Who Will You Sleep With?
Making a fire in the wild was dangerous. Most wild animals feared fire—but what they feared was the fire itself, not the light.
Atop the generator, its low hum reminiscent of an electric car, sat a collapsible pot where those garbage block rations were crumbling apart and boiling with water.
It was the worst cooking method imaginable. The two of them poking around in the pot seemed to be running a kind of experiment—trying somehow to make it taste decent—watching it without any real expectation.
It even felt a little like camping. Reality left them far less room to breathe, but the scene still looked the part.
"..."
When I shifted my gaze a little, I spotted the tent the two of them had thrown up in no time after declaring they'd found a suitable spot and dropping their bags on the ground.
The tent looked far sturdier than I'd expected. It would have been an insult to even compare it to something made by bending a few sticks and draping cloth over them.
Of course, if the crash survivors had to pitch even a makeshift tent, the colonization effort had already failed, hadn't it? Once you fitted the pieces together and assembled it, it was enough for one person to stretch out and lie down—but it wasn't spacious enough to really live in.
Just a slightly wider, slightly cleaner coffin pretending not to be one.
"Mm. Let's ditch it. This is seriously, completely inedible."
"First time in my life a ready meal actually tastes good."
After forcing a single bite into her mouth and immediately scrunching her face into a knot, Jiwoo ducked into the tent, pulled three ready-to-eat packs from her bag, and came back out.
"Here."
"Th-thank you..."
"Heh heh."
When she clicked open something like a tray case, inside were biscuits, chocolate, and a few packets of some unknown powder.
Surprisingly, it looked mouthwatering. Anything would, next to those garbage cubes.
Was this orange juice? Black tea?
"Oh, right. So—unni. Who are you sleeping with? Hmm?"
Just as I was about to tear open the biscuit packet with a flutter of anticipation, Minseo leaned forward and asked. Her hair spilled forward and brushed the generator. If it had been a fire, that would have been a disaster.
"Uh, uh...?"
Crunch. The packet opened, and my broken taste buds reacted to even the tiniest particles, flooding my mouth with saliva. The savory grain aroma seemed to vibrate, trying to make me lose my mind. And so the surface of real food after so long—the biscuit's porous, pore-like holes—looked obscenely sensual.
"You're sleeping with me, right? Hmm? Or should we split it half and half? Want me to wake you up and move you when it's my turn on watch?"
"Uh, y-yes, y-yes. I-I'm fine."
Haah. I stuffed the biscuit into my mouth, and sure enough—I could taste it. Taste!
Savory with a hint of sweetness, and once again tears threatened to well up. There was a reason Soyeon had designated this off-limits. If people tasted this, the mess hall would fill with vomit.
"Heh heh! Is it good?"
"I-it's delithious. Mmph."
Don't spill it. I cupped my hand under my mouth and swept the crumbs that fell into my palm straight back in. Like someone who hadn't eaten in days.
"Pfft."
At my answer, Jiwoo burst out laughing.
"How's the taste, Administrator?"
"I-it's amazing. I-it's, s-savory. And..."
Munch munch—
After demolishing the biscuit in short order, my hand went straight for the chocolate. I was one step from losing my mind—how long had it been since I'd seen a luxury food like this?
The biscuit had been designed as a preserved ration, so even if technology had elevated its flavor a step, it still couldn't compare to chocolate, I thought.
So I pushed it into my mouth without further delay, and stars soon swam before my eyes. Chocolate after so long...
Even though I'd never once bought chocolate with my own money, it couldn't possibly taste this good. I was starting to understand why people went mad for chocolate in wartime.
A threshold of happiness that couldn't even be compared to training camp. At least training camp had fed us proper meals—here, those tasteless garbage cubes had been our only food all this time.
"...Th-thank you for the meal."
Only after finishing the meal in a rather combative fashion, after sweeping every last crumb from the corners of the packet into my mouth, did the shame begin to set in.
"Aww. Was it good? Want mine too? Oh, that powder is for mixing with water. Can I have it?"
"..."
I almost answered yes on the spot, but embarrassment made me scratch my cheek for no reason as I handed over the packet. Minseo took it, pulled out a water bottle that hadn't even been in my bag, poured some into a thin plastic cup, then stirred in the powder a few times.
...Couldn't I have done that myself?
Still, it was a kindness. Looking at Minseo's proud face as she held it out, I thanked her. Even if I wanted to say this or that, in the end she was someone who looked after me.
Honestly, if she weren't intersex, I might have developed some feelings for her...
No—if she'd been a woman, I would have already enjoyed that sexual harassment a little. It was as if a male organ had simply been stuck on—outwardly she showed no sign of it at all, just a pretty woman.
"...Thank you."
I took the cup. Minseo moved the water bottle aside, put her bag inside the tent, and came back still limping slightly. Jiwoo mixed a similar drink and downed it with expectant eyes.
"Oh..."
Having confirmed the taste, Jiwoo let out that small sound of admiration. I too took a sip of the water that looked like a slightly bland health drink.
"..."
"Is it good? It should be. This is my favorite tea here."
"It's... good..."
I've said it many times, but this was a delicacy I'd never encountered on the escape ship.
If I thought about how the last real food I'd had was snacks with a beer in my room, right now I'd be happy just shoveling sugar into my mouth.
Even back where I used to live, people had started debating whether combat rations tasted good or not. Considering that kind of thing had eventually split opinions fifty-fifty... how much better would the food of this more advanced world taste?
Of course, it did look like civilian emergency rations.
"...S-so, how is your, uh, ankle...?"
The fact that I didn't have to eat under anyone's judgmental gaze probably contributed to the taste as well. Even if there had been a bit of an unfortunate incident on the way here...
...It was a somewhat shameless thing to say, but I'd shown my chest, so I figured it was fine. Well—it was my chest, after all.
"Mmm... maybe because the sun's going down. It seems to hurt a little more."
"..."
I'd fully expected Minseo to answer that it didn't hurt at all, but she said that while fiddling with her ankle. When she lifted her pant leg, the tightly wrapped compression bandage looked a bit dirtier.
"Ah... i-if it hurts a l-lot, th-then when we, when we head back, I-I could, I could carry you a little..."
"You?"
Minseo immediately burst out laughing. Jiwoo ducked her head too—whether she was mocking me or laughing genuinely, I couldn't tell.
"Let's just sleep on it for now. By the way—I already told you, right? You're sleeping with me."
"...?"
"Heh heh! Too late to take it back. That's why I keep saying you need to stay sharp every second!"
Had she? I seemed to half-remember her asking something or other. Maybe I'd been too focused on the food.
I looked at Jiwoo. When I met her eyes as if asking whether that was true, Jiwoo blushed a little and nodded.
...Honestly, I'd been planning to sleep with Jiwoo. The makeshift tent—or capsule, maybe.
Anyway, if two people lay down, considering the bags and other gear inside—we'd definitely have to press our bodies together.
"..."
Honestly, Jiwoo seemed like the type who, even if she lost all reason, would stop at masturbating alone.
Ziiing—
With that distinctive motor whir, the tent's outer gaps began to narrow—
And soon it looked like a single solid mass. So it was an incredibly advanced piece of equipment after all.
Of course, bare-handed survival in the middle of space didn't make much sense to begin with.
There hadn't even been enough for the number of people aboard. Literally just for show. Something to hold the front line of people's anxiety while also claiming the moral high ground of being prepared for everything.
And things in that position always looked refined on the outside.
"W-wow..."
Honestly, it was a little hard to hold back my admiration. What man wouldn't love something like this? When I'd first seen the escape ship, I'd been stunned by that design that made my chest swell, too.
I just hadn't been able to show it.
"Heh heh! Then shall we spend some quality time together? Yeoreum?"
"...E-every time you, s-say things like that, i-it's a minus..."
"Ahaha...! Really? Still, getting outside has loosened your tongue a bit, huh?"
"Ugh... th-that's..."
Minseo pulled me close. The thing that looked like a cot was barely big enough for one person, so we had no choice but to spread out a sleeping bag that was, compared to the floor, primitive—compressed and wrinkled.
Well. No matter how advanced things got, this side of things was inevitable. Just like how a liter of water still weighed a kilogram here. Absolute volume couldn't be ignored.
Lying on a mattress that crinkled when you shifted—filled with air—and using the opened sleeping bag like a blanket.
A somewhat familiar scene unfolded before my eyes.
"Haa. Sniiiff..."
"Kyaah...?! D-don't smell me...!"
Even so, it was just as cramped. Minseo pressed herself almost flush against my body—
Then suddenly buried her face in my nape and took a deep breath. The shame of my unwashed body's stench was enough to wring a short scream from me.
"Hoo... just sweat smell."
"Th-that's not okay...!"
"Aww. So sexy."
At the same time, something pressed firmly against my thigh. Minseo was lying on her side with her arm and leg draped over my stomach and thigh, so it was obvious what that thing was.
Of course, I didn't react the way I had before. Partly because I was afraid of hearing some cruel remark that would instantly tank the mood that had improved a little—
But also because camping, training, missions—everyone shared a similar sensibility about these things.
Everyone was a nuisance to everyone else, weren't they?
Each other's foot odor was deathly, the sweat smell was whatever it was, and so the fishy, foul stench filling the tent grated on everyone's nerves... but still, it was a tent. It was training. It was camping—and so you could let it slide.
"......"
My body tensed a little... but still, if you thought about it, this was someone who'd walked twenty kilometers in a day because of me and even injured her ankle.
I had been a man, and now I was a woman.
Even so, I didn't think showing my chest without even taking off my bra was harder than carelessly injuring someone.
So I figured I could cut her a little—just a little—slack.
It was still extremely repulsive, and every sensory cell in the surrounding skin seemed to be staring at that place on high alert—