A Faint Signal
The sensation of that long thing sliding free from my throat was something I would never forget.
"Ghrk—! C-cough...! Ngh...!"
As it pulled out, something thick coated the inside of my throat — not so much semen as a clear, protective mucus, like phlegm meant to shield the mucous membrane.
Spitting phlegm right there felt a little wrong, so I tried to swallow it instead, but it simply wouldn't go down properly. I gathered it in my mouth and spat — puh. pehet.
"Ah, ah...! I-I'm sorry...! H-here, w-wet wipes...!"
She set wet wipes on my hand and held them out in front of me — maybe I looked like I was about to throw up.
To answer that I was fine, I first drew in the breath I'd been lacking. At the same time—
"N-noo... I-I'm f-fine..."
I said. Mid-sentence, the thick smell rising from inside my own body startled me into covering my mouth — forgetting that my face was still covered in semen, which now smeared onto my hand.
Cough, cough. Every cough made me feel something still lodged in my throat.
"..."
"...U-um, just a few... f-for my face. So I can wipe a little..."
"Ah, ah! Yes!"
Jiwoo yanked out wet wipes so hard she nearly tore them, then reached straight for my face and wiped it clean herself. I'd meant to do it myself, but strangely, I didn't mind.
Well. She was wiping semen off my face, after all.
"..."
A brief silence passed. When I finally pulled my gaze from the thing still standing in front of me — honestly, I was surprised — my eyes landed on the unused shower chair.
"...We didn't use that."
"Uh, ah, haha... Y-yeah. Thaaat, um..."
It was hard to believe this was the same person who'd forced my head down — Jiwoo looked like her usual self. Even with that still standing, after two releases she seemed to have... somewhat come back to her senses.
I got up. My whole body reeked of semen; no matter how much I'd wiped, I still needed a proper wash.
Then I felt full in my stomach. Even though the first load had hit my face, I still felt that way. No amount of volume should have caused actual satiety — it had to be psychological.
The sudden thought of semen sitting in my stomach made me a little nauseous. I felt like I might burp.
"...W-want to go in first...? I-I'll wash up a bit..."
I didn't let it show, though.
Had paying off that debt of the heart made me feel even a little lighter?
Well. I didn't feel that way. All I'd done was fight through revulsion.
Jiwoo stood there awkwardly at my words, looking disappointed, then said okay and pulled out a few more wet wipes.
I couldn't bear to watch her wipe that thing herself — so I headed straight for the shower.
"Unnie. Unnie unnie."
In the middle of a rather satisfying sleep, that voice drifted up from the edge of consciousness.
Splash splash. Hands shaking my chest like making waves on a surface — there was only one person who'd do something like that, so I sat up.
"...Ah, ah."
"Heh heh! Get up. It's meeting time."
Minseo was looking down at me. Fondling my chest like it belonged to her — what a delightful way to wake up in the morning.
Out of the corner of my eye, Jiwoo and Hyejin seemed to have already left the room. Come to think of it, even at last night's drinking party, Hyejin and I never really got closer. The thought suddenly made me gloomy.
When I tried to get out of bed, Minseo scooped me up as I was and started walking toward the hallway. Unlike at night, the hallway was brightly lit — embarrassing if anyone saw us.
"..."
Come to think of it, how was I supposed to look at Jiwoo now? We definitely weren't dating, but...
"Unnie."
I'd gotten used to this, too. Minseo's slightly limping gait made me a little carsick.
"...Sniff."
Suddenly Minseo brought her nose to my face. At first I startled, thinking she was going for a kiss, then relaxed when she just lightly sniffed...
"...!!"
I thrashed like some cute-yet-disgusting animal and barely escaped her arms.
"...Wait. Come here."
"I-I'll just wash my face! G-go on ahead...!"
Ignoring Minseo's thoroughly puzzled expression, I bolted for the shower.
Praying she hadn't noticed, I ran to the shower, finished washing my face, and brushed my teeth with enough force to punch a new hole through my throat. Seriously — was it even possible for the smell to still be there? I hadn't washed half-heartedly.
I checked the smell against my palm several times, but truly, not a single trace of evidence remained.
I headed to the meeting room a little urgently. Being late on top of everything — how many dirty looks would I get?
The door opened, and Soyeon, who'd been staring at her terminal, spotted me and gave a bright smile with a slight nod. Looking back now, I also felt I'd done something mean to Soyeon, who'd seemed to like me.
...Fortunately, people cleared a path for me to get to Soyeon's side. Midway, someone grabbed my ass hard — I turned in surprise to find Minseo with a mischievous smile, so I scrunched up my face a little.
Anyway, squeezing through the crowd, the meeting started right away.
"...Mm. Good morning."
Unlike the awkward past, Soyeon opened with a fairly familiar expression and tone.
Under the table, Soyeon squeezed my hand tight. As if she regretted not getting to talk properly yesterday.
Then talk of today's tasks, how water-use logs remained from the night so they needed to check for leaks, and so on.
As everyone shared suggestions and opinions, and answers went back and forth, the meeting raced toward its end — well. Naturally I had nothing to do.
I just kept my head down. Glad I'd washed my face. If I'd dozed off like this, I wouldn't have had a word of complaint if someone hit me.
"...Yes. Well, that about covers it... As you all know, going outside the scan range failed. Power's a bit unstable from briefly switching to wide-area scan, so keep that in mind..."
So I diligently played the role of a literal folding screen, too patterned to even count — until finally, related talk began.
"First, Jiwoo?"
"Yes."
I could barely look at her face. Last night, the darkness had clearly given me courage.
"How's your arm?"
Soyeon's question.
"Ah, yes. It doesn't hurt that much... Should heal soon. Sooner than I thought."
"Hmm. For now, better to rest until it heals, right? Better than developing aftereffects."
At that, one woman nodded. Maybe she was a doctor.
"Minseo too. Everyone worked hard. Ah, Yeoreum-ssi as well. The results weren't great, but we didn't have high expectations to begin with..."
Soyeon was deliberately trying to package our failure as no big deal. Well, Soyeon had eyes and ears — she knew full well how public sentiment stood.
I felt sorry for Soyeon, who'd temporarily taken on the deputy role in my place for no good reason.
"...So. If anyone thinks of another method, feel free to bring it up at any meeting. Or tell me and I'll raise it during the meeting..."
Anyway.
We'd failed, but that didn't mean everyone had given up hope. The fruit was too tempting to attempt nothing out of fear of failure.
Looking at the current situation, it was only natural. Unlike other work that progressed somewhat even by force, resource mining — from what I heard — amounted to literally scraping surface-exposed minerals with iron rods.
Amazingly, not a single person originally boarded as a laborer. Everyone simply had knowledge, and happened to have five-jointed appendages, so they were substituting for the drones.
Obviously, drones were top-priority managed items requiring administrator approval.
"Um..."
When Soyeon finished, a hand shot up from far away between people's heads.
"Ah, yes."
Soyeon passed the floor, and the woman spoke.
"...No, it's not about that... When the scanner permissions opened, um. We picked up a signal from far away."
"...?"
Soyeon's head turned sideways.
Was this the first anyone here had heard it? Except for a few around the woman who'd raised her hand, every gaze poured toward one place at once.
"Ah, s-sorry. If we're talking related topics, there could be attempts to forcibly seize the administrator's authority... or we could look further into system responses when biometric scan and encryption key authentication fail simultaneously—"
"Ah, no. Another signal? What do you mean? Wait, d-did you report this? Why isn't it here?"
Soyeon leaned forward and fussed with her terminal. Sitting beside her, I could see the screen — good lord, the pile of 'read reports' looked like it numbered in the dozens.
"Ah, we weren't sure either, so we needed some time to verify! We checked through the night, and it's definitely an artificial signal..."
"What, are you saying there's intelligent life?"
A woman cut in abruptly. Her name was... Hyun, was it? I'd only overheard it in passing so I wasn't sure, but I remembered the curly hair.
"No! I don't think it's that! It was caught so briefly and faintly that it might not be, but... it seems to be Escape Pod 1."
"Wha—"
"It's definitely transmitting its own signal. Looking at the authentication pattern being recognized twice, clearly, it seems to be a signal from something over there at least."
The meeting room filled with murmuring in an instant. I was the only one sitting there bewildered, not knowing what they were talking about.
"...Thanks to the Administrator, we can breathe a little easier, huh? Ah, of course the security team's contribution is huge too!"
Soyeon, still holding my hand and stroking it with a touch that held nothing of lust, said that to everyone.
She put emphasis on the word Administrator.