Sinner (3)
"Mmph...!"
What the hell.
What was going on here?
Sluuurp—
I couldn’t get my head straight with that wet, sticky sensation against my lips.
"Mmnh..."
A tongue had stealthily wormed its way into my slightly parted mouth, tapping against my teeth as if asking them to open the door, and Iris let out a soft nasal sound, almost like she was pouting at me.
At the same time, the arm wrapped around my waist tightened, pressing me harder against her.
Clench—
"Ghk...!"
A sharp pain shot through me, and a groan escaped before I could stop it. Iris didn’t miss the opening for a second.
Between my barely parted teeth, her tongue slipped in like a snake and tangled with mine.
"Hehmph..."
A wet, feverish kiss in the park playground late at night left my head spinning.
Our rough breaths brushed across each other’s faces, and inside my mouth our tongues intertwined and parted again and again with obscene, sloppy sounds.
The scent of alcohol drifting off Iris was strangely intoxicating.
Shlup—
The sticky, suggestive sounds of our mingled saliva kept tickling my ears, and my face burned as blood rushed upward.
Iris seemed tireless, holding me tighter still as she explored my mouth, and I had no choice but to be dragged helplessly along at her pace, unable to put up even a proper resistance.
"Mmnh..."
How long had we been like that, trading tongues?
Before I knew it, I had let the tension drain from my whole body and was surrendering myself to her embrace.
I had never had any experience with women, neither in my past life nor after coming here, so this kind of stimulation hit me far too hard.
My mind knew I shouldn’t be doing this with a comrade I’d shared life and death with, but my body, drunk on the excitement saturating the air, was being brutally honest with its instincts.
"...♡"
Iris was clearly aroused too; even with our lips still pressed together, the look she gave me was hazy and intense with desire.
Just meeting that gaze made me feel blood rushing downward.
That was probably why.
Smack—!
"Ah...!"
What shoved Iris away, just as her hand was slowly reaching toward my lower half, was my own sudden, rough push.
Startled by my abrupt act of rejection, a look of bewilderment spread across Iris’s flushed face.
"Haa... haa..."
I quickly put distance between us, then drew in the clear evening air with the mouth I’d won back and steadied my breathing.
The damp feeling still lingering at the corner of my mouth made me wipe my lips with my sleeve, cleaning off the saliva there.
"...Leader?"
As if she’d been struck to the core by being pushed away, Iris looked at me with a face that seemed like the world had collapsed around her. Seeing that, I shot her a sharp glare.
"Iris, are you insane?! What the hell do you think you’re doing?!"
"Huh...?"
Only after I yelled at her did Iris seem to sober up a little.
Her vacant eyes wandered around the park for a moment before landing on me, and then she finally realized what she’d done.
"Ah...!"
That face, red in an instant like a ripe tomato, was proof enough.
Her milk-white skin flushed crimson, and her pupils darted wildly as if an earthquake had struck them.
I seized the moment while she was still rattled and scolded her.
"I searched the whole neighborhood because you hadn’t come home, and you were out here getting drunk... and on top of that...!"
You stole my first kiss.
I swallowed the rest of the words before they could leave my mouth.
Still, the message must have gotten across well enough to Iris.
Sure enough, the bold, aggressive woman from moments ago was nowhere to be seen; she looked utterly flustered and fidgeted helplessly.
"I-I’m sorry! I’m really sorry! I don’t know what I was thinking...!"
As she sprang up to apologize, she swayed on her feet, not fully through the alcohol yet, and honestly, that was...
People said alcohol made them honest, and Iris’s face was broadcasting every thought she had with embarrassing clarity.
"Ugh..."
She was probably thinking she’d really screwed herself over—not only had she made her former superior and comrade worry sick, she’d forced a kiss on him too.
By the standards of the original world, this was basically a man forcing himself on a woman.
"...Ha."
"I’m sorry, Leader!"
How the hell had things gotten twisted like this?
The absurdity of the situation made me laugh under my breath, and Iris apparently took that as laughter directed at her, because she kept bowing her head and apologizing over and over.
She must have been really scared.
Well, if I’d been in her place, I probably would’ve sensed I was in deep shit and started smashing my forehead into the ground too.
From her point of view, it was a situation where I’d be justified in cutting ties with her on the spot and dragging her straight to the police station.
I could understand that.
"It’s fine. Lift your head."
"...!"
So I decided to forgive her.
We were going to have to keep living under the same roof, after all. I had no intention of throwing away a precious relationship forged through life and death on the battlefield over a single kiss.
Besides, honestly, even though I’d been shocked, I wasn’t exactly disgusted either.
Being kissed by a beauty like Iris, consent or not, was a pretty stimulating experience.
Enough to make the libido I’d forgotten about for ages suddenly stick its head up and say hello.
"Iris, clean up the beer cans on the floor and come with me. I’m letting this one go."
"Th-thank you!"
Apparently she hadn’t even imagined I’d just shrug it off, because Iris bowed so hard she was practically stammering.
Of course, there was a price for me letting it slide.
"And from now on, if you’re going to drink, get my permission first. Seeing you drunk makes it obvious I can’t just leave you alone."
"I’m sorry."
She’d go off somewhere and drink by herself and end up causing trouble.
After giving her a stern warning, I finally brought up the most awkward part.
"...Let’s keep what happened here a secret today. I’m not going to say anything to Akira, so you keep your mouth shut too. If you touch me again next time, I won’t let it go this easily."
"Of course."
Her face was still red, but her eyes were now clear, and Iris nodded with fervent determination. That was the end of it.
Iris and I picked up the beer cans scattered across the floor, then headed home with a little space between us.
Trailing after me as I walked in front, Iris’s footsteps pattered softly behind me, and I carried the faint tremor in my chest as we walked in silence.
Was the strange heat that had lingered in the air the whole way because of the summer weather, or...
...because of that kiss?
.
.
.
.
"Huh?"
I jumped at the donation alert spilling out of the speakers and looked at the monitor, where the chat, as always, was doing whatever it pleased.
"Haha... I just slept kind of badly..."
Judging by the viewers, my face was apparently a disaster right now.
Well, of course it was. Last night had featured a massive, life-changing event: my very first kiss with Iris.
On top of that, because we had to sleep in the same room, I’d tossed and turned in bed from sheer awkwardness until I finally didn’t get a single minute of sleep.
Honestly, I was pretty exhausted, but I had a prior record of suddenly taking a day off without warning, so if nothing else I had to turn on the stream out of a sense of responsibility.
The only thing that worried me a little was...
...the fact that today was the day I’d be going back to that game that had nearly stripped my soul bare last time.
The good news was that, unlike the previous mission that had unfolded from an infantryman’s point of view, today’s mission dealt with tank warfare, which at least had a lower chance of poking at my trauma.
The day’s main content would be controlling the king of the battlefield, crushing enemy armored vehicles and, quite literally, grinding infantry into paste.
The chat was, as expected of military nerds, going absolutely feral over the topic and showing terrifying levels of firepower enthusiasm.
I quietly watched them for a moment, then let out a snort of laughter.
To think they were this excited over something that was still just a mock battle in a virtual world.
No matter how hard a game tries to preserve physics and authenticity, there’s always going to be a gap between it and reality.
The oppressive presence of real machines. The threatening growl of the engine.
Even the concussive force of a shell blast that smashes your diaphragm.
Since it can’t possibly transmit all those sensations in full, from my point of view it still felt like child’s play.
Life is a comedy when seen from afar, a tragedy when seen up close.
War was probably the same.
To us, tanks were reassuring when they were on our side, but if they were the enemy, they were the most miserable, infuriating things in the world.
Here, though, to the viewers, they were nothing more than objects of fandom.
"All right then, let’s do this."
But it didn’t really matter.
After all, all of this attention would eventually become the thing that fed me.