I Thought Girls' Breasts Were Filled with Sweet Whipped Cream

It is exactly as the title says.

If anything, I thought girls didn't grow body hair, and furthermore, I thought the faint fruity floral scent drifting from a girl's body was her natural scent, and ultimately, girls'—.

It seems there is no end to this, so I will self-regulate here.

At sixteen, when my smooth brain was filled to the brim with 'girls,' 'erotica,' and a token amount of 'rock and roll' without a millimeter of space to spare, I felt a terrible sense of urgency about the current situation where I had absolutely no contact with the opposite sex of my own age.

Was it Mackie-san (a butt fetishist), a senior from my junior high soccer club days, who boasted that once you become a high school student, you'll get a girlfriend or two without even trying, and that it's just the natural order of things? Two years my senior, he would show his face at practice even after graduating, and every time he showed us juniors a photo of himself with a girlfriend that changed every few months, he would declare the above line with a smile like a young Kiichi Nakai eating Miki Prune.

Honestly, I was envious of Mackie-san (who was bent to the right). And above all, I believed his words (as a reader of Jitsuwa Knuckles) like the teachings of some cult leader. Night after night, I continued to dream of a shining, colorful high school life.

However, what about that?

Sixteen-year-old Takato (a prodigy) couldn't even make a female friend, let alone a girlfriend, and was just constantly, twenty-four hours a day, non-stop, smoldering away. The number of people of the opposite sex listed in the address book of the Vodafone mobile phone my parents bought me when I entered high school was only two. Both were classmates from junior high, and just friends.

First year of high school, boys' class, in the corner of a classroom drifting with the smell of deodorant.

No matter where I looked in any direction, it was men! Men! MEN!

Since ancient times, it has been the standard that the first girlfriend for a pure junior high or high school boy in our country is a classmate or a junior in a club.

…That won't work! (CV: Iguchi from Westland)

Once you become a high school student, you'll get a girlfriend or two without even trying, and that's just the natural order of things. Those words from Mackie-san (in white briefs) from some time ago suddenly crossed my mind.

Is that really the case?

Immediately after, my fingers, which were flipping through the opening gravure of a certain Ogura, a.k.a. a Korin-seijin, on my worn-out desk, stopped dead. The grating voice of my homeroom teacher, Amano, was suddenly shut out from my eardrums.

This self-questioning lasted for several hours after that.

○○○

July. The summer vacation of my first year of high school was approaching moment by moment. The city after the rainy season began to sparkle.

I was a sixteen-year-old in the arts and culture club who was still maintaining my purity as always. However, at this time, I was deepening my friendships with a total of three girls as so-called 'mail friends'.

The line from Mackie-san, now Makihara (a bicycle thief), was no longer even in the corner of my mind. I crumpled every single letter of his words into a mess, slammed them onto the hot asphalt with force, and then kicked them with a full-power super-ultra-hyper-miracle-romantic-fabulous-ultimate-instep shot all the way to the vicinity of Frontier County, Nebraska, in the far-off United States. Serves you right!

And so, young Takato (with his sweet mask) had finally grown enough at sixteen years and four months old to face reality. With the slogan "no challenge, no success," he had been asking friends to introduce him to girls, following his simmering libido wherever it led.

"Heyyy! Are you free on Fridayyy~★"

I remember it being the first week of summer vacation.

"Wanna hang out if you're free??"

Five seconds before heartburn, the sender of this greasy, extra-rich message was Nao-chan, a girl I knew from email. Aries, blood type AB, the reliable ace of the "go-home club," a sixteen-year-old bursting with fruit.

I had only met Nao-chan, who attended a technical high school in the city, three weeks ago through a classmate from a different middle school. Sadly, things hadn't worked out well with two of my other three email friends, but the email exchanges with Nao-chan were always exciting. Sometimes the back-and-forth would last for days. I was definitely liked. I could do this. That's what I thought.

Therefore, I accepted Nao-chan's invitation in a heartbeat, and...

"Thanksss♪ So happyyy!!"

I typed out a bizarre message that didn't fit my character as a perennial second-tier student in the school caste, matching her strange energy.

I did it... I actually did it!

Young Takato (Teppei Koike) roared in his heart, while a foot above his head, a group of what looked like angels were joyfully singing gospel.

The decisive battle was on Friday. There were still two days left until the day. Following the saying "strike while the iron is hot," I immediately booked an appointment at a hair salon. By the next afternoon, I had my dowdy hair cut into a Rod Stewart-style wolf cut, added a token amount of color, and then stopped by a fashion building in front of the nearest station to buy a T-shirt with a Jack Daniel's label printed on it and a pair of Converse high-top sneakers.

As soon as I got home, I quickly changed into the clothes and started posing in front of the full-length mirror in my room, acting like a pro. I began holding a one-man fashion show.

Hmm, not bad. I should definitely look just as good as that band guy named Benji or whoever that Nao-chan is fond of. While I thought that and admired myself, I was also vaguely aware that something didn't quite feel right.

Seven seconds, eight seconds—a silence like that of a Ryuo title match dominated the shabby room,

"...I see."

And then, I was convinced. This wasn't about my looks, but an issue of my inner self.

Immediately after, a pair of eyeballs moved almost unconsciously and caught sight of the dusty, pitch-black TV stand. The second shelf from the top. What I could see there was a PS2 console and a single game disc.

Tokimeki Memorial 2—.

It is the second installment of the well-known, mega-hit dating simulation game "Tokimeki Memorial," which has sold over three million copies including related software. As someone with a moderate otaku hobby, I had owned this software since my second year of middle school and had been playing it diligently ever since.

It didn't take long for the two characters for "farewell" in cursive script to start dancing in my mind. With my date with Nao-chan just around the corner, I found myself contemplating graduation from Tokimeki Memorial 2, from Hikari Hinomoto—the heroine of this title and my favorite character—and, by extension, from the two-dimensional world.

The gargantuan thoughts soon swirled into a zigzag, and with the force of a special warning-level storm exceeding eighty meters per second, they demolished my four-and-a-half-mat wonderland.

○○○

When I suddenly looked up at the sky, a terrifyingly deep ultramarine blue was spreading across it.

Come to think of it, I feel like I encountered a similar view on that summer day when I was fourteen, when I rode my bicycle to a distant game shop with my classmate in search of Tokimeki Memorial 2.

The day before my date with Nao-chan, at one o'clock in the afternoon. With my school-issued bag on my right shoulder and an extraordinary resolve in my heart, I set out all alone onto an unnamed mountain path within walking distance of my home. I had only one goal: to bid farewell to the two-dimensional world—I was planning to bury the Tokimeki Memorial 2 game itself and its strategy guide.

Why didn't the perfectly sensible method of selling them to a game shop come to mind first at that moment? Even now, I find it strange.

“...!”

A beast trail overgrown with trees and grass. The suffocating scent of greenery assaulted my nose. I was drenched in sweat in a knock-off T-shirt from a certain high-end brand that Makihara (a Tetropolikyon alien) had swindled me into buying for two thousand yen. Ignoring the "Beware of Bears" and "Beware of Suspicious Persons" signs—or rather, nimbly knocking them down with a Moon Spiral Heart Attack—young Takatou (the eldest son) pressed on. He pressed on. He kept moving at the speed of a race-walker, no matter what.

It must have been after I had walked for about four or five hundred meters. In the middle of the endless unpaved road, I stopped and suddenly looked around.

...There was no one there.

Of course there wasn't. Who would wander into a remote region like this, reminiscent of the setting of the movie Stand By Me? Only someone with circumstances like mine would do such a thing. Muttering that to myself, I pulled out from my plain school bag a bright red gardening trowel I had secretly taken from home.

Immediately after, I aimlessly approached a large tree that had caught the corner of my eye. A suspicious VHS tape with a stretched-out label was tangled in its long, vein-like branches. On the spine, I could barely make out the words "Bakunyu A GO GO!". The wind seemed to whisper, "Do it here." Before I knew it, I was striking the roots directly below with the trowel. I was digging into the dirt with single-minded focus.

It was a few minutes later that I finished a hole about the size of a manhole cover. I had no hesitation or doubt about burying my memories there. I felt that if I were to let my plan fall through halfway here, I would end up a pathetic underachiever for the rest of my life. To move on to the next step, to make my love with Nao-chan come true, I could not run away here. Absolutely, absolutely not.

“Bye-bye, Hikari.”

Of course, there was no reply.

A group of tanuki were watching me suspiciously from the shadows. Somewhere far off, a strange bird was crying.

Bye-bye, Hikari.

Once I whispered it to myself one more time, I started running at full speed.

○○○

Every time I swallow the character for "person," my composure drifts further away.

On the day of the date, perhaps it was when I was washing down as many innocent "people" as there are worldly desires into my stomach, with a level of nervousness I had never experienced before. A voice called out to me from the left as I stood frozen in place near the Midori no Madoguchi at the local station concourse designated as our meeting spot. Turning around, I saw a girl with a black bob cut who looked very much in style. It was Nao-chan.

Dressed in a T-shirt printed with the album art of a UK rock band that translates literally to "Radiohead," a pleated skirt above the knees, and Dr. Martens-style three-hole shoes, Nao-chan looked twenty percent plumper than she did in the print club photos we had exchanged via email beforehand.

If asked if she was a beauty, I would probably say no. If asked if she was my type, I feel like that would also be a no. At the very least, I couldn't honestly nod in agreement. However, and this is a big however.

Her bust... her bust was just magnificent.

Faced with two spheres that were surely at least a G-cup, overflowing with whipped cream, my reason was already in flight mode.

"You're better looking than in your photos."

"Ha! Ah! No, no, no! I'm nowhere near Johnny's level--"

"Anyway, let's go to a cafe."

"Ha-ha-ha-hai!"

My heart was leaping. My face was stiff. She started walking. I desperately tried to match her pace. Eighty percent of the memories of the way there have vanished. Anyway, I was just... well, overwhelmed. My thought circuits were on the verge of short-circuiting.

We arrived in no time at a cafe chain in the early afternoon. There were only a few other customers. Even after we sat at a table by the window in a corner, I still couldn't regain my composure. I was failing in an almost artistic way. The air turned freezing cold when I tried to talk about the North Korean abductions of Japanese citizens to play the part of a clever high school student interested in world affairs. It was so cold I almost felt like running to Uniqlo to buy Heattech.

The busty girl's word count dropped noticeably. The sound of ice melting in an iced coffee echoed through the air-conditioned shop where bossa nova was playing.

Of course, I couldn't just back down like this. My pride wouldn't allow it. I had to make a comeback somehow. With extraordinary impatience in my chest, I spurred myself on and said,

"S-so, anyway!"

However, the words that finally came out, despite my best effort to smile with maximum output, were,

"Doesn't 'Benny' sound kind of like 'Gandhi'!?"

It was such an absurd thing to say, the kind that would make all of humanity facepalm, and for which I wouldn't have complained if a Blankey fan had cracked my skull open with a Gretsch guitar.

Nao-chan wore a look of pure bitter amusement on her round face and said,

"...I think I'll head home now."

“Huh?”

“Sorry, I have a part-time job now.”

...

In the end, we parted ways just about an hour after meeting up.

Nao-chan, who had a part-time job scheduled for the evening, flashed her best smile of the day as we said goodbye, with the crosswalk behind her. She even managed a clumsy wink. From my internal stereo, the melancholic intro of the bad ending theme “Himawari” from Tokimeki Memorial 2 began to play.

A few days later, I received an email from Nao-chan. She wanted me to introduce her to some athletic guy. I thought, so this is what it feels like to be kicked while you're down. Still, I didn't have time to be heartbroken. Casting aside all shame and reputation, I made one last desperate attempt.

“Introduce me to a girl instead.”

The reply came sooner than I expected. Nao-chan readily accepted the trade. By the next day, the names Maya-chan and Akiko-chan had been added to my mobile phone's address book. Both of them were nice girls. They were cute. However, neither relationship lasted very long.

Before long, I dyed my hair back to jet black. Several typhoons passed through this city. Nao-chan started dating a friend of mine. That friend skipped ahead a few steps on the staircase to adulthood. The summer of my first year of high school was coming to an end.

Even though I could enjoy a date with plenty of confidence when dealing with 2D girls with tricky hair colors like red, purple, pink, or orange, when it came to 3D girls, this was the result. Everything I did backfired.

At sixteen, I knew far too little about real-life girls. To use a slightly exaggerated expression, I had no idea that each and every one of them had red blood flowing through them, had a heart, and possessed a multitude of emotions. No, I didn't even try to understand.

I remember once, I ran into Makihara (now a father of one) in town for the first time in a while, we made some small talk, ended up grabbing a drink for some reason, and in the flow of conversation, he threw these words at me.

“There is no strategy guide for life, you know.”

Looking back, my youth is overflowing with pathetic, worthless, and agonizing episodes like the one represented by this story. I would love to show off a sweet, whipped-cream-like love story with a smug look on my face once in a while, but unfortunately, I don't have many stories in my drawer. Oh well, it's a predicament. A real bummer. How pathetic.

By the way, as a side note, I would end up meeting Nao-chan just one more time after that, at our coming-of-age ceremony. Faced with her former email buddy who had undergone a class change into a full-fledged 'gyaru-o' (male gal), the single mother in her kimono showed a moment of confusion, but just 2.7 seconds later, she did a complete turnaround and burst into laughter, clutching her stomach. Even her small, clam-like eyes were slightly teary. I laughed too. I laughed out loud. We laughed and laughed until we were both out of breath.

“Don't I look more handsome than Benji now?”

“Haha, maybe you do.”

That slightly improved wink of hers felt strangely endearing.