Autumn seas have their own charm.
Of course, sumr seas aren’t bad either. Diving into the ocean under the blazing sun to cool off is pretty fun.
Splashing around with close friends, tossing them into the water and getting thrown in yourself—it’s a good ti. Even if it ans sand in your clothes and sotis getting so soaked you end up squishing into the car afterward.
But the older I got, the less I enjoyed the process of getting into the water. It was tiring, and most of all, I didn’t look forward to changing clothes or showering afterward.
Sure, I was young again now, so fatigue wasn’t an issue. But that didn’t an my body was waterproof. If this were a sumr beach, we wouldn’t be lounging around like this having a relaxing mont.
There’s no way Claire would’ve stayed still.
Thanks to the sea being cold this ti of year, we were actually able to—
Boing—!
“Wah!?”
A sudden noise above my head made shriek.
It turned out to be the sound of a beach ball bouncing off my head.
“Unni, what are you doing over there?”
Apparently, the beach ball that the others had been playing with had bounced and hit on the head.
“What the hell...?”
“We’ve still got plenty of ti before dinner, right? We ate a ton at the rest stop, so we need to skip lunch and make room!”
“Ugh... I’d like to rest and relax like I was just doing a mont ago...”
“But you can’t co all the way to the beach and not enjoy the sand, right?”
Claire gave Mia an incredulous look, as if her desire for rest was incomprehensible.
“If Mia joins in, that makes four of you, right? How about we split into teams and make a ga out of it? I’ll be the referee.”
“Unni, what are you saying?”
Claire gave a flat look in response to my suggestion.
“Yeah! You’re just trying to get out of it!”
Mia, uncharacteristically, actually protested. Maybe she was finally becoming bold after spending so much ti shoved into the midst of high-energy extroverted teen girls.
“She’s right, Mia! Good point. Unni, you can’t just sit out. Mia’s not exactly the most reliable teammate. And if we look at your physical ability, you’re definitely below Alice or Charlotte.”
“Exactly! So— Wait, what?”
Mia had been agreeing with Claire’s harsh judgnt, then blinked and turned toward her with a confused face.
“That’s why you have to be on her team, so together you two make up one person.”
“......”
Claire.
For soone who calls unni so warmly, you’re brutally honest.
“...Fine.”
Claire’s words were basically a fact to her, but there was no way I could just let it slide.
Blood-related or not, I’d grown up as a Fangryphon for a good chunk of my life. A provocation like that couldn’t go unanswered.
“So our opponents are Alice and Charlotte. I’ll make sure you understand firsthand that a team of three isn’t sothing to take lightly.”
I stood up from my seat as I said that.
*
“Don’t worry, Unni. It’s not like we were trying to win or anything. It’s just for fun.”
“....”
The only person on our team who actually scored a point was the one saying that, which made it all the more frustrating.
“A team of three isn’t to be taken lightly? Who said that again?”
Alice kept poking at my pride from the side.
“Let’s not be too harsh, Alice. Sylvia’s specialty has always been firearms. Of course her close-quarters skills would be weaker.”
But even Charlotte, saying that with a smile, had a teasing gleam in her eyes.
This was infuriating.
Really infuriating.
“Charlotte, do you have so sort of grudge against ?”
“And you’re not asking Alice that question?”
Well, of course Alice has a grudge against . She’s probably been holding it in since we were kids, since she never really beat in anything.
Granted, that’s only because I rewound ti so many tis to find the optimal outco. It wasn’t sothing I could’ve pulled off just by talent alone.
Damn it. If only there were a shooting range nearby, I could totally dominate that.
Next ti we head into town, I have to find an air rifle range. I’ll show them what my endlessly drilled shooting skills can do.
“...There’s no need to take it that personally. Look at Mia—she looks pretty refreshed, doesn’t she?”
That’s not “refreshed.” That’s just drained.
Mia was slumped in the folding chair I’d been resting in earlier, back fully reclined. She looked like a half-dried squid draped over the fabric.
If you really wanted to interpret that expression as one of enlightennt after purging all emotions... sure, maybe. But it looked more like the face of soone who’d given up on everything in the face of death.
“You two definitely need to raise your physical activity levels.”
“I think I’ve been active enough, thanks. Did you know I eat just as much as you all do, and my weight hasn’t changed a bit?”
“That’s the problem. That just ans it’s not turning into muscle.”
Yeah, well, I have no desire to beco so kind of gym rat.
I let Claire’s words drift past while rubbing my belly.
Still, running around like that did seem like a good idea in hindsight.
If I’d exercised right after eating, I would’ve probably thrown everything up. But since we’d spent a good while in the car after gorging ourselves at the rest stop, my stomach had enough ti to push all that food down. After that, running around helped empty things out nicely.
Now I was ready to put more food in.
“Ah, wait, wait.”
Claire suddenly grabbed the cara we’d left on the table.
She held it up at selfie angle, making sure we were all in the fra. The LCD screen rotated, so we could tell we were all in shot—though the screen was way smaller than a smartphone’s.
“......”
We all glanced at the screen and struck a pose.
“......”
“...Ah, oops. It was set to video.”
Claire ★ 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 ★ said it like she’d only just realized.
Alice gave her a look that said, Seriously?
“Well, it’s fine, isn’t it? Videos can be mories too. Even if we can’t keep them forever...”
Still, I’d been thinking ahead. Maybe not solar panels, but what if we brought over a hand-cranked or rotary-charged power generator? Then maybe we could adapt it to steam power. Sothing like that.
The goal was to watch videos for a long ti—but more than that, the process of researching how to make it work might yield useful hints. After all, modern power generation still cos down to boiling water to spin turbines.
“Besides, soone asked to upload a video too.”
Claire said as she stopped the recording.
“All right then!”
Then she spun around and—
“Let’s get started on the barbecue party!”
“Barbecue!”
Mia, who’d been sprawled out until then, suddenly bolted upright.
“Already? The sun’s not even down yet.”
Alice looked confused, but Claire wagged her finger.
“You clearly don’t get it. A barbecue party isn’t just about eating a al. You slowly grill at for hours, take your ti eating, then when all the at’s gone, you cook other stuff over the leftover coals while everyone gathers around to chat. That’s the party. And sunset is the best ti to take photos!”
Claire, you really did your howork.
And Alice, who’d been looking up “aesthetic tents” since the very beginning, was clearly hooked by that line.
“Really? Then let’s start prepping now.”
Seeing the two of them fired up, Charlotte, Mia, and I exchanged glances and gave dry smiles.
Well, if it’s fun, then it’s fine.
*
Sizzle, sizzle—the pork belly cooked beautifully over the charcoal grill.
The campsite did have so rental gear, but we’d gone ahead and bought our own barbecue grill. The rental stuff they provided here usually didn’t look great in pictures.
...And to be honest, we just had the money, so why not? Claire and Alice had so much fun picking out equipnt that I felt bad telling them “we don’t need that.”
We set up the grill we’d brought in the car, lit the charcoal, and laid the at across the grate piece by piece.
When Claire flipped a strip of pork belly and the steam rose—
“Whoa!”
All of us, standing around the grill, instinctively gasped at the sight of it.
It was grilled to a perfect golden brown, with neat diamond-shaped grill marks seared onto the surface. Just looking at it made our mouths water.
“This was called samgyeopsal, right? I think I’ll miss this over there.”
“Knew it. Maybe we should talk to so butchers back ho.”
Alice and Claire chatted as they worked.
“My holand’s cuisine still suits best, of course, but eating foreign-style grilled at like this once in a while isn’t so bad either.”
Charlotte said with a smile.
With the rich sll of sizzling at wafting around us, we chatted loudly and laughed beneath the glow of the red sunset.
In this mont, there were no princesses, no empresses, no noble daughters—just teenage girls having fun.
...Well, except .
Reviews
All reviews (0)