A Mysterious ‘Shiro-Gyaru’?

Leaving Kaihin-Makuhari Station and the outlet mall behind, the girl and I headed toward Kaihin-Makuhari Park and split up to search the benches she’d sat on and the paths she’d walked. The park was huge; just retracing her steps was an ordeal. We spent over thirty minutes looking for the smartphone.

Someone might have picked it up and walked off with it already, I thought, the worry taking root.

“…It’s not here,” she muttered. “Did someone… take it?” Her voice trembled on the verge of tears.

I didn’t know the exact model, but the cover and strap made it obvious the phone belonged to a girl. If some creep had found it, that would be terrible. She was exceptionally beautiful—there were all sorts of risks to worry about, stalkers or perverts among them.

“Listen—should we go to the police? There’s a lost-and-found box at the station; maybe someone turned it in. I’ll cover your train fare home, too…”

Just then she clutched her chest, wincing in pain.

“Hey, are you okay?” I asked.

“I have… allergies. When I get anxious I have trouble breathing and feel nauseous… Is there a restroom nearby?”

I scanned the area and remembered a decent restroom a little further ahead.

“There should be a restroom up this way. If not, we can go back to the outlet.”

I supported her as she hunched over, clutching her chest, and we headed for the park restroom. We found it quickly: three sections—Men’s, Women’s, and a multi-purpose accessible stall. Gasping, she started toward the Women’s room but immediately turned back.

“No, I can’t throw up like this. Please… rub my back…”

“Huh?” I asked reflexively.

“I need you to pat and rub my back. That’s how it always is for me. Otherwise I can’t throw up. I can’t get rid of this nausea and chest pain…”

“But I can’t exactly go into the Women’s restroom…” I looked up and saw the multi-purpose stall right next to us. I felt a nagging hesitation, but under the circumstances there was no choice.

“All right. Let’s use the accessible one then.” I said, and we went in.

She hunched over the sink as I lightly patted and rubbed her back, but she showed no sign of actually vomiting—only painful dry heaves and tears.

Is she going to be okay? If it’s an allergy she should probably see a doctor, I thought.

Just as that crossed my mind, she turned toward me.

“Big Bro, sorry, but could you rub my back directly?”

“Eh? What do you mean ‘directly’?”

While I was speaking, she shrugged off her school blazer and began unbuttoning her blouse.

“Hey, wait a second.”

Ignoring me, she exposed more than half of her back.

“Please… I feel like I’m going to die if I don’t.”

Are you serious? If someone saw us in here… But having come this far, I couldn’t just abandon her. Tentatively I reached out my right hand toward her pale back. Her ample chest slipped into my peripheral vision through the gap in her shirt. I kept my gaze away as I rubbed, careful not to touch her bra strap. As my hand moved along her spine, the smoothness of her skin registered through my palm.

I felt like I was doing something horribly wrong.

To break the awkwardness, I spoke. “Not yet? Still feeling sick?”

Suddenly she grabbed my left hand with a firm thud.

“What’s wr—” Before I could finish, she spun, lunged at me, and our lips met. At the same moment a blinding flash burst to my right. I shoved her away and shouted,

“Wh-what the hell are you doing?!”

She smirked mysteriously, clutching the front of her blouse. Slowly, she sat up and fastened her buttons.

“Oh boy… you’ve gone and done it now, Big Bro!”

“What are you planning…?”

“Oh, and don’t bother trying to take my phone away. The photos have already been uploaded to the cloud.”

She didn’t answer my question; she just grinned and tapped her phone with one hand.

“What photos?”

“You know—photos of you with your hand on my half-naked back, photos of you making me turn around… quite a few, actually.”

I hadn’t noticed her taking pictures from that far back—no shutter sound, nothing. Seeing my bewildered face, she laughed triumphantly.

“I have an app that silences the camera shutter. That’s why you didn’t notice, no matter how many I took. Big Bro, you go around taking secret photos of people, and you didn’t even realize?”

“What do you mean by that?” I said. I had absolutely no idea what she was talking about.

“So, you see, no matter how you look at these photos, they’ll show ‘Big Bro forcing himself on a distressed girl with her clothes falling off.’ In the last one you even made me face you and stole my lips.”

“Hey, what are you talking about?!” I snapped, anger rising. Was she trying to frame me for sexual harassment to extort money?

“You really need to be more careful around girls, Yu Isshiki-san!”

I was speechless. She knew my name? I hadn’t told her. This wasn’t a random honey trap, then—the déjà vu I’d felt when I first saw her wasn’t imagination.

“Who… are you?”

She gave a mocking snort.

“You still haven’t figured it out? You’re pretty slow, Isshiki-san.” With that she posed with her hands on her hips and flipped back the bangs that had been hiding her right eye. The high hips, long slender legs, ample chest—above all that refined beauty and haughty expression—made the resemblance clear.

“N-no way, you’re…”

“Finally figured it out?” she smirked even more deviously. “My name is Honoka Sakurajima. I’m Toko Sakurajima’s younger sister.”