The sound of footsteps caught his ear, and he turned around to check who it was and found Haiko standing beside his clothes.

“Good morning,” Haiko said, “I’m afraid I’ve been rather put off by the presence of the monsters—is it safe right now?”

“Morning,” August said, “Neptune is keeping the area clear, so it’s about as safe as it’s going to get—careful though, the lakebed starts a really steep decline after the first couple of meters.”

“Rittan mentioned that,” Haiko said, fingers already working at the front of her vest. “Apparently, you can dive under the water when the sun is completely up and see around you quite well.”

August turned around as she started to shrug it off entirely.

“Your immediate area, for sure, but after like twenty meters down, everything is just pitch black,” August admitted, turning to face away as she shrugged her vest off entirely. “I’m curious just how deep it is, but I suppose there’s no easy way to test that, is there?”

“Perhaps we could spend a month making twine and then tie it to Neptune,” Haiko said, seemingly amused by the idea. “Considering that he seems to have no problem staying underwater for obscene amounts of time, I imagine he could go down quite far.”

“Not a bad idea, but then we risk him baiting one of the bigger Mitikos out of the depths,” August said, a bit wary. “Maybe when we’re in a better position to kill anything we accidentally piss off.”

August kept his eyes on the lake.

“Very true,” Haiko said, humming. “I’m suddenly far less sure about entering the water again.”

“Sorry,” August said, “Maybe we should try to create a fenced-off area in the shallows; that way, we can be sure it’s safe to use.”

“Oh?” Haiko said, curious.

“If we make the fence tall enough, it might even give us some privacy while we’re bathing,” August wondered, thinking about how they could do it. “My first thought is to use big rocks, but then again, that might just have the effect of luring nearby Mitikos into a territorial dispute.”

August could hear the sound of her feet scattering the water as she waded into the lake to join him.

“Yes, that sounds like something we’d like to avoid,” Haiko said, amused. “Could we use something like those supports we intend to use for the undercover area?”

He tried to imagine it, but in his mind, the pillars kept popping back up out of the water like some kind of cork, and he frowned, unsure if that was actually how they would act or if it was simply absurd. Intuitively, the idea of trying to hammer supports into the lakebed just felt odd to him, but that must have been how piers were made, wasn’t it? Surely if a tree pierced deep enough into the lakebed, it would find itself lodged there.

“If you had a hammer to use,” August wondered, twisting his foot against the lakebed in order to see what it felt like—soft, mudlike material. “Do you think you could sink one of those uprights into the lakebed?”

“Most likely,” Haiko admitted, “Provided the bottom of it was actually touching and that I could access the top of it in order to strike it in the first place.”

Haiko cut the distance between them and came to a stop almost directly beside him, her entire body under the waterline. Her render appeared in his mind as she crossed into his threshold, and if she’d intended to derive any kind of privacy from the water covering her body, it had evaporated completely.

“As goofy as it sounds, you could probably sit on Rittan’s shoulders and get the leverage to hammer one of them pretty easily,” August said, “I’m not sure how deep you’d need to go to make it stable, though.”

He used his foothold to slowly push himself away, increasing the distance until she’d crossed out of the threshold of his ability.

“That does sound a bit goofy, but I suppose we’ll just have to discover how functional it is by testing it,” Haiko said before tilting her head. “I apologise if I was getting too close; I’d mistakenly believed you’d managed to overcome it to some degree.”

August wilted a bit at the directness and then cleared his throat.

“It’s not that; I can tolerate a single person now, I think,” August said before hesitating. “Listen, I told you my sensory skill places information in my mind about living things and how they’re moving, but I didn’t really explain what that information looks like.”

“Oh? I suppose I just assumed it was some kind of amorphous pressure,” Haiko said, “Was that incorrect?”

“Unfortunately, you’re pretty far off the mark. Whenever someone steps into range, a complete three-dimensional model of their body appears in my mind; even if I’m not looking in the correct direction, it’s just there,” August said, adding another foot between them. “It doesn’t pick up on clothing or anything else you’re carrying either, so the model is just—naked.”

“That’s not quite what I imagined when you first spoke of it,” Haiko said, “Is the discomfort because of the content of what you’re seeing, or that it’s simply impossible to ignore?”

“I’m not averse to seeing naked people, Haiko,” August said, shaking his head. “The problem is that every time the person moves, the model updates, and each time it updates, there’s a pull that tries to draw my attention back to it. When there are multiple things happening at once, the update is firing off multiple pulls per second—it gets confusing on a level that’s hard to describe.”

“The discomfort is from the constant distraction, but the invasion of privacy is what you’re concerned about?” Haiko summarised before raising an eyebrow. “August, we’ve spent several days together in which we were all entirely without clothing—just in case you’ve somehow forgotten.”

“Of course I haven’t forgotten, but we lacked access to clothing then,” August said in an attempt to vocalise how he was feeling about it. “This is a completely different situation, and just because I’ve seen you naked once doesn’t grant me infinite permission to see you naked in the future.”

“It was far more than once,” Haiko said, lip curling up at the side. “You weren’t exactly subtle.”

“That’s—not addressing the point I just made,” August said, flustered.

Haiko shifted upward above the water slightly, the top two pairs of her arms reaching up to take hold of her hair in an attempt to squeeze some of the water out of the wet mass. The waterline suddenly seemed dangerously low. He made sure to keep his eyes on her face and caught sight of her lip twitching again—she was totally messing with him. August grunted at the realisation and turned sideways, returning to his own attempts to clean himself.

“If I were to ask you about the moral implications of imagining somebody naked,” Haiko said, sounding like she was a few shades short of laughing at him. “Would you say that is equivalent to your current situation?”

“I’d say it’s not even remotely the same thing,” August said, rubbing at his legs under the water. “Imagination isn’t a perfect representation of another person; it’s not even a good one. This ability is more like I’m wearing penetrative contact lenses that let me see through people’s clothing—and I’d consider that morally repugnant.”

“You have all these counters lined up and ready to throw at me,” Haiko said, laughing now. “Just how much time did you spend looking for you to be this guilty?”

How come—when August thought he was doing a good job of staking out his position—it still felt like she was coming out on top? August sunk down until his mouth was barely above the water and then blew a breath out of his nose that sent ripples across it.

“I didn’t spend any time looking, thank you, I’ve been keeping away from everyone as best I can since it started,” August mumbled, “Whatever, I’m going to make sure everyone knows what it does. That way, I won’t feel like a creep every time someone comes close enough to hand me something.”

“An interesting solution, August,” Haiko said, amused. “Everyone becomes aware of your wandering gaze, and then the onus is placed on each of us to maintain our own privacy—how devious.”

“Haiko—listen, can you please tell the others for me?” August sighed, “I’ve got a feeling that Kalter is going to hit me again, and I like it way more when she’s completely unjustified.”

Haiko laughed at the request.