Migis.

There is one certain quirk that this country, Orio has. While the island as a whole is not entirely uniform in physical form either horizontally or vertically, one thing that gives off Orio's uniqueness is its beaches.

Some of the most known beaches in the country are in Hitoretsu, Migis, Nanava, and Uidari. So what sets the four of them apart? It is how are geographically aligned to one another. While there are other beaches around the coast of the country the places mentioned respectively are found exactly north, east, south, and west of the landmass. Meaning, they are either in zero x or y axis if the point of origin is at the very center of Orio.

As much as I don't like math, some of its branches can somehow be applicable even if they still appear to be some kind of jargon.

‹Shiro›

You thought it was Gin? It was I, Shiro.

If only you know how long I've been wanting to say that.

But as for the reason why I am narrating this—while realizing that this may be the first time I held the mic after hundreds of chapters—it is because we're going to the first place I mentioned which is Migis. Also, by we, only me and Nagi.

So yes, we are one of the characters whose screen time has dwindled down, but I don't want to go on with a rant about that.

In actuality, we decided this vacation trip unanimously, which even surprised me. Spring has just ended, and summer hath come—the dreaded season for the significant other. Even I don't know how or why he agreed to this, but I might not like it if he backs down now. If push comes to shove, I'll tie him up until we're inside the plane. But even before I can do that, I would be stopped at the airport, obviously.

Wow, I sounded like I'm serious on that one, huh.

On the other hand, we have survived another year in college, I suppose I can say. Come to think of it, only G and Yui were the only ones that got into a university, but then he bailed out and moved to Itagaki. It's not really a rule, but most schools that does not have the distinction as a university usually starts the academic year in June although not all while the unis begin at August. That means that most of us are going to graduate roughly at the same time, that is if we survive the second half of our college.

Pessimism aside, even I ask how exactly do I want to spend this summer after this trip.

Nagi had his things sorted out on his side, however. Literally right after the term ended in Cobalt, he immediately applied for part-time in a media group being handled by a rather professional tech YouCuber somewhere around the town. It is apparently a very small team of six which is quite surprising for a channel that has more than ten million subscribers. Don't get me wrong, though. They upload two videos a week and yet their production quality is astounding. They have high end film cameras, high end stabilizers, high end lenses, high end smartphones to review, high end computers with half a terabyte of RAM, and most importantly, cute dogs.

And Nagi actually got in.

I would be lying if I said that I don't want to join him. You see, smartphone cameras are getting extremely good. I'm an amateur photographer myself, and I would love to get the opportunity to test cameras of all sorts, especially for stills. While standalone cameras focuses on hardware, pun intended, most of the mobile cameras tend to lean on the software processing while their sensors are already great. One of the best examples of that is the product line of Noogle which slants towards image post-processing to get a great result. What they do is putting together different exposures of an image to reach an overall balanced dynamic range that captures what is ought to be seen by the naked eye, and it delivers.

And that's just one thing among all the things that that YouCube channel does. But it's not really the material things that I'd like to see, but the experience of working with people that have been working on the creative platform for many years. In the end, even I was able to make a quasi-photograph from my old crappy phone where I post-produced all the pixels out of it and ended up looking decent.

…

I'm sorry I kind of geeked out a bit.

Anyway, back to my plans… I'm probably going to take it easy. To be honest, it is not really visual arts that I considered as a hobby but photography. I always hear this from my seniors, but I guess it really makes a difference if your hobby turns into work, either if it is good or bad. In my case, if I continue to snap images on the entirety of my summer vacation, it would just lead to me burning out. So what I meant about taking it easy is shelving the camera for two months and holding the brush or a pressure sensitive pen instead. I am still TAC's Howaito, and earning a penny for myself never hurts.

I don't fancy going out after the trip anyways.

▪ ▪ ▪

We don't really see each other much, but I'm glad that we have not built up any kind of awkwardness between us.

"Hahh… Really, how did you get plane tickets so cheap, Nagi?"

"Oh, didn't I tell you? I saw the promo on the airport's site and immediately bought two. If by chance we can't go, I planned on giving them to my parents. It's also a round trip so I can't let it go by."

"Huh… Wait, were you inquiring for a trip or something even before this?"

"Ahhhhhahahaha… I was kinda…"

"Wah… You really should go eat at Gin's from time to time… You're not you when you don't eat at Giotto's."

"What's that even supposed to mean? Hahaha."

"You sure about this? You sure you won't die?" I satirically asked.

"I'll manage. I really can't speak on that when compared to some guy with hereditary hypertension. I'm just really weak to the heat but at least this patch in my cheek is cool.

Hahh… it still hurts."

"It's all about the tolerance after all…"

"I guess? You don't really see it but I don't really get cold with an AC in this season."

"Eh?"

"Well, I do, yeah, but not like I'd feel that it is really cold in a room. More like it doesn't make me sweat and just a bit cold."

"You say that but your room is so optimized it feels overboard."

What do I mean by that? If you see his room at first to third glances, you wouldn't really notice something different in Nagi's room. But if you're one that knows him enough, you'd realize that he's not only a geek on production but also on his temperatures and climate control.

He refused to use curtain that is not white, and he has blinds to top it off; he has the least bit of things going on near his window where heat comes the most, his room is arranged entirely to suit the perfect airflow to balance the temp of his conditioning unit, his desk chair is meshed instead of cushioned, and heck, he had their house painted with an insulated paint.

Nagi Kajima is overkill. Give him his PhD already.

But away from his sanctuary, I don't even know if what's going to happen next can even be or more than a two-way street.

I have to say, however, I think he got some nice plane seats. Sure, it may not be the most accommodating ride, but who cares if our ehoumaki got through?

A/N: Please take that with a grain of salt. I've never been on a plane so I'm just going by my whims.

Realistically, if we were to travel by land, it would probably take us a day. The very first network of bullet trains that has been established here is from Capital to Payns, and that isn't even as far and lines take years to be constructed. While Cotona is near the center of the island, just imagine going point to point on the entirety of Taiwan, or probably even farther by some. It all comes down to getting a cheap ticket in the end as a very efficient variation of transportation here isn't really that available.

But honestly, an hour an a half of air travel feels somewhat like a waste, but here we are.

I guess one downside of having a promo acquired is that they don't really last that long, and it ends up filling the seats fast. Nagi had struck gold, but this is the catch. It's worth shrugging that nothing can really be so good at this world.

"So you're one of those that wear slippers on a plane, huh," I observed, as he is changing from his shoes.

"This is my first time flying though."

"Wait, really? I thought you've gone already."

"Have you?"

"We have relatives at the Southwest."

"I see.

A movie you fancy?"

"Nah, we won't finish at this rate. Oh, there's a documentary that I want to watch about animation studios though."

"How long was it?"

"50 minutes…? It's subbed."

"Nice."

A few words from the attendants and we ascended.

Ok, I'm not going to bore you with mid-flight narrations. But the documentary is educative though. It feels like what Stylo does for UsaPyon is just the surface of what really goes on.

"Hmm… wait, that's incorrect translation."

"Huh? So you can understand Japanese now?"

"Just a bit… I can construct sentences worth the 'nihongo jouzu' but that's only as much as I can manage right now."

"Heeeehhhh… Look at you now."

In summary, riding a plane in Orio is the fastest, most efficient way of travel, but not the cheapest.

We have landed, left the airport, and then commuted towards the shore with Nagi's life slowly being leeched by the heat, and it's not helping that we are having trouble looking for our hotel.

But while we're in this struggle and in the brink of despairing, I suppose I should give the province of Migis an overview.

As a brief, the Asian countries closest to the Pacific Ocean are Japan, Orio, Philippines, and Taiwan is probably the farthest among them. The reason I'm saying this is because people of Migis are some insanely strong people mentally. More than 20 storms cycle on the pacific in a year, and if Philippines' eastern archipelago isn't hit, then it would be Migis or the southeast. In rare cases, it would be the southwest if the storm decides to do a sike move and take a literal turn, then Japan comes next.

So yes, Migis is a magnet of tropical storms. It had gone through Super Typhoon category of storms although we're very glad that we have not yet been struck with one that is as strong as Haiyan, but in the end, this place would unfortunately be devastated to some extent in that similar event. For the people here, that is their normal life.

But hey, hey, would you look at this. It feels like you don't even see a trace of any previous calamities. For a beach, it is as lively as ever, under the clear sky and the absolute assertion of the sun.

Oh, how good a thing it is that there is no La Niña this year.

Seriously, it doesn't look like this even gets hit by typhoons. While yes, the economical casualties are a very huge impact, I just can't seem to fathom how they recover so fast, if not on the normal state of things. It usually takes at least a year to fully recover from a literal calamity, but these people are standing resilient seeing how the beach and its proximity is just as lively.

…

"Um, excuse me, I'm claiming for my room reservation."

"May I know your name please?"

"It's Nagi Kajima."

"Please give us a moment… May we see your ID for confirmation?"

"Yes, here."

"We've verified your reservation. It's a room for two at floor six at Room 608, for three days. All charges have been settled. Please enjoy your stay," said amidst the handing out of our keycards.

"Thank you very much."

Then on the elevator with only us…

"Ow! Owww…! Don't touch my bruise please…"

He indeed has a cold patch on his cheek.

"I actually haven't seen Dad raise his hand on someone. I'm sorry you had it really hard."

"I know he's pulling his punches but that was this rather violent… Just how strong was your dad when he was a high school delinquent?

Oh wait, he got dropkicked by your mom though."

"What?! That seriously happened?!"

"Wait, you don't know? That's even more surprising."

"Anyway, what did he actually say to you?"

"'Stand on your feet and clench your teeth,'" in full impersonation of Dad that Nagi would get killed if he saw that.

"Pfft…!"

"Man… I flew off… I'd rather if he just raised his voice instead of his hand, but I expected that much nonetheless."

"He really goes after my grandfather…"

My father may not be as protective as he was some years ago, but he is still the same anyway. So the story goes with Nagi visiting Dad solely to apologize in knees and head on the ground for the reason that we were not able to book two rooms for this trip. They were alone by themselves when Mom and I heard a loud thud from our living room and came with Nagi already flipped on the floor. A few days later, his cheekbone swelled up and paled. He had to go to the hospital for a checkup but Dad covered his expenses and it thankfully turned out that it was just a really large bruise.

Nevertheless, he didn't try to make us cancel this trip. As for the reason why, I wouldn't ask him, but I am thankful.

Ding

"Are you going to sleep for a bit, Shiro?"

"Hmm, maybe after we eat lunch. I'll take a power nap then let's go around in the afternoon when it's not that hot."

"Ahh… I wonder who will wake up who first. I'm pretty tired too."

"What should we get for lunch though? There are seaside restos that have delivery."

"Do we go meat or fish?"

"Let's see if they have tuna."

"And rice?"

"And rice."

The door of the room then beeped with the card going through the scan and opened at the same time the door of the room next door also opened.

Hey, it's Jean and Ai-san.

…

Apparently Jean got a summer leave from work in addition to the leaves that he had piled and has now enjoyed the first of his four-day rest with Ai-san. Then again, we have our own reasons and businesses so we agreed to not get on each other's way and have at it on our own.

But that led me to a question.

"Haaaaaahhhhh… The air feels so cool…"

"You've just been working for a week right? How come you immediately got a leave then?"

"That… the channel went on a break for a week and the boss is also out of town, so we're all free. I'll go back on the studio after the trip though. Tech channels have a lot of logistics to get to."

"Sucks that I'm probably not allowed to have a tour…"

"Yeah… what you see on a studio tour isn't actually everything."

"I'm surprised that they hired a college student though."

"Hey, I showed my portfolio. He's a dropout on a film school in States and look at him now. But I can't go on that route obviously.

…

You look like you're about to pass out there. Is that soft?"

"It feels like I'm sinkiiiiing…"

Well, it's a nice room. It may not be getting a passing mark on the Nagi Kajima standard, but it's a really fine hotel room if you're not a nitpicky summer hater. It also looks like the building itself was recently built, which at this point isn't really surprising if they now construct structurally sound buildings, but the architecture is also very contemporary. I think I have a thing for minimalistic interior of hallways.

"Uh, my stomach is doing something weird."

"We're going for delivery right?"

"Yeah… Please pick it up later on the lobby…"

"Hey, don't sleep now."

"I'll try not to…"

"If you do I'll tickle your foot."

"Anything but that!"

~ ~ ~

That's nine pages wasted without even going to the actual beach. Good going. But seriously, I don't think people that have the power to go outdoors at 1 or 2 in the afternoon are actually humans, and this is not coming from the aforementioned nitpicky summer heater but a normal dork. And even if we were to go outside at this time, then Nagi would have just brought a shovel to bury himself alive in the sand.

Ah, no… the sand is hot so he'll find some colder alternatives.

So the solution we have for that is a Sw*tch. I don't think going outside will have much merit for us honestly. Sure, we came here for the beach, but we didn't come here to die. I like to claim myself as someone that travels for the food more than the place, and that sounds so overstated for someone who doesn't really leave Ginga. It's not that we are generally indoor people, but we just have preferences, which is probably why we don't travel with friends in school because especially me who is a literal tag-along that will only eat and come back to rest. We just prefer to stay inside because that's the best opportunity for us to have a time together to compensate from all the stress that built up when we are on our own. Yes, we have our own lives, but part of that "own lives" is also our time together.

~ ~ ~

4pm.

"Oooooh, yes. That's the wind I want~"

Look who's lively again.

"I can never get used with walking on sand…"

"You're not taking pictures?"

"I came here to swim not to snap! But the wind really is nice, huh."

"I told you. It's not everyday that you smell the ocean from the air."

"Thank goodness we picked the right day with a good weather…! Hngh…! One, two. One, two," thus I began stretching.

"Wait, you're going already?"

"You're not?"

"Of course I am…"

"Well, catch you later-

The water is actually cold…! Hoooo…!!"

"Pfft…! It's not everyday I hear you do sounds like that. You sound like an excited old man!"

"Just shut up and get in here, you stupid!"

"Alright, alright…

…

Of COURSE YOU'RE GOING TO TOSS ME IN…! Sheesh… You don't look the strength you have… You really go by both of your parents."

"What does that even mean? Are you saying that I'm a gorilla?"

"If that's the case then you'll be an angel."

⁄(⁄ ⁄•⁄-⁄•⁄ ⁄)⁄

To those who have fallen to the Vcuber rabbit hole, you know. The gorilla tenshi prevails dancing souran bushi.

"Ow, this really stings on the eye."

~ ~ ~

I know that there is a scientific reason to this, but somehow it feels kind of refreshing not ever knowing why the sky turns orange, red, pink, or purple, especially if you don't see the horizon much. There is something like… a special feeling to it, and you find yourself asking the same rhetorical questions without the need to hear an answer that can only ruin that certain mood. But in the end, that's just how I personally see it.

On the almost unseen division that separates the salt water and the sand, there situated some kind of a small concrete dock, as if a slab of a perfectly rectangular stone was placed on it on one's whim, slowly blending in to the rocks and being buried by the sand upon the passing of tens or even hundreds of storms. The wind just became more relentless, evident on the sight of the waves picking up height yet still slowly submitting to its original place. And in our faces, a sudden surge of strong, isolated wind blew in front of us as we sit on the dock.

"Can you name anything better than this view?" asked Nagi while I replied with another question, rather conceitedly

"Are you talking about my face or the sunset?"

"The sunset."

"There's definitely something better than this, but I don't know them to give a name."

"I guess coming here is worth it then…"

"…!"

My face immediately warmed up just when I turned to look at him, who is in a daze watching the flight of the birds, with rather sleepy eyes and somehow blown out hair.

"…You know, you really should brush your hair up from time to time."

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"It kinda looks good on you."

"Eh? Wha? Shiro? Something on my head?"

"No-thing~" and shuffled his hair back.

"Okay…

Let's just go back to our room. It still feels warm."

"Should we get dinner on the way?"

"Wait, you brought money with you?"

"My wallet is waterproof."

"Eh, sure… I'll pay you back later."

"No need~"