That Afternoon, Skinship
“What even is skinship, anyway?”
“……Huh?”
It was a quiet Sunday afternoon. Having finished a simple lunch befitting a pair of freeloading roommates, the two of us were sitting still, each lost in a book, when Cecilia suddenly came out with that loaded little question. I tilted my head, puzzled.
“…Skinship? Why all of a sudden?”
“Well, look — it’s right here.”
She held out the page of the novel she’d been reading for me to see.
Not that it helped. She was too far away. My eyes weren’t good enough to make out print that small from this distance.
“What scene is it?”
“The part where the protagonist lightly takes the girl’s hand, and right after that she yells that he’s a pervert and starts hitting him…”
“Ah. That one.”
I knew the scene the moment she described it.
The fantasy novel I’d handed her earlier — volume one. Online fandom called it “the hand-holding-and-getting-smacked scene.” For an early chapter, it packed enough of a punch that it had stuck in my memory too.
“That’s what you get when you slap an extreme tsundere setting onto the heroine. …Though the clueless protagonist deserves some of the blame.”
“What’s a tsundere?”
“Just, uh… think of it as someone who’s really shy. But why are you asking?”
When I pressed her again, Cecilia cocked her head. Her eyes drifted slowly left and right, as if she were rereading the scene in her mind.
“If you look at the pages before this… this girl does like the protagonist, right?”
“Yeah. That’s the tsundere part.”
“But then she hits him for holding her hand, and I just… don’t get it. Hmm…”
She propped her chin in her hand, face utterly serious. Her tail slowed. Her ears went still. You could practically see the deep thought settling over her.
A cat earnestly fretting over a novel scene. Watching from the side, I found it a little funny.
“There are other parts in the middle I don’t really understand either.”
“That’s why I told you up front you might not like it. For a fantasy, it’s got a fair bit of romance mixed in — and it’s written for guys.”
“And this ‘wall slam’ thing? I don’t know what that is either.”
She barely seemed to hear me, still rubbing her chin, lost in thought. There was something unexpectedly literary-girl about the way she fretted over things she didn’t understand.
“Some of the descriptions in the middle don’t make sense either. Mmm…”
“Did you used to read a lot of novels?”
“Hm? No. …Except when I was little, almost never. Yeah.”
“?”
Her voice was hesitant, not quite convincing. But the mood didn’t last. Soon she was rubbing her chin again, humming thoughtfully.
“I just don’t get it.”
“The book?”
“Skinship in general, more specifically. I don’t understand the reactions, and some of it I don’t get at all.”
A stretch of soft, fretting little noises followed. I watched that cute display in silence for a moment — and then, mid-thought, Cecilia suddenly whipped her head toward me.
“? What?”
“Eunhyuk, I have a favor to ask…”
I had a pretty good idea what was coming. I waited quietly, and she went on.
“…Will you do some skinship with me?”
A little shyly, the literary catgirl made her request.
I hesitated for a beat, then nodded without much resistance.
First: holding hands.
“Alright. I’m going to take your hand?”
“…Okay.”
Cecilia stood still in the middle of the room and held out her hand. I stood beside her.
Skinship or not, there wasn’t much to it. Just a light touch, to help her understand. Affection wasn’t the point.
Really, just a little contact. Nothing to be embarrassed about.
…Which was exactly the kind of half-baked excuse I kept repeating to myself, because it was harder than it sounded.
The longer I hesitated, the harder it would get. Without any further warning, I gently took Cecilia’s small hand.
“Nngh…”
“How is it?”
She nodded, cheeks coloring.
“It’s a little… embarrassing…”
“….”
A shy reaction. I’d meant not to notice, but looking at that flushed face made my own feel warm.
“S-so this is what it’s like…”
“…I held your hand when I was putting lotion on you earlier. Why the big deal now…”
“That was different from this. That wasn’t really holding hands. …Nngh. Your hand’s big.”
It was more embarrassing than I’d expected.
The warmth traveling through my palm. The sound of her breathing right beside me. The occasional twitch of her slender fingers.
We were only holding hands, and yet something felt strange. Come to think of it, we’d already touched in all kinds of ways. We’d been closer than this, even.
And still, right now, it was strangely, disproportionately embarrassing.
“D-done!”
“Y-yeah…”
I declared it over in a hurry and let go. Taking a step back, I looked down at the hand I’d just been holding.
My fingertips were hot. A little tingly.
“….”
I glanced sideways. Cecilia was looking at her own hand the same way. Flushed cheeks, drooping ears, a tail that kept giving little twitches — all of it caught my eye.
“…Satisfied?”
“Mmm…”
I asked carefully. She gave a small shake of her head, then turned to look at me.
“The next one too…”
“….”
Apparently her curiosity wasn’t done yet.
Second: a little pat on the head.
“…We’ve actually done this a bunch of times already. You’re curious about it now?”
“Uh, well… a little?”
Cecilia looked up at me with a somewhat bashful smile. The posture was different from before. Earlier we’d stood side by side; now she was sitting on the bed with me standing in front of her.
Which meant she was looking up at me. Only a slight change in angle from usual, and somehow it was adorable.
“Alright. Here goes.”
“Okay.”
I reached out slowly. Set my hand on her soft hair, and gave it a few gentle pats.
“Mm…”
“How is it?”
“It feels… reassuring…”
That wasn’t the review I’d asked for. I’d meant whether it helped her understand the book. Well…
“Hweh…”
…She looked so content I decided not to mention it.
I kept patting, stroking, enjoying the soft feel of her hair under my hand. Thankfully it wasn’t as embarrassing as before. The texture was simply nice.
Her hair shifted and shimmered with every pass of my fingers. It smelled good. We used the same shampoo, and yet.
“Nngh… a little more…”
And just like that, Cecilia had moved fully into enjoyment mode. Eyes closed, concentrating entirely on the sensation of my hand.
“….”
Honestly, it felt so good to stroke that I didn’t mind either. I kept going for a while — and then something caught my eye. Her ears, drooping with pleasure.
Those silver-white ears, covered in fur even fluffier than her hair.
I’d touched them once before, when she was drunk, but I couldn’t actually remember the texture. Only a vague impression that it had felt really good.
I wanted to touch them again. Just a little — she probably wouldn’t notice.
Thinking that, I slowly, sneakily reached out…
“…Hyaat!?”
What came back was a half-moaned shriek, and—
“…Uuu……!!”
—a tearful look of pure outrage.
“…Sorry.”
I apologized quietly, feeling her small hands thump against my stomach.
Hair was fine. Ears, apparently, still off-limits.
A shame.
Third: holding the chin.
“…Holding my chin?”
“Yeah. I can’t picture what that feels like at all.”
A little later, once her anger had mostly cooled, Cecilia made her next request: chin-holding. The classic move where a guy takes a girl’s chin and turns her face so their eyes meet.
“You know how to do it, right, Eunhyuk?”
“Well… more or less.”
I knew the method, at least. I’d never actually done it.
“How should we stand? Just face each other?”
“Ah, yeah. Facing each other is better.”
“Like this?”
“Yeah.”
We stood straight across from each other in the middle of the room. Because Cecilia was shorter, the natural result was her looking up at me. Similar to the bed earlier. Cute.
“Ready?”
“Okay.”
I could already tell this was going to be awkward — but after making her mad just now, I didn’t exactly have the right to refuse.
I reached out slowly. First, her cheek.
“Hyaat.”
I brushed my fingers lightly over Cecilia’s pale cheek, savoring the soft give of it, then slid them gradually downward. A soft tap as my fingertips found her chin. I fiddled with it a moment, then gently caught it between my index finger and thumb.
“O-oh…”
I tilted her face up just enough to meet her eyes.
Me looking down. Cecilia looking up. Close enough that our breath nearly touched.
I could feel my heart hammering.
She clearly hadn’t expected “holding the chin” to feel like this. Her expression was a little flustered. Her face was red.
“Uh, th…”
“….”
Silence hung between us. Her eyes darted around, right in front of my nose.
…From her angle, I probably looked about the same.
After a stretch of time, she finally spoke, very quietly.
“Th-that’s enough…”
Only then did I let go. We both took a few steps back.
““…Hoo……””
And then, each of us clutching at our chests, we let out a breath.
Bad for the heart. Seriously.
For the record, after a short pause I asked, “…How was it?” — and got no comment in return.
Last: the wall slam.
“This one I really don’t get. The book just says ‘he did a wall slam’ and nothing else…”
“Ah, yeah. I know what that feels like.”
Most people knew the term “wall slam,” after all. Descriptions were rare, so it made sense Cecilia wouldn’t know.
“But are you sure? This one might startle you a bit.”
“…Is it scary?”
“Not scary. Just startling.”
“Then… can you do it slowly? Like, just showing me the motion.”
I nodded. The motion itself was easy. Nothing hard about it.
“First, go over by the wall.”
“By the wall… okay.”
“And then I do this…”
“Huh? Uh, uh…?!”
I set Cecilia against the wall, then closed in so that my body nearly covered hers, planting a hand on the wall beside her head and looking at her from up close.
…This was more embarrassing than expected, too.
“…Like this.”
“I seeee…”
Looking equally flustered, Cecilia gave a shy little laugh. I hadn’t realized beforehand, but this put us even closer than the chin-hold. And with the space half-closed off, a strange atmosphere settled between us.
“Y-yeah. Thank you, Eunhyuk. That helped.”
“Glad it helped…”
The moment the words reached me, I pulled my hand away and stepped back two or three paces. I dropped into a chair and took a few deep breaths.
If just a simple imitation took this much out of me, what would an actual wall slam do?
We hadn’t even done anything real, and I felt completely drained.
“…Let’s eat something solid for dinner tonight. As for the menu… yeah. Hot pot sounds good.”
As if trying to shake off the awkwardness, Cecilia nodded along vigorously.
Honestly, I hadn’t disliked it — but I couldn’t exactly call it simply good, either. It had been a strangely charged stretch of time.
Something itched in my chest.
“…Want to come grocery shopping with me?”
“Okay…!”
By way of a change of scenery, I took Cecilia out and we did a full lap of the supermarket. The cold air helped us both recover our composure quickly, and before long we could talk like normal again.
Feeling as if we’d just woken from a dream, we carried the ingredients home.
By evening the atmosphere had returned to normal, and the hot pot — a rare treat — was delicious.
Nothing much happened that night either. We traded goodnights the way we always did and went to sleep as usual.
And the next morning.
Monday.
“…Huh?”
Woken by my phone’s vibration, I read the text on the screen and let out a blank little sound.
“Huh??”
Something extremely hard to make sense of was written there.