Opponent's Color (5)
As I opened the door, the hotel room—awkwardly intimate with another person inside—unfolded before me.
“…….”
The brilliant earthly lights bloomed by human civilization, and unlike the ruined nature below, the sky's stars gleamed even clearer. Even against that fantastical nightscape, Helena shone brightest in my eyes. It wasn't just her looks. Her deep heart, her thoughtful demeanor, that strength I'd now lost the chance to reclaim easily. Even casually crossing her legs and propping her chin, she seemed to fill the room with her sheer presence.
I'd thought I'd steeled my resolve, but seeing her like this... my confidence faltered a little. After all, I had no answers or info I could just casually spill.
“……Gulp.”
Swallowing dryly with all my tangled emotions, I sat down beside her on the bed's edge, where she quietly gazed at the view outside. Where to even start? How to unravel this knotted mess....
My hesitation didn't last long before Helena cut right in, smooth as ever.
“……You really don't listen, do you? Even if I let the joke slide?”
“No…… I mean… sorry.”
Wasn't this a pretty manly apology...? Even without any real crimes on my conscience yet, her tone laced with dissatisfaction made my neck shrink involuntarily. I figured weakness to a beauty's anger was a guy's fate. …Probably.
Her body, which had been fixed on the window, finally turned toward me. “...Fine. Then let's start from the beginning, step by step...? First, your real name.”
“……Anastasia Valentin. I have another family name too… but no deep reason. Just a lot of complications tied to it.”
It was a strict question-and-answer format. Basically an interrogation, but instead of annoyance, I felt more bewildered.
Swish….
“When did you and I first meet?”
“The first time in person was on that Brightside street…… not the hotel.”
……Why? Because despite her dead-serious questions, her hand kept stroking my hair…?
Pet… pet….
Left to right, right to left. Messing it up however her fingers wandered, then neatly combing back the stray strands. A service straight out of a salon, with a spoonful of affection to boot. Just as I was about to melt into that soft touch and warmth, a terrifying question pierced through.
“You didn't approach Heinrich grandpa on purpose, did you?”
“!! Absolutely…! No way in hell! I swear on everything I have.”
……I'd nearly fallen for that ploy to lower my guard. If I'd really been scheming, I'd have been perfectly trapped. As expected… reassuring as an ally, but Helena Valentin was someone you couldn't fully relax around, in all sorts of ways.
“Hmmm…. No lies, but you're definitely hiding something… and you don't plan to spill. Alright… one last thing.”
“……Huh?”
Before I could fully exhale in relief, my shoulders were gently pushed back. My upper body toppled lightly onto the bed. Considering how the mattress sank deep enough to bury me if I dove in, it was exquisitely controlled strength.
But… what could the final question be to warrant this pressure-interview act?
“?!”
Helena's face, her lips, slowly descended, stopping at my ear. Stray hairs tickled my cheek bit by bit.
……What an idiotically obvious curiosity. The fire that had driven me to flee hadn't even died out, yet here I was, letting my guard down on just her word that she believed me.
“……Why have you been looking at me like that all this time, Asha…?”
The heat boring into my ear felt like it would scorch me. Or maybe my eardrum was already burning, and my dumb brain was mistaking the pain for some sweet sensation. I could clearly feel Helena's passionate gaze.
……If—just hypothetically—I'd been staring at her in awe of her beauty… grateful for her unexpected help… and every time a shameful memory from my Neo Haven days surfaced, stealing glances at her with those eyes all day long.
What signal would that have sent?
I blankly looked up at her face, now faintly flushed….
“!!”
Pop…!
I shoved off the arms pinning me and scrambled to the corner. In the chaos, the blankets twisted around my flailing legs, my hands slipped—total mess—but Helena just watched calmly from her spot, her expression still warm with lingering heat.
That look… it almost made me feel like I'd been the one cheating on her, stabbing my heart with guilt.
My mouth opened on its own, spilling words I'd never planned to say.
“Th-that's because my situation and my head are kinda messed up…!”
“Your head…? You mean having a guy's gender identity? So what?”
“!! Y-you knew?!”
I wondered how lecherously I'd been ogling her to get caught, but thankfully, that wasn't it.
“Well, I tell my rare new little sister to call me unnie, and she calls me noona… A girl who said she'd just get basic muscle enhancement keeps staring at gender-reassignment procedures….”
“Ugh…!”
My words jammed up at the litany of my clumsy behaviors, listed like a headache. Still, I blamed Helena a bit for poking at me so much.
“……Anyway, I wouldn't care if you were bi-gender or whatever. I'm no bigot…. Never thought I'd say this, but you're too damn attractive to sweat the details…?”
“Wait! Hold on!! HelenaHelenaHelena…!!”
Even after spilling what she'd long suspected, seeing I wasn't budging, she dropped her demure pose and closed the gap hand-and-knee style, step by bold step.
How to explain this so she'd get it…? That I was a guy whose body flipped overnight, so it wasn't just my mind—my body's the issue too? That Anastasia's self-consciousness was so blended now it worried me? No, more than that—wasn't she slipping in some super passionate lines amid the confusion…?!
To calm her down, I scraped together every excuse that popped into my frantic head.
“Family…! We're family!!”
“? Some elites up high preserve superior genes through incest, so what's wrong with that.”
“B-but that's not productive at all?!”
“……You really do have outdated common sense and thinking, Asha. Enama even offers artificial insemination services?”
You crazy Enama Corporation bastards…!! Why are you so gung-ho about research!
Whether I screamed internally or not, she upped the ante with a mind-numbing solution.
“……Or should I get the gender-reassignment procedure?”
“?! No way in hell—!! Helena's perfect as is…!”
“……Pfft.”
A scorching shock hit my brain, and a shriek fired out automatically. That's when it clicked a little. This world's views on gender… were thousands of times more 'forward-thinking' than I'd assumed from playing Neo Haven.
“……Ah.”
“…….”
Helena's silhouette loomed larger, right up in my face. Backlit by the room lights, her presence felt even more overwhelming. Ah, no good. No more excuses, no blocks left.
I squeezed my eyes shut in resignation….
……Mwah. Mwah.
Once lightly on my lifted forehead, once on the scattered strands on the blanket. Light… but dizzyingly sweet kisses rained down from above. Realizing I'd directly received a piece of the heat she'd been holding made my hands and feet tingle.
“I'm not gonna force you or anything… but sisterly affection like this is fine, right…?”
“……. Helena….”
“……Call me unnie properly until you make up your mind. That's your punishment for getting my hopes up and running off on your own.”
She pulled over the pillow from above, tucked it into my arms, then lay down comfortably herself. The bed, spacious for a single, filled with just right warmth and weight once Helena settled on her side.
I touched my forehead and hair, still buzzing with the sensation. I vaguely recalled that kisses carried deep meanings depending on the spot.
……And that forehead or hair meant something far stickier than a cheek.
“You sleep too, Asha. Your unnie has to head out for duty soon, so I'll drop you home early and go….”
“……Why'd you become a combat cop, unnie?”
“Why? Pay's reliable, and as long as you follow the rules, no risk of turning criminal…? So drop any ideas of dangerous stuff yourself—look for a normal… engineer job or something.”
“……Yeah.”
I quietly slipped off my shoes and set them on the floor. One nagging question since meeting her was solved. The current Helena Valentin lacked the venom and distrust that had made her a wolf in Neo Haven.
This… troubled me more than my own indefinable mental state. Maybe there was something I could do for her… a premonition stirred.
Thump… thump….
“Ugh…….”
Of course, unrelated to that, with my heart pounding like a bat, sleep was a distant dream until it calmed. I'd learned victims usually sleep soundly while perps pull all-nighters in guilt…
Talk about unfair.