Love Whispers in the Steam
"Hehe, let's wash together. Okay...?"
It was a different kind of push than Minseo's. The way she smiled so shyly, almost sheepishly, and the way her tone left room for refusal—as if she was already bracing for a no—made it feel like that.
"...Ugh. Ah, okay..."
In the end, I had no choice but to agree. Jiu was just going to wash up anyway. It would have been weird for me to tell her to go later or something.
So from that moment on, Jiu started walking with a little hum under her breath. The shaped short sleeves of her shirt fluttered every time she swung her uninjured arm.
She'd set her things right on top of the cast; she seemed to have gotten used to it over the past few days.
"Oh, heading to wash up?"
"Yeah. How've you been lately?"
A woman coming toward us from the opposite end of the hallway spoke first as we met.
"When's it getting better?"
"No idea? They want another check the day after tomorrow."
"Got it. Oh, right—the air conditioner looked like it was on its last legs. Okay if I just shut it off?"
Some of them had clearly been looking for Jiu specifically. It felt a bit like people calling during someone's vacation.
"Hmm. Then maybe just turn off units one and two. Three and four are further in, so it'll get stuffy if you kill those."
"Ah. Okay. Rest up, and let's hang once you're all better."
"Heh. Thanks."
The person who seemed to be covering her work while she was injured nodded and walked straight past us in the opposite direction.
I didn't even know her name, so I thought about giving a light bow of the head, but the woman walked by without so much as a glance.
"...Hehe. She must be busy. S-shall we go in?"
Jiu, finding the whole exchange awkward, hurried toward the bathroom. She couldn't quite bring herself to take my wrist, so she just tugged on my short sleeve as she walked.
Maybe because the hot water was actually working, the air that greeted us was thick and warm.
Stepping into the changing room—noticeably more humid than before—I found myself thinking maybe I'd been a little too soft on Jiu.
The sensation of my throat opening, the feeling of my mouth filling up, the way that liquid burst right in front of my lips...
"..."
I wasn't the only one remembering that day; Jiu's chatter quieted a little too.
"...T-turn around, please."
She still wasn't open enough to undress in front of someone watching, so she said that—and I was the one who actually turned.
Almost pressed against the corner of the wall, she carefully peeled off her short sleeves and pants, glanced back a few times for cues, then took off her bra and underwear.
The second they were off, she snatched up a towel and covered herself. Just the parts that felt like they absolutely had to be covered, and then she waited a moment.
Soon Jiu was naked too, facing me.
"..."
"Uh, uhh..."
"I'm sorry. This is, um—"
If I had to choose between covering my chest or my lower half, the lower half felt more precious, so I'd wrapped the towel around my hips and used one arm to hide my breasts.
Even so, the moment we faced each other that thing twitched, then slowly began to rise—
"L-let's go in, in..."
"...Yes."
We stepped into the bathroom. Standing side by side because we "had no choice while washing" felt a lot less embarrassing than facing each other like this.
And staring intently at every stage of an erection was weird too.
Jiu, following right behind me, made a small "ah" like she'd almost forgotten something, then stepped back out for a second and turned off the shower room lights.
"...?"
"Ah, hehe. Minseo told me to try it like this. Um..."
"...Ah..."
It wasn't complete darkness. The changing room lights were still on, so the glow coming through the frosted glass door actually made it easier on the eyes.
More than anything, the shame of having my body on display disappeared, and that was nice.
"Y-yeah, i-it's fine..."
So I answered like that. Little considerations like this... I was just grateful.
"...H-hey."
"Y-yes..."
And of course, I'd let my guard down too much.
Jiu edged closer little by little until she was standing right behind me.
"...Y-you can't force anything, okay...?"
Honestly, I was scared. My head knew she wouldn't, but standing in a dark, sealed space with someone whose thoughts I could practically read from the way that thing was standing at full attention made my heart afraid.
"I would never...!"
Jiu answered like she was flustered. Right. That wouldn't happen. If she were the type to lose her mind and take what she wanted by force, she would have done it already.
So I slowly reached out. I turned on the water and checked the temperature for a moment; the usual cold stream gradually warmed, then soon hot water thick with steam came pouring out.
Starting from my arms, then my shoulders, over my head, the pleasantly warm water touched and ran down my whole body.
A sensation I normally took for granted—something I couldn't even register as pleasure—
People get annoyed when cold water mixes in even for a second while they're washing. So what does it feel like for someone who's been washing in cold water for days, no, for a stretch that just crossed a full month, to finally feel hot water?
My whole body went soft and languid. Realizing I'd been tensing my shoulders the whole time, I let them drop, and the muscles that had been holding that tension let out a sigh of relief.
"Umm..."
Jiu's voice, even closer than before.
I'd closed my eyes because the hot water on my face felt so good, and in that time she'd taken another step nearer.
"Hahk...?!"
"I have to... kiss you. Just a second."
"...What? W-what do you mean...?"
When I tried to turn my face out of the stream to answer, that thing pressed against the small of my back and a pair of arms wound around me—one hand on my stomach, the other catching my wrist—
"Will you turn your head for me...?"
The words reached me. Of course I was going to anyway. It was touching my back.
Unlike when it had pressed through at least four layers of fabric, now it was bare skin to bare skin, and the heat went past warm into outright hot.
My body locked up. The fact that that thing was touching my naked body—well, Jiu really was a beautiful woman, but because I couldn't see her, my head kept filling with the image of some hairy-chested man instead—
"..."
A shiver ran through me. Goosebumps.
No, why was the atmosphere suddenly like this again? It wasn't like I hadn't expected anything at all, but at the very least, washing should be a time to relax, shouldn't it?
And this wasn't even an ordinary day—this was my first real hot shower in so long—
"Eut—!"
The moment I turned my head, Jiu pulled me in and pressed her lips to mine.
The soft brush of her tongue across my lips made me answer the kiss without thinking, and I felt her chest press flush against my back. Two firm points pressed into me too.
Aside from that thing against the small of my back, a strangely particular feeling rose up. I didn't know how to put it, but sharing the pleasantly warm water from a single showerhead felt somehow... intimate in a way that was hard to name.
Of course, while I was having those leisurely thoughts, the tongue that had invaded my mouth was already running wild.
"...Pff. M-move your tongue, please..."
"J-just a second...! I-it's touching...! M-maybe from the front instead, no, I'll stay behind—"
Mmph. My mouth was sealed again. Every detail of that thing pressed to my back etched itself into my mind—from the thick ridge along the underside of the erect length all the way to the tip where it began to flare—
It pressed hard right where the cleft of my ass started. Water that had slipped into the gap between us lapped and shifted there, almost like a massage.
"Heup...!"
I tried to shake free, but the more I did, the more blatant the kiss became.
She coaxed my tongue out, nipped it lightly with her teeth, then sucked it between her lips; her tongue pushed in far enough to press against the base of mine, or tangled with it in a sticky, wet mess—
"Eu, heut...!"
I barely managed to exhale. The awkward angle didn't help. Tilting my head back like that made my airway feel twisted, like resting my head on the wrong pillow.
"Heut...?!"
It was a different sensation from yesterday. Rather than just going hazy from a long kiss, I suddenly felt like I was selling my body to someone clumsy.
I tried to move my hand a little, but Jiu kept hold of my wrist and wouldn't let go. So I put a bit more strength into it—and the thing pressing into the small of my back slipped on the water and—
"Keu, eup...!"
"Hyat..."
...Did it just rub? Just now?
The surface slid. Sure enough, Jiu's breathing changed a little. The look in her eyes, this close, was pretty impulsive.
Obviously it was the worst. It was only because this body (not that I thought of it as my preference) liked kissing that I didn't immediately shriek and run; otherwise I would have.
So when I tried to gently push Jiu away—
"Heut—!"
My body jolted for a second.
"Ah...!"
Jiu was moving her body, just a little. Her hips shifted in tiny increments, as if she thought I wouldn't notice.
The sensation of that pillar trying to dig into the groove made by the hard muscle where her pelvis met her waist.
No matter how I looked at it, this wasn't something you got used to. If anything, it was closer to shock therapy.
It was more accurate to say Jiu's switch had flipped. Well. Minseo did have pretty strong self-control.
Just getting hard was one thing, but how many people could hold back in a situation like this?
My eyes happened to catch the mirror. The image of Jiu leaning in quite a bit behind me to kiss me, and me, and the way she was holding my wrist so I couldn't move—it looked almost like—
Like we were having sex. Like a tasteful sex scene from some classy movie.
My shoulders shot up. Goosebumps covered my whole body that hard.
"S-stop— eup, heup...!"
I tried to pull my head free to beg, but my mouth was sealed again. The tongue that had briefly left came back in, sucking like it meant to pull mine out, and passed saliva over.
"...! I-I don't like it...!"
This time I turned my head completely away, and the hand that had been holding my wrist suddenly grabbed my chin and yanked my face back around.
"...!"
Only then did I understand. This wasn't training or anything. Jiu's instincts were simply beating her reason.
It was lucky she was only using my skin. Of course she was also making use of the springiness of that skin and fat—but still, the fact that she wasn't inserting anything was lucky.
I reached out. Jiu only had one usable hand, so the other was free; I poked the arm that hung limp and unused because of the injury.
It was a mean thought, but if I touched that side, she'd have to react somehow, right?
Worried it might hurt, I only gave a light jab, but Jiu didn't react at all. She just mixed our tongues even more, rubbing—
"Puha...!"
When I started tapping her arm with little thumps, Jiu finally pulled her mouth away. The expression I could see in the mirror twisted a little, like it stung.
Her long hair was soaked, bangs completely plastered back, but she didn't look pitiful. Maybe because Jiu had fairly defined muscle.
Anyway, that wasn't what mattered right now. People say you'd do anything for someone who went down on you, but...
This position, this atmosphere, everything about it was something I desperately wanted to refuse.
It wasn't that I disliked Jiu as a person. My heart just felt that way.
No matter how much the warm water and the kissing had loosened my tension, at the same time that thing was rubbing back and forth against my skin, and that was hard to endure—
"He, hep...! Stop, d-do—"
I was about to shout it when—
"...I love you."
The voice reached my ear.
For a second I thought I heard ringing in the opposite ear. The voice right beside my ear carried a lot of breath.
"Euhek—"
A weird sound slipped out of me and my body trembled. It was ticklish, of course, but also... something in my chest suddenly dropped with a heavy thud.
"I love you. I love you. I love you."
"...Hiik...! D-don't, do that! Th-that...!"
"You're cute. I love you. You're so cute I can't stand it."
"Euhik...!"
I had no idea who she'd learned this from, but every time the air that entered my ear brushed my eardrum, my lower belly thrummed with a low vibration.
That low voice felt like it completely flipped the boundary switch somewhere in my heart.
And then, when her tongue touched my ear. Honestly—
I almost started masturbating without meaning to. If you count the instinctive act of pressing my thighs together as something close to masturbation, I'd already done it.
"Heu, it...!?"
The sensation tormenting my ear was so strange. Not just my ear—the neck muscles and shoulder on the same side tensed hard enough to ache.
"Huu."
"Don't do thaat...!"
"Can I just do a little more...? I-it's a bit hard to stop..."
Jiu was being unfair, only doing what she wanted. Whenever she wasn't speaking, she just licked my ear or moved her hips over and over.
I thought I might slip, so I reached a hand toward the mirror. Without something to brace against, I felt like my whole body would tip forward.
"Euuk...!"
And then Jiu's hand, which had been enjoying that fleeting moment, soon traveled lower than my lower belly.
"In return. Me too."
Huuut. Another puff of breath brushed my ear.
Her hand moved. Instinctively I grabbed that wrist, but there was already no strength left in my body.
Her hand touched my private place.
The hot water seemed to be making me dizzy.
"I'll keep it a secret."
Kuuuuk...
She gently pressed the tip of her finger right where my clitoris would be. Her tongue moved to the nape of my neck again, and my lower belly clearly clenched and rang out with a long, low thrum.
Unlike before, this time I thought I might reach climax from that alone.
"Ah, I-I'm go—"
I covered my own mouth. There was nothing good about reporting this.
So I lowered my head.
All my hair streamed down with the water, falling toward the floor.
After hiding my face behind that little private curtain of mine, I looked down at the fingers pressing and pressing into my private place...
"Eu— kkeup...!"
Climax.
The orgasm hit so fast my legs buckled and I nearly collapsed to the floor; Jiu barely caught me. Something pattered down onto my back, but I didn't care.
A long, strange sound spilled out of me on its own.