Chapter 480

"Hehe~"

Watching her boyfriend stare at her so blankly, Suzuki Sonoko could only feel her heartbeat quicken a little, and she smiled as she walked over to her boyfriend's side.

She reached out and gave Amamiya's chest a light push.

"What, you can't even recognize your own girlfriend?"

Only then did Ren Amamiya come back to his senses, but at this moment he had no idea where to look—the main thing was this angle was just too perfect, and even if it wasn't on purpose, he still saw at a glance that Sonoko's skin was very ample and very fair.

"I can still recognize you, it's just… I don't know where I should be looking."

Following her boyfriend's gaze and lowering her head, she immediately understood where Ren's eyes had been wandering, and a faint blush rose on Suzuki Sonoko's cheeks.

"If you want to look, then look."

She had bought this swimsuit in the first place for him to see.

As a reserved girl, such a frank remark still couldn't be said out loud directly.

But she could do it directly.

After properly taking in Sonoko's brand-new look, Ren Amamiya suddenly thought of a question, and asked with a touch of self-interest:

"Sonoko, normally… when you go to the beach, do you dress like this too?"

Hearing this, Suzuki Sonoko looked up at her boyfriend's slightly worried expression, and instantly understood that person's thoughts.

She gave the idiot in front of her an exasperated shove.

"Have you ever seen a young lady go to the beach for no reason to show off her figure? Wouldn't that be the same as wearing underwear and being stared at by others?"

"Even when we normally go to the beach, we won't casually show up in very private swimsuits."

"Usually when we're out, we wear that kind of one-piece swimsuit."

As she spoke, Suzuki Sonoko pointed at her collarbone with her finger.

"That kind of swimsuit—you can barely even see the collarbone."

"I see. I thought you rich girls could just throw on a bikini and head to the beach whenever you felt like it."

Only then did Ren Amamiya breathe a sigh of relief.

Those words made Suzuki Sonoko's brow arch—who was it slandering decent girls like them?

"Renren, I'd like to ask—where did you get the idea that we'd go to the beach in a swimsuit?"

"Uh… from stories."

I knew it… Suzuki Sonoko slapped her forehead—she just knew Ren had picked this up from stories.

She felt she needed to give Renren a little science lesson on the basics.

"Renren, listen carefully—stories and reality aren't the same. In reality, girls from decent families don't just casually dress revealingly in public; what we need more is propriety. Only in relatively private settings would we choose a bikini like this."

Listening to Sonoko's lecture, Ren Amamiya nodded silently—so that's how it was.

"Only runway models—especially those doing fashion shows, lingerie shows, and… art shows—will go all out showing themselves off in matching outfits. Because besides work, they're also on the lookout for encounters with rich families."

An 'encounter' is a very friendly, polite way of putting it; put bluntly, it's looking for a rich buyer.

"Girls from families like ours have mostly received a similar kind of education. Haven't you seen in TV dramas how there are plenty of nouveau-riche tycoons and plutocrats who are spoiled brats? People like that do exist, but they're the first generation who built the fortune themselves—their children haven't actually received a very good education, because their fathers have only just started making their way, and the real cultivation is a job for the next generation."

"Once the second generation starts settling down, the third generation receives an even more well-rounded education, and basically you won't see those spoiled brats anymore."

"But TV dramas generally don't show the third generation, because dramas need conflict. The third generation aren't spoiled brats anymore, and they don't make for good plot conflict either."

"And by the third generation, they basically won't do anything that screams nouveau riche."

"And then there's what you saw in those stories—I think that's just the author handing out fan service on one side. Without a little suggestive content, manga and anime just wouldn't sell."

From a profit standpoint, having female characters do suggestive stuff is mostly just to move product.

Suzuki Sonoko instinctively made her judgment that stories and reality differ greatly.

Ren Amamiya mulled over Sonoko's words and figured that was pretty much the reason.

"Mm, fair enough. In a lot of stories, no matter what kind of background the heroine or supporting heroine has, there are plenty of fan-service scenes."

"No matter what background the heroine or supporting heroine has in the story, it doesn't mean anything to the person making the story—being able to make money is what counts."

From the profit-maker's perspective, this part is definitely going to differ from reality.

Without fan service, what's there for the audience to look at?

If the audience stops watching, where's the money going to come from?

So in stories, no matter the background, you don't have to worry about upbringing or virtue—just think about whether it can grab the audience's eyeballs.

Whether or not there's fanservice is really just one sentence from the author.

"Exactly."

Seeing that her boyfriend now understood the situation, Suzuki Sonoko finally relaxed—she'd been worried this person had some wrong idea about them, thinking they were some kind of loose girls.

"That's why reality and stories end up diverging."

"Can you imagine a situation where my bodyguards aren't nearby? I'm the heir my parents designated. So something like a hero-saving-the-beauty happening to me isn't very likely. Usually my bodyguards have already taken care of it."

"Kaguya Sigong—that big ice block—is the same. Even though she was raised in a cage like a canary from childhood, she still got the education she was supposed to. In the end she's one of the faces of the Kaguya Sigong family; even if she is a canary, that's the Kaguya Sigong family's way of putting it. Out in the world, she's still the Kaguya Sigong family's young lady."

"So she would absolutely never choose love on her own. Unless she's in a situation like now, where she can take the Kaguya Sigong family completely into her own hands—otherwise she'd still go along with the fate the Kaguya Sigong family arranges."

PS: New book on the shelves, please send data.