My Stepmom is Too Pretty, and It’s Troubling Me – Chapter 128

I kept studying with the other club members about the written subjects.

After all, being freshmen, written subjects were slightly more important for us than other subjects, and the curriculum itself was full of written exams, right?

“This test is such a pain…”

“…Aren’t you just avoiding studying?”

“That’s true, but it’s a pain regardless. The exam’s in just a week! How can I not feel annoyed?”

“Ah…”

It was absolutely a situation where everything was bound to feel tedious.

Typically, during exam periods, it might actually be fine, but feeling annoyed was normal.

Honestly, I could say this was not my fault but the academy’s fault for being this annoying.

Right now, I was just lying on my bed, unable to do anything but pass the time.

“Nope.”

“Why are you saying that again…?”

“Rize, I just thought, once the exam starts, it might actually be a good thing.”

“…Really?”

Rize looked at me as if to ask what I was thinking now.

But this time, I truly had a plausible thought.

I hadn’t even finished speaking, and she looked at me strangely, feeling a bit wronged.

“Listen.”

Anyway, while lying on the bed, I turned Rize’s gaze toward me.

And then…

“The day of the exam, we finish earlier than usual, right? We just take the exams for that day and have the other subjects off!”

“……”

“We have the exam in the morning, and once it’s done, it’s over. Isn’t that a good thing?”

I said that with a bright smile.

For real, during the midterms at the academy, after the morning exams, the regular classes were done for the day.

“That’s definitely a bit nice, right? There’s no need to endure through afternoon classes, and once the exam ends, we can go straight back to the dormitory?”

“…I hope you study for the exam while you’re at it.”

“Oh come on, what exam studying? I already know everything anyway.”

“I hope you don’t end up making a mistake during the exam with all that confidence.”

Rize was quite worried, but I absolutely had no intentions of slipping up during midterms.

I mean, it was me!

I had studied hard since I was little, so there was no way I’d mess up on an exam now.

Besides, making a mistake on an exam wouldn’t suddenly ruin one’s life, right?

Of course, I had to upgrade the dormitory, though.

“Hehe… upgrading the dormitory…”

“Young Lady, does that mean you’re moving to a better dormitory room straight away? Or is there a limit to how much you can upgrade at once…”

“…That shouldn’t be the case, right?”

“But… if you upgrade the dormitory rank too much at once, doesn’t it seem like it would drop drastically the next time your grades fall?”

“…No way, I mean, surely not…”

That shouldn’t be the case, right…?

When I first went to inquire about the dormitory room, I only heard that I could change to a better one based on my exam grades later on.

Could it really be as extreme as Rize said?

Wouldn’t that structure make it impossible to study hard for the exams?

What if I prepared really hard for the exams but ended up with just a mediocre upgrade in room rank? Of course, I’d lose motivation!

“…Rize, that’s not something you should be cursing.”

“Understood.”

Anyway, I was just passing the morning with such trivial conversations.

I was quite tired from just studying all week… and I really wanted to rest properly this weekend…

“Ah.”

“…What’s the matter again?”

I was thinking of resting, but then I realized there was something else I had to take care of.

Lately, I had been so distracted by exam preparations that I had completely forgotten about it, but it was something I really needed to resolve.

I felt frustrated and quite uncomfortable, and honestly, it had been hard to bear for the past few days.

“Let’s go buy some underwear!”

“…Huh?”

It wasn’t like my size had exploded overnight, but I was definitely starting to feel cramped in the bras I used to wear.

I figured today, with nothing else to do, was the perfect time, rather than spending the weekend doing absolutely nothing.

*

So I took Rize with me and headed outside.

Someone had been insisting on wearing a maid outfit, but since I absolutely forbade that, Rize ended up wearing a shirt and a skirt that reached her ankles.

Holding hands with her, I wandered slowly around the academy campus.

“Feels like it’s been ages since it was just me and Rize wandering around together, doesn’t it?”

“…It does.”

“Lately, we’ve been constantly studying with the club members, and I can’t remember the last time we just hung out alone. We used to do this all the time back in the day.”

“…Uh.”

Even though I was merely holding hands with Rize while strolling through the campus, it felt surprisingly enjoyable.

Just as I had said to Rize, we had spent very few days like this lately.

I was out to buy underwear that actually fit my grown size, but I thought I should enjoy this time with Rize as much as I could while we were at it.

Of course, buying underwear was a must.

The one I was wearing was pretty tight already… plus, I had even talked about going shopping with Rize sometime before.

“Rize, where should we go first?”

“Well… I think it’s best to tackle the urgent matters first. You’ve been uncomfortable for several days, after all…”

“Umm… that is true. I still feel pretty uncomfortable now.”

“If you would prefer, we could visit another place first…”

“No, let’s do it your way, Rize.”

Following Rize’s advice was definitely the right call.

There was no need to suffer through discomfort in my chest while walking around.

It was definitely better to take care of the most urgent and important matters first.

So, Rize and I moved towards a store selling underwear on the academy campus.

There might be clothing stores around too, but randomly picking anything for underwear and buying it would definitely be a terrible decision.

We headed to a rather expensive and well-known shop.

“I always think that shopping for clothes is such a hassle.”

“Isn’t that a bit rich coming from someone with quite a few clothes in their closet?”

“Well, if I only wore the same clothes all the time, it wouldn’t create a good image in many ways. It was a choice I had to make. Besides, I think I have more clothes picked out by you and Mother than the ones I bought myself, right?”

“You do have quite a few clothes you chose yourself. The dress and cardigan you’re wearing now are both from you.”

“Is that so…?”

I definitely had a lot of clothes.

There were indeed some that I chose, but… I still remembered that Rize had picked out much more than I had.

Most of the clothes in my closet were probably Rize’s taste.

Well, “taste” was just the usual pretty and cute clothes, though.

Anyway, as we were talking, we finally arrived at the women’s lingerie store.

“…Should we go in?”

“Yes.”

As soon as we entered, we were faced with a store that was nothing but lingerie.

The array of bras and panties hung everywhere… and, well, there were some pretty scandalous styles among them.

“Whoa.”

I don’t know if it was because of the memories from my previous life, but everything felt a bit too scandalous.

That said, I wasn’t blushing with embarrassment or anything to that extent.

After all, I had been living as a woman for over ten years, seen a woman’s body, and spent plenty of time with girls, so I was definitely not a pervert who would get excited or embarrassed over just seeing some displayed underwear.

“Hmm… how about this? Isn’t it a pretty safe design?”

“…Yes.”

“The academy uniform shirt is white… so it’s a bit ambiguous. Should I just go for white?”

“I think it’s best for you to choose what you feel comfortable with.”

“Umm…”

We were just browsing through the designs of underwear while checking things out, but for some reason, Rize was a bit quieter than usual.

She usually commented on everything when we were out shopping for other products, but today felt a bit odd… maybe because it was lingerie?

Perhaps she was trying to accommodate my preferences as much as possible.

“Wow… Rize, Rize. Check this out!”

While browsing through the underwear, I found one particular piece I wanted to show Rize, who had been quiet.

“…Young Lady?”

“Whoa… this is something else. Isn’t it?”

“That… I don’t think that’s the type of underwear you would wear…”

As I held up the lingerie to show Rize, she responded like that.

After all, Rize often treated me like a kid… and considering I was younger than her, it was a familiar situation.

No wonder, I was holding up a bright red piece of lingerie that had holes all over it!

It was pretty much ludicrously revealing to the point where I questioned whether it even served its basic purpose as underwear, honestly.

Such open styles were honestly hard to find in real life.

“That’s interesting.”

“…Young Lady, even so, that kind of underwear…”

“No way. Besides, you know my clothing preferences at this point, right? Simple and safe is just fine.”

“…Sure.”

Given that this was a specialty store for lingerie, it was only natural they would stock a wide variety of styles, making it more fascinating as well.

I came here to find underwear that actually fit me, but seeing so many different styles gave birth to several strange thoughts.

If I were to share these thoughts with Rize or anyone around, I felt like I’d get scolded and hit on the head for sure.

Of course, I wasn’t stupid enough to voice those thoughts.