The Healthy Student known as Christopher Clarent

The summer season is an event when every high school kid, out of their worries from cumbersome scholastic activities, would yearn for a lot of things summing up to enjoying their lives to the fullest until the summer break ends. It's a spree of youthfulness, that whether it would be a bad or a good thing to start the tale with, was in fact the shortest lived enjoyable moment for a guy named Christopher Clarent.

Me, myself, and I.

I remember an unfortunate day so-called the 20th of July.

It would be three days prior to the official opening of the summer break for us, students of Blackheart High School, and as I told in the first paragraph, was a time of students' lives.

Except for the third years who had to attend cram schools, it was the beginning of youthful journeys and then consisting of romantic confessions and the likes. Beach and mountain trips along with a gathering of friends, outdoor camping, pools, and hypothetically, if I were living in Japan, there exist the calling of the Taiko drums over a summer festival, the bon odori, the crisp sound and alluring smell of yakisoba cooked at an open stand─all of which are enjoyable enough to relieve the stress of being a high schooler.

Well, I've been relatively narrowing it down to high school students but it's also for the other demographics to enjoy.

As a high school student and a 'flesh-and-blood' human myself, I guess you could tell in fact that I wanted to at least participate─now, for once, during my third year's summer break when I was supposed to be studying for my college admission exams. For a note anyway, for the last 11 years of being a student, I haven't participated in any summer activities. After realizing I was wasting my youth (the last two years of being a teen and also my last year of wearing a cumbersome school uniform), I thought of enjoying myself to the fullest─and the best idea was the famed summer breaks.

Summer is basically hot and arid.

Denoting I want to enjoy myself, it was somewhat of a lazy season when I'm guilty of having stopped progress and succumbed to my bed's fluffiness instead.

I was still half-asleep when my sister roused me awake early in the morning.

I haven't got a single clue on how to begin the day.

Usually, I'd be hitting the books halfheartedly but I had an appointment.

The end result, I was dragged outside without my permission.

As we considered going to a pool sometimes, with the whole family in mind, I was nervous and excited about buying swimsuits. Considerably, I should go with my sister who knows much more about the city's commercial side than I do, a regular study freak who aces the mock exams with full hundred scores each in all core subjects. I hate to say it as it would mean I'm boasting but that's how my life goes.

In return though, I was ignorant at almost everything other than studying.

As hopeless as I could get, I couldn't even muster the pride─that now, I'm being led by my little sister. A little sister younger than me for two years; thus a first year high schooler also attending my high school. I'm being led by my little sister─what could be the punchline?

It was that I've got to feel something wrong within me for the longest time in my life. For that I remembered something crucial that I want to run out of the glass door and return straight home because I was haunted by the terror I've always avoided, right, I wasn't good with girls.

Being out waiting for my younger sister to come out can be a little embarrassing while she's at the fitting room of a swimsuit store.

Just what does this crazy feeling deal with in my heart?

'I can see the other girls looking at me!'

Like what's with their gazes that are pouring me deadly pokes and slashes?!

Am I gonna be subject to an execution or something?

'Please no, I don't want to die yet!'

With shivers in my spine, I just had to stare straight to the fitting room waiting for my lively sister to come out.

Fifteen minutes passed and my mentality was still being crushed, the wondrous mind of mine let out a question, "Do girls always take this long changing into swimwear?"

My patience was running out and I wanted to create a great escape.

Like what's a boy supposed to be doing inside a swimsuit store designed for girls?!

The gravity.

I couldn't take it.

"....Christine, just how long do you intend to be there anyway?" I whispered over the curtain.

Just when I was mulling over if she heard me, she spoke, "Uhmm, bro!?"

"Christine, what's the problem?!" I suddenly let out a voice in grumbling falsetto. Is this what they call "panicking"? Well, of course!

"Guh, I-I can't…"

"Ah, um, what is it that you can't?"

"Onii-chan…um, I can't pull it…" her voice kept low volume, like she's having a problem with something.

"...Umm, Christine? Sorry, I don't understand what you mean!"

From the sound of it, it seems like she's on the verge of crying. The frantic person that I am, wasn't tolerant enough to face such a situation all I could think of was, there is a problem.

What to worry about is that she didn't reply to what I expected her to say but rather she started crying in such a childish manner even though she is already a third year in middle school.

Now, this is making me panic really hard and the eyes of all the people inside the shop are looking at me!

Those stares. Argh, I don't want this kind of attention!

"Shiho, ah, ah…um. I'm opening the curtain!"

"Eeeh!"

With my little sister's,Christine Clarent's body slowly appearing as I slid the curtain sideways, I see the problem clearly but my eyes can just burn at what I had seen─as for this sister of mine having an underdeveloped body, she meant "she can't" pull the string, sheer irony filled the air as I stared at her just to show utter disappointment. The fright got onto her and the strings, mysteriously, undid themselves─as if fate was playing a trick on me, the navy blue top of the two-piece swimsuit dropped into the ground. Being a virgin who's never seen any of such girly parts before, the unbecoming sight of a significantly embarrassed boy can be seen─drips of blood came out from his right nostril.

"Eh, eh! What are you doing here, you creep!"

"Sorry! That's not my intenti─"

With the scene before my eyes─a topless little sister, small flat-chest exposed, the wondrous blackening of my perception became thoroughly dark.

And to add as an accessory for the note, my nose, in utter warmth with the nosebleed, felt like they cracked.