The Common Sense-Altered Interviewee Warms Her Womb to Melt Her Tension - 1
Rule 1: Satisfying you and following your orders is the highest priority.
Rule 2: No matter what words or actions you take, others will hold no aversion or ill will toward them.
Rule 3: Your opinions are the truth, and no one will harbor any doubts about them.
Okay. Deep breath. Just breathe.
The cold waiting room chair sent an icy chill racing up my spine through my backside. The hard surface pressed into me beneath my perfectly fitted suit skirt.
My white shirt and black suit jacket clung to my skin, damp with sweat. My palms were already slick.
What if I had to stand in front of the interviewers like this? What if they asked strange questions? My tongue felt frozen, my throat tight. Every time the thought crossed my mind, my heart plummeted as if dropping into a bottomless void.
I had to get this job. I absolutely had to.
It wasn’t that I particularly wanted to work, but I couldn’t keep leeching off my parents and hiding away in the house forever.
Were the others sitting here feeling the same? Were they all as desperate as I was?
I slowly raised my eyes and scanned the gray-toned waiting room.
Everyone wore the same white shirts and black suits as me, but their faces looked far more composed.
Could someone like me really get chosen among people like this?
Especially that man over there—he looked so relaxed. Lying there like he was at home. Completely naked.
Naked…?
My breath caught. My heart began hammering violently from the pit of my stomach.
Of course, whether he wore clothes or not was entirely his business. I had no reason to comment on it.
If it had been any other man, a chill would have run down my spine. I would have screamed and fled with all my strength, interview be damned.
Yet… an unshakable certainty that there was no need for any of that washed over me. As if this kind of scene had always been perfectly normal. The other candidates only glanced at him from time to time.
Not a single person wore an expression of disgust. It was as though seeing a naked man was as ordinary and trivial as the morning sun visible through the window.
B-but! For someone like me—who had blushed scarlet just standing in front of men since childhood, who had barely spoken to boys my age let alone had a boyfriend—this was… this was an incredibly vivid sight. For a personality that had spent a lifetime avoiding men’s gazes, that defenseless figure seemed to heat the blood flowing through every vein in my body.
To me, who only felt satisfied when neatly dressed, that body revealed without the slightest restraint felt like an unreal dream.
My heart pounded wildly. The more I tried to look away, the more vividly the image burned itself into my mind.
Was that person really here for an interview…? Or was he an employee of the company?
He lay stretched across the connected chairs facing the ceiling, his groin almost visible. I knew I shouldn’t, but I found myself desperately stealing glances at a man’s naked body in the flesh for the first time.
It was just like during school gym class—pretending not to care while every flex of the boys’ sweat-glistened arm muscles caught my eye, my heart fluttering at the outline of abs hinted beneath their shirts.
Even now, my gaze remained fixed on his naked form. All my senses ran wild, and a completely different kind of trembling from interview anxiety spread through my mind.
If he shifted just a little this way, I might see “that”…
Ah, our eyes met. Had I been staring too hard…?
I immediately buried my gaze in the interview preparation notebook I held, as if that was what I had been doing all along. Had he noticed my stare? He wouldn’t think I was a pervert, would he?
He stood up without a word, facing forward. As if to say, if you want to look, look openly. His sheer confidence made me turn my head the opposite way to avoid his eyes even more.
He walked over with steady steps and sat down beside me as if it were the most natural thing in the world. The moment his bare skin touched the cold chair, I unconsciously shrank my shoulders.
He sat about a hand’s width away from me. Close. Too close.
“Wh-what can I do for you…?”
My voice came out trembling. Without answering, he took the notebook resting on my lap and tossed it aside with a thud onto the neighboring seat.
As expected, he must be angry that I had been staring so intently. What should I do…
“I-I’m sorry…!”
“You seem nervous.”
A far gentler voice than I expected cut me off.
“…Yes?”
“About the interview, I mean.”
“Ah, y-yes… a little.”
My voice was choked and barely audible. I kept my head down, trying not to face him. But my eyes kept drifting toward his body. The light streaming from the window flowed over his bare skin, sparkling faintly.
A man’s naked body… and… eventually my gaze landed completely on his groin. The first time I had ever seen it—a living man’s… that.
D-d-d-does the body really have something like that attached…? My heart hammered wildly and my face burned scarlet.
My reason screamed that I should look away at once, but my eyes refused to move. Even the way it seemed to breathe, the subtle twitching movements, all of it filled my vision.
I felt pathetic for staring like this, yet a pleasant numbness seeped into my mind.
“When your stomach feels as cold as ice, your hands grow sweaty, and your heart races like crazy. That’s what it feels like, right?”
“Yes… yes, that’s exactly it.”
He smiled as if amused by how I knew. The sound of his laughter made my ears tingle.
Even so, I felt no aversion to his presence. It felt comfortable, like an old friend. Though as an introvert, I had never actually had any old friends like that.
He gently cupped my chin and lifted my head. His touch was warm. And soft. The thought of resisting never even occurred to me.
I met his eyes. Deep, black pupils. Within them, my own flushed, red face reflected back at me, tiny and intense.
“You know, if you’re tense, you won’t be able to do anything properly?”
“Yes… that’s true… ah…”
His hand slipped inside my jacket and gently covered my stomach over my blouse. Beyond the thin fabric, the warmth of his palm came through vividly.
A slight shiver ran over me. It wasn’t unpleasant.
“Your stomach is incredibly cold. You must be really nervous.”
For some reason, was this person worried about me…? I had expected him to get angry about why I was staring…
“I-is that so…?”
“Stay still. This should help a little. When your stomach warms up, the tension melts away.”
He smiled. An indifferent yet somehow affectionate smile. His palm began drawing circles over my belly. Slowly. Gently. His fingers moved with a soft, brushing touch.
Every time I breathed in, his palm pressed down slightly, then rose again as I exhaled. It was a strange sensation. Not quite goosebumps, but a ticklish feeling like insects crawling across my skin.
It felt as if every nerve in my body was converging at the tips of his fingers.
It reminded me of childhood summers, when I had eaten too much ice cream and my stomach ached. My mother would rub my belly with her palm to soothe me.
That nostalgic warmth and comfort overlapped with this man’s touch. It felt like that warmth was spreading all the way into the deepest part of my belly.
My mind grew increasingly, pleasantly numb. Each time his palm stroked across my stomach, an unknown sensation bloomed in place of my interview anxiety. Strangely, his smile overlapped with the mother from those days.
It was completely different from my mother’s current gaze, filled with worry and anxiety about me. That suffocating look that always seemed to place a heavy burden on my shoulders.
Of course it was. I was no longer the cute little child from back then. I was an adult who had graduated from university, quit the company I had barely managed to join, and had been stuck at home for over a year.
The urgency that I needed to do something—anything—was pushing my mother forward, and that weight had eventually transferred to my own shoulders.
But this man… his touch was different. Even though I was a full-grown adult trembling pathetically before an interview, his touch carried neither coercion nor criticism.
Like gently soothing a child’s small scrape, only pure warmth spread into me.
The infinitely comforting warmth I had forgotten as an adult seemed to come alive once more.
His words that warming my stomach would make things better were true.
Since I had never even held hands with a man, this sudden situation was embarrassing, but focusing on the warmth of his hand, I could feel the interview anxiety subsiding far more than I expected.
Well, since it was his words, doubting them would be strange… yeah.
“How is it? Feeling any better?”
“Ah, yes… it seems… a bit calmer…”
Without realizing it, I let out something close to a moan.
The man smiled and withdrew his hand.
“Ah…”
The cozy warmth I had felt on my stomach vanished like a lie, and the cold air brushed my skin again, leaving a sharp emptiness behind.
Where his hand had been, the faint outline of his palm seemed imprinted on my blouse, and the tingling in that spot dragged me back to reality.
The time until the interview was drawing closer. The sense of stability that had wrapped around my entire body felt uprooted, and my heart began trembling with anxiety once more.
He simply looked straight into my eyes, as if enjoying the subtle shifts in my expression. It felt as though he could see right through the anxiety and longing inside me.
The desire for his warm touch to return to my stomach, for those gentle movements to continue, rose all the way to my throat, but only saliva pooled in my mouth.
“It’s hard to warm you properly over your clothes. Could you take off your top?”
“Yes?”
It was a moment when my mind went completely blank. Here, now, in front of other people and this stranger? Take off my top clothes?
But the words of refusal melted away before they could form. Only pure concern and consideration filled his voice, and a strange sense of stability—that it would be okay if he said so—enveloped my whole body.
A languid heat seemed to wrap around my mind. Because he wanted it. Because I needed to ease my tension. Therefore, I had to remove my clothes.
An inexplicable conviction arose that this was the most natural and obvious thing in the world.
Above all, I desperately wanted it. For his touch not to stop. The belief that only those hands could calm this wave of anxiety was taking root.
The interviewers’ sharp questions, my clumsy answers, and the anxiety about a future ending in failure crept in again, but if his touch returned, it felt like everything would be all right.
The miraculous conviction that his warmth could melt this cold anxiety grew stronger inside me.
I would surely feel a more intense heat than when he had stroked me over my clothes. The fact that the thin blouse was an obstacle felt overwhelmingly obvious.
The thought of direct contact with living skin—something incomparable to the warmth transmitted through layers of fabric—sent a faint tremor through my entire body.
It was like a person who had starved for a long time waiting for warm soup. A thirst like that rose within me. Some voice inside tried to issue a warning, but it was already being swallowed by the comfort his touch would bring.
“Y-yes… just a moment.”
I raised my hands and began unbuttoning my jacket. Click. Click. The small sounds echoed in the silence. Once the jacket came off, only the blouse remained. A white blouse. My pale skin showed faintly through it. My heart pounded heavily.
My hands moved to the front of the blouse. Since I was someone who found even this embarrassing and had rarely visited women’s baths, the tips of my fingers trembled slightly.
As if noticing the tremor, he whispered.
“If you’re shy, how about I count to three and you take it all off then?”
His words gave me strength. Yes. If it was according to his words, it would be fine.