Top-Tier Character Hinami-san Lv. 99

Hinami Aoi and the First Day of Summer

「Well then……」

In front of the mirror in her room, Hinami was making the finishing touches to her outfit before going out.

This was after having changed from loungewear into casual clothes and putting on her makeup.

What Hinami now wore was a plain black crew neck T-shirt which moderately emphasized her body lines, and white skirt pants decorated with flower patterns with green undertones.

Staring fixedly at that figure reflected in the mirror, upon confirming that she was exuding an atmosphere that combined the cuteness of a girl and allure of a female, Hinami gave a snort of satisfaction.

Then, after tucking the hem of her shirt into the high waist area of her skirt pants, she picked up a tote bag prepared in advance, and slung it over her shoulder. Coloured an elegant, ever so slightly cream-coloured shade of white, and bearing a logo soaked in that vintage feeling, the bag served to amplify her fashion-consciousness even further.

As the final highlight, from a number of watches stowed away in a drawer, Hinami picked out an elegant, light gold watch with a tawny leather strap, and fastened it to her wrist.

Again, she looked in the mirror.

「……Yeah.」

Having yet again successfully become just as she had imagined herself to be, Hinami exited her room on the second floor. Taking the stairs with a rhythmical, happy tappity-tap, Hinami lifted the corners of her mouth, laughing ever so softly.

She then arrived on the first floor. Upon placing the tote bag atop a chair in the living room for the moment, Hinami caught sight of a bowl on the table, covered with cling film. Inside the cling film was some fried pork with ginger that her mother had prepared. While sighing slightly, Hinami picked it up and entered the empty kitchen. Upon storing it bowl and all in the fridge and closing the door, she hesitated for a while.

Finally, having reconsidered, Hinami opened the fridge door again.

Right where she had reached in with her hand was an apple she had bought the day before.

Taking it out, Hinami placed it on a chopping board, then divided it into four pieces with a kitchen knife. Upon wrapping three in cling film and returning them to the fridge, she began inserting the kitchen knife into the remaining piece.

Removing the core portion and discarding it in a triangular sink tidy, she then vertically sliced the piece in half. Then, upon slicing into the skin with experienced movements, she cut loose just half of the skin in order to form the『ears』. It was a so-called『rabbit』. Making two of them, Hinami then lined them up to face her.

「Hm.」

Picking up a completed rabbit with her left hand, she brought it level with her face and absentmindedly stared at it with an unchanging expression. Whenever it came to eating apples, with no reason in particular, Hinami would always make such rabbits.

After nudging the flaps of skin which formed the rabbit’s『ears』several times with the index finger of her right hand, with that not particularly unchanging expression, Hinami sunk in her teeth.

Inside her mind, the connection with an unrealistic scene of『the giant me casually picking up a small rabbit in the savannah that was trying to escape and tossing it into my mouth』was made. While making a half-exasperated retort to herself about the absurdity of it all, she proceeded to finish eating the apple pieces one after the other.

Washing her hands, she wiped them dry using the towel that hung on the cupboard handle.

Upon returning to the living room, she took out a bottle of sunscreen from the tote bag placed on the chair. Holding a hair band previously hung on her arm in her mouth, she bunched up her hair with both hands. Then, retrieving the hair band with one hand, she temporarily tied her hair up in a ponytail. Removing the cap from the sunscreen bottle, she then proceeded to squeeze an adequate amount onto the palm of her hand. Lightly sitting down on the same chair which had the tote bag, Hinami began applying the sunscreen on her body.

As for where she spread that milky fluid, over her long, pale, slender arms; over her shoulders which were slightly more dainty than the norm; and over the base of her thin, long neck that was usually covered by her hair. Deciding to apply it to her legs too just in case, she pulled the bottoms of her skirt pants up above the knee, exposing her thighs, which were slightly paler in comparison to the other limbs. As for the rolled up hems of her skirt pants, they gathered in volume at the roots of Hinami’s legs.

Squeezing out additional sunblock onto her palm, she began applying it on her legs. Starting from the shins and calves, finally making her way towards her thighs. With massage-like movements, she thoroughly spread it over the entirety of her legs.

A healthy set of thighs, with a moderate amount of muscle attached. The parts touched by her palm and fingers tenderly caved in upon contact. When her hands moved away from the affected areas, now slightly moistened, with a supple elasticity they returned to their original positions. This process repeating over and over again until the entirety of her thighs were covered in sunblock, Hinami’s thighs were then stashed away inside her skirt pants once more, lustrously reflecting light from the sun streaming through the window and the fluorescent light in the room all the while. A different sunscreen had been applied to her face at the time of putting on makeup.

Hinami rose from the chair, and after picking up a bottle of her favourite perfume from a shelf in the living room, she removed the cap, brought the nozzle close to her nose, and inhaled.

With a 「……Haah」, she let out a sigh of happiness. Of the numerous perfumes she owned, this one had a scent she was particularly fond of. Despite having them sorted according to the image of her attire, she would inadvertently end up using this one anyway, and as a result it was being depleted at a much faster rate than the rest.

Pulling herself together, Hinami pointed the perfume at the air, pressed four times, and passed through the result with her entire body. She then made her way to the washroom for the final confirmation, all the while feeling how her whole body was enveloped in a faint aroma.

Hinami carefully checked her reflection in the mirror. Eventually, frowning, she went back to the living room.

Retrieving the makeup pouch from the tote bag, she took out some face powder and a makeup brush. Then, taking a single sheet of tissue paper from the top of the desk, she returned to the washroom.

Hinami coated the makeup brush with face powder, and after dusting off the excess amount with the tissue, lightly covered her entire face with it. She then checked her face in the mirror.

「……Alright.」

After nodding slightly, Hinami headed for the living room. She threw the tissue paper into a dustbin, kept the face powder and makeup brush back in the designated location in her pouch, then put it in the tote bag. Then, after confirming that her mobile phone was in her pocket, she headed for the front door. When she got there, from the numerous shoes of various shapes and colours that were on the shoe rack, Hinami slipped on the black fur sandals she had decided on when choosing her clothes earlier. Then, while feeling extremely delighted from being true to her ideal from the top of her head to the tips of her toes, she rushed out into the heat.

＊＊＊

Hinami’s first destination was a certain shop in Omiya that specialized in cheese tarts.

Located inside the station premises, this shop would always have a line, and at lunch time on holidays when it was the most crowded, the line of people would extend as far as the store front. A waiting time over several tens of minutes was common.

However, Hinami had already accounted for as much. For students, today was a day off due to the summer holidays, but to working adults it was before noon on a weekday. She could make her purchase with a waiting time under ten minutes.『We’re very particular about cheese tarts!』and『Delicious even when chilled』. The affixed posters had such words side by side on them.

「Here’s your change, 4 yen.」

「Thank you very much!」

「It’s freshly baked, so enjoy it while it’s hot!」

Grinning broadly, Hinami accepted the single cheese tart that she had reservedly ordered with the calories in mind from the shop attendant. Her intended use of that smile had been as a courtesy towards the employee, but she herself was unaware of the innocence, more so than usual, with which she broke into a smile out of excitement towards the cheese tart she was about to eat.

No sooner than she had passed through the ticket gate, Hinami quickly retrieved the tart from the paper bag and bit into it.

「……Delicious.」

A small-sized cheese tart that fit into the palm of her hand. Hard-baked and with a flaky texture, tightly packed inside it was cheese mousse so airy it practically melted in the mouth. For the upper part, its cover was affixed with a savoury baked cheese which differed from that used in the mousse, and gave rise to an appetite-stimulating aroma.

The contrasting textures of hardness and softness, the humble amount of mousse which gave a balance between the just-right sweetness and the slightly salty flavor of cheese, and the aroma of baked cheese. Hinami smacked her lips at the harmony of it all and let out a warm sigh. Her face was flushed with happiness.

Then, eventually composing herself, Hinami became aware of a number of things.

It was likely that this fluffy cheese had been put in after the fact — in other words, to draw out the maximum flaky texture of the tart, it had been baked separately from the cheese. However, just doing that would not enable one to enjoy the『aroma from when it was burned』which was a facet of cheese’s deliciousness, and so it was likely that in order to introduce the element of that『aroma』, separate cheese baked with a savoury smell had been used to affix the top part.

To sum it up, this shop was excessively tenacious and even exasperatingly logical in how particular they were when it came to cheese tarts.

Having realized these things, impressed, Hinami boldly smiled, and while harbouring in her chest feelings of『you can’t stand losing, huh』that an ordinary person could not hope to match, she descended the stairs of Omiya station’s east exit.

 

The next place on Hinami’s list was a certain Italian restaurant located along the Minami-Ginza passage of Omiya’s east entrance.

「Tachibana-san, good morning~」

Making eye contact with the shop attendant, Hinami put on a sweet smile.

Going by the name of Tachibana, the female who looked to be in her mid-twenties was the shop attendant here. She was well-acquainted with Hinami, a regular customer, and being good friends each time they met they would discuss private topics and the like, talking about various things. Rather than employee and customer, perhaps it would be more appropriate to call them friends separated by an age gap.

「Ah, Aoi-chaan! Welcome~! The usual again today?」

「Yes! I’ll go with that, please!」

Hinami smiled. As usual, her intended use of that smile had been as a courtesy towards an employee, but she herself was unaware of how, out of excitement towards the pasta she was about to eat, the nature of that smile was none other than that of a pure, small girl with their favourite dish right in front of their eyes.

After a short while, a cacio e pepe was brought to her. Made from spaghetti interlaced with cheese and topped with a generous amount of black pepper, it was a simple pasta dish.

「Enjoy~♪」

「It looks delicious! Thank you very much!」

The smile that appeared on Hinami’s face at that moment was already not even something she had made intentionally, but instead something that leaked out completely unconsciously. But of course, Hinami did not realize this.

「……I’m digging in.」

After silently and solitarily bringing her hands together, she wound up a roll of pasta with her fork and brought it to her mouth.

The simple but surely rich flavour of cheese and the salty taste a bit on the strong side, together with the aroma of black pepper that stimulated the nasal cavity with its forceful fragrance, banded together and filled Hinami’s palate and sense of smell to full capacity.

Even though it should have only been a simple mix of pasta, cheese and black pepper, it was a taste that was rich and mellow, yet had a solid strength to it. Just as she was conjecturing that this was likely due to the deliciousness of the cheese being used, inside, Hinami realized she was feeling a sense of discomfort. Which was, to Hinami, an extremely pressing sense of discomfort.

『—Compared to the usual, there’s less cheese?』

Just as one might realise from how at the beginning the store employee Tachibana had asked if she would have『the usual』, it was not the first time Hinami had eaten this pasta. She visited this restaurant several times a month, and would order this pasta one in two times. It was for this reason that Hinami was able to notice this feeling of discomfort.

『There’s less cheese.』

A minor, imperceivable to the run-of-the-mill person, discrepancy of a few grams.

However, to Hinami, that few grams『difference in the amount of cheese』was huge.

「Hm……」

Hinami recalled how among her past visits, just once, the opposite had happened and there was a『more cheese than usual』day. Since this was favourable to her, and was an event she gladly welcomed, she had eaten it all without mentioning anything in particular. However, thinking about it, measurement errors like these were natural, and there would also be times when luck swung the other way. It shouldn’t have been something she couldn’t predict.

Hinami bit her lip in frustration at the naivety of her own thinking.

「But……」

Hinami finished eating it all fairly quickly for a female high schooler.

That’s right. It’s true that there had been less cheese than usual.

……But, it was delicious.

Smiling defencelessly, Hinami came to that kind of simple conclusion.

＊＊＊

From there, after going on to finish other errands such as shopping at her favourite western-style clothes store, Hinami decided it was time to head back.

Passing through the ticket gate, she headed for the Saikyou line platform. However, along the way.

「……Ah.」

She happened to catch sight of the cheese tart shop from earlier that day.

Right now it was just before dinner time. Despite there usually being a long line around this time, right now she could only see a few people in the queue. So few that if she were to line up, she would be able to make her purchase in less than ten minutes or so, the same as in the morning.

「……Hmmm.」

She might have been Hinami Aoi, but in no way did that mean she could eat and eat without getting fat. In order to maintain her figure, it was necessary to expend calories to match her food intake. Of course, the running and other things she did for this purpose were not troublesome in the least for Hinami, but the problem resided in the time spent doing so.

To Hinami, who would devote her unsparing efforts to doing all sorts of things, time management was synonymous with effort management. With such a detailed schedule, it was important to put in effort efficiently.

For that reason, Hinami did not consider excess calorie intake to be a good thing.

—However, at that moment. Hinami’s tongue, and Hinami’s brain.

They desperately wanted『cheese』.

It was an urge so uncontrollable, it upset Hinami’s mind in a big way.

As for the reason for developing an urge this strong — thinking about it, it was because of that time.

『—Compared to the usual, there’s less cheese?』

Yes. The『amount of cheese』that Hinami had originally wanted to ingest.

In comparison to the amount she had wanted, it had all been just a little bit lacking.

A slight inconsistency, brought into being by a simple misjudged measurement.

However, it was enough to cause Hinami’s craving for cheese to increase.

 

By the time she noticed, Hinami was standing in line.

＊＊＊

「……It’s been a while since the last time I gave in.」

While immersing herself in the bath to which bathing salt had been added, Hinami whispered quietly.

「To think it would be that delicious……」

As she thought back on it, Hinami inadvertently broke into a smile. That’s right. The deliciousness of the cheese tart.

Together with how the amount of cheese in the pasta had been less than usual, it had been one of the things that occurred outside of Hinami’s expectations that day. She had inadvertently bought from the shop again on the way back, devouring another tart while waiting for the train to arrive.

Still, to think that in a single day there would be two events outside of her expectations like this.

Hinami would go about her business with most things going as expected, but once cheese entered the equation, uncalculated events would occur one after the other.

Reflecting on this profundity of cheese, Hinami was struck by silent admiration.

Hinami got up from the bathtub, letting droplets of water fall gracefully from her beautiful limbs as she made her way from the bathroom to the washroom. After carefully drying her entire body with a bath towel, she squeezed a suitable amount of face lotion onto her palms.

As if lightly slapping it on, she left it to soak over the entirety of her face, applying additional lotion several times over on top. Then, she thoroughly spread body lotion all over the rest of her body. This added even more moisture to Hinami’s fresh and youthful flesh that was already glossy from the humidity it had soaked up in the bath. A faint and flower-like, graceful and elegant aroma was sprinkled all over the washroom.

Changing into pajamas, she moved from the washroom to the kitchen.

Then, Hinami opened the refrigerator door and reached inside. At that place, there should have been the thing she was looking for — yet another cheese tart, bought on the way back and chilled for later.

But for some reason, it was not there.

Unable to understand what was going on, Hinami stood stock still in astonishment. But then came the tap-tap-tap of her younger sister as she ran up while cheerfully calling out to her. It was Haruka, three years Hinami’s junior and currently in her second year of middle school.

「Ah, Onee-chan! That thing in the fridge was delicious! So irresistibly nice and cold!」

Usually extraordinarily quick to function, Hinami’s brain was slow to react here, and it took some time to process what her younger sister was saying. Then, it all fell into place. How the cheese tart she had wanted to eat was not there. That is to say, how she had been unable to test the『Delicious even when chilled』words on the posters in the shop. As well as how the culprit was this girl before her very eyes, who was affectionately peering up at her.

「……Haruka? Could it be that you ate it without asking?」

She spoke slowly, turning to look at Haruka.

「Sorryyy! I’ll bake a homemade cheesecake for you next time!」

In response to Haruka’s words which were brimming with playfulness, saying

「……Haah. You really can’t be helped, can you Haruka?」

in an exasperated voice, Hinami gently laughed. Hinami’s inner thoughts of『I wanted to eat the cheese tart』should not have been so subdued, but no matter how one looked at it, that smile was not something made calculatively, but instead, a smile of warmth towards a loved family member.

Hinami then gently patted her younger sister’s head, chided her with a「Well, Onee-chan’s going to sleep now! Even if it’s the summer holidays, you need to sleep early too, okay Haruka?」, and prepared to go to sleep, brushing her teeth, drying her hair, and so on. After she was done, she passed by her parents’ room, entered her own, and slipped into bed.

She turned off the lights, alone in her room. However, once she had done so and settled down, the craving for cheese from earlier came back again. How best should she let out these feelings? Hinami had too much of this unbearable emotion to deal with.

「……Well then, hmm, that’s right.」

While speaking in a whisper, she conspired to do the following.

— She would make the next day’s task even tougher than usual.

Then, while happily imagining the speechless face that boy would make after hearing this, Hinami fell asleep.

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learning2tl: Well, I sure hope that was worth the effort. Here’s a bonus picture of how it all looked like when delivered (credit: some user on Mercari, I think).

And here’s how the back looks. Yep, not for sale.

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