Chapter 22 – “The Swimsuit Incident”

The ocean was calm, the sky brilliant blue, and Yuuto Kanda finally thought he might survive this field trip without trauma.

He should’ve known better.

“Yuuto! Catch!” Akari Shinozuka shouted, tossing a beach ball so hard it nearly achieved orbit. Yuuto barely caught it, wobbling knee-deep in the waves.

“Maybe—uh—tone down the power a little?” he called back.

Akari laughed, splashing water at him. “No mercy!”

A moment later, a huge wave rolled in — the kind that looked cinematic until it hit you like a freight train. Yuuto ducked under, resurfacing with a sputter.

When he blinked the salt from his eyes, Akari was gone.

“Akari?” he called, scanning the surf. Then she popped up, just a few meters away, clutching herself with a look of pure panic.

“Yuuto!” she gasped, face red. “D-don’t look!”

“Huh? Why—” He froze mid-sentence as realization dawned. The current had taken something it definitely shouldn’t have.

Her bikini top was missing.

“Wha— wait— oh no— oh no no no!” Yuuto spun around so fast he nearly face-planted into the sea. “I’m not looking! I swear I’m not looking!”

“Then help me find it!” she hissed. “It’s somewhere in the water!”

“I can’t just— how do you expect me to— oh, forget it!”

Both dove under, frantically searching the shallow waves while the rest of the class played blissfully unaware nearby. Yuuto’s hands brushed something soft; he froze instantly, brain melting down.

“That’s my shoulder!” Akari’s voice echoed underwater as she smacked him with her palm.

They surfaced at the same time, coughing and blushing like mad. “This is not how I imagined dying,” Yuuto muttered, scanning around. “Where did it even—”

The lost top floated triumphantly a few meters away like a flag of humiliation.

Akari lunged for it at the exact moment another wave hit, sending both of them tumbling. Yuuto instinctively caught her to stop the fall — only for the two of them to crash onto the sand, tangled, dripping, and very close.

For one brief, silent second, the world stopped.

Her wet hair clung to his shoulder. Her eyes were wide, flustered, but not angry.

Yuuto could practically hear his own heart hammering like a drumline.

Then a towel smacked him square in the face.

“Pervert!” Rika Hanabira’s voice cut through the sound of waves. She stormed over, cheeks burning. “What exactly are you doing, Yuuto?!”

“It’s not what it looks like!” Yuuto sputtered, throwing his hands up. “She—she lost her—”

“Don’t say it!” Akari yelped, clutching the towel tighter around herself.

Rika turned an even deeper shade of red. “Unbelievable. You could’ve looked away!”

“I did look away!”

“Not fast enough!”

From the shade of a parasol, Mizuki Onodera peeked out, her face crimson. “I-I can’t watch this,” she mumbled, retreating like a turtle into the umbrella’s shadow.

Meanwhile, Sensei Amamiya arrived on the scene, sipping from a coconut and looking entirely too amused. “Now, now,” she said, waving her free hand. “Accidents happen at the beach. Some lessons, after all, are best learned hands-on.”

“Sensei!” Yuuto choked. “Please don’t make it sound worse!”

“Too late,” Rika said coldly. “It’s already worse.”

Akari, still wrapped in the towel, groaned. “Can we just pretend this never happened?”

“No,” Mizuki said softly from under the parasol. “We’ll remember it forever.”

---

The awkward silence that followed lasted longer than Yuuto’s will to live. Rika refused to look at him, arms crossed. Mizuki avoided eye contact entirely. Akari sat beside him, still red but trying to laugh it off.

“Well… that was an adventure,” Akari said finally, fiddling with the edge of the towel.

Yuuto sighed. “You nearly gave me a heart attack.”

“Hey, I didn’t plan to lose my top to a wave!” she protested, puffing her cheeks. “You’re lucky I didn’t drown.”

“Yeah,” he muttered. “Lucky.”

Something in his voice made her glance at him. The teasing faded. For a second, she caught the genuine worry in his eyes — and her heart gave a tiny, confusing skip.

“…Thanks,” she murmured.

He smiled awkwardly. “Anytime. Just, uh, next time maybe double-knot it?”

She laughed, swatting his arm lightly. “You’re the worst.”

Behind them, Rika watched in silence, her sketchbook unopened on her lap. When Yuuto turned to check on her, she pretended to be busy adjusting her glasses. But her expression betrayed something sharper than annoyance — a flicker of jealousy she didn’t understand herself.

Sensei Amamiya, of course, noticed everything. “Ah,” she said softly, “summer love — nature’s most volatile experiment.”

---

Later that evening, when everyone gathered around the campfire again, the air felt different. The laughter was there, but something had changed beneath it — small, quiet currents between glances.

Mizuki avoided Yuuto’s gaze, cheeks still faintly pink. Akari sat close but unusually quiet, her hands folded on her knees. Rika didn’t tease or argue; she simply stared at the flames, lost in thought.

Yuuto leaned back, staring at the stars. “Can we agree never to mention today again?”

“No promises,” Akari said.

“Depends on how much you’ll pay,” Rika added, tone flat but eyes glinting.

“I’ll write an apology essay if that helps,” Yuuto muttered.

Sensei Amamiya raised her drink like a toast. “To youth,” she said cheerfully. “And to the beautiful chaos of human attraction.”

Everyone groaned in unison — but no one disagreed.