Someone Who Listens
Every so often, living life, you get that eerie feeling that crawls straight up your spine. There's a saying that's gotten popular these days, isn't there?
That it isn't just a feeling — it's the big data of however many years you've been alive sending up a warning.
That gut sense that the second you hit a deadline a client will walk in, that the moment you try to take a vacation something will blow up, that the day you head to work it's going to rain — that kind of feeling.
So today, of all days, I had the distinct impression that Jiu, who'd been poking me awake, was going to drag me off to the showers.
That Minseo was going to cross the line even further.
Of course, basing a judgment on nothing more than one human being's gut feeling was a bit of an imposition.
Still, I had my suspicions. Minseo's skinship had been thicker than usual today, and Jiu had been hovering in my field of vision nearly all day long, fidgeting like she had something she needed to say.
Besides — the first time is hard, but from the second time on you can't help thinking it's only natural. This is that kind of genre, after all.
"…Oh? What's this. You come to hang out?"
Which was why, tonight, my sleeping place was Dahyeon's room — a place I'd come to before.
Dahyeon was lying on her own bed, watching something that looked like a variety show on her terminal screen, and the moment she caught sight of me out of the corner of her eye, that was what she said.
At the same time, the other three people in the room glanced my way for a beat, then went right back to whatever they'd been doing.
A little different from the reaction I'd gotten the first time I walked in here.
"…Uh, I, I was thinking… maybe I could sleep… here…"
"Yeah?"
With a little up we go, Dahyeon pushed herself upright on the bed and patted the space beside her.
Honestly, I wasn't unaware of how pathetic this looked. A person showing up with a pillow before bed to ask if she could sleep over.
Didn't that just make me sound like a little kid?
But I didn't have any other options.
"You wash up already? Mm. Want to watch this with me, then?"
"…I'm sorry…"
"Hm? For what. Ah — not into it? I've got movies and dramas too. A movie'd be better, right? Dramas take forever to get through."
"N-no, I just—"
"Come on, lie down."
Of course it was a real imposition on Dahyeon, so the moment I tried to apologize she just laid me right down.
Only then did everyone's eyes flick this way for a second.
"Let's watch this. It's good. Basically a person in cryo on a one-way spaceship wakes up mid-flight… mm, it's a pretty old movie, though."
Dahyeon settled in beside me, our shoulders pressed together in an instant, held her phone up between us, queued up a saved video, and locked onto the screen.
About thirty minutes in I mentioned I'd already seen it a few times, but Dahyeon stayed focused on the movie anyway. Her gaze was fixed hard on the display.
I wondered if her arm would start to hurt… but I got absorbed in the film too. Old as it supposedly was, it was still clearly more advanced than anything from the era I'd lived in.
So when the movie was just starting to hit its climax, Dahyeon suddenly tapped the screen twice and paused it.
"…?"
"Ah, sorry. Gotta pee. Come with me?"
"…! Uh, n-no!"
"Whyyy. Come on. Please?"
I startled and waved her off that I was fine, but Dahyeon caught that hand and clung to it, insisting we go together.
Come to think of it — she was one of the few actual women here, wasn't she. And girls did tend to go to the bathroom together…
Was that enough of a reason?
No — going to the bathroom was one thing, but following someone in while they actually did their business? Wasn't the whole point usually just fixing your makeup?
What was this. So one person locked the stall and peed while chatting, and the person who tagged along just stood outside making noise?
Mm. I felt like I'd had this exact thought somewhere before.
Still — well. It wasn't like I couldn't go with her. The sounds would be a little embarrassing, sure… but if there was anyone here whose temperament even halfway matched mine, it was Dahyeon.
There was Soyeon too (who'd kept asking me to drop the honorific)…
But honestly, getting that close with a different gender still felt a little difficult. Even if there were no romantic feelings and we really did become close friends, they'd still get hard looking at me naked, wouldn't they.
"…Ah, y-yes. O-okay!"
So I nodded. Dahyeon beamed, took my hand, and led me slowly out of the room.
She headed straight into the shared bathroom, flipped on the light, checked the stalls, then shut the door and stood facing me.
This felt like something I'd been through somewhere before.
"……"
I kept my mouth shut.
Because a narrow little thought had just occurred to me — that if something similar happened with Dahyeon, it might actually work out in my favor…
But nothing like that happened. If anything, she'd brought me here with far more wholesome intentions.
"Who's harassing you? Minseo? Jiu? Hyejin? Or all of them?"
"…W-what?"
A question I hadn't expected at all, and the second I understood what it meant, the fact that I'd been hoping for lesbian sex of all things suddenly felt so mortifying that what came out of me was a little stupid.
"It's fine. I'm not gonna do anything. I mean — even if I went and said something, it's not like you'd suddenly start getting along."
Dahyeon rested a hand on my shoulder, turned my body around, and pulled me into a hug from behind, watching me through the mirror.
"I just wanted to know. Are they making it really hard on you?"
"Nnh…! N-no… not that bad, i-it's, it's not really…"
"So they are, then. Haa. Think it'd be better if you switched rooms?"
"Uh, uhh…"
Being harassed was, in fact, accurate. Sexual harassment was exactly that. If every single one of them had been a woman, I'd have put out a cigarette with my tongue for them — but that hard thing pressing against some part of my body every single moment made my skin crawl just thinking about it.
"Ah. There are people asking to switch, actually. What about the bio side… the cultivation synthesis lab people? Want to sleep over there? They've got an open bed."
At Dahyeon's question, the person who'd made me eat that weird thing suddenly floated up in my mind.
…If I went there, I had a feeling I'd experience real "harassment."
"Or — do you remember? That couple who were watching the Control Room the first time we went outside? Their room has two open beds. Want to go there? It might get a little… indecent, though."
A worried look. A soft embrace that didn't carry much lust in it at all — and that was satisfying.
Somehow the tension in my body loosened a little. Maybe because of the warm chest pressing against the back of my head.
I looked in the mirror. It was a slightly strange way to put it, but Dahyeon looked a lot like those sly, charming tops you see in BL — the aggressive ones.
…Was that an insult?
I meant she looked like someone a little forceful and magnetic at the same time, androgynous. Her hair was short, too. If I was being narrow-minded about it, it was also the look that suited Intersex best.
Not that I'd ever actually consumed any BL.
Handsome and pretty at once. The kind of face that must have gotten a lot of confessions from women.
When I dropped my gaze a little, there I was — black hair, black eyes. Just… ordinary-looking.
Pretty, sure. But just a person. No big chest, no real strength. A woman who couldn't offer any help at all in a place like this — the kind of face that made the opposite sex want to protect her and, at the same time, want to make her cry until she sobbed.
"Yeoreum?"
"Ah. N-no. I, um, I'm fine."
In the brief silence, Dahyeon called my name. It wasn't really my name, but—
Would moving rooms even make anything better. The couple's room was out — after what I'd been through today, going there would be the wrong choice.
No. Unless it was Soyeon's room or Dahyeon's, moving at all was the wrong choice. What had I done to earn the right to pick my roommates and shop for a bed.
"…Yeah? But you came to our room because it was hard for you too, right?"
Dahyeon's arm sliding up over my stomach carried a different atmosphere from Minseo's. The hand stroking through my hair was satisfying too.
"Uh…"
"…You can come sleep over whenever. Just come. And if it gets too much, tell me."
"…"
It had been a long time since I'd felt an atmosphere this soft. The changing-room moment had been similar, but this was much fluffier, much more comfortable.
I liked it. If it was like this, coming often would actually be nice.
Maybe it would even be okay to unload some of what was on my mind.
"…Huu…"
I let out a satisfied breath. I almost had the illusion that the air that had been sitting heavy in my chest was finally leaving.
So.
"Umm… so…"
"Mm."
When I started to open my mouth, Dahyeon waited quietly for me to speak.
"……"
The second I actually tried to say it, my mouth locked shut. How was I supposed to explain this.
That they kept touching my body, kissing me whenever they felt like it, and that I'd even used my mouth on one of them?
"Uh…"
"Hard to say?"
Her tone was almost exactly like a counselor talking to a victim, and her expression was far more worried than before.
"N-no, it's not, it's not that bad, i-it's. Not really."
"Mm-hm."
"A little…? They harass me, but it's not like it's hard or anything, i-it's. The touching is a little…?"
"…"
Dahyeon's body went rigid for a second, and she started to let go of the hug, so I hurriedly caught her arms. As long as there wasn't a dick attached, I welcomed this. And the warmth at the back of my head was nice enough to make me a little lightheaded.
Whether that surprised her or not, Dahyeon looked at me in silence for a long while, then carefully opened her mouth so that even someone as dense as me could catch what she meant.
"…Is it bad?"
"Uh, uhh…"
A different tone from before. Carrying a different meaning, too — she was asking about the intensity of the sexual harassment, I was pretty sure.
Opening my mouth was a little hard. Her eyes were fixed right on me.
If I had to say whether it was bad — yes, it was on the bad side. Treating a person like that could hurt someone's feelings even between lovers.
But this wasn't society. This wasn't Earth. No police, no law.
Out here, something like theft barely registered as a problem — but vandalizing public equipment would get you something close to a death sentence.
The situation was different. And from that standpoint—
"……"
"What did they do. Tell me."
The question came again. The arms holding me tightened, little by little.
"I-it's nothing, re-really…"
"Do they just grab you?"
"…"
"Keep touching you. Say rough things?"
I kept my mouth shut. Because things worse than that had happened. Like I'd said before — I wasn't good at lying.
"…You fucking—"
Her tone flipped in an instant, and Dahyeon moved like she was about to charge straight out the door.
"W-waaah…! W-wait—!"
I grabbed her forearm. The effect was weak enough that I got dragged a few steps before she stopped of her own will.