Swimsuits

The next day at lunchtime, I arrived at the shopping mall with Aria.

Normally we would have taken our time browsing and enjoying the date, but it didn't look like we'd have that luxury today.

For one thing, I'd come straight from my morning lecture, so we didn't even ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠get here until past noon. And while it was only shallow knowledge I'd picked up from hearsay, I'd heard that women take a very long time choosing clothes.

In other words, if I didn't manage our time wisely, we might end up going home today without even properly buying swimsuits.

Still, since we'd come straight from my lecture, we did need to fill our stomachs.

"Aria. Want to get lunch first?"

"Sure. We didn't have a meal on our last date, after all."

But even deciding where to eat wasn't easy.

It was called a shopping mall, but this place was on a completely different scale—one of the largest in the country.

In fact, there had been plenty we hadn't gotten to see on our last date. Even the movie theater floor and aquarium floor where we'd spent our time hadn't contained only a movie theater and an aquarium.

For example, on the aquarium floor there was a restaurant where you could feel like you were dining under the sea.

Next to the movie theater floor, there was a merchandise shop selling goods from a famous series, and even an arcade full of game cabinets and claw machines.

Anyway, thanks to all this, I privately thought choosing this place as our date spot last time hadn't been a bad call.

It was genuinely on a scale that made your eyes go wide just looking around, so lots of couples used it as a date spot, and plenty of tourists visited too.

The only problem was that the place was far too big to cover in a single day.

Actually, even that wasn't a bad thing from my perspective.

I felt a little sorry for Aria, since I was a clueless older brother who'd never dated anyone, but it also meant I could milk this place as a date spot at least a few more times.

"Is there anything you want to eat?"

"Hmm, I'm not sure. I think it'd be fine for you to pick whatever you'd like to eat, Brother."

"I don't have anything I'm dying to eat either... Let's start by checking out the basement food court."

The food court on basement level one had a wide variety of food.

Of course, the food was generally cheaper than the restaurants on the upper floors, and there were a lot of common dishes, but cheap and common didn't mean tasteless.

The delicious smells wafting from all over made me even hungrier, but somehow made deciding even harder.

Aria seemed no different, and there was one place where our wandering gazes finally fixed.

"Handmade burgers. How about burgers for lunch?"

"Yes, I happened to have my eye on that too."

We placed our order through the kiosk and sat nearby to wait.

Both Aria and I chose the burger with the shop's name in it, which looked like the signature menu item.

Aria often ordered the same thing as me, saying she wanted to know my usual tastes, but this time the reason was different.

We both believed you had to try a restaurant's signature item to judge its food fairly.

Thanks to that, the two of us picked our menus at the same time, and the only difference was whether or not we got a side.

"Oh, it's ready. I'll go get it."

We'd sat down right in front anyway, so I carried a tray in each hand and came back to our seats.

"Thank you for the meal, Brother."

"If you're still hungry after eating, have some of this too."

I pushed the onion rings I'd ordered toward the middle of the table.

They seemed to have cored out only the center of the onion and fried it whole, so the onion rings were a pretty hefty size.

My mouth watered, but the burger came first.

As befitting a handmade burger, it wasn't wrapped up tight, so the structure of the burger was immediately visible.

What I could see on the outside was roughly: bun, lettuce, tomato, onions caramelized and stir-fried until they turned a golden brown, cheese, sauce, a hash brown patty, and a beef patty.

It was a solid lineup, but honestly speaking, I could already imagine the taste from the ingredients alone.

I didn't dislike a taste I could imagine.

Familiar flavors could be even more irresistible, after all.

Especially these days, a lot of handmade burger places styled themselves after American-style burgers, and while they looked delicious, many of them were heavy to actually eat. At least the fact that this wasn't that kind of structure was a relief for both me and Aria.

I took a big bite.

My eyes widened for a moment.

"This is better than I expected."

Personally, I thought the three things that most shaped a burger's flavor were the patty, the sauce, and the bun.

Cheese, or the addition of other special ingredients, mattered just as much, but when thinking only of the basics, that was how it was.

This burger's bun wasn't particularly special.

It was well toasted, but it was definitely a factory-made bun.

The patty and sauce, however, were different.

First, the patty was clearly made in-house and full of juices, with a subtle aroma running through it.

"Is that pepper and cumin?"

I couldn't tell for sure.

Because the sauce's presence was so strong.

"This is definitely gravy sauce, but something extra went in."

The meaty aroma and savoriness of the gravy doubled down on the flavor of the patty.

On top of that, the meaty richness that could have become overwhelming was cut cleanly by the sauce's finish, leaving a savory aftertaste.

Whatever created that clean finish was probably the key ingredient, but I couldn't identify it.

Then again, if I were enough of a gourmet to guess it in one try, I'd probably be working as a food critic by now.

"Brother, do you always analyze food like that when you eat out?"

At first my heart sank, thinking she was criticizing me for muttering and ruining the mood while eating, but no matter how I looked at it, Aria's gaze and tone were pure curiosity.

"Well, if I think it's a good combination, I want to copy it. That way our family table gets richer, right? I'm not going to open a restaurant, and it's only for home use, so this much should be fine."

Stealing this recipe to make money would be wrong, but since I only intended to use it at home, I figured it was okay.

At that, Aria looked oddly moved.

"It's thanks to your efforts like this, Brother, that we've always been able to eat delicious meals."

"Efforts, nothing. I'm not seriously trying to extract recipes or anything—I just use the same ingredients and imitate. It's not even worth calling effort. Even if I knew all the ingredients in this burger, I probably couldn't perfectly recreate the taste."

Even with the same ingredients, the result varies wildly depending on the cooking method.

If I tried to copy this burger exactly at home, I'd probably manage about 70 percent at best.

"Still, the thought itself makes me happy. It makes me realize you always cook with other people in mind, Brother..."

I didn't think I was that altruistic a person, but hearing Aria's words, at least the reason I'd been standing in the kitchen lately really was for other people.

When I lived alone, of course I'd cooked for myself, but honestly it was a hassle, so I'd half-assed it far more often.

Buying food outside, or just piling chicken breast on a salad and calling it a meal.

Or just a packet of instant noodles, or boiled eggs.

The reason someone like me had started standing in the kitchen every day again lately was, in the end, because the family who would eat my cooking had come back.

When I cooked hoping they'd eat it happily, the hassle didn't really bother me.

As I realized that and sank into thought, Aria smiled softly and began earnestly eating her burger again with that small mouth of hers.

* * *

After heartily eating the burgers and onion rings, we stood in front of the elevator on basement level one.

As an aside, the onion rings were tasty, but compared to the burger they were ordinary.

"Anyway, what kind of swimsuit are you going to pick?"

"Hmm, I was planning to decide while watching your reactions, Brother..."

There was one problem caused by the place being so huge.

Different types of swimsuits were handled in different sections, so even deciding which floor to go to was a hurdle.

For example, functional swimsuits like rash guards were in the sports/outdoor section. Swimsuits like bikinis were in the women's beachwear section, and so on.

"Shall we look at bikinis first? It's a private beach just for the two of us to enjoy, so it'd be a shame to cover up completely."

Aria was on the shorter side, but her figure wasn't entirely lacking either.

She was close to a slender body type with a fair amount of volume in her lower half, and her chest also had a subtle fullness, so it definitely couldn't be called small.

Actually, rather than Aria being small, wasn't Victoria simply outside the norm? Seo-yeon was bigger than Aria too, yet Aria had never once shown any inferiority complex about her figure around her.

I didn't say anything, since openly reacting to her figure in front of her would have been sexual harassment, but when I'd unhooked Victoria's bra clasp last time, I couldn't help being shocked.

Because it was the first time in my life I'd seen it.

The three-digit chest circumference written on the bra.

Of course, underwear like that is made to certain standard sizes, so it wasn't an exact measurement, but even that bra had looked slightly tight on her, so she was definitely at least close to that size.

As I blankly thought about such things, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠we took the elevator and walked, and before I knew it we'd arrived at the swimsuit section.

The first thing Aria picked up while browsing around was a white bikini decorated with frills.

Aria held the bikini up against her body and asked.

"How is it?"

"It suits you. It's got a suitably cute feel too."

I wondered if it was too half-hearted an answer, but when would I ever have had occasion to compliment a women's swimsuit before?

However, Aria was happy even with my half-hearted answer.

"Really? Then I'll have to buy this one for now."

"What are you going to do if I say everything suits you?"

"Then I'll just buy everything. We're going to keep living together from now on anyway, so having several swimsuits isn't a bad thing."

I thought it might be a waste of money, but since it was her own money, it felt a bit much to butt in unnecessarily.

Still, I needed to answer wisely.

Since her face was what it was, any swimsuit would suit her, but if I said everything suited her, a mountain of swimsuits would pile up at home.

"Brother, then how about this one?"

This time it was a black bikini with a mature feel.

"This one suits you too. Unlike the last one, it's got a mature feel, so it's sexy."

"Really? Then I'll have to buy this one too!"

Hmm, I'd definitely told myself to answer carefully earlier, but her face was a cheat code, so there was nothing I could do.

What am I supposed to do when everything suits her?

"Ah, Brother! Then how about this one?"

This time it was a one-piece swimsuit with a competitive-swimwear feel.

"It's a bit less revealing, but the lines of your body would show, so it'd probably be pretty."

"Then this one too!"

By the time she'd bought five swimsuits like this, I was the first to cry uncle.

"Aria. How about we stop buying here for now? We need to look at other places too, and buying too much just here feels a bit much."

"True, we do need to look at swimsuits with other designs."

Aria accepted it readily.

From there, we headed to a store on another floor.

This time it was a fairly high-end brand store, so it was full of swimsuits far more luxurious than the ones we'd just seen.

"Ah, Brother! How about something like this?"

Aria put on a straw hat on her head and wrapped a sarong around her waist, held a bikini up against her body, and spun around once.

For a moment, I stared, entranced.

It was a swimsuit with a ladylike feel that suited Aria's pure and delicate image extremely well.

As if that reaction alone was answer enough, Aria giggled and turned around.

"Seeing your reaction, Brother, I definitely have to buy this one."

I couldn't bring myself to tell her not to buy any more.

Because I really did want to see Aria wearing this one too.

Thanks to buying two swimsuits here, the shopping bags I was carrying alone became seven. As a bonus, there was the straw hat and the semi-transparent sarong you could see through.

"Ah, right. Now that I think of it..."

I remembered what Aria had said last time—that I could pick out a highly revealing swimsuit if I wanted.

Since we'd already bought this much, I had nothing to lose by bringing it up.

"Brother, is something the matter?"

"Um, you said it before. That I could pick whatever I wanted to put you in."

"Yes. Is there a particular swimsuit you'd like, Brother?"

"I'm not sure if there is, but will you follow me for a moment?"

We headed deeper and deeper into a secluded corner of the mall.

This place, quite out of the way for a normal family to browse, was full of anime and game character goods, or figures and the like.

Probably because there were quite a few things here that would be embarrassing for ordinary people to see, it was located in an out-of-the-way spot that was hard to step into unless you knew to look for it.

It was truly hard to reach unless you were someone who circled the entire mall once, or someone who knew the location and came looking for it in the first place.

"This place is..."

"It's further in. Ah, there it is."

The place we arrived at was a costume shop selling cosplay clothes and the like.

Of course, it didn't only sell cosplay clothes. It also sold unusual swimsuits meant almost entirely for photo shoots and themed concept shoots.

The reason I knew about this place was that, after Aria said I could put her in any swimsuit I wanted, I'd searched for unusual swimsuits and found this shop.

The problem was that now that I'd actually brought Aria here, I was embarrassed. It felt like I'd done something wrong to my younger sister.

"Um, Brother, is this what you want to put me in...?"

While I was inwardly lamenting my own actions, wondering if this was really okay, Aria came out holding two swimsuits on hangers and asked me.

One was a micro bikini with a dangerously small amount of fabric, and the other was a slingshot swimsuit.

Neither was something you could reasonably wear at a normal beach. You'd need a private beach for that.

"That's, uh..."

The rational part of me that said it was too disgusting to tell my younger sister I wanted to put her in something like this collided with the instinct that asked, don't you want to see Aria wearing that at the beach?

"If you want to see it, Brother, I'm okay with it."

As I agonized, Aria said that and, with a reddened face, put the two swimsuits into the shopping basket.

Only then did I come to my senses, as if cold water had been dumped on my head.

"No. I mean, I do want to see it, but you don't need to push yourself. It's a trip for just the two of us, so we should both enjoy ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it."

I couldn't force her to wear something she didn't want to wear.

But Aria shook her head.

"I'm not pushing myself. Of course, it's a side of me I'd never want to show other men, but we're going to a private beach with just the two of us in the first place. If you're the only person who can see ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠me like this, Brother, I can wear it as much as you like."

"I want you to wear a swimsuit you yourself want to wear, not one you're wearing for me. If you feel any resistance to wearing something like this outside, you don't have to wear it."

No matter what, I couldn't become the kind of trash who forced his younger sister into clothes like this and paraded her around outside.

But Aria smiled at my words and shook her head.

"Of course, it would be a lie to say I'm not embarrassed, but more than that, I'm actually happy. I think this is the first time you've shown me your desires so transparently, Brother..."

True, until now Aria had been the one appealing to me; I'd never forced my desires on Aria.

From my position as her older brother, I'd thought that was only natural, but to Aria, it seemed that had actually been a quiet disappointment.

Or maybe she was simply happy to learn my tastes.

Then, suddenly, Aria's gaze fixed on one spot.

Aria walked toward it.

I followed her gaze as well.

With her face flushed, Aria slowly picked up two items.

One was a bikini with a maid-outfit feel.

And the other was a collar, probably meant for BDSM play.

Aria held the maid-style bikini up in front of herself, and at the same time loosely fastened the collar around her own neck.

Then she whispered to me.

"Brother. Do you like being called 'Master'...?"