Grand Blue Another Blue: The Summer Chisa Didn't Choose - A Fully Naked Morning and the Message That Arrived

"Strip! Strip! Strip!" A voice like thunder rumbling from the depths of the earth echoed inside my skull. "Lose at strip rock-paper-scissors, and you dive into the oceannnn!" Two figures built like piles of muscle surrounded me, hooting and hollering. One had a buzz cut and stood a solid six-foot-three. The other was blond, and looked to be about six-two himself. Both were completely naked, striking bizarre poses as they closed in. "W-wait, hold on! I haven't even taken anything off yet!" My own voice cracked pathetically. But the mood around me wasn't having it. "There's no 'hold on' in strip rock-paper-scissorsss!" Tokita-san and Kotobuki-san danced like maniacs, flinging sweat and the reek of booze everywhere. Somehow, at some point, I'd ended up butt naked. The night sea breeze was cold against my skin. The sound of waves was right there. "Stop it! I don't wanna die yet!" "You're fine! You won't die! Not with booze in you!" That made no sense. There is no logic anywhere in the universe by which alcohol prevents death. But worn down by the sheer force of their absurd conviction, I'd been made to run all the way to the end of the pier. "Uwaaaaaaah!" My feet kicked at empty air. The dark surface of the sea rushed up. Cold water swallowed my whole body. —Splash! That instant, I woke up. My back was soaked with sweat. My heart was pounding, my throat raw. I sat up and took in the familiar sight of my cramped, beat-up little room. Through the curtainless window, the June morning sun poured in without mercy. Empty cans littered the floor, and a diving poster I didn't recognize hung crooked on the wall. "...A dream. It was a dream, right?" Kitahara Iori, nineteen years old. First-year in Izu University's Mechanical Engineering department. What I'd just been seeing was probably a dream. Probably—because only fragments of last night remained. Tokita-san and Kotobuki-san laughing with beer bottles in hand. Kouhei shouting something. And me, stark naked, jumping into the sea. That last memory felt less like a dream and more like reality. I looked at my pillow. A mountain of empty cans was piled up like an accusation from yesterday's me. A little bottle of spirits rolled nearby too. So I'd apparently survived another morning in this rundown annex—the Grand Blue detached building. On the east coast of the Izu Peninsula, Marine Town. A little ways off the coastal prefectural road sits the diving shop Grand Blue. It's an old two-story wooden building—bar counter and tables on the first floor, living space on the second. And the annex out back, slated for demolition, was my home. The rent was dirt cheap. In exchange, summer was a sauna and winter was a walk-in freezer. Grand Blue is run by my uncle by marriage, Kotegawa Toshio, and it also serves as the headquarters of the diving club I belong to: PaB (Peak a Boo). PaB's activities consist of diving, drinking, and muscle training. Our motto: "Booze, Sea, and Muscle." The only membership requirement is "motivation." Dues are about three thousand yen a month, but they vanish cleanly into drinking money every time. I'd joined this club because at the welcome party right after I started university, Tokita-san and the others threw an arm around my shoulder and said, "You've got a nice body." Before I could refuse, I was being force-fed alcohol, and the next thing I knew I was naked in the ocean. I still haven't forgotten the shock of that day. "...This is the worst." I muttered it into my hands. The scene from the dream overlapped with real memory. Last night, I really had played strip rock-paper-scissors. And I'd lost. And I'd jumped into the sea naked. No doubt about it. "Why did I ever join this club..." Even as I said it, strangely, I wasn't only full of regret. If anything, I'd gotten used to this atmosphere. That scared me a little. Bang bang bang! Suddenly the door was pounded hard. My heart leaped. "Iori! You awake? Time for the postmortem!" From beyond the door came that voice like thunder from the depths. Same voice as in the dream. No—I heard this same voice in reality every single day. Click. Before I could answer, the door flew open. "Yo, Iori! Last night was the best!" Standing there was a man with a buzz cut and a hulking, muscle-bound frame—Tokita Shinji. Six-foot-three, probably close to two hundred twenty pounds. Third-year in Izu University's Economics department, and PaB's president. His thick chest and massive arms looked like forged steel. In his hands, he cradled a case of beer. "You stripped down to nothing beautifully last night! A gloriously clean full monty!" "Damn right he did!" Behind him, another giant came in laughing. Blond, and standing next to Tokita-san, the two of them felt like two walls suddenly appearing. Kotobuki Ryuujirou. Also a third-year, and a core member of PaB. He worked part-time as a bartender, and fittingly, he had a bottle of shochu in his hand. "W-wait a second! What are you doing here first thing in the morning?!" I scrambled out of my futon. "Like I said. Postmortem." Tokita-san grinned. "Please don't bring alcohol to something called a postmortem!" "A postmortem's gotta have booze, obviously." Tokita-san dropped the beer case onto the floor with a thud. Kotobuki-san planted the shochu bottle atop the mountain of empty cans. "Here, have a drink first. We'll talk after." Kotobuki-san produced a paper cup from somewhere and poured shochu into it, holding it out to me. "Shochu at seven in the morning... Are you serious?" "Dead serious. Booze doesn't care if it's morning or night." Kotobuki-san's face was utterly earnest. I sighed and took the paper cup. If I didn't drink, these two weren't leaving. I was sure of that. I took a sip of shochu, and my throat burned. "Good drinking! That's PaB's hope for you!" Tokita-san ruffled my head with one hand. That hand felt like a bear's paw. "Hope for what, exactly...?" "For naked diving, of course!" Kotobuki-san roared with laughter and slapped my shoulder over and over. It hurt. Just then, the door opened again. "Good morning, gentlemen! Another fine morning!" A blond pretty boy stood there, backlit by the morning sun. Imamura Kouhei. My classmate and bad-news buddy. Five-foot-nine, slim build, but with a face that was absurdly well put together. And in his hands, he was spreading out a vividly colored T-shirt. "Look, Iori! I finally got it! Mizuki Kaya's limited-edition T-shirt!" Kouhei held the shirt aloft like a holy scripture. On it, an anime girl character smiled brightly. Mizuki Kaya was apparently a voice actress Kouhei staked his life on supporting. "What is it with you this early..." I clutched my head. "What do you mean, what? I came to share this emotion with you, obviously! This shirt sold out three minutes after preorders opened! I used three phones and miraculously snagged one!" Kouhei's eyes sparkled as he shoved the T-shirt toward my face. "Okay, okay, just don't put it near my face!" When I pushed it back, Kouhei looked wounded. "You don't understand its value?" Of course I didn't. And yet—surrounded first thing in the morning by two naked men and one otaku. It should have been the worst. But somewhere in my heart, I felt oddly at ease. (...I'm way too used to this.) Iori set the empty paper cup on the floor and let out a small sigh. "All right, Iori. There's something you want to say, isn't there." Tokita-san suddenly looked at me with a serious face. "Huh? How can you tell?" "It's written all over your face. 'This summer, I'm getting a girlfriend!'" Kotobuki-san smirked and knocked back his shochu. "W-why do you see right through me?!" "Because you say the same thing every year." Kouhei folded his T-shirt and delivered the retort coolly. He was right—I did want a girlfriend this summer. Coming from an all-boys high school, my college debut was supposed to be a ticket to a rose-colored campus life. But when the lid came off, it was naked ocean dives almost every night. My memories of holding a normal conversation with a girl were fading into the distant past. "This summer, I'm getting a girlfriend!" I declared it, half out of desperation. "Ooh, good attitude! But before a girlfriend, Iori—muscles!" Tokita-san produced a dumbbell from somewhere and held it out to me. "No, no—tolerance for alcohol matters too. Romance takes guts!" Kotobuki-san poured shochu into my paper cup. "3D romance is garbage. Wake up to 2D, like me." Kouhei raised the Mizuki Kaya T-shirt again. "You guys aren't actually listening to me at all!" My shout was swallowed by the morning air and vanished. Nobody was listening to me. Or maybe they were listening, but had no intention of hearing. That was this club. My resolve disappeared into the void, as always. My phone buzzed on the pillow. While Tokita-san and the others were deep in a debate about dumbbells and shochu, I picked it up. One message notification on the screen. "I have something I want to talk about. Could we meet at the seaside park tomorrow?" The sender: Yoshihara Aina, from Seikai Women's University. "Yoshihara... Aina... Who was that again?" I tilted my head. Seikai Women's University is about a twenty-minute walk west of here. A women's college with beautiful white school buildings—it has a refined, finishing-school vibe. PaB is an intercollegiate club, so a few students from Seikai Women's are members too. I felt like I'd heard the name Yoshihara Aina at PaB drinking parties a few times. But I couldn't picture her face. My memories of those parties were always just naked men and a sea of alcohol—no room to remember any girl's face. "Oh, Iori. Who's that from?" Kouhei tried to peer at my phone with a sharp look. "N-nobody!" I hid the phone on reflex. "Suspicious. A girl? Is it from a girl?" Kouhei's eyes gleamed like a cat that had spotted prey. "It's not. Just a routine message." "Your voice goes up an octave when you lie, you know." Kouhei sidled closer, grinning. "Get away from me! You pervert!" Just as I braced myself— "My, aren't we lively this morning." A soft voice, like a rolling bell, came from the doorway. A woman stood there. Long black hair in loose curls, a white blouse, denim shorts. About five-foot-three, with an absurdly good figure. At her chest, an apron bearing the Grand Blue diving shop logo. Her smile was as warm as a spring sunbeam. Kotegawa Nanaka. My cousin, Grand Blue's poster girl and instructor. And a PaB alumna. "Nanaka-san! Good morning!" I straightened my back in a hurry. "Good morning, Iori-kun. You were lively again last night. I could see you jumping into the sea perfectly from the second floor of the shop." Nanaka-san smiled sweetly. That smile was gentle as an angel's. But her eyes weren't quite smiling. "Th-that was... well, it just sort of happened..." "Fufu, it's fine. It's a PaB tradition, isn't it? I did it plenty back in my day." Nanaka-san said that and looked around the room. The mountain of cans, the scattered T-shirts, the dumbbell, the shochu bottle. "...Iori-kun, maybe tidy up a little?" "Yes. I'll do my best..." I answered, shrinking a little. Nanaka-san gave a light wave to Tokita-san and Kotobuki-san, then turned back to me. "Hey, Iori-kun." Her voice suddenly turned serious. "Yes?" "If you lay a hand on Chisa, I'll sink you in the ocean." She was smiling. Definitely smiling. And yet, something cold ran down my spine. "W-why?! I haven't done anything!" "I see. Then it's fine." Nanaka-san smiled brightly. But her eyes still weren't smiling. "Nanaka-san is seriously scary..." Tokita-san whispered into Kotobuki-san's ear. "Her sister complex is no joke..." Kouhei murmured too. Kotegawa Chisa. Nanaka-san's younger sister, and my cousin by marriage. No blood relation. She attends the same Mechanical Engineering department at Izu University, but unlike me, she's serious and brilliant. She's also a rare voice of reason who almost never joins PaB drinking parties. And Nanaka-san dotes on that little sister. An extreme sister com

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Episode 1

Name: Grand Blue Another Blue: The Summer Chisa Didn't Choose
Author: Novelia

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