Not Even a Mother
"Fwhaa... nnh..."
The fox's mind was a tangle of thoughts as she lay awake, quietly watching the platinum-blonde girl sleeping beside her.
She was well aware that she had been the one to pull Charlotte in first. Even so, she had never once imagined it would lead to a situation like this. She had simply thought they would spend the evening in some ordinary way and then pass the time together tomorrow.
"...Hahh."
What she had actually gotten was something of an entirely different sort.
She had expected to fall asleep lying in the large bed with Charlotte — she had already done that before — but this time, they were holding hands.
Meeting regularly, talking about this and that, had already become a part of Eun-hwa's everyday life. Using Charlotte's thigh as a pillow. Quietly savoring the feeling of Charlotte stroking her hair and finding a sense of calm in it. She could accept all of that as ordinary now.
But her schedule had been so packed that they had ended up meeting late, and that had thrown the entire evening off course.
...It's warm.
What registered most immediately for Eun-hwa in this situation was the warmth. Heat flowed from their clasped hands, passing from Charlotte into her, and she could feel her strength returning — little by little, just a little at a time.
Physical contact was one of the ways to restore the fox energy that fueled her illusions. She was only recovering her strength in tiny increments this way, but Eun-hwa had never used this method before. She had never even considered using it. The sensation was entirely new to her.
"Fwhaa..."
There was almost no sound at all beyond the faint breathing beside her. Only their joined hands, so warm and so awkward — and she did not dislike it.
Of course, merely holding hands was not going to restore a week's worth of depleted fox energy in an instant. The recovery was so gradual that if there had been a graph, the rate per second would have been invisible. But Eun-hwa, who had been burning through that energy all this time, could not help but be sensitive to it. And so their clasped hands felt all the warmer.
"I have no idea how far you intend to take this."
She muttered to herself, looking at Charlotte, who had fallen completely asleep in less than thirty minutes of closing her eyes.
Even with everything they had done so far, she had never really understood. She had simply written Charlotte off as an unusual person. But lately, every single one of Charlotte's actions had been giving her more and more to think about.
She had only been depleted from working hard all week. She had used just the tiniest bit more fox energy at the end of the day, so her body was merely a little languid. And yet Charlotte had felt sorry about that, and had gone out of her way to use this inconvenient, bothersome method — and now here she was, fast asleep with her hand clenched tightly around Eun-hwa's. Looking at her, Eun-hwa felt sorry and grateful all at once, and with so many thoughts crowding her mind, she could not easily fall asleep.
"...It's not like you're a fool."
From their very first conversation, Charlotte had kept telling her that it was fine to refuse, that she could do whatever was comfortable for her. But as she spent time with Charlotte, questions had begun to take root instead.
"...Why does she keep doing this?"
Just why? For what reason did Charlotte treat her this well? Charlotte helped her to a degree that was hard to understand if the only reason was that she was a hero, and so Eun-hwa found it difficult to comprehend.
At first it had only been conversation, so she had not paid it much mind. But the more time passed, the less sense it made. What kind of person would go to the trouble of holding someone's hand all night just because they wanted that person to recover their energy? And do it so casually, lying there completely defenseless in bed?
These worries tangled themselves through Eun-hwa's thoughts.
"...Hahh."
It was hard to understand with the way of thinking she had built up over the years. When she considered that even her mother — who had raised her so coercively — had never cherished her, helped her, or looked after her to this extent, Charlotte became even harder to understand.
She had only heard that Charlotte was a Welfare Bureau employee who used hypnosis, but she was beginning to think that hypnosis was not her real ability. That her true power was simply charming people. To the point that her head could not help but fill entirely with Charlotte — spawning countless questions while making it absolutely impossible to dislike her. She even wondered if that kind of allure was not itself an ability.
"Nnh..."
"What are you..."
While she lay there unable to sleep because of these thoughts, Charlotte moved. Muttering in her sleep, she unconsciously turned toward Eun-hwa and drew quite close. Their clasped hands came apart in the process, of course... and the two of them, who had already been sleeping quite near each other in order to hold hands, became even closer.
"...Are you asleep?"
Before she knew it, Charlotte had arrived right beside her, close enough to almost rest against her shoulder. Confirming that it was just sleep-talking, Eun-hwa could only find it absurd.
The reason Charlotte tossed around like this in her sleep was that she had long since grown used to occupying a bed by herself, and her body itself had adapted to it. Whether at the orphanage or after she had become independent, she had always moved around quite a lot whenever she slept in a bed. Back in her studio apartment, she would place pillows about the size of her own torso on either side and hug them freely as she drifted off...
"Nh...?"
"Mmyaah..."
Mistaking the still-lying Eun-hwa for a pillow — and proceeding to hug her first — was only natural.
"...This, too."
Sleep-talking. She knew that perfectly well, but Eun-hwa was quite flustered. They had spent a week together before, but back then they had slept at opposite edges of the bed, so a situation like this had never arisen. Of course she was flustered.
But at the same time, physical contact was happening. Touch was being made, and she could feel her fox energy recovering again. Feeling that warmth, Eun-hwa...
"..."
"Mmnyaah..."
Gently — very, very gently — she drew Charlotte, who was hugging her like a pillow, into her own arms. With a force so light there was absolutely no chance of waking her.
In the process, she turned onto her side so they could face each other, so that petite Charlotte's face would naturally rest against her chest.
"..."
"Nnnnhhh..."
She indulged in that small, not-quite-greed. Even Eun-hwa herself could not accurately explain why she had done it. It had simply been a sudden thought that she wanted to. It might have been because Charlotte had hugged her first. It might have simply been a way to recover her fox energy.
"...Hahh."
She had done it herself, and yet she found her own action a little absurd — and a little embarrassing, too. Even so, the warmth of holding Charlotte in her arms was quite pleasing, and that only made her thoughts more complicated.
But there was one thing she was certain of.
"...I do prefer it when you hold me, rather than the other way around."
Lately, all of Charlotte's various efforts to heap praise on her and be unconditionally affirming — all for the sake of Eun-hwa's mental recovery — had been far more joyful, far more pleasant, than this. That Charlotte doing something for her was far better than Eun-hwa doing something for Charlotte first.
"...It's not like you're my mother. Why on earth do you keep doing this?"
Even Eun-hwa's own mother had not given her a hug in over ten years, and had never once offered her a lap to rest on. So of course every one of Charlotte's actions felt strange. But Eun-hwa knew that she felt warmth in those actions — something like affection — and that she kept craving more of it. It was something even she found hard to understand. Completely denying it, however, was even harder.
"..."
And so she pulled the completely unaware, sleeping Charlotte a little closer, hugging her a bit more firmly. Charlotte's frame was far smaller than her own. And yet that small girl felt so enormously large to Eun-hwa.
"Hahh..."
And so Eun-hwa could not help but toss and turn through the night.
"Haaawn..."
When I came to, what I felt was... something soft and squishy. More precisely, the sensation of a woman's breasts.
However small I said my own chest was, something this soft could only be breasts — and lying in bed like this, the only thing I could possibly be feeling was...
...And the one who'd slept next to me was Eun-hwa.
"Ahem..."
I was quite. Really. Quite... flustered.
Not that I disliked the sensation, but having my face pressed against someone else's chest — even if we were the same gender — was the kind of situation that could easily get treated as sexual harassment.
So I naturally...
"..."
...let go of the arms that had been wrapped around Eun-hwa's body, and eased myself back.
"...Huh."
My sleep-talking was way worse than I'd thought. I hadn't known until now.
I felt pretty bad that I might have kept Eun-hwa from sleeping, but the softness I'd felt upon waking was so considerable it was actually fascinating. It was definitely that overwhelming something I could never feel from my own boobs.
Honestly, it was kind of amazing.
"Hahh..."
Startled by a pair of boobs first thing in the morning, I was now completely awake. Really, completely. I was so awake it would've been awkward to keep lying there... so I figured I'd make breakfast before Eun-hwa woke up.
I'd been genuinely startled first thing in the morning, but anyway — today Eun-hwa had seemed like she wanted to borrow me through the weekend to do something.
What someone who'd worked herself ragged all week wanted to do on the weekend... I really, truly had no idea.
But if I helped her start the morning on a lively note, at least it wouldn't be a bad thing.