7. The Woman Makes a Move (3) (Caution: Illustration Ahead)
"S-sorry~! I had something to take care of, so my shower ran late and it totally slipped my mind, y'know~?"
"...Sure. I mean, things happen, I suppose."
"Th-that's right~? People make mistakes all the time~? Ah, ahahaha...!"
I honestly couldn't tell whether she was bad at acting or deliberately acting badly. To anyone with eyes, she clearly hadn't come in here to wash up — but I didn't bother pressing the point. It had supposedly been an accident, after all, we'd already seen each other naked, and I could pretty well guess what her purpose was in barging into a shower room where she knew full well I was.
She's a college girl in the prime of her youth. It's probably just curiosity about a guy her own age.
Compared to my old world, her sex drive and curiosity were probably right on par with a male college athlete's. It felt awkward to say this about myself, but I was the only male member of the baseball team, so naturally she was bound to be curious about me in all sorts of ways. Back in the men's athletic clubs of my old world, it was common enough for feelings to spark when a girl — a team manager, say — spent long stretches of time in close quarters with the players. In a sense, you could argue I was even closer to this team than one of those managers ever was. And given that we'd already had what could only be described as a shared-bathing incident recently, it was no wonder Kim Na-hyun couldn't get it off her mind.
From the look of her, she doesn't seem to have any experience with men, either.
I couldn't tell whether she was simply an outlier, or whether — even in a world where men and women thought about desire differently — experience with men was another matter entirely. Still, having her show her feelings this openly, clumsy as they were, wasn't exactly unpleasant.
Come to think of it, I haven't so much as been with a woman since waking up in this world.
I'd thrown myself into baseball alone, obsessed with a single thought: standing at the plate again, somehow. The truth was that being a man among women athletes, a few players had made their interest in me blatantly obvious — but I genuinely wanted to become a player, so I'd turned every one of them down. Which was how I'd somehow ended up catching Director Yoon Gaeul's eye and claiming the starting third baseman spot in tomorrow's C-League opener. Maybe that was why I could finally afford a little peace of mind.
"You came in to shower, right? Go ahead."
I'd called her into the shower room fully prepared not to refuse if Kim Na-hyun pushed things further.
"C-can I shower with you?"
"We already did last time, didn't we? We've seen everything there is to see of each other, so there's no real reason to be shy about it."
"Mmhm, r-right? This is exactly what I like about you, Tae-oh — you're so cool about everything~."
Playing innocent, when showering together was all she'd been thinking about anyway. Putting on a composed smile, Kim Na-hyun stepped into the shower room and made a beeline for the showerhead right beside mine.
Shhhhhhhhhh…
Last time she'd at least kept a stall's worth of distance; this time, apparently, there was nothing left to keep at arm's length. Water cascaded down over Kim Na-hyun's head, soaking her body from top to bottom. The stream traced its way along a frame that was lean yet surprisingly firm. Maybe it was the shortstop in her, but watched like this, her figure was honestly pretty sexy — in my old world you'd have called it nearly a model's build.
"Mmmm… mm…"
Besides, today she was deliberately angling her body toward me — practically presenting herself, as if to say look all you want. No doubt that was because of how I'd once let slip that seeing her naked got me hard. Which meant posing like this could only mean one thing: she was hoping I'd get hard looking at her again, just like before.
"Wh-what are you staring at...?"
Kim Na-hyun cracked her eyes open carefully, as if she'd sensed my gaze, and spoke.
"Your body, Na-hyun sunbae."
"Y-you perv...? Why are you watching someone shower...?"
"Weren't you the one showing off in the first place? Coming to the stall right next to me, turning your whole body my way and everything."
"N-no, I wasn't?! T-teammates are allowed to shower close together sometimes, okay?! I just turned around mid-shampoo, that's all...!"
The excuses came spilling out the instant I pressed, which told me she'd prepared her alibi well in advance.
Then again — she barged in here acting like she was going to do something. Is she really just going to flash me and call it a day?
She'd worked up the courage to come this far, only to freeze there, unable to get the next words out. It was obvious she had something she wanted to say; she just didn't seem to know where to begin.
"Um, Na-hyun sunbae...?"
Just as the frustration got the better of me and I moved to break the silence myself, Kim Na-hyun hastily cut in over me.
"O-oh, that reminds me — hey!"
"...Yes?"
"La-last time... when y-you and I showered together, you... um... you did that thing... remember...?"
"Sorry? What thing?"
"You g-got... hard. Last time. You did, remember...?"
After all that dithering, apparently that was where she wanted to begin.
"Yes. I did."
She at least looked determined to see something through, so I gave her a measured answer. And honestly, watching a woman strain to make a move on me for once — instead of the other way around, like in my old world — was kind of cute in its own way.
"I-I found out later on, but. Guys are supposed to take a long time to get it up even once... right?"
"Is that so?"
"Uh, yeah. And I heard it's really hard on them if they don't get to finish properly."
...Was she just tossing out random trivia to set a mood, or were the men of this world genuinely a little different from the men I knew? Come to think of it, I had no way to check — I hadn't gotten close to a single other guy since transmigrating. From high school all the way to now, the baseball team had been nothing but women.
I do seem to remember overhearing the players gossip about male managers who strutted around pretending to be ballplayers just to flirt with them, though.
If that was the average man in this world, then talk like "it takes forever to get it up" or "it's exhausting if you're left hanging once you are" might not even be misconceptions. Whatever the truth, my gut told me Kim Na-hyun intended to use this as her opening — so I played along and matched her beat.
"Well, it doesn't exactly take forever to get hard, but yeah — once you are, it's rough if you don't get to finish."
"S-see?!"
"But why the sudden question?"
"N-no, it's just..."
"..."
"La-last time, when you got hard in front of me... I said I was done washing and just left, didn't I..."
"You did."
"And looking back on it... you probably ended up not being able to finish at all..."
"..."
"I didn't do it on purpose, but either way, I'm the one who got you hard, so... N-n-not that that means I had to take responsibility or anything! But still — you'd worked up all that nerve, and I couldn't even give you a proper answer before running off. I felt bad about it..."
"There's nothing to apologize for over that."
"S-still... that took courage on your part, didn't it...? You s-said it was because of me. That you got hard because of me..."
...Was that how that worked?
Something about it felt off, but when I flipped the situation around, I could more or less see her point. It was as if a junior teammate had caught me naked in the shower and said, I'm this wet because of you, sunbae — and then I'd bolted like an idiot without managing a single coherent reply. Being in the shower room might have made pouncing on her unrealistic, but I could at least have asked to meet another day. Suddenly, her fidgety panic every time she'd glanced my way these past few days made perfect sense. She'd been ashamed of running off like that.
"It's fine. It really didn't bother me."
"A-anyway, so that's why I'm saying this!"
"Yes?"
"And, well... it just so happens you're... hard right now, too..."
Showering beside Kim Na-hyun, my cock had thickened into a heavy weight before I even noticed — and she was saying all this while staring dead at it.
"If... if it's okay with you, Tae-oh... this time, maybe I could... get you off...?"
The instant those words fell, the desire I'd kept pressed down ever since arriving in this world raised its head at last.
I've... lost my mind.
The words were barely out of her mouth before Kim Na-hyun was screaming inside.
However worked up she'd gotten, blurting out something that amounted to outright sexual harassment like that... Even if Kang Tae-oh did seem to have feelings for her, wouldn't hearing that kind of line kill whatever he felt? The thought flashed through Kim Na-hyun's mind.
"Here?"
"...Ah, yeah!"
"..."
Kang Tae-oh was staring straight at her, unreadable, as if weighing something. He didn't look angry or flustered, exactly — but the fact that he hadn't answered right away set Kim Na-hyun's mind spinning.
What's wrong? Why isn't he saying anything...?
He got hard just from seeing her naked; there was no way he disliked her. And it wasn't just once but twice — even this very moment, he was hard over her body. So here she was, the one offering him sex, and he was hesitating. Why?
Could it be... he doesn't want his first time to happen in a place like this...?
...He was a guy, after all. Guys were probably touchy about that sort of thing. It wouldn't have mattered to her, as a woman — but for Kang Tae-oh, a man, sex in a spot like this might genuinely feel wrong.
Wh-what do I do?
But dragging him off campus at this hour to grab a hotel somehow felt off, too. And with the opener right around the corner, a night away could easily kick up strange rumors for no good reason. Worse — this might be the first real chance Kang Tae-oh had gotten in years. If some scandal with her got him dropped from the starting third baseman spot in tomorrow's C-League opener...
N-no, absolutely not...!
Maybe, just maybe, she'd picked the wrong day. If it was going to happen at all, she should have set aside a proper weekend after the opener — not today.
What do I do? How do I smooth this over?
If she suddenly called it a joke and bolted now, he really would think she was a total freak. And just as Kim Na-hyun was drowning in the dilemma, one idea streaked through her head like lightning.
"Na-hyun sunbae, when you say that—"
"O-of, of course I'm not talking about actual sex...!!"
"Huh?"
"I-I mean, look where we are. I just meant I could get you off once, with my hand or my mouth..."
"...Oh. With your hand or your mouth."
"Y-yeah! I mean, your first time in a shower room would be kinda weird, right...? So I was thinking — what if here, just this once, I got you off with my hand or my mouth, and..."
"..."
"...Th-that much would be okay, wouldn't it?"