Hakuwaku
Two cars were waiting in the building's parking lot. I followed Se-a as she headed for the black one.
"That your car, noona?"
I asked it out of sheer surprise. Even at a glance, the thing looked like it cost a small fortune.
"Mm. Not mine, actually. It's issued to Escort Officers."
"Whoa... so every Escort Officer gets their own car?"
"That's right. The model changes depending on the rank of the man they're assigned to."
The one she'd brought was a full-size luxury sedan — the kind of flagship people called the finest money could buy.
Fair enough. Taking public transit would be even weirder.
Unless there was a reason not to, a car was definitely the safer option.
I headed for the passenger seat like it was the most natural thing in the world, and Se-a trailed right after me. I was wondering what she was doing when I saw her open the rear door and look at me.
"What's wrong? Did you forget something?"
"No, nothing like that. Why'd you open the back?"
"Aren't you getting in?"
She asked it with a completely blank expression. Had she actually assumed I'd sit in the back?
"I was gonna sit up front. Is that not okay?"
"Huh? Th-the passenger seat?"
"If you say I can't, I guess I'll have to sit in the back..."
She froze for a beat, then my words snapped her out of it. She slammed the rear door so hard the sound cracked through the parking lot like the thing might shatter.
"The passenger seat! You can sit in the passenger seat. Of course you can."
She opened the door for me with a carefully neutral face. The joy pouring off her entire body, though, was impossible to hide. She rested a hand on the frame so I wouldn't bump my head and waited for me to climb in.
"Thanks."
"It's nothing."
I casually rubbed my head against the hand she'd left on the doorframe. It wasn't her hand stroking my hair — it was my head stroking her hand. Her face went red as she fought to hold back a smile.
Just laugh, noona. It's fine.
I stopped teasing her and got in, watching as she walked around to the driver's side. She was beaming so hard that if she'd had a tail, it would have been wagging itself to pieces.
Should I mess with her a little more?
"Alright, let's—" She buckled herself in, then looked over at me. "Why aren't you wearing your seatbelt?"
I didn't have the brainpower to answer. My head was still full of the sight of that generous ass pushing back into the driver's seat. I snapped out of it and remembered what I'd been planning.
"You put it on for me."
She looked flustered, then slowly leaned across. Her chest hovered so close it almost brushed my left arm as she reached for the belt. And in that instant, I hooked my arm around her and pulled her in.
We were buried in each other's necks. I let out a breath, and I felt her whole body shudder.
"D-Dan-woo... let go."
"Don't want to. This feels good. Why should I?"
Her voice was shaking, but she didn't push me away. Sure, an Escort Officer wasn't supposed to refuse the man she was protecting — but the bigger reason was that she didn't actually hate this.
"I-I said you can't..."
"You've been saying I can't do this and I can't do that since earlier. Can't do what, exactly?"
I turned my head just enough to whisper it against her ear. She answered with a short, broken moan.
"If you keep this up... if you keep this up, I... nngh!?"
Her breathing was getting ragged. I pressed a kiss to her neck, then let her go.
"Ah..."
The sigh that escaped her was thick with disappointment as she fastened my seatbelt. She pressed the back of her hand to her flushed face, trying to cool down, and it was adorable. The way she kept touching the spot on her neck where my lips had been was almost too cute to handle.
"Hahh..."
"Alright! Off we go for ramen!"
I thrust my index finger forward and announced it with as much energy as I could muster.
"You really have no idea what you do to me..."
No idea? I knew exactly what I was doing. That was the whole point.
"Noona, you're a great driver!"
Anyone could argue there was no such thing as being "great" at simply moving down a road, but from where I sat, she really was. She stopped and started as if she could predict the lights before they changed. No sudden braking, no last-second lunges through an intersection. Everything flowed.
"Driving's part of Escort Officer training."
"So you really do have to learn everything, huh."
I found myself wanting to sit down one day and go through the whole training curriculum. Maybe next time I tagged along to her workout, I'd ask her to show me around.
She pulled into a public garage, and because a man was in the car, we were directed to a special section. Steel boxes just large enough for a single vehicle sat spaced apart, each entrance sealed behind a metal door that only opened when you scanned a male registration ID.
"So this is what they look like."
"First time for you too, noona?"
"Of course. This is only my second assignment as a male Escort Officer."
Right. I'd called her for the first time yesterday. I kept forgetting that.
As she parked in the assigned stall, she filled me in on the special section.
"These walls are the same material as that bunker we saw on the walking path yesterday. You can't drill a hole to peek through, and you can't sneak in to try anything."
That material was mined from dungeons, wasn't it? Filthy hard and impossibly heavy, and that was about all it had going for it.
That's why they built the special section on the ground floor.
Put those boxes on the second or third level and the whole structure might not hold the weight.
We got out and headed for the ramen shop. Holding hands when we walked somewhere had already become the natural thing to do. Three minutes of following the map, and there it was.
Hakuwaku.
It was famous online for being genuinely good. The strange part — and, in this day and age, the distinctive part — was that they didn't advertise on social media at all. A place that had climbed into the ranks of must-eat restaurants on word of mouth and customer reviews alone. The food was bound to deliver.
"Come to think of it, do you like ramen, noona?"
"I do. I haven't had it in a while, though. Training's been so intense I barely eat out."
"Perfect. Glad I'm not the only one who likes it."
I glanced sideways and found Se-a's face gone pink. What was she embarrassed about this time? What had I even said?
I'd mostly adapted to the gender reversal. The flipped sensibilities, though, still caught me off guard. Even when I didn't mean anything by it, I kept making her blush like this.
I turned it over until it clicked.
"Noona. What were you imagining just now? Was it the 'I'm not the only one who likes it' part?"
"...No."
No, she said. It absolutely was.
"Hahaha. Noona. I like you."
"Huh!? W-what did you just say?"
She whipped her head around so fast I worried she'd crick her neck.
"I like ramen, I mean."
"You little..."
She said it, and she still didn't let go of my hand until the very end. That was the cute part.
Looking at us from the outside, we probably looked more like siblings than a couple. And I'd be the little brother.
Or maybe not. The men here are all short anyway... I don't know.
What did it matter what anyone else thought? If she and I were happy, that was enough.
The shop's exterior mixed white plaster with wood paneling in just the right proportions. A white noren hung over the entrance.
"Welcome to— wait, huh!?"
I pushed the curtain aside and the automatic door slid open. Inside was an open kitchen built right up against the seating. The woman standing behind the counter had started her greeting, then locked up mid-sentence the instant she realized her customer was a man.
"Hi there."
I offered it to the still-stunned woman and sat down. Se-a pulling my chair out for me felt strange. I'd always thought that was the man's job.
Once I was seated, I took in the interior. It was smaller than I'd expected — the only place to sit was a single L-shaped counter attached to the kitchen. It was lunchtime, and we were the only customers in the place.
"What are you getting, noona?"
"I think I'll..."
I was studying the little standing menu on the counter, trying to decide, when the woman carefully held a larger menu out to me.
"Here's the full menu."
"Thank you."
"Haaah..."
I took it with a smile, and she made a very strange sound and vanished under the counter. It was a familiar enough sight by now that I didn't bother reacting. I just opened the menu.
There weren't many kinds of ramen. Tonkotsu, shoyu, miso — and, unusually, tori. Chicken. I went with the shoyu, which had especially good reviews. Se-a ordered the tonkotsu.
"Excuse me? Owner?"
Se-a called to the woman, who still hadn't come back up. No response.
"Owner? We'd like to order!"
She raised her voice just a little, and the woman startled so hard she nearly launched herself off the floor. She apologized over and over. We told her it was fine and finished ordering.
At first I'd wondered if she was all right. The moment she started cooking, though, her whole demeanor changed. She looked serious. This, I thought, was going to be good ramen.
It came out in about ten minutes. A deep brown broth with chashu, a boiled egg, bean sprouts, and scallions — the classic arrangement. Se-a's had the same toppings, but her broth was milky-white, like a rich bone soup.
"Thanks for the meal."
I started with a spoonful of broth. Deep stock and soy sauce, layered and full. The noodles themselves were ordinary, but they'd soaked up the soup so well that ordinary was exactly what they needed to be. Straightforward ramen that did the fundamentals right. That was all it was — and I didn't mean that as a slight. It was the kind of bowl anyone could sit down to and enjoy, no strong likes or dislikes required.
"Is it good?"
"Yeah! How's yours?"
"Mine's good too. Want to try?"
She held her bowl out toward me.
"You sure?"
Wait. Just eating it myself would be amateur hour. I was always ready to tease her, and I never let an opening go to waste. I looked from the bowl to her face and opened my mouth.
"W-why are you looking at me like that?"
"Hm? You said I should try it. Weren't you going to feed me?"
I said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Her face went scarlet, and she hesitated.
"Come on, hurry up. You said you would."
"Th-that's..."
In the end, she broke. She slowly lifted her spoon and scooped up some broth. Her hand was shaking so badly I thought she'd spill it any second.
"Nnh!?"
The moment she'd raised it high enough, I leaned in and took it in my mouth. A second later and it would have gone everywhere.
"That's good! Saltier than the shoyu, but it doesn't hit you over the head — it all works together!"
"Th-that's good, then."
She muttered it quietly, looking like her soul had left her body. I listened in to see what she was going on about...
"Indirect kiss. If I use this spoon it's an indirect kiss. No. I'm an Escort Officer. I should get another spoon. But it's an indirect kiss. No, wait. What do I mean no? It is an indirect kiss. Indirect kiss. Kiss. Kiss."
I had heard something I was not supposed to hear. Honestly. Who would have guessed someone who looked like an angel would be this hopeless?
I didn't have much dating experience either, but that was because I'd been the one turning people down. It was different from never having had the chance at all.
I felt eyes on me and glanced forward. The owner had been watching me since she'd set the bowls down, pretending she wasn't. Her face was pink. She'd seen everything that had just happened with Se-a. All that professionalism the second she started cooking, and the moment she finished she was right back to this.
"It's really good. It feels like you took the basics and pushed them as far as they could go."
"Heh? R-really!?"
For a second she wore the dumbest expression I'd ever seen. Then a smile bloomed across her face like a flower opening. I'd already said it was good several times. Had she actually been staring at nothing but me this whole time?
What kind of focus is that?
For the record, she had her black hair twisted up under a bandana, and her droopy eyes gave her a distinctly puppy-like face. Round cheeks, a comfortably soft figure — she was a textbook example of the curvy type men went for. Men from the old world, anyway.
Watching her shake the water off the noodles had been something else.
Every time she snapped the strainer, her chest bounced, and I hadn't been able to look away. Back in the old world, this place would have been a hit for more reasons than one.
"Are you the owner here?"
"Yes! This is my third year!"
She answered at full volume, eyes sparkling. It was that look. The look of a dog that loved frisbee, standing there with one in its mouth, begging you to throw it. I had the strangest urge to scratch her under the chin. I asked her a string of questions instead. Se-a was still wrestling with her spoon, after all.
We're having a completely normal conversation, though. So when does the trauma actually show up?
I still hadn't gotten over the rape. It used to find me at home and tear into me on a regular basis. And yet here I was, talking just fine with a woman I'd never met. Was it because Se-a was sitting next to me?
Was it even trauma, really? Maybe I actually needed to go to a hospital and get it checked.
"So you went to Japan to learn?"
"Yes. I spent about two years traveling all over the country, eating as much ramen as I possibly could and studying it! That's how I ended up like this..."
She gave an embarrassed little laugh and pinched the soft flesh at her waist. She clearly thought it was something to be ashamed of. I didn't think that at all.
"You don't have to be embarrassed. I like a figure like yours, actually."
"Neh!?"
I watched her panic and kept going.
"And it's the result of working toward your dream, isn't it? Nobody gives a weightlifter a hard time for putting on mass so they can lift more."
Tears welled at the corners of her eyes. Her face went red.
"Same thing here. Nobody has the right to laugh at what it took for you to make ramen this good."
The second I finished, she spun away from me.
"That's not fair. If a man is that kind to me... I'm going to fall for him for real."
How was I supposed to respond to that? She was cute, but it was a different feeling from Se-a. There was no pull to keep her close. Not that I disliked her. If I had to put a word to it, I was fond of her.
"I'll come by often. The ramen's that good."
That seemed like the safest thing to say. It was also true. The ramen was good, and so was she. I'd kept eating the whole time we talked. The bowl in front of me was wiped clean — not a drop of broth left.
"So, owner. We can't date, but we can meet up now and then and talk. Would that be all right?"
It was the kind of line that could make a man sound like garbage. In this world, it didn't. A man offering to be friends was genuinely rare.
I waited for her answer. She wiped the corners of her eyes with her hand and turned back around.
"I'd like that! I wasn't thinking about love to begin with. Just come by now and then and talk to me like this. That alone will keep me happy for a week."
Maybe the way I acted — the way I saw things — was wrong. In this world, it might even be cruel. Giving someone room to hope for something that was never going to happen could hollow them out just as badly as tearing into them with words. I knew exactly how much that kind of thing ate at a person.
And the guy who knows that is sitting here doing it anyway...
I hadn't been thinking about any of this. Then I actually talked to someone, and there it was. Even so, I was going to keep living this way. I would go after the people I loved without holding back, and I would be honest with the ones I wanted as friends.
I was done living while biting my tongue.
"Anyway, now we can— ah!"
I looked to the side. Se-a was still at war with her spoon. I shook her by the shoulder until she came back to herself, then fed her the ramen, which had long since gone soggy. In the meantime, I kept talking with the owner, the conversation turned just a little awkward around the edges.