Back to School
"What bathtub. You showing off how rich you are right now?"
"That's not what I meant. It's just—washing up standing together like this is kind of fun too."
"...Fun, my ass..."
"Want me to wash your back? Jiyoon?"
"D-Don't...!"
"Pfft.... All right. All right."
The fire went out.
Not the bathroom light in our house, the one that flickered if you so much as looked at it—but the hot, noisy playing with fire we'd been carrying on behind my sister's back. That had stopped. And still, not fully put out, one pitifully weak ember remained. A single fading blossom of it.
"Is this the shampoo?"
"The one next to it. That's body wash."
"Ah."
Until just now we'd been doing sex prac— ...S-sex. We'd been having sex, and there was no way nothing would change after that. We were both just pretending not to notice. Me and Seo Woojin. Because it was awkward. We weren't dating. Calling it a sex-friends thing felt wrong too. And yet, even knowing exactly what this was, we'd shoved it somewhere out of sight. Because we'd gone and done something bad.
Just like earlier, when Seo Woojin covered my eyes with a mask and kissed me, we'd clumsily blindfolded each other under the excuse of practice. Until every condom he brought ran out, we'd gone and had sex anyway. So we couldn't go back to the relationship we had before.
"...You're right. Noona Hayun's hair smelled like this too."
"You a pervert? Going around sniffing smells like that?"
"It's not like the smell stops just because I don't want to smell it. What am I supposed to do?"
"Then don't breathe."
"Breathe.... Oh, like you did during kiss practice?"
"...Sh-shut up..."
"Earlier, you sticking your tongue out first and trying to lick—that was really cute..."
"I said shut up, please...!"
The blanket, soaked in patches with my fluids and Seo Woojin's. The floor and the desk, slick with my spit and my wetness. One mask, and a trash can holding a dozen or more used condoms. The dull, throbbing soreness between my thighs from getting fucked so hard, so much. I set all of it aside, pretend not to see, and banter with my sister's boyfriend.
It prickles. Shamefully.
"Hey. Jiyoon, scoot over a little. I need to wash too."
"That's why I told you to come in separately earlier...!"
"No. This is all a memory too, isn't it?"
"What are you, a homeroom teacher from high school..."
"Oh, I'll just get behind you. There's a height difference anyway."
"It's so cramped I could die..., ...ngh."
Seo Woojin steps up behind me, wet hair swept back. Maybe because we just went at it so much—that thing of his, not even really hard, brushes my ass. Those manly arms, packed tight with lean muscle, wrap around my waist, and he rests his chin lightly on the crown of my head.
...It hurts.
"...Seo Woojin."
"Yeah?"
"That. Don't."
"That? Oh, don't rest my chin there?"
"Yeah. It actually kind of hurts. That."
"How does this even hurt..."
"It does hurt, okay? Want to be on the receiving end?"
"Pfft.... You're shorter than me. How exactly were you planning to manage that?"
"Make you kneel and it'll work just fine. Dumbass."
"...You into that kind of thing?"
"Into—? What do you mean, into, that's not— ...N-no...!!"
Seo Woojin chuckles, sly, and simply holds me tight while the warm water pours over both of us. Almost like lovers showering together right after sex.
...The reality is a little different, though.
"...My stomach. Don't touch it."
"Lot of things I'm not allowed to do, huh. It's not even like you've got any softness there. Why?"
"If I say don't touch, don't touch! ...And don't touch my sister's stomach later, either. You little shit, I swear..."
"Then what about your chest?"
"......"
"Not your stomach. Your chest is fine?"
This is practice too, so. Later he'll be holding my sister just like this, and all I did was help Seo Woojin practice.
...If only I could think it that innocently. How nice that would be.
Before I know it, the only sound filling the bathroom is water falling. Down my body. Over Seo Woojin's hands as they move with lewd intent—kneading, squeezing. Over my breasts, caught tight in his grip. The water streams and falls. Whatever fluids have pooled on the floor get sucked into the pitch-black drain, gurgling out a messy, complicated sound.
"Fuck..."
Lee Hayun, whose very existence I hadn't known before the regression. Yozora, nothing but a drunk of a villain. Set those two aside, and finally—one more. Having managed, however modestly, to get what I wanted, I flopped face-down on the bed the moment I got home.
Kidnapping. Rape. Brainwashing. Conditioning. None of that, I don't think. Back in my villain days, when I was basically in heat twenty-four hours a day, I'd considered those absolute requirements for sleeping with a hero. The one thing that nagged was that rather than me taking the lead and seizing it, a bit of luck had been involved. Honestly, who could have known Lee Jiyoon was into that sort of thing. Still, a regret was a regret. I was allowed to whine a little, wasn't I?
"Haa..."
...Or maybe not. If I was the idiot who'd already thrown ten years in the trash, maybe I ought to stop complaining and gratefully take what I was given. I don't know. I really don't. My fault for being born a blockhead.
After a brief bout of self-reproach, I groaned, reached out, plugged my phone into the charger, and changed clothes. I hadn't even eaten dinner, too busy having sex with Lee Jiyoon, so I ordered some random delivery, sat on the edge of the bed, and sent a text to Hayun, who still didn't know a thing.
The reply came back in under ten seconds.
Come hang out at the convenience store, she meant. Was it really all right to goof off somewhere you were being paid to work? The thought lasted only a moment. After lunch today, that jet-black ponytail—lashing hard every time I drove into her from behind—flickered in front of my eyes. If I had my way, I'd see that black ponytail and a snow-white one, tied up in imitation of her sister, lying side by side face-down on the bed.... No matter how hard I tried to look on the bright side, that was still a long way off.
I cracked my stiff neck, flopped back onto the blanket, and tapped at the screen.
Maybe because she was bored on her shift, Lee Hayun kept firing off messages without a pause. I answered her just enough and set that rock of a brain spinning as hard as it would go.
A three-way. The thing people casually called a threesome. Lee Jiyoon was into that sort of thing, so even if she recoiled on the surface and asked if I'd lost my mind, she'd go along. The problem was how to persuade Lee Hayun.
I want to spend the night in a threesome with you and your little sister. Agree to a request like that without a second thought, and you weren't a saint. You were just a complete pervert. So even if the ask came later, I needed to lay the groundwork bit by bit—until the thoughts that rose in her were things like Can't be helped, or Just this once, or If Jiyoon says it's okay...
"......"
This was hard. Honestly, I couldn't even get a grip on what words I'd use to lure her in. Bringing up Lee Jiyoon would be strange. Asking whether she had any interest in a threesome would be strange. Wasn't every angle strange? No decent idea was coming to me, either.
Nothing to be done. Until a proper opportunity showed up, I should probably shelve it. Or—since Lee Jiyoon might stir something up behind my back anyway—just leaving the whole thing to her could work. She'd want to feel that precarious, razor-edge thrill of taboo as close to her sister as she could get. Even if it never reached an actual threesome, wouldn't she want to stage something very close to one? All I'd have to do was sit back and enjoy whatever she served.
Just as I was finishing sorting my thoughts, Lee Hayun asked about Lee Jiyoon—instead of some hard-to-stomach chatter about her social life. I hesitated a moment, mixed in a suitable lie, and answered.
Alcohol. Come to think of it, both of them—Lee Jiyoon and Lee Hayun—had gotten sweetly drunk off a single can of beer. Getting a few mouthfuls of liquor into Lee Hayun and taking her to bed would definitely be much easier than conditioning her step by step. But using a trick like that again—a game cheat code (the phrasing had rubbed off from Lee Jiyoon)—felt a bit off. If I could help it, I wanted to roll around with her without borrowing alcohol's strength. I'd save the drinks for the very last of last resorts, when things truly seemed impossible.
That kind of bothering was more than welcome. But if I said it was completely fine, it would look suspicious.
I brushed it off and sank into thought for a moment.
"......"
...Lee Jiyoon. Something she'd want. Once school started again—something we could do in the infirmary, I was thinking.
"Name."
"...Hato Yojo.... ...Yozora Touka."
"Age?"
"Twenty..."
"Ability?"
"Mutation-type, Succubus...? It is succubus, riiight...?"
"Yeah. Looks fucking easy to memorize, but it's you, so I'm worried."
"...Hmph..."
"Anyway, get that memorized for sure, and next..."
"Um, the surname Yozora feels a little awkward, though..."
"Just wing it. Wing it. Keeping some of the name is better than changing it completely, isn't it?"
"And my face..."
"You don't know every villain in Japan, do you? You know what Korean villains look like? American ones? You only know the really fucking famous brats, right?"
"......"
"Anyway, you've been too busy drinking yourself stupid to cause any real trouble in Korea yet. Keep your mouth shut and nobody'll know."
"...Okay."
"Next. About Han Sua's hobbies..."
"Oh, right."
Yozora, who'd been answering half-heartedly while using the sofa as a bed, slowly raised her hand as she looked at Kwon Namho, who was holding something like a script. Like a student with a question for the teacher.
"This 'ruin her' thing. How exactly am I supposed to do it...?"
"Going by the nuance, the mental side..."
"Ah, I misspoke.... Exactly how far am I allowed to go?"
"That's.... Hold on."
Flip, flip. Kwon Namho turned through the sheaf of papers, scratched at his beard, and answered.
"Looks like anything's fine so long as there's no obvious injury on the outside. All it says is that their side will cooperate as much as they can."
"Hnnn..."
"For now, they say it's enough if she can't graduate from the academy the normal way. Grades or practicals, either one. That part's certain."
"......"
Yozora let her hand drop and fell silent, fidgeting at her chest, which felt unbearably tight. After a moment of groaning and fussing with her school uniform, she raised her hand again and put another question to Kwon Namho.
"Then... is it okay if I make her fall hard for a man...?"
"...That's for you to figure out, you brat."