Hikaru shrugged. "She just wants to be friends. If I keep shutting her out, that's not very nice. And hey, who ever complains about having too much money?"
"As long as you know what you're doing."
Yamato gave a casual shrug, lit a cigarette and clamped it between her lips, waved her hand, and walked off.
He had promised to go shopping with Tirpitz today, and Hikaru was determined to see it through properly.
By noon, he'd already bought a bookshelf, manga, light novels, a game console with cartridges, drawing boards, rulers, pencils, screentone sheets—everything a manga artist could want.
Since the whole point was to make Tirpitz feel happy, Hikaru hadn't brought along Glowworm , Fletcher, or any of the others. He carried everything himself. Good thing he was now more or less superhuman—otherwise lugging this much across several kilometers would have cost him half his life.
He had planned to buy clothes for Tirpitz too, but when he asked, she flatly refused. So Hikaru simply took it upon himself to draw out a design and order a custom outfit at a tailor.
A double-breasted, military-style blazer. White blouse. Pink miniskirt. Black stockings. And high boots.
As Hikaru leaned over the counter sketching out the designs one by one, Tirpitz's usual cold expression finally began to shift.
"You… remember this outfit?"
Hikaru smiled. "Of course I do. In my memory, you looked your most beautiful wearing this."
It was her old outfit from before she was remodeled. Hikaru would swear on Tirpitz's conscience—if he could actually touch such a thing—that this outfit looked a hundred times better than the leather uniform she wore now.
Tirpitz lowered her head and stayed silent for a moment. Just as the shopkeeper came over with a measuring tape, she spoke up.
"Wait a second. I'll borrow the changing room."
When she emerged, she had changed into the very outfit Hikaru had drawn on paper.
"Does it look good?"
Hikaru nodded furiously. "You look amazing. How did you even do that?"
Tirpitz turned her head away. "It's just rigging. I suddenly felt like making a small change."
"Shopkeeper, just make the outfit exactly like hers, please. Ten sets, slight variations in color, style, or trim are fine."
Ten custom outfits counted as a pretty big order, so the shopkeeper happily obliged, complimenting Tirpitz's figure while taking notes on the outfit details.
Hikaru rubbed his chin. "I remember you had another outfit—white stockings, a short skirt, and a blue jacket. That one looked great too. Can you recreate it?"
Tirpitz ignored him.
After thinking for a moment, Hikaru decided he needed to buy her a headset—ideally one with cat ears and a Teutonic cross. A Tirpitz without cat-ear headphones simply wasn't a complete shut-in girl.
By noon, they returned home with their mountain of shopping bags to eat lunch. After a satisfying meal, Hikaru pulled Tirpitz into bed for a nap—and stole another kiss from her in the process.
Tirpitz looked absolutely adorable in her little uniform. Her stocking-clad legs were perfect to touch. Her blushing face made him want to tease her even more. If Hikaru's will weren't so strong, he might have already devoured her.
But no. Not yet. Hikaru felt they weren't at that point in their relationship.
They had only spent a single day together, after all. Even if they were technically married, that still felt like rushing things.
That afternoon, he once again turned down Glowworm, who begged to come along, and took Tirpitz with him to the commercial walking street downtown.
That store specializing in Bismarck-class merchandise was still open. They'd clearly begun pivoting toward fortress-type shipgirls and flagship-class Abyssals, but their shelves were still packed with catgirl-themed Bismarck items.
Looked like they had quite a bit of stock left to clear.
Hikaru greeted the store manager, then took Tirpitz around the shop to pick out goodies. Three different cat-ear headphones. A Bismarck model ship, Bismarck nesting dolls, Bismarck plushies, Bismarck pillows, Bismarck wallpaper—buy, buy, buy.
Tirpitz hugged a plush toy of a weaponized catgirl Bismarck in a seated pose and scowled. "She looks nothing like my sister."
Naturally. These merch designers had probably only ever seen Bismarck's profile art from the old shipgirl database—that was a Bismarck from who-knows-how-many-years ago, completely different from the one living at Hikaru's house now.
That said, most of the merchandise was plushified or comic-style Bismarck sisters, deliberately stylized to avoid the "not accurate" issue. The fact that Tirpitz could still tell it didn't resemble her sister just by looking at the plushie's face—that was pretty impressive.
[End of Chapter]
[50 Power Stones = Extra Chapter]
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