Shopping (2)

"Good lord..."

"S-Sea-chan, hidoi..."

Sea blithely ignored the whimpering. She was far too busy marveling at the astonishing results.

The three sizes. Bust, waist, and hips, as people usually put it.

90-57-84.

Have a sense of what those numbers mean? Put simply, it was the kind of unreal figure you'd only ever see on some hardcore otaku anime heroine. Practically unheard of in East Asia, and even in the West, the sort of proportions most voluptuous women could never hope to achieve.

Sea found herself stealing a glance at Hana. To think she'd been hiding a monster like that under that boxy T-shirt...

It's not like mine are bad or anything...

She had never once been dissatisfied with her own figure, and yet today, for the first time, Sea found herself ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠feeling something unfamiliar. A rather unsavory little emotion called jealousy.

"Watashi has been defiled..."

Hana, for her part, had her arms wrapped around herself and was still whining without pause.

"Oppa. If anyone overheard you, they'd think I'd done something awful."

"Shameless! You g-groped my chest all over! Sea-chan, you hentai!"

At that, Sea scratched her cheek and offered an awkward smile. It wasn't as if the accusation was wrong.

"I just... it was so fascinating I couldn't help myself. I apologized right away, didn't I? It was a joke."

"...The perpetrator always says it was just a joke. Sea-chan, watashi is so disappointed in you."

Apparently Oppa slipped into polite speech whenever she got worked up.

Still, as the minutes passed Sea recovered a measure of her composure. She soothed Hana and headed back toward the clerk. A small worry had begun to nibble at her, though. Hana's figure was even better than she'd expected—there was a real chance they wouldn't find a bra that fit. Larger cup sizes barely sold in stores, after all; you usually had to order them online.

Sea approached the clerk who had been waiting for them, glanced once around the shop, and asked quietly,

"Excuse me—do you happen to have a 65F in the store?"

"...I'm sorry?"

The clerk startled so hard her eyes flew, unbidden, to Hana standing behind Sea. She caught herself almost at once, realizing how rude the stare was, and snapped her gaze back—but inwardly, she couldn't help being impressed.

"65F... Give me a moment. I'll have to go look in the back."

Nothing on the display racks came close to a size that monstrous. The clerk hurried off to the stockroom to see if they had any in inventory.

Left alone, Sea let her gaze settle on Hana's chest, then asked out of nowhere,

"Oppa. What's it like?"

"Huh? What's what like...?"

"Walking around with a chest that huge. How does it feel?"

"...Heavy."

"Hmm."

She'd clearly meant it as a complaint. So why did it sound so enviable?

About three minutes later, the clerk finally returned. She hoisted the bra overhead like a general riding home from war with the enemy commander's head and cried,

"I found one!"

"Oh."

It was... fine, actually. Or rather, it was a plain solid-black bra, the kind of thing it was hard to have much of an opinion about. The problem was that she'd only brought one. If you factored in laundry days, a single bra was nowhere near enough.

"Is that all you have?"

"I think there might be more if I look further in."

"Could you bring every one you've got, then? Everything she has at home is too small now..."

"Of course. Just a moment!"

"We're going to buy them anyway—it's all right if she tries it on now, isn't it?"

"Of course."

While the clerk disappeared into the stockroom again, the two of them decided to see whether the bra actually fit. Sea handed over the bra along with a pair of panties she'd already picked out.

"Here. Put these on."

"...Do I really have to?"

"What, are you planning to go without underwear for the rest of your life?"

"That's not what I—"

Sea shoved the dithering Hana by the back and marched her into the fitting room.

"You're not wearing any underwear anyway, right? Just put them on and come straight out."

"...Watashi is wearing something on the bottom, though."

"Huh?"

Sea thought it over. The bottom—so, panties? But there was no way Oppa had gotten her hands on women's panties...

The conclusion arrived almost at once.

"...The ones you used to wear?"

"...Hai."

"Boxers?"

"Trunks."

Good lord. A voluptuous Japanese woman in men's trunks.

Then again, maybe it wasn't as bad as it sounded? Honestly, Sea had wanted to try trunks herself at least once. They looked a little off, sure, but they also looked undeniably comfortable.

"...Okay. Better than going commando, I guess."

"Then can I just put on the top—"

"Absolutely not!"

A bra on top and trunks on the bottom. Whatever else she could tolerate, that combination was a hard no. That, she could not allow.

Bullied into submission by Sea's insistence, Hana finally agreed to put on both. Sea waited outside the fitting room for her to come out—but for some reason, Hana still hadn't emerged after quite a while.

"Oppa. How's it going?"

"...Well."

"What's wrong? Is there a problem?"

"Tasukete. I don't know how to put a bra on..."

"Ah."

Sea stepped straight into the fitting room. Fortunately the shop was empty, so there was no one to worry about. Once inside, she helped her brother.

"Whoa, that's insane..."

"Hentai! That's ecchi! Sea-chan, you pervert!"

And catching a glimpse of Hana's bare skin in the process was just a little extra.

I have been defiled.

And by the little sister I trusted most, no less.

There had been a bit of a commotion, but we managed to buy the underwear without further incident. The biggest hurdle was behind us.

Not that that meant the shopping was over. There was still a mountain of things left to buy.

"Alright! Let's go-go!"

"...Watashi was thinking—what if we just ordered everything online from home?"

"What are you talking about? These are the first clothes you're buying. You have to check the exact sizes and styles in person and pick them carefully!"

"......"

Yeah. No getting out of this.

I let out a hollow sigh and looked ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠at the status window.

This was important enough to add a whole day? The ramen I'd made at lunch had only given me three hours. That was an eightfold difference, if you did the math. Maybe the status window was a hentai on par with Sea herself.

"Twenty outfits is way too many, desu!"

"Huh?"

"I-it's nandemo nai."

I denied it in a hurry, and luckily Sea didn't press any further. I exhaled in relief—while privately cursing the status window with everything I had.

Honestly, I didn't feel much need for clothes. It wasn't as if I went out often; I could just buy a few ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠things in a slightly smaller size and rotate them. I wasn't even that uncomfortable right now. But twenty outfits? I wouldn't even wear them all. It would just be a waste of money.

So after due consideration, I made the rational call. I would skip this quest.

"Sea-chan, I can buy clothes on my own, so you can go now. Arigato."

"What is that supposed to mean, all of a sudden?"

"...Th-the underwear was a bit much, but regular clothes I can just look at and pick whatever fits."

I worked up the courage to say it, and Sea's face filled with displeasure. Did she think I was turning down her kindness? That hadn't been what I meant at all, and a twinge of guilt crept in.

"I was planning to finish shopping today and have dinner with you, Oppa!"

"...Dinner? Demo it's only two o'clock."

"Yeah. So if we finish shopping and then eat dinner, the timing's perfect."

"...De?"

"Shopping takes like four hours minimum, right? Doesn't it?"

Not forty minutes. Four hours, as a baseline?

I reeled at a piece of common sense I had never in my life heard of. What on earth...

As I stood there trembling in terror, Sea came toward me with the brightest smile in the world.

"Of course we won't get everything we need in a single day, so let's make time again next time too!"

"...Ghk—"

"Huh? Oppa?"

In the end, we really did shop for four hours, just as Sea had said. The experience was so harrowing I never wanted to remember it. I was genuinely worried my legs might rupture from the abuse.

Thanks to that, I was reminded once again that Sea outclassed me in stamina too.

"If we'd just walked around a little more we could've found even prettier clothes. I wrapped it up early because you were being such a baby, you know that?"

"...I-I'm never going shopping again."

"Still, we picked out a lot of cute stuff. Including what you're wearing right now."

She wasn't wrong. The outfit I'd left the house in today had been a white T-shirt and black sweatpants—beyond plain, into the realm of not trying at all, and men's besides, so the size hadn't even been right.

And ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠what I was wearing now? The light cream knit was so pretty that even I, a complete fashion illiterate, could tell. The blue jeans, too, set off Yukino Hana's objectively outstanding figure to full effect.

And beyond this outfit, there were plenty of pretty clothes. Really plenty. So many it was a problem, if anything.

Thirty-four outfits. A number that blew well past the target of twenty. I wasn't even joking anymore—I found myself wondering if I might never need to buy clothes again for the rest of my life.

"Okay, let's go eat dinner!"

"Yoshi! What do you want, Sea-chan? Dinner's on watashi tonight!"

"You sure? Didn't you already spend a ton on clothes?"

"...Sadly, watashi has had nowhere to spend money at all, so I've just been saving my allowance."

I put a little into games, sure, but I almost never played anything with microtransactions, so in practice my allowance only ever leaked out as delivery fees.

"Hmm. Then you pick, Oppa!"

"Eh... sushi?"

"Sushi? Not bad. Then to celebrate Oppa becoming a sushi girl, let's go eat some sushi!"

Sea sang it out with a bright, shining smile. Even after I'd changed like this, her smile was exactly the same as before. And because of that, I could smile too.

Together, we headed for a Japanese restaurant to have sushi for dinner.