Blood-Soaked Clothes
Blink.
When I came to my senses again, I was sprawled face-down in a pool of blood.
I just lay there for a few minutes, blinking blankly, until something caught my eye in the distance—a black ring tumbling across the floor.
“……Ah.”
Had I almost died just now?
Dying alone of loneliness in a house by myself wasn’t exactly my style.
But when I’d put the ring on, I’d briefly seen some woman, so maybe it didn’t count as a lonely death?
It was a little ambiguous either way. Regardless.
Looking at the ring I’d been about to put on moments earlier, now rolling through the blood, it all came back to me.
Right before I blacked out, the air around my finger had seemed to explode, and the ring had come off on its own.
More like it had been flung off than simply slipped free, though.
“Did that woman do it for me, maybe?”
Her speech had been a little clumsy, but one thing was certain.
She had to be drop-dead gorgeous.
So what if her words were a bit awkward? That voice had been incredible.
The unidentified her… calling her “her” all the time felt too impersonal. From now on I’d call her Miss Unknown.
Was that even weirder?
Anyway, Miss Unknown’s voice was the kind that could have made her a hugely successful ASMR YouTuber or voice actress.
Listening to it felt like walking on clouds, somehow.
It made my ears tingle. Like, you know?
And the figure I’d glimpsed had been something else too.
Those black-stockinged feet and legs I’d seen for just a second, the vaguely familiar clothes, the black straight hair cascading all the way past her hips.
How many people could look at all that and still claim Miss Unknown wasn’t a beauty?
Voice, figure—and on top of that, some indescribable pressure and aura radiating from her.
Everything about her screamed that she was a beautiful girl.
I want to see her…! Miss Unknown’s face!
If I put the ring on again, maybe I could?
Right. This time I’d keep my head up while putting it on. Then I’d get a clear look at her face right away.
I pushed myself up to grab the ring, and the half-dried blood that had already started to congeal clung stickily all over my body.
“Ugh… it’s on my cheek too…….”
Not just that—my hair was matted with clotted blood, and the school uniform I was wearing was so thoroughly soaked it looked like a Halloween costume.
It was so filthy that even though the shirt had originally been red, you could almost believe someone had spilled white paint on it.
“Miss Unknown would hate it if I went to meet her looking this disgusting, right…?”
First things first—wash up and change clothes!
If you wanted to meet a beautiful girl, the basic rule was to make yourself presentable.
I grabbed a random towel from the drying rack, soaked it in the sink, and looked back at the spot where I’d been lying just moments ago.
“…A murder scene?”
The floor was completely covered in blood, and the place where I’d collapsed still held the exact imprint of my body, like I was looking at a crime scene. The feeling was….
Before wiping it up, this was kind of a memento in its own way, so I should take a photo first….
Thankfully my phone was free of blood. I snapped a picture—click!
Then I sent it to the group chat with my friends and tossed the phone roughly onto the bed.
Something was already going ding-ding-ding with replies, but… well, I could check them all later.
Cleaning up this blood came first.
With the grip strength honed by Cecilia’s special training, I wrung the water out of the towel.
Then I smoothed out the crumpled parts with a few sharp snaps, folded it neatly twice, and….
Hurled it with all my might toward the bloodstains!
The towel flew limply through the air and hit the floor with a wet splat!
I lightly stepped on it with my toes and scrubbed it back and forth.
Swish-swish-swish.
Bending over to wipe with my hands was too much of a hassle….
As I scrubbed the blood off the floor with the towel under my foot, memories of my glorious school days floated up.
Back in elementary school, right before the end-of-day meeting, everyone would sweep under their own desks and wipe the floor with wet wipes.
Some kids would bend over and scrub hard with both hands; others, too lazy for that, would just step on the wipe and drag it around.
I’d always been the two-handed scrubbing type, but….
Swish-swish-swish.
Only now did I understand how those foot-wipers had felt.
It actually cleaned surprisingly well this way.
Wiping the blood off the floor didn’t take long.
Apparently only a few hours had passed since I’d blacked out and collapsed; only the surface had hardened.
Once the wet mop softened that sticky outer layer, all the blood hidden underneath got sucked straight into the cloth.
Watching the towel turn steadily redder, a thought suddenly struck me.
…Was this really all from me throwing up?
Even if you squeezed every drop of blood out of my body, it didn’t seem like it should amount to this much.
More than that, I was starting to get seriously annoyed.
The blood stuck to my body was so sticky… it was getting hard to move.
The floor was mostly clean now, so the rest could wait. Washing myself came first.
I loosened the necktie that had turned dark crimson with blood and started unbuttoning my shirt.
The dried blood on the buttons felt slick and slimy, somehow like touching a green chalkboard, sending goosebumps down my back.
If I scraped it with a fingernail it would probably make that screeech, skreek sound.
Even while my brain was screaming that it didn’t want to hear that noise, curiosity got the better of me and I scraped at the smoothly dried blood with a nail.
Just as expected, it came off without making a single sound.
“Mmm.”
Not hearing the creepy noise was good, but after bracing myself for it and getting nothing, I felt a little empty and somehow dissatisfied.
A girl’s heart was a complicated thing like that.
I carefully started undoing the buttons one by one, but….
Around the chest, where it was soaked the worst, the blood had glued the buttons shut so tightly they wouldn’t come free.
I had no choice but to bend down, pick up the blood-soaked towel, and rub at the buttons around my chest.
The cold, unexpectedly heavy sensation wasn’t entirely unpleasant.
Except for the metallic, bloody smell of iron.
Thanks to the moisture still left in the towel, the stuck-on blood wiped away, and after that the buttons came undone easily.
As I was undoing the last one, my bright-red palm caught my eye.
“Ugh, my hands are soaked too.”
Probably from picking up the blood-soaked towel.
That only made me want to wash even faster.
I quickly finished the last button and pulled my arms free.
Blood was caked thickly on my arms too, so they didn’t come out easily, but….
Twisting my body this way and that, I managed it somehow.
The shirt slid off with a soft rustle and landed on the still-not-completely-clean floor.
“Ah… my bra’s soaked too.”
Well, with my clothes that wet, it would have been weirder if my underwear had stayed dry.
At least it was a plain black bra with no design—I should count that as lucky.
If it had been any other color… the bloodstains would probably all have shown.
Just like the bloodstains still left all over my pale white skin right now.
Reaching back to unhook the bra was too much trouble, so I just tugged the shoulder straps down a little, slipped my arms free, spun the bra around to the front, and easily unhooked it.
Following the pull of gravity, the bra dropped and settled lightly on top of the shirt.
Next I unzipped the waistband of my skirt and let go.
With no resistance at all, the skirt slid down and fell with a soft thud.
Now only the black pantyhose remained, so soaked with blood that you could barely see the skin underneath anymore.
I carefully perched on the low chest of drawers and peeled them off the same way you’d take off pants.
Holding the discarded stockings by the tips of my fingers, I tossed them roughly onto the shirt pile, then dashed naked into the bathroom.
I turned on the shower, tested the water with my hand until I found a comfortable temperature, and was just about to wash the blood from my body when—
“———!”
From somewhere, a shout loud enough to cut through the sound of the shower spray started getting closer.
The shouting drew nearer and nearer to my house until—
Click.
Someone opened the front door and came inside.
“Huh? How?”
I’d definitely locked it.
But before I could even think, four beautiful girls burst into the house.
“Elysia!”
“Eli!”
“Elysi—”
Through the bathroom door I hadn’t managed to close in my haste, our eyes met.
“…….”
“…….”
…Yeah. This is a little embarrassing.
I still haven’t washed off the blood, so putting clothes on would be kind of gross—how about you all take yours off instead?
Not that I have any ulterior motives….
You all sound out of breath, so you must have run all the way here, right?
And everyone’s covered in sweat too.
So why don’t we just wash together?
The bathroom isn’t that big, but… when you think about washing with four beautiful girls, the cramped space actually becomes a plus.
What I mean is… you know? Like, when it’s close, unavoidable physical contact happens and stuff.
Unavoidable, I mean.
But….
“…Hi, girls?”
Sensing that the atmosphere wasn’t quite right for that, I quietly greeted them first to try to lighten the mood.
While covering myself as best I could with my hands, of course, because it was embarrassing.
For some reason, though, Tania and Adele quietly turned their heads away as if they were the ones more embarrassed.
“Umm…?”
Luna? Why are you staring so hard?
Sending such a heated gaze my way makes me a little shy, you know….
If you were that interested in my body, you should have just said so earlier.
If our Luna wants it, I’m always ready to….
Rina, who had been looking at Luna with an incredulous expression, strode over, grabbed the bathroom doorknob, glared at me for a second, and said,
“…First, finish washing and come out.”
With that she slammed the door shut with a bang and left.
“…Okay.”
My reply drifted aimlessly through the empty bathroom.