There was a man wearing glasses there.
In a full getup consisting of a straw hat on top of a towel tyed around his head, high rubber boots, work pants kindly lent to him by a neighboring fishermen association, and complete with latex gloves worn on both hands, he was squatting down on the sandy beach after the tide ebbed, slowly but steadily digging into the sand with a small rake. His glasses were square and thick-framed - by them alone, so different from the trademark aristocratic silver-framed glasses of Munakata Reishi, one could easily tell that it was not him. Having come to this conclusion, one could think further and hypothesize that it might have been Fushimi Saruhiko, but the man’s glasses, while also having black frames, were bigger than those of the third-in-command of Scepter 4, and overall, the impression of the man on the beach was somewhat lacking in style. The man’s long black hair was tied up in a ponytail, which hang down from underneath the straw hat; the man in question tended to hide in the shadows of his two bespectacled superiors because their presence was just too powerful, and yes, that man was me, Enomoto Tatsuya, also known as the third glasses of Scepter 4. Well, to be exact, no one ever called me that, I just called myself that in my mind. And anyway, as you see, I was well aware that I lacked style.
I imagined that being called ‘the third glasses’ for real would be cool. It had a dark horse-ish ring to it. Like the hero’s codename in American comics. And when Scepter 4 came under attack, finding itself in the direst predicament it ever faced with Fushimi-san defeated and captain Munakata severely wounded, I would awaken as the strongest glasses character… Hehehe, hehe.
“…Eno, whaccha giggling for? ’s creepy”, Hidaka Akira, a coworker of mine, currently squatting opposite of me and also sifting through the sand with a rake, furrowed his brows fiercely.
“Eh, ah, no, it’s nothing. It’s just that gathering shellfish is kinda hard”. I put on a false smile and dug into the sand enthusiastically.
“I know, right? Aah, why do we even have to look for those tiny shells…?” Moaning, Hidaka violently combed through the sand with his rake.
“If you’re not careful, you’ll end up breaking them. When you feel your rake hit something solid, put it away and dig with your hands, like the fishermen from the association explained to us”.
“I know, geez. But this is so damn troublesome, and those shellfish are so damn tiny…”
Unlike me, Hidaka was only wearing trunks and flip-flops. Since he didn’t put on latex gloves, sand ended up getting under his nails, and I was sure he’d feel it later as an unpleasant sensation when touching his PDA or, once we were back to the HQ, his computer. There was also a possibility of some weird insects you wouldn’t want to come in direct contact with crawling in that sand to consider… But that was what I was cautious of, while Hidaka was the kind of guy who didn’t care about such things.
Next to the two of us there was a bucket with ordinary clams, short-necked clams and small crabs scattered on its bottom, small amount of our catch worrisome.
“Fushimi-san, please take this seriously and make some effort! This is going to be our dinner tonight after all!” Hidaka shouted from the foreshore to a lone figure quite some distance away.
“Huuh? I don’t eat shellfish, so why the heck should I dig up something that someone else’s gonna eat?” Fushimi-san - as it was none other than him - replied, throwing a glare our way, mouth twisting. He had a straw hat, a parka and trunks on and was scooping sand with a toy-sized shovel, piling it up in front of him in what looked like complete desperation. It ran through my mind that there couldn’t have been many people who could make a face that scary while wearing a straw hat and holding a toy shovel - both being practically the symbols of innocence and openheartedness.
“Why a trip to the sea… It doesn’t make any sense, not when we’re so damn stumped with work. I’ll kill the bastard who suggested it… Anyway, why the hell it has to be the beach…? You get sunburns; when the morons get together, they’re so ridiculously excited it’s just plain depressing; glasses get fogged up because of the salty wind; you get sunburns…”
A sand castle about a meter high was growing in front of Fushimi-san who gave off a dark blue aura of gloom on this sandy beach generously bathed in bright sunlight. The castle was so fighteningly elaborate, complete with a castle tower, walls and even a ditch, that one might have thought it was a purchasable model. Why on earth was he making a Japanese castle, of all things…?
“Eno, under no circumstances tell Fushimi-san it was me who suggested this beach trip. And warn everyone to keep their mouths shut as well. If he finds out, he’ll strangle me to death…”
“Alright…”
Well, probably, Captain Munakata or Lieutenant Awashima would leak it to him before long, though…
One might wonder what we were doing at a place like that. The answer was as you see - we were shellfish hunting. As to why Scepter 4 was out on a beach, merrily shellfish hunting in the middle of a working weekday… the cause was Hidaka.
Well, it just so happened that among us all said Hidaka was almost always the one to suggest things like that. And the one with a penchant to dig his own grave was also Hidaka.
Unfortunately, before the summer, there was a significant increase in cases that fell within the jurisdiction of Scepter 4, so all the members had to put in a lot of overtime hours. That’s when Hidaka, who got fed up with it, suggested, “How about a summer training camp for the members of the special operations squad? Why not go to the sea?”
“Yeah, I saw her alright. It was an absolutely wonderful sight. When it comes to the bust size, Lieutenant’s is as huge as three to five ordinary girls’ put together, depending on how lacking they are in the boob department. But y'know, this time it’s not about size! It’s about variety and numbers! Don’t you agree that chatting with guys about which chick’s swim suit they prefer while feasting your eyes on lots and lots of different girls is heaps of fun?! Lieutenant alone is not enough for that! And you know what? I, I… I was really looking forward to discussing girls with Fushimi-san…” Hidaka kept grumbling in a quivering voice while lying prostrated on the sand.
I was surprised at his last confession. “…With Fushimi-san? Uh, for real?”
“And here I thought you’re bad rather than good at dealing with Fushimi-san…”
'He’s so good at casually wearing them without a trace of embarrassment, huh…’
'He can pull it off so easily because his morals are crystal pure’.
The Blue King and our Captain, Munakata Reishi, was standing unmoving in only a skimpy swimwear, which didn’t use nearly enough cloth, holding a surfboard under his arm.
“C-Captain, dost thou also like surfing…?” Trying to be extra careful, Hidaka ended up using some strange grammar. His question was an implicit resentful complaint meant to convey something like, 'From the looks of it, while we were being forced to bunny-hop 5 km, destroying our tight muscles, and were getting attacked in the open sea by sharks, having to draw our swords, you were having a graceful time and enjoying yourself, huh’.
“Not exactly. I haven’t surfed before, and today was my first experience, but this kind of sports does look very interesting. What are the two of you doing here?”
“Hoo, shellfish hunting, you say… This would also be something I haven’t done before. It looks fun”.
Our king was somehow quite far removed from the world of the general public, so occasionally he would leave us surprised by not having the slightest idea about things that everybody was normally expected to know of. When he came across something unknown to him, he would be interested in whatever it might be, and his eyes would shine like those of a child.
“I would like to try it as w– Oh?” Captain’s gaze, full of curiousity, drifted in yet another direction. “Fushimi-kun, what are you doing?”
Unlike us, Fushimi-san wasn’t humbled by Captain’s presence, and not just that - he completely ignored his appearance, squatting, apparently absorbed in putting finishing touches to his sand castle, going as far as taking out one of his throwing knives he always had on him to carefully carve decorative gable on the castle tower with an incredibly earnest concentration.
“F-Fushimi-san!” Both me and Hidaka panicked and called out to him.
“Yes?”
“Y-Yes, sir!”
Body shaken to its deepest core with the mixture of exaltation and fear, I glanced at Fushimi-san. He was standing stock still, dumbfounded, the blue light reflecting in his eyes which rarely lit up. I wanted to think that that glow was both the light Captain cast off and the inner radiance coming from within Fushimi-san’s being