Want to go to the sea?"
The one who had asked those words all of a sudden was Shizuku.
"By the sea, you mean the beach?"
Modern TV phone systems, as a standard, can take up to 10 calls simultaneously.
As Miyuki used that system to talk with Shizuku and Honoka and engage in idle
chatter, Shizuku gave a brief affirmative 'yes'. That answer was a bit short, but
even so it seemed to ring a bell with her friend since primary school, Honoka.
"Ah, could you mean?"
"Yes, that."
But for Miyuki, who had only known them for around four months, this
conversation was altogether on a different level.
"Could you mean...... what?"
At that, both Honoka and Shizuku realized that they had left Miyuki behind, albeit
too late. They shared a glance. That being said, on Miyuki's display she could only
see them looking aside. Honoka was then the first to direct her eyes back to
Miyuki.
"Well you see, Shizuku's family has a resort in Ogasawara."
"Eh? Shizuku, your family owns a private beach?"
"Yeah......"
At Miyuki's question. Shizuku answered briefly again, although this time with a
slightly embarrassed expression.
Recently, having a villa in the uninhabited island of Ogasawara had become
fashionable among the rich, though this had been reproached by ignorant critics
misunderstanding intellectual expression as 'arrogantly willful destruction of
nature."
These uninhabited islands, where the resorts are, were mostly once populated
islands, but had been abandoned due to the rough conditions. As these villas were
zero emission (energy sources came from sunlight, so if you include energetics
they weren't truly zero emission but still), they were not destructive to nature but
rather unashamed valid uses of land. Of course, Miyuki wasn't blaming Shizuku('s
family) for anything. It was just that even among those households considered
wealthy, only a handful possessed villas with their own private beach. That was
probably something Shizuku also understood, but even in the case of unjustified
criticism she would probably retain a manner of general common sense and feel a
13/202
subconscious degree of guilt.