to melt into a slime from embarrassment, Asakura stopped teasing her. He pulled over the suitcase that had toppled onto the other side—it seemed the girl had accidentally tripped over this suitcase earlier, leading to her tragic state.
Asakura touched the corner of the suitcase that was slightly dented from the fall and thought to himself, I'll credit you for this. I'll take you along on our honeymoon trip in the future too.
Hitori dryly folded the clothes on the floor and struggled to stuff them back into the suitcase. Since there were bras and panties involved, it wasn't easy for Asakura to help, so he stood by and watched (which made Hitori so embarrassed that her movements became even more clumsy).
"Wait a second." He finally called a halt to her packing. "I remember mentioning over the phone that I'd take you to the beach, so you need to bring a swimsuit, right?"
"Y-Yes."
Hitori tilted her head and looked at Asakura with total confusion. Combined with the tissue in her nose, the scene looked both ridiculous and adorable.
"So, did you bring one?"
"Yes, I have it!" The girl nodded frantically. Then she pulled a school swimsuit (sukumizu) out from the pile of clothes to show him.
It was clear this swimsuit was quite old, and it even had a name tag with "Gotō" on it. Considering it couldn't be from elementary school, it was likely from her middle school days.
"While a school swimsuit isn't bad, it'll be too eye-catching, so let's forget it..." Asakura sighed helplessly. "Moreover, can you even still fit into that, Hitori?"
"I-It should be fine... I barely grew in height from middle school to high school..." the girl whispered.
"It's not a matter of height. You'll see if you try it on now."
"Eh? Now? Here?" The girl froze.
"I'm not going out." Asakura sat down on the tatami, firm as a rock. "This is my home now."
"No, it's actually my house..."
Hitori was embarrassed for a moment, then her eyes lit up as she took the swimsuit and ducked into the small room converted from a closet.
"Pretty smart." Asakura wasn't too disappointed; he was mostly joking anyway.
A moment later, the closet door opened, and Hitori stood there in her school swimsuit, looking ashamed.
"S-See! It's fine!" Hitori seemed to feel she had finally won against Asakura in something, her tone sounding slightly upbeat. "I even wore it a month ago!"
"Isn't that your middle school swimsuit?" Asakura was stunned. She actually wore it a month ago?
"It was to escape work at the live house..."
"Now I'm starting to wonder how wearing that helps you escape work... Nijika's STARRY isn't exactly the kind of live house that provides 'special services'..."
"...Please don't ask about the details." The girl's expression was quite bitter; it seemed her plan to escape work hadn't gone very well.
"Yeah, I can guess the gist of it. More importantly... Hitori, try to stand up straight and puff out your chest a bit."
"Eh? Like this?"
Hitori tried to stand up straight. "I-I feel like my chest is a bit... ugh?!"
Before the girl could finish, Asakura heard the distinct sound of fabric tearing.
Just as expected, the school swimsuit was actually too small for Hitori—mostly in the chest area. It was a bit of "useless knowledge" that wasn't obvious normally, but if one compared Hitori to other girls her age, she would be in the "top tier" (oppai) category. However, because she was always hunched over, this hadn't been noticed. Once she stood up straight, the school swimsuit naturally couldn't handle the pressure.
"How is it?" Asakura asked, amused.
"The zipper... seems to have broken..." The girl looked like she was about to cry.
"In that case, just leave it at home," Asakura said, going with the flow. "We'll buy your swimsuit near the beach. Usually, the nearby malls should have them."
"I feel like that's a bit..." Hitori still found it hard to let go.
But since Asakura said so, she eventually crawled back into the closet and changed out of the swimsuit. However, she didn't change back into the loungewear that had also lost a button; instead, she changed into the pink tracksuit she usually wore as casual attire.
With Asakura's help, the luggage was quickly organized. Most of the items Hitori had originally selected were removed from the suitcase.
"Just bring some essentials that are hard to buy or that you use frequently. For clothes, just bring underwear and the outfits you like; we can buy everything else on the road," Asakura declared to the girl like a wealthy tycoon. "That's the convenience of modern society!"
"O-Oh~"
Hitori didn't know how to respond to Asakura's declaration and could only clap and cheer perfunctorily. However, she became uneasy again afterward. "Should someone like me really go on a trip with Asakura-kun?"
"Why are you still worrying about that at this point?" Asakura knew her personality was like this and wasn't dissatisfied. "If anything, it's precisely because you always say things like that that I have to take you out to play."
"I feel like I'm digging my own grave..."
"Besides me, do you think anyone else would ask you out during summer break?" Asakura asked.
"Ni-Nijika-senpai and the others might..." Hitori said hopefully.
"Impossible," Asakura said with a wave of his hand.
"A split-second denial?!" The girl's eyes widened.
"Nijika will definitely prioritize her family's STARRY. Summer break is a great chance to attract customers, and she's quite a hard worker; she'll probably be working there until she forgets what day it is. Kita has to work at Rabbit House and go out with her other friends; her schedule is definitely booked solid. Unless you can hang out with her 'normie' friends, it'll be hard for her to carve out a specific day just for you. As for Yamada... do you think that girl would ever ask you to hang out? Even in the unlikely event she did, she'd be more likely to ask you to pay for her than to actually play with you."
"T-True..."
Hitori collapsed onto the floor. "Are? Even though I feel like I've improved a lot compared to the past, why hasn't my summer break changed at all? Have I really not changed at all?"
"If you really hadn't changed, I wouldn't be standing here."
Asakura crouched beside her and rubbed the girl's head. "Alright, I'm heading downstairs. Pack up those undergarments and come down quickly."
"O-Okay..."
Seeing Asakura get up to leave, the girl couldn't help but call out to him. "Um, Asakura-kun..."
"If you're going to ask 'why me' again, even I'll get angry, okay?" Asakura turned back to stare at her.
"It's not that... I just wanted to say, well... although Asakura-kun is a bit of a playboy, I also... l-l-l... value Asakura-kun very much!"
"Yeah, I've received your 'valuation'~"
Asakura waved to her with a smile and left the room satisfied. Then, he was questioned for thirty minutes downstairs by Gotō Michiyo because of the bloodstain on his pants (from Hitori's nosebleed).