In the Alley
I held Rahee's gaze in silence and slowly opened my mouth.
"I like Hyunji, and I like our trainer here, too. So if the two people I like grow closer, I think that's a good thing."
"......R-really? You're not actually going to stop seeing me?"
With that single sentence I knew, by instinct, that the crisis was over. This was new even for me. In my old world it was the sort of thing that would have gotten me torn to pieces on the internet forums, and I would have deserved it. I nearly let out a sigh without meaning to. I'd been more wound up than I thought. Hyunji had taken the news that I was on a date as a breakup.
"Of course not. Why would I stop seeing you? I'm going to keep seeing you. Didn't I tell you you're mine?"
"Th-then I'm fine! God, I thought the ceiling was coming down, oppa."
"Give it a knock. Your sigh might've already cracked it. Be a shame. It's a new place."
"Oppa!"
And in that instant a soft thud struck my chest, followed by a heavy, warm weight. Rahee had quietly buried her face against me. A faint sob. But the hand clutching the shirt over my heart had lost its stiffness. Rahee had passed, too.
Aigoo.
I nearly heaved a deep sigh myself, but I couldn't think of many moments that demanded balance more than this one. Get giddy and grin like an idiot now, and I'd only be handing them something to tease me with later.
"So your heart's eased a little?"
"Yeah. I... I was really worried......"
"I'm sorry. Not calling you today was my fault."
"N-no...... I absolutely wasn't saying it to get an apology......"
"Right. Next time, if I'm busy, I'll tell you. So let this one go."
"......Hehe. Okay. I've already forgotten. Th-then have fun on your date today."
"Yeah. Thanks. So I'll take it we're good?"
"Of course. Um, oppa."
"Yeah?"
"......I'm really glad I met you. A-and...... I... I like you too......"
A small click came from the other end of the line, and Hyunji hung up in a fluster. It was only a phone call, so whether she had truly accepted it was something I would have to read the next time we met. Still, maybe because I had told her I liked her, her voice had brightened back to its usual self.
Now that I think about it, I went and said I liked her at a moment like this.
Better to steer things toward the right instant and offer the words properly than to spend them like that. I was just about to click my tongue, figuring I must have been tense myself, when—
"......sniff."
A sniffle drifted up from inside my arms. For now, I needed to soothe Rahee, crying where she clung to me. I took her by the shoulders as she hung against my chest and slowly lifted her. Every bit of strength had gone out of her body. Between the heavy weight of her and the tearful face looking up at me, I almost laughed—but if I laughed now, I would pay for it.
"Why are you crying?"
"......Because I'm grateful."
"For what?"
"For... choosing me, too......"
"Of course I would. Did you think I'd let go of you that easily?"
"......Y-you met her first."
"Mm. If we insist on counting the order, yeah."
"I was sure...... you'd tell me we should stop seeing each other......"
"I want to see both of you. Is that not allowed?"
It was the kind of thing a piece of trash would say, though I had also heard that here it counted as a virtue. Even so, what the two of them were showing me was the good kind of unexpected—closer to joy, or to being moved—so I asked Rahee calmly.
"......That's why I'm grateful. O-other men...... even one person is too much for them......"
"I can't be the only one like me."
"......There are far too few. Few enough that the Childbirth Bureau manages them separately......"
"That's the first I'm hearing of it."
Only then did Rahee brace her legs and pull herself upright. She scrubbed the tears away with the back of her hand, then smiled at me through reddened eyes.
"You, Shinwoo. You seem to know everything, and yet there's so much you don't."
"Oh? So you're feeling a little better, is that it?"
"......Yes. Right now...... I'm happy."
And Rahee folded back into my arms and began to look up at me. Watching her moist eyes slowly soften, I quietly kissed her.
"Haa......"
It was a light kiss, but the rapture rising over her face—as if she were cresting into orgasm—was enough to make even me swallow. Her damp gaze overflowed with sex, and the lips breathing out that sweet breath were beautiful.
"But earlier, there was something you had wrong."
"......Tell me."
"It's true I met Hyunji before I met you."
"Yes......"
I brought my mouth quietly to her ear and whispered.
"But the one I held first was you."
"......Ah, Shinwoo......"
At the whisper she wrapped her arms around my neck and clung to me as if she no longer knew what to do with herself. A moment later she was sobbing again, but unlike before these were tears full of feeling and joy. I stroked her back, gentle and unhurried. People passing by stared at us strangely. I didn't particularly care.
So it really does all come undone over a single sentence......?
For an instant I almost thought I heard a click in some corner of my mind. One of the shackles that had bound the common sense in my head fell away, powerless. My heart pounded with a thrilling sense of release, and of expectation. The blueprint I had only ever imagined—a harem—had just been granted a building permit. And as we slowly started walking, Rahee's condition grew worse and worse.
"Haa, haa......"
"What's wrong?"
"N-nothing...... gulp...... hnnn......"
I asked the woman walking beside me as if I didn't know, but Rahee only shook her head, gripping my hand tight. From the moment I had kissed her she had been signaling, with her whole body, that she couldn't hold it in. Her face was flushed red enough to burst, her breath thick with moisture, and the sound of it was like someone who had been running a treadmill for ages.
"Hnn......"
Whenever my arm happened to brush her chest as we walked hand in hand, she swallowed a moan and barely managed to breathe. Taking my time just to watch her like that was plenty enjoyable. Toy with her any further and she looked ready to go at it on the spot, so I meant to show a little restraint. Restraint, my ass. There was no way I was letting a chance like this slip.
"Can't hold it?"
"Ah, ahh, Sh-Shinwoo......"
The moment I whispered it into her ear, Rahee began to shudder all over as if she had been shocked. She bit her lip and only just held the moan back. Feeling her hand squeeze mine, I whispered again.
"I gave you a hint, didn't I."
"Haah, Sh-Shinwoo...... I can't...... I c-can't hold it......"
She begged me with a tearful face and eyes brimming with arousal, but there were still about five minutes left to her place. Even so, perhaps because we had turned into the alley, I couldn't sense a single soul between here and her door.
"Hold it."
"......Ah, hnn......"
When I gently stroked that backside of hers, Rahee let go of my hand as if shaking it off, groped urgently along my arm and chest, then seized my shoulder tight.
"N-no...... no, I, I...... ahn......"
"Should I stop?"
"Hngh...... please, I...... I'm dangerous right now......"
"Then you could just run."
"Ah...... I don't...... I don't want that......"
"And why don't you want that?"
"......Haaahn......"
In that moment her whole body began to lock. The weight of her sinking against me grew heavier and heavier. I could feel her breasts softly crushing against my chest, but what stirred me more was the face looking up at me. I took in the sight of Rahee just short of orgasm and quietly waited for her answer.
"Ahn, hh, because...... Shinwoo likes it......"
It wasn't what I had expected. Not some primal answer that thought only of her own want—that she liked me, that she wanted to be touched, that she wanted to do it. For a second I was at a loss for words. Still, it was good to hear.
"Coming from you, Rahee, it sounds like you're saying you don't like it."
"I like it...... hh, I like it. There's no way I wouldn't...... no way I wouldn't like it......"
My hand drew slowly away, and she rubbed her body against me as if she already missed it, but faced with Rahee looking at me without a waver, I quietly nodded. At this level—well. She had tried hard enough.
"You pass."
I looked quietly into her face and whispered it, and Rahee let out a giddy breath, as if my words delighted her, and smiled softly.
"......Ah......"
"Then I ought to give you a reward, shouldn't I?"
"......A re-reward......? Hh?"
I drew the Rahee tilting her head at my words deep into my arms. Then the hand that had been retreating from her backside shot, all at once, between her cheeks. Beneath the leggings, that place was already in flood.
"Ahn?! N-no, no. The b-bed...... ahn, on the bed!"
Her mouth resisted, saying no, but unlike her words her body was honest. She burrowed even deeper against me, and now, with even her face buried in my chest, she simply gave her whole body over to my hand.
"Think you can make it home?"
"Mm, mmph, out-outside...... I don't want outside......, ahn, mm, hnn, khh."
Every time my persistently probing fingers stroked inside her, where her slick poured out in gushes, Rahee rose higher onto her toes and filled her whole body with tension. And the moment I pressed firmly into the very center of that spring, she wrapped herself around me and began to tremble.
"Khhnnn."
She held me tightly enough that it was a little hard to breathe. The climax wracking her looked quite large. The stimulation from the gym must have wound her even higher. Under the streetlight, lost in it and flailing, she was beautiful. I simply stayed still and watched her ride it. The soft feel of her, and the vibration of that full-body quiver, was deeply satisfying. I held her quietly, the sound of her heart pounding as if it might burst for background music.
"Haa...... nnh......"
Little by little the strength left the arms around me, and Rahee, who had been nuzzling her face into my chest, slowly lifted her head.
"......Y-you're too much......"
"You liked it."
"......I wanted to do it on the bed......"
"Don't be disappointed."
As I spoke I stroked the cheek of the woman looking up at me, and whispered.
"I'm dying to hold you, too."
What had happened at the café, and what had happened at the gym. Those two things alone had already been hard to endure, and this face of hers made it impossible to hold out any longer. When Rahee swallowed hard and looked up at me with unsteady eyes, I took her hand without a word and slowly started walking. Whether her legs would no longer take her weight, the steps following me were slow, and between us as we walked the alley there flowed nothing but breath, mingled with excitement and anticipation.