Sharing a Bed (1)
Why don't you ever see those scenes in comics—someone meditating under a waterfall with the water pounding down on them? I'm not sure substituting a shower for that quite counts, but still. Getting hit with water has a calming effect, I think. At least right now it does.
I've been turning this over with a remarkably clear head for a while now, and I still can't tell if any of it is right. Was it common even in my original world for a guy with a girlfriend to let another woman sleep over at his place? There was never anyone around to ask, so I wouldn't know.
Well—the one with the boyfriend is Ari herself, and she probably has more friends than I do anyway. She gave permission, so I should just enjoy it. Today's collab, from a boyfriend's point of view, was his girlfriend laughing and chatting with some other guy. According to Ari, he doesn't watch streams, so it shouldn't matter much. Honestly, though, it still sits a little wrong.
I'm not trying to seduce Ari like some manga. I haven't gone crazy yet. And with twenty-three years of being single under my belt, how would I even seduce anyone? Hanging out as friends is a lot of fun, but that isn't romantic feeling. Hmm… probably not. Anyway, I just don't want misunderstandings cropping up because of me, or her getting into a fight with her boyfriend over it.
I don't know about any of this. What's the point of thinking about it now, when I'm already in the shower?
The water hissed down. Standing in the quiet bathroom under a stream of genuine warmth, I felt my mind settle. Even on the hot setting, the bathroom at my place has a hard ceiling on the temperature, so this kind of comfort is rare. Yeah—envy is still envy. How nice would it be if all of this were mine?
…Forget it. Once the stream gets bigger, I can make every one of those wishes come true. Ari's waiting, so I should finish up.
Ari's house had a startling number of shower products I couldn't even identify, mixed in with things that clearly belonged to the boyfriend. Everything looked expensive enough that I felt guilty using any of it, but I couldn't exactly skip washing. It wasn't as if a little use would put a dent in the supply anyway.
And my hair… it wasn't completely dry, but it should be fine. Just slightly damp. That counts as dry. Anyway, it does. Now I just needed to get dressed and go out. Keeping the host waiting would be rude, and I had to get out of here before Ari could shower herself.
A white dress shirt and gray cotton pants. She'd said they were a large size she'd had lying around the house, but what even was this dress shirt? If someone actually wandered around the house in something this relentlessly uncomfortable, they might have some dangerous ideology. Kidding. I'm the one borrowing clothes. Not in a position to be picky. I only had to wear it for tonight.
Hmm. The dress shirt. Hmm. Why is this so awkwardly small? She'd said it had been ordered in a large size by mistake. The arms more or less went in, but if I buttoned it I might be signing the shirt's death warrant. I'd leave it open, go out, and ask for something else.
The pants… the pants felt a bit tight too. Men in this world were usually about the same size as the women, and I was a bit bigger than that. Only the area covering my private parts was slightly uncomfortable—not unbearable. Of course, the fabric was thin enough that the silhouette of "it" showed a little, but Ari wasn't some pervert who'd stare at another man's crotch, was she? She was the most wholesome, model-student person I'd ever met. So, well. It should be fine.
Uh.
Uh…
Where did this go wrong? Bringing Yuhan to my house? Giving him the opening to come? Or getting involved with him in the first place? No—more fundamentally than that. If I was going to make an ordering mistake, I should have gone bigger. Why did I even have a dress shirt of such an ambiguous size?
I was going to lose my mind. Of course I'd made mistakes of my own, but… even when I handed him the clothes, the size had looked a little off, so I'd meant to find something else. I'd only glanced at him to check his measurements for reference. And then… I just…
The weather was getting hotter. Maybe Yuhan had been sweating in our house. Maybe he'd been hot and I hadn't noticed. I was worried. To check, I smelled his clothes a little… and that stretch of time got a little longer—really just a little—so I still hadn't gone to look for a replacement.
Did I think he would come out like that?
Hair with a strange lingering dampness. A dress shirt clinging to his body where the towel hadn't fully dried him. A faint shadow at… that place. A single drop of water beaded on his collarbone, then slid down, parting abs of a healthy brown.
"Hmm… Ari, this shirt feels a bit tight. The buttons wouldn't close."
Don't people usually say that from inside the bathroom? You don't come out with it wide open just because the buttons won't close! Why was he doing this to me? Looking at that confident face, did he not feel a single problem with this situation?
I'd already been getting these weird urges whenever I looked at Yuhan lately—and that innocent expression, so completely at odds with that fierce face, was…
"Y-Yuhan! Put some clothes on!"
"Huh. We're friends. This much is fine."
I was not fine.
Hmm… no. He'd said he was fine. If I kept acting embarrassed, wouldn't that just make him more uncomfortable? Maybe it was okay to just… look a little?
…
I was going to lose it. Make some sense, Ari. There was a line friends were supposed to keep. Right. Between friends.
"E-even so!"
"Well… alright."
I held it together. It was only because I didn't usually do much about this kind of desire, so it had been rising out of nowhere lately. I was still fine. Yuhan roughly covering the gap in the dress shirt with a towel was a little disappointing, and also a new feeling that was… nice, in its way. Anyway. I hadn't become that kind of weirdo yet. Probably. I wouldn't.
Considering the intensity of the male photos I'd seen online when I first arrived in this world, I'd figured this wouldn't be a big deal. Was it because even this much of seeing a man's body was embarrassing? The Ari I knew blushed easily at my teasing, but she wasn't a complete innocent. She was a grown adult with a boyfriend. Being shy about a man's body didn't make any sense. She must have seen her boyfriend's body—and they were childhood friends. Nobody went around covering themselves that diligently in front of their girlfriend. …Probably.
Anyway, I still hadn't properly grasped this reversed world's culture. Then how lewd were those screenshots that had terrorized my eyeballs? They hadn't gotten taken down for being too explicit, right? That would be unfair. Well—not important.
Watching her rummage through the closet while sneaking glances at the towel covering the gap in the dress shirt, I had to admit the outfit had been a problem. Run it through the Reverse Filter and it wasn't so much "kind of" as definitely a sexy look. I just hoped I wouldn't get treated as a pervert.
Anyway. Was Ari a woman of this world after all? Those little glances had been getting to me. I didn't think anything of it, of course. Geum Taeyang's body hadn't seemed like the type to care about that either. Having a boyfriend and having your eyes drawn to something sexy were clearly different domains.
…No, but the other person was Ari. A woman who lived with a strict, serious demeanor except when she was joking around with me—who was even starring in an incredible pure-love story with her boyfriend. Maybe she was just uncomfortable looking at it. If it were anyone else I wouldn't know, but because it was Ari, that made sense.
"Uh… is it a bit uncomfortable to look at…?"
"E-eh?! What?!"
"You keep looking this way. I thought maybe it was making you uncomfortable."
"No! That's not it!!"
It wasn't? Then my first thought had been right?
"Ah, so it's not uncomfortable? Then…"
At that, she rolled her eyes around and then admitted it had been a little uncomfortable. As expected, my judgment was excellent.
"But. Why were you holding my clothes earlier?"
Hmm. Had I asked something I shouldn't have? Why did she look so startled? She'd seemed to be smelling them. Maybe she'd been going to wash them?
"If you were going to wash them, it's fine. I'm going home tomorrow anyway."
"Uh… yeah."
"Is the smell that bad?"
That last part was to myself. Ari had looked uncomfortable, so I'd been glancing around. I thought I heard something, but it must have been my imagination. A woman smelling a man's clothes might look pretty weird in the reversed world, but thinking Ari would do something weird was even weirder. Even somewhat suspicious behavior became wholesome the moment you attached the name "Ari" to it.
Anyway, while I looked around the room, Ari eventually found something in a larger size, and I changed into it. As expected, bigger clothes were the best for wearing at home. I didn't know why clothes of this size were even here.
"Did you buy this in the wrong size too? It's really big."
"Ah… I was going to wear that, but Junhyuk said it was too big and didn't suit me."
She answered with a slightly flushed face, maybe from the effort of hunting through the closet. Hmm. If Ari wore this oversized…
"I think it'd be pretty cute, actually?"
Whether her boyfriend had no eye or I just wasn't from this world—Ari made a moved expression. Why was she moved by this?
"I-is that so…?"
"Want to try it on?"
"If you take that off, what are you going to wear?!"
"Ah, right."
Oh no. Did I not have a brain? I'd just gone through all of this because I didn't have clothes.
"Tsk… that's a shame."
Couldn't be helped. It was already late, and Ari was only now about to shower. I couldn't drag this out. She'd gone through a lot because of me. Unexpected plans always came with side effects—like this. I had a conscience, and piling more trouble on her would be wrong. The least I could do for her was this much.
"Ari. I'll sleep on the sofa."
"Huh? I can't make a guest sleep there. You take the bed."
No?
"I'm an unexpected guest. The sofa is enough for me. It's actually cushier than my bed."
"No! I can't allow that, so you go to the bed."
Look at this excessive kindness. She should look after herself a little, or she'd get treated like a pushover and only lose out. Of course Ari wasn't that easy of a person, but still.
"I've already imposed on you so much today. I'm really fine."
"You even cooked for me earlier—what imposition? I like the sofa. You use the bed."
Aigoo. Even so, I had no intention of backing down this time.
"Then we might as well just share the bed."
That wasn't my mouth running away from me. I said it in my right mind.
…That's okay, right?