Chapter 23 – “Sandcastle Rivalry”

The morning sun baked the beach like an oven. The sound of waves and laughter filled the air as Yuuto tried not to sweat through his shirt—partly from heat, mostly from the constant chaos surrounding him.

Sensei Amamiya clapped her hands. “All right, class! Today’s educational activity—team bonding through sandcastle engineering!”

“Team bonding?” Yuuto echoed. “Why do I feel like this will end in tragedy?”

“Because it’s you,” Rika Hanabira said, smirking as she tied her hair into a ponytail. “Don’t drag my scientific brilliance down.”

“Relax!” Akari Shinozuka shouted, throwing a shovel over her shoulder like a warrior. “We’ll make the biggest, coolest castle ever!”

Mizuki Onodera smiled shyly, notebook in hand. “I’ll… just write poems about it.”

---

The class scattered into groups. Naturally, Yuuto found himself surrounded by the same trio of disasters he called his study club.

Akari immediately started digging like a hyperactive puppy. “Let’s build a giant cat!” she declared. “With, like, big paws and a cute tail!”

Yuuto blinked. “A cat? Not a castle?”

“Castles are boring. Everyone likes cats.”

Before Yuuto could argue, Akari was already sculpting an enormous sand tail, humming proudly. Against his better judgment, he joined in. “Fine. But at least make it symmetrical—ow!”

Akari flicked sand at him. “Don’t question my art!”

Meanwhile, a few meters away, Rika had constructed what looked like a miniature fortress straight out of an architectural magazine. She carved precise turrets with a ruler, her glasses glinting in the sun.

“Behold,” she announced, “the Hanabira Citadel—engineered to withstand waves, gravity, and mediocrity.”

Yuuto stood up and whistled. “That’s… actually impressive.”

Rika’s hand twitched. “Of course it is.”

Mizuki, sitting cross-legged beside them, quietly read from her notebook.

> “Waves kiss the soft shore,

Towers rise and hearts collide,

Summer melts too fast.”

Akari tilted her head. “That’s so cute, Mizuki! Also, what’s it mean?”

“It’s about impermanence,” Mizuki said softly, eyes on Yuuto for just a second too long.

He coughed. “Let’s, uh, finish our cat before it becomes modern art.”

---

Thirty minutes later, chaos had bloomed like a summer flower.

Akari’s sand cat looked like a confused seal. Rika’s castle could’ve passed for a professional exhibit. Mizuki’s poetry circle had grown into a quiet fan club of students listening to her read.

Sensei Amamiya strolled by, sunglasses reflecting the battlefield of sand. “Good effort, everyone! Rika-chan, your fortress is gorgeous. Akari-chan, yours is… energetic. Mizuki, lovely verses. Yuuto—good luck surviving all of this.”

Yuuto saluted weakly. “Trying my best, Sensei.”

Rika crouched beside her castle, brushing stray grains away with delicate care. When Yuuto wandered over to look, she frowned. “Careful. One wrong move and you’ll ruin the structural balance.”

He leaned closer anyway. “You even made a drawbridge. That’s amazing, Rika.”

She froze. “A-amazing?”

“Yeah. It’s actually beautiful.”

Her face turned pink before she could stop it. “D-don’t say things like that so casually! You’ll… you’ll mess with my concentration!”

He smiled, oblivious. “You’re really talented, you know?”

Rika’s hand slipped. Her shovel jabbed into the base of the castle. The whole tower leaned dangerously.

“Wait—Rika—!”

In a slow-motion disaster, the sand structure collapsed with a dramatic whump. The wave of falling sand buried Yuuto halfway up his chest.

“Ahhh! My castle!” Rika cried, falling to her knees. Then she realized Yuuto was underneath the wreckage. “Oh no—Yuuto!”

He spat out a mouthful of sand. “I’m alive… I think…”

“I told you to stand back!” she snapped, red-faced and flustered.

“You’re the one who hit it!”

“It was your fault for distracting me!”

Akari jogged over, laughing. “What happened here, lovebirds?”

Rika’s ears turned crimson. “W-we are not—!”

But before she could finish, Yuuto tugged her wrist lightly, trying to get up. She stumbled forward, lost her balance, and fell—straight on top of him.

Both froze.

Her hands pressed against his chest. His eyes met hers, close enough to feel her breath.

“Um,” Yuuto said weakly, “your… uh… experiment is on my ribs.”

Rika blinked once, twice, then scrambled back like she’d been electrocuted. “S-sorry! I mean—you! It was—gravity’s fault!”

Akari grinned. “Sure it was, Rika.”

Mizuki peeked over her notebook, face burning. “S-so bold…”

“Everyone shut up!” Rika squeaked, covering her face.

Sensei Amamiya, watching from afar, chuckled and jotted something in her clipboard. “Observation: emotional friction increases productivity by 37%.”

---

After the chaos died down, the group sat together, catching their breath as the tide washed over the ruined castles.

“Guess sandcastles aren’t meant to last,” Yuuto said quietly.

Mizuki smiled faintly. “That’s why they’re beautiful.”

Akari kicked the surf. “Nah, next time we’ll make one so big it won’t fall.”

Rika folded her arms, pretending to pout. “Next time, I’m not teaming up with any distracting idiots.”

“Rika,” Yuuto said softly, brushing sand off his hair, “you dropped the honorifics again.”

She blinked. “I… did?”

He smiled. “Kinda nice hearing it.”

Her heart skipped. “D-don’t get used to it, Yuuto.”

Mizuki quietly wrote another line in her notebook:

> “Even broken castles

hold the warmth of clumsy hearts—

summer laughs again.”

The waves rolled in, stealing the last traces of their creations. But the air around them felt lighter, brighter—like something unspoken had shifted just a little closer.