"Sorawoooooo."

"Yeah?"

"It's too hoooooot…"

"Yeah…"

Exploring the Otherside during the summer was proving to be a challenge. When it wasn't raining, instead we had to deal with the heat, choking humidity, and the constant glare of the sun. We were both defended against it with sunglasses and the strongest sunblock we could find, but the season wasn't defeated so easily.

I already had a sunglasses-shaped imprint in my tan, myself. I wasn't sure if you could even call it a 'tan,' really. I was pretty red. At this rate, the biggest risk to us wasn't the other world, but the potential of heat stroke.

The alternative, of course, would be to make our excursions at night. Having seen the Otherside's nights, I was fine with the daytime, thanks.

"Do you think maybe there's some kind of sun shade we could attach up here?" Toriko waved at the space above her head. "Hanging it off of the storage rack, I mean."

"Keep your hands on the steering levers if you're the one driving."

"Sorry…"

I was feeling too drained by the heat to really put any force into the reprimand, and her apology sounded similarly halfhearted. We were two half-cooked, pathetic creatures, slumped down in our seats and mumbling to each other. Toriko still did as she was told and put her hand back on the lever.

I turned my attention back to watching for glitches. Like everything else, that was pretty hard right now, too. The same oppressive light that was making us miserable also made it hard to pick out their subtle glow. Plus, my energy level was just about at an all-time low. It wasn't just the heat. We'd been at this all day, after setting out just after dawn. That meant that we'd spent almost six hours sweating and getting dirty. The two problems were compounding each other at this point. The sweat on my skin gave the dirt something to cling to, and the dirt made the sweat gritty and gross.

Ah, this is bad… at this rate, they're going to find our sun-dried corpses hanging off of the AP-1. I took a swig of water, but it didn't help much. At this point, the bottles that we'd brought with us were just as warm as everything else.

We crested a small hill and Toriko brought us to a stop. She leaned forward, squinting against the sun as she surveyed our surroundings.

"Which way do you think we should go?"

"Mnuh?"

I didn't feel like I had the energy to answer, but when she hadn't dropped the question a few seconds later, I caved in. Straightening up in my chair, I had my own look around.

To our left—the compass told me it was northwest or so—rolling plains continued for kilometers. They were dotted with the occasional copse of trees, small ruined building, or outcropping of rocks. Somewhere far in the distance, a red light pulsed in the sky, with its nature obscured by the atmospheric haze.

Straight ahead of us were some larger rock formations jutting up from the ground. They were pretty steep, and I didn't see any paths between them, so that way wasn't a real option to begin with.

Off to the right, the terrain sloped downhill. The grass became a bit thicker that way, before hitting an uneven line of trees. It looked like the edge of a sparse forest.

"Let's go right. At least over there we might get some shade."

"Good thinking…"

The AP-1's engine purred as she started us moving again. At least that sounds energetic, I thought. One of us should.

I kept a lazy eye out for glitches as we descended, but nothing jumped out at me. Just in case my brain was too baked by the sun to see them, I chucked some bolts while I was at it. Nothing.

As the trees came closer, it became apparent that there was a bit more going on down there. There was underbrush in that direction, too, shrubs and broad-leafed plants. They were all a vibrant green, in a bit of a contrast to the sun-baked grass around us.

Somewhere in all of that green, a flash of light caught my eye. My first thought was that I'd spotted a glitch, but…

"Is that water?"

Toriko beat me to it. Yeah, it was water. It was mostly hidden by all that greenery, but the occasional glint of light off its surface broke through. That would explain all the plants, too.

"Looks like it."

The engine hummed a bit louder as Toriko sped up. I was too drained to chastise her for being reckless. Besides, we hadn't seen many glitches around here. It was fine, probably.

This close up, I was able to get a better look at the water. It was a river. It seemed to flow from the mountains on the horizon, and despite the summer heat, it was still going strong. It was six or seven meters wide, too, so it was a pretty good size.

Toriko turned the AP-1 to travel parallel to its course. I soon saw the reason why: ahead of us, there was a narrow footpath worn through the grass. It continued through a gap in that wall of greenery.

We pulled up close to that gap, both of us leaning in to peer past the wall of trees. The path continued right down to the edge of the river. There, a weathered-looking wooden dock extended another couple of meters, just above the river's surface.

"… think we should go take a look?"

Toriko switched the AP-1 off before she'd even answered. "Yeah! It's practically the first interesting thing we've seen all day. Plus, there's shade."

We still grabbed our guns before we headed down the path. Just in case, I tossed a few more bolts, too. The gap in the greenery was pretty narrow. The plants crowded over the path, making us push them aside like jungle explorers.

It was like stepping into another world. Everything was green here, and the trees overhead provided plenty of shade. The usual silence of the Otherside was replaced by the soft babble of the river. I stepped closer to have a better look at it—about a meter deep near the banks, maybe twice that toward the middle. The water was crystal clear, and the bottom was a series of rocky surfaces, with larger stones and pebbles scattered around. If I had to name one weird thing about it, it was the fact that just like everywhere else in the Otherside during the daytime, there wasn't an animal to be seen. Not a single crayfish, minnow, or insect in sight.

Toriko planted one foot on the bank, and gave the dock a firm push with the other. "Seems sturdy enough."

"Uh-huh." I took another look around. Just being out of the sun already had me feeling like I was rehydrating after being baked to a crisp. "I kind of want to just take a nap here until it's cooler."

"Mmhm." Toriko made a soft noise of affirmation, having her own look around… then paused, stiffening up. She shot me a furtive look, with a blush on her cheeks all of a sudden.

What was up with that?

"Do you think we'd find the ocean if we followed this far enough? If the geography over here is anything like the surface, it would have to open out into Tokyo Bay or somewhere, right?"

"Yeah." Toriko sounded both noncommittal and distracted.

Okay, I wasn't going to pretend that I hadn't noticed anything. "… what's going on? You're acting weird all of a sudden."

"I was just thinking… it's hot, right?"

"Well, yeah."

"And we're not in a rush to get back."

"We aren't…" I wasn't sure where this was going, but I already felt apprehensive.

"So… what if we went swimming? The water's clean, right? And it isn't fast or deep enough that we'd need to worry about drowning. That would definitely help to cool us off."

"Er." I shot a glance toward the water, like I was trying to make sure that we were on the same page here. "You want to go swimming?"

"Why not? Everything was fine when we waded in the sea that one time, right?"

"That… that was different."

"Oh… do you not know how to swim, Sorawo?"

That isn't the problem here, you!

Still, it was kind of funny. I knew that I felt like my brain had been baked by the sun, but Toriko's was apparently in pretty bad shape, too. After all, her plan had a pretty glaring flaw to it: "We don't have swimsuits with us."

"A-ah. Well. Um."

Toriko's gaze drifted down, then sheepishly meandered around for a second. "You don't need a swimsuit to go swimming, you know."

"Oh. Sure, I guess, but if we get our clothes soaked, they'd feel pretty gross on the trip back."

She shook her head. Again, she hesitated. Her already-sunburnt cheeks were turning even redder.

"You don't have to wear anything. … we've been naked in baths before, right? How's this any different?"

I staggered back. Not in a million years could I have predicted that she'd spring such a vicious assault on me.

I had a thousand objections. The one that actually made it to my mouth was, "Here? In the Otherside? If something attacked us…"

"We haven't seen anything today. And we don't see many monsters outside during the day, right? It's usually at night, or when we go into a weird building or something."

"Well, yeah, but—"

"And we can put our guns and clothes on the shore, within reach. If we do see something, it should only take a few seconds to get dressed again."

I cringed. That had been my easy objection. All the others were much harder to express. This hardly seemed fair. Toriko had been shocked by the idea of being naked in a public bath before. What right did she have to skip straight to skinny dipping in a matter of months?

They were wildly, insanely different things. At least, they were in my head. I couldn't really find a way to express why that was, though.

As if trying to bolster Toriko's side of the argument, a drop of sweat oozed down the left lens of my glasses. It left a brown trail behind it. My entire body probably looked like that. Once the sweat evaporated, I was going to look like a living terracotta statue.

With a sigh, I made my decision.

"Okay. You face that way." I pointed upstream, away from me. "I'll face the other way."

"Why do we need to face different directions while we strip? We're going to see each other naked after anyway, right?"

I didn't dignify that with an answer.

Out of all of the illogical, absurd, incomprehensible things that I'd done in the Otherside—a list that included jumping into the path of a speeding train, shoving Toriko's own hand into her guts, and shooting a cow-headed woman—this still had to be one of the weirdest ones. Here I was, standing outside, with no cover apart from a few trees, stripping out of my clothes. I had to hope that we hadn't wandered back into the surface world by accident, or we were about to get arrested for public indecency.

As soon as I was naked, I made a beeline for the water. Unlike the times that we'd bathed together, I didn't even have a towel to cover myself with. I splashed into the water, too hurried to be elegant about it. Only when I was submerged up to my shoulders did I dare to stop.

I had to admit, it was nice. The smooth stone bottom wasn't too uncomfortable to sit on. The water was at least a little cooler than the surroundings. It flowed over my skin, leeching the excess heat from my body and rinsing the grime off of me. After only a few seconds in it, I was already feeling like a human again.

Toriko was moving toward the river, too. I briefly stared at her, before averting my gaze until I saw her as only a flesh-colored blur in the corner of my vision. Apparently she'd noticed, because she reacted with an embarrassed, breathy giggle.

Once I was sure that she was in the water, I looked back.

There were definitely still issues here. The crystal clear water that had lured us in was a double-bladed sword. Unlike at the hot spring, there wasn't any steam roiling on the surface to obscure the view, either. If my gaze drifted just a little lower…

No. No, no, no. I kept it planted decidedly above the water's level. It took twice as much effort to not cover myself up. Three times as much when I noticed Toriko's eyes wandering downward for a few seconds, with a goofy smile on her face.

She seemed to realize that she'd been caught in the act, though. Her gaze snapped back up.

"This feels pretty nice." She sounded triumphant. "And I guess it really is deep enough that we could swim if we wanted, huh?"

"Swimming in the same place you're bathing feels weird."

"Does it?"

"It's like… pick one or the other, I think."

"Hmm." Toriko considered that. "Kozakura would definitely agree if she was here."

"If Kozakura was here, she'd be telling us how stupid we are for getting naked and taking a bath in a river in the middle of the Otherside."

"Probably." Toriko didn't sound the least bit concerned. I couldn't say that I didn't understand. We had to take Kozakura's disapproval as a fact of life at this point, or we'd never get anything done. "But it's worked out okay so far, right?"

"So far."

Now that a few seconds had passed without things getting intensely weird—either from the Otherside, or between the two of us—I managed to relax a little. After slipping my glasses off, I raised them overhead and dunked my head underwater. The grime slowly dissolved, exposing my sun-tenderized skin and loosening sweaty clumps of hair. By the time that I resurfaced, I almost felt clean.

I also surfaced to find that Toriko had closed the gap between us while my defenses had been down. She was right there, barely even a meter away and smiling at me.

I stiffened up in surprise, and only thought to put my glasses on after another second. "… what?"

"Nothing. I was just thinking, though. If you floated on your back, I wonder if you'd look like you did that time we first met?"

"I had clothes on, then."

"Apart from that!"

"Besides, this is a river. If I floated, I'd get washed downstream, right? This isn't the place to find an Ophelia."

"Ophelia did drown in a river, though. So if anything, you'd be more accurate."

"Uh-huh."

She snickered and slumped down, sinking deeper into the water as she relaxed. "Do you ever think about what a crazy chance it was, for me to find you like that?"

"Well… yeah. As rare as it is to see other people over here, that was a real coincidence, huh?"

"Sometimes I think about… what if I'd been a few minutes later? Or exploring in another area that day, or not heard you shouting, or…"

"Things would have, um. Been a lot different. I'd be dead, for one."

"Yeah. Me too, probably. I probably wouldn't have even survived that second run-in with the kunekune without you around, Sorawo."

"You did find me, though. So there's nothing to worry about."

"I did." She gave a soft nod. "I'm glad."

A bitter little part of my soul was feeling pretty smug about Toriko's admission that she couldn't have made it without me. It was the part that had spent the first few months of our relationship brooding over her desire to rescue Satsuki, and jealously guarding any secret that might let her navigate the Otherside without me around.

A while back, that might have even been the predominant emotion in my brain right now. As it was, I was just starting at Toriko's face.

The mixture of melancholy and happiness on her face right now looked downright angelic. Even with her hair wet and disheveled, even with that light sunburn, even sitting around in a river discussing Shakespeare. No matter what, Toriko Nishina looked beautiful. It was maddening.

The most maddening part, though, was the thought that she was wearing an expression like that while thinking about me.

The realization left my heart pounding in my chest, but I didn't let the panic spook me into backing down. I stared it in the face and slowly gathered my resolve. My fists clenched under the water.

When I felt equipped to proceed, I slowly leaned forward. Toriko shot me a look of mixed confusion and uncertainty, with her eyes widening in surprise as I came closer. I pressed my lips to the sun-reddened corner of her own, lingered there for just a moment, and then pulled back as slowly as I could.

"S… Sorawo…?"

Now, I was the one who couldn't meet her eyes. Her sunburn was worse than mine, but I was pretty sure that right now, my cheeks were redder.

There was no way I could give her an actual explanation. I barely even knew what I was thinking, myself. I settled for blurting out the closest approximation that I could actually put into words: "I-I never did anything to thank you for that, right? For saving me, I mean. So. Now we're even."

"Wha…? But…"

She looked like she was almost ready to cry.

I couldn't take this anymore. I'd bravely stood my ground in the face of her… everything, but I still had my limits. I made a hasty retreat past her, back toward the shore, and stood up. "A-anyway, I need to dry off. We should get moving soon."

"Wait! Hold on!" Behind me, I could hear her splashing through the water after me. "There's still other stuff you've never paid me for! You never thanked me for the Makarov!"