Why Is There a Female Scrubber in the Men's Bath?

After the whole incident where the convenience store abruptly turned into a room you couldn't leave without having sex, I began laying plans in earnest to hunt down other anomalies.

What was the easiest, fastest way to track down an anomaly that could pop up anywhere, at any time?

"First things first — comb the internet."

Naturally, that was the first thing to come to mind. If something like last time happened again, some event that physically warped the world itself, surely eyewitness accounts would start surfacing online. That was my thinking, anyway.

But the results of that hopeful search were a bust.

'Ugh, this is completely useless.'

Using keywords like altered common sense and anomaly, I trawled social media and community forums, but nothing I wanted turned up. A few posts looked plausible at first glance, but on closer inspection they were all blatantly fabricated fiction or obvious trolling bait.

Seriously — bizarre things were happening across the world as if they were perfectly normal, just like yesterday. So why wasn't there a single word about any of it on the internet?

At this rate, finding anything wouldn't be easy. And I couldn't exactly comb through every vlog out there the way I had yesterday, hunting for footage of something contradicting the common sense I knew.

In the end, I opened the anomaly report app again and decided to ask the mysterious chatbot that resided inside it directly.

'Oh, for fuck's sake. How am I supposed to investigate or report anything when I don't know a damn thing? Give me a hint at least, and then tell me to go find it.'

It wasn't even asking me to smash my head against bare ground; it was telling me to wander around outside blindly, looking for something strange. Come on — "investigation," my ass. At the pace of pounding the pavement on foot, when exactly would I ever find them all?

When I kept badgering the chatbot in irritation, it reluctantly coughed up some additional text.

'What the hell is that supposed to mean?'

"Common sense taken for granted gets twisted" — easy to say, but how was I actually supposed to spot one right now? My head began to ache, so I tossed my smartphone aside and hauled myself up from my seat.

'Ugh, whatever. Quick shower first, then go soak in a bath.'

Work night shifts at a convenience store five days a week, and your body inevitably starts dragging like it weighs a ton. So I had a routine: on days like today, when I finished my last shift, I'd head to the neighborhood public bathhouse and soak the fatigue away. The place was a little run-down, but the facilities were decent enough.

I arrived at the bathhouse, paid at the counter, and stepped into the men's bath. Perhaps because it was that awkward mid-afternoon lull on a weekday, only a handful of neighborhood old men and potbellied middle-aged guys were soaking in the tubs. After giving myself a cursory rinse at ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the showers, I slipped into my favorite hot pool and sank in up to my neck.

"Mmm... that hits the spot."

As the piping-hot water melted my knotted muscles loose, even my cluttered head felt a shade clearer. A room you couldn't leave without sex, my ass — this right here was the real deal.

I was lounging with my eyes closed, lazily unwinding, when it happened. The glass door linking the changing room to the bath swung open, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and someone walked in. I turned my head toward it without thinking and nearly let out a shout.

"Khack! Hkk, khh... wh-what the—?"

The person entering the bathhouse wore a thin gray tank top and short black shorts. If they were staff, coming in clothed wouldn't be strange — the problem was that this apparent employee was a woman. In the men's bath.

'What the fuck? A-a woman?! Why is there a woman in the men's bath??'

Startled out of my wits, I reflexively sank my body deep into the water until even my eyes were submerged. Then, ever so carefully, I poked just my face out and studied the woman. Short black hair that just barely grazed her shoulders, and a slightly plush, voluptuous frame with flesh distributed in all the pleasantly right places. Yet while her waist wasn't particularly thick, her chest and hips were enormous, practically bursting — a straight-up cheat-code figure. Fine, I'll admit it: she was impossible not to stare at. But why on earth was a woman like that strolling around the men's bath?

'Insane. What is with that woman? Why is she walking into the men's bath?!'

Sure, I'd seen cleaning ladies pop into men's restrooms now and then — but this went beyond the restroom. This was the bath itself. A woman, let alone a stacked beauty like her, strutting right in: in twenty-five years of life, I had never once witnessed the likes of it.

Hidden in the water, I cautiously kept my eyes peeled and tracked her path. She crossed the men's bath with utterly self-assured, natural strides, then slipped straight into the scrub room set up in one corner.

'The scrub room? She's a scrubber? Has she lost her mind, seriously.'

Was the world genuinely going insane? But what shocked me more than the young female scrubber herself was everyone else's reaction. Not one of the men in the tubs, not one of the old-timers scrubbing away, paid the slightest mind to the young woman who had just walked past — as though she were invisible, or as though a woman like her wandering the men's bath were as natural as breathing.

As I stared blankly at that surreal yet placid scene, the app's earlier words flashed through my mind.

'Ah. There it is. This is an anomaly.'

The realization hit me like a blow to the head. The common sense that a men's bath naturally had nothing but old, potbellied male scrubbers. That common sense had been completely warped — the world had been rewritten into one where a young, thick-bodied female scrubber in the men's bath was simply taken for granted. The instant I grasped this absurd situation, my earlier bewilderment evaporated, and mad curiosity and anticipation came flooding in.

'I'll need more information before I can report this to the chatbot. Time to confirm things.'

I sprang up from my spot and strode toward the scrub room, loosely draping the towel beside me over my lower half. I knew covering up in the men's bath looked a little odd, but honestly, I couldn't just walk in there bare.

Stepping into the steam-heavy scrub room, I found that voluptuous woman perched on the tiled counter above the washbasins, scrolling through her phone. Up close, the sight was far more risqué and stirring than I'd expected. Damp from the humid air, her sweat-slicked black bangs clung lightly to her forehead — but what truly stole my gaze was the state of things inside her thin, dampened gray tank top.

'Holy shit. She's not wearing a bra? Her nipples are showing!'

Perhaps because of all the splashing water and pervasive steam of a bathhouse, she apparently had no bra on under her tank top. Her already heavy chest pulled the fabric taut, and through it the shapes of two stiff, upright nipples showed themselves in shameless detail. At that devastating visual assault, my junior — until moments ago flopping lazily in the hot pool — flushed with blood and threatened to spring bolt upright in an instant.

'Calm the hell down, Kang Jinwoo! You don't even know what this anomaly is yet — pitch a tent now and you might get thrown out on your ear!'

Think about it. A young man sporting wood at his scrubber in the men's bath? Not only would I look like a complete lunatic, I'd have zero defense if they kicked me out on the spot. Desperate, I belted out all four verses of the national anthem in my head like ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a madman and barely smothered the uprising back down. Until the waters of the East Sea run dry and Mount Baekdu wears away... Whew. Settle down, please.

Whether or not she knew of my desperate struggle, the woman sensed my presence and set her phone down on the tiles. Then she picked up the white towel lying beside her, looked my way, and asked in a perfectly natural voice.

"Welcome. Here for a scrub?"

"Ah, yes... to get the dead skin scrubbed off."

"Did you pay at the counter ahead of time?"

"No, not yet."

"Not yet, huh? Then I'll note down your locker number — just stop by the counter and pay when you head out. Come over here and lie down."

With thoroughly practiced ease, she patted the simple cot draped in black vinyl, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠guiding me over. As if hypnotized, I nodded, let the towel fall, and lay down on the hard, slick vinyl cot, staring up at the ceiling.

Lying there in the nude, waiting for her hands, I clumsily restarted my deduction.

'So what category of anomaly is this, exactly? Maybe gender segregation just isn't considered important anymore?'

A world where Confucian common sense like "boys and girls past the age of seven shall not sit together" had been thoroughly violated? Except the men's bath and the women's bath were still, unmistakably, separate.

I tried to push the analysis further, but my mental deduction didn't survive long. Because the scrubber — this noona — stepped up beside me, warm-water-soaked scrub mitt in hand, and bent at the waist.

"Is the water temperature okay?"

"Y-yes..."

Every time she leaned over to start scrubbing my chest, her enormous, bursting breasts began brushing softly against my forearm and shoulder. And with her peering down at me from above, the deep, swaying cleavage spilling from the wide-open neck of her tank top filled my entire field of view. The heavy flesh of that bra-less chest wobbled with a dizzying sway every time she moved. The moment her faint soap scent mingled with that warm, humid body-smell and washed over me, the rational deduction I'd been attempting vanished from my head entirely.

'The men's bath scrubbers used to be nothing but old ahjussis. I'm sure of it.'

Even if gender no longer mattered, why on earth would a pretty noona like her bother sweating away in the men's bath, rubbing down men's bodies? Of course, even that idle question proved useless against the relentless chest attacks this scrubber kept launching into my vision and senses.

'Haah, fuck. I'm losing it. It seriously keeps touching me.'

My brain strained to think of other things, but how many men could ignore tits swinging right in front of their eyes and a woman's soft hands gliding over their bare skin? And maybe because Kwon Yuri and I had openly gone at it in the convenience store last time, whatever psychological barrier had lingered in me felt like it had already crumbled away. Before I knew it, the junior I'd barely lulled to sleep with the anthem earlier finally raised its head and began swelling like mad.

'You insane bastard, die! Just die! What if I end up looking like a freak?'

I still didn't know the detailed rules, so I had to stay as careful as possible for now. Even if this truly were a world where the distinction between man and woman had dissolved, pitching a boner mid-scrub would obviously look bizarre to anyone. Hell, even getting scrubbed by an old ahjussi, an erection would get you treated like a degenerate. I tried somehow to will it down, but my junior, already lost to reason, had slipped entirely out of control. The lower the scrub mitt slid toward my lower belly, the stiffer my alter ego stood, throbbing at attention.

'Ah, I'm fucked.'

Altered-common-sense world or not, going full mast right in front of a female scrubber... If this noona shrieked or furiously ordered me out right now, I'd have nothing to say in my defense. How was I supposed to smooth this over? Cold sweat was trickling down my spine when — the woman's hand, moving to wipe down my lower half, stopped dead. Her gaze had locked squarely onto my alter ego, standing proudly and demanding attention.

In the throat-tightening silence, I bit my lip and watched for any sign. But her reaction was nothing like what I'd expected.

"Sir..."

"Ah, th-that's not— I mean...!"

"I don't think you really need a scrub right now, sir."

"Excuse me...?"

Far from throwing me out or berating me, both her cheeks had flushed a shy red. The way she kept sneaking glances at my rigid member with moist, glistening eyes was strangely lewd, strangely sticky.

"Ah, yes... is that so?"

When I answered in flustered panic, she tossed the scrub mitt aside and curled the corners of her lips into a faint smile.

"Still, you did come all this way — I can't just send you packing as if I'm chasing you out."

"……?"

"Just for today, as a special — I'll give you a massage service and charge you for the scrub only."

What the hell.

What kind of situation was this now?