Shall We Vote?
"Shall we take a vote?"
The meeting room was packed. Soyeon opened with that abrupt, context-free sentence.
"Pardon?"
"About Escape Ship One. I've been thinking it over, and this really doesn't seem like something I should decide alone."
She kept going, and the way she seized everyone's attention in an instant made it almost impossible to believe this was the same person who'd woken up grinding her cock into my thigh and swapping spit with me.
"...Ah. Right. Yeah..."
"There's bound to be all kinds of problems. Starting with the journey itself, and then whatever situation we find when we arrive... Well, it'd be ideal if that side was still fully operational."
People seemed lost in their own private imaginings—everything from a thriving settlement to a derelict escape ship with no one left alive, or even stumbling into some cannibalistic survival-of-the-fittest nightmare.
"For now, let's just decide simply whether we go or not. We can hash out the rest afterward. Think of this as more of a preliminary opinion check."
Soyeon said this while swiping up on her terminal. The screen scrolling beneath her fingers was covered in fragmentary notes.
"...And Jia from the medical team?"
The woman who flinched was the same one who'd grabbed me by the hair yesterday. Beside her sat a woman whose arms looked surprisingly intact—five fingers poking out from the ends of each bandage.
Just yesterday that woman had lost her hands. Should I have been marveling at the technology, or furious that she'd been treated that way over something so minor?
"Yes..."
The woman answered awkwardly. Most of the room already wore expressions that said they knew exactly what was coming.
"...As I'm sure everyone knows, we don't currently have any real means of punishment. You'll forfeit dinner. And when we assign residential module placements later, you'll be put at the bottom of the list. Is that acceptable?"
"......Yes. I'm sorry."
The woman bowed her head to me.
"Uh. N-no. You were, um, in a hurry, and..."
Did she really need to go that far? And there was someone else who deserved punishment far more cleanly than this woman—
As I awkwardly accepted the apology with that thought running through my head, a hand moved under the table and squeezed mine tight. A touch that felt almost proud of itself.
"..."
"Ahem... The mood's gotten a bit... Sorry. But it was violence. So a little public, a little... Yeah. Kind of a social-pressure thing, so... Mm..."
Anyway, it was the first punishment, so of course the meeting room had gone dead quiet. Everyone kept their mouths shut, a few occasionally glancing my way—and then there was Yujin, who either had something wrong with her head or simply didn't care, winking straight at me.
"......"
"Yes. It's really fine. I was just so startled at the time."
Soyeon was kneading my hand.
...No matter how I turned it over, I couldn't shake the feeling that the real reason for the punishment was that she'd treated me that way in public.
If you wanted to be strict about it—shouldn't Soyeon herself have been subject to punishment too?
So did she really need to act this proudly, like a lover protecting me? The residential modules would all look more or less the same anyway; at best it was a question of location.
And whether they'd even all get installed properly was still in doubt. We'd only just experimentally unfolded a single room... Any restriction would be pretty thin.
Well. What could I do? I had no say in the matter. I wasn't in any position to nitpick at Soyeon for falling short, either.
"Alright, alright. You can come talk to me separately later. Anyone else have something to say?"
A hand rose smoothly.
"If we do go, how many people are you thinking?"
"I'm thinking somewhere around ten to fifteen for now. But I'm sorry—let's save all the related discussion for the end, all at once."
"..."
Another hand.
"Um, there are some damaged parts. I think we'll need to resupply them."
"Ah. Sure. Which ones?"
"Cultivation Synthesizer B-T-12! I sent the request to your terminal!"
Ding. Soyeon's terminal made a little sound.
Whether it was supposed to be on silent or not, she turned the volume down, and on the screen I could see the part—and no matter how I looked at it, it still had that red-tape-like thing stuck to it, the same one that had drawn a warning yesterday.
"Synthe—"
I was just glad they hadn't mentioned me.
After the meeting ended, I checked my terminal and found two choice buttons floating there. So it had this function too, I thought, and was about to press Agree when my finger stopped.
Fifty kilometers was a pretty grueling march. If my decision happened to be the one vote that flipped the result, that would be a bit of a burden...
"..."
"Yeoreum!"
A voice called from behind me. Soyeon was walking toward me slowly, eyes on mine.
"Did you vote?"
"Ah, yeah... Hehe."
I shoved the terminal into my pocket.
She was smiling at me, but somehow the thought that she was pretty just wouldn't come anymore.
Because I kept wondering whether Soyeon even knew what the security team had done to me yesterday.
Well, of course not knowing would be normal—but still, there was such a thing as atmosphere, wasn't there? She hadn't even shown her face in the cafeteria... Had she been waiting for me at all?
In other words, the circumstantial evidence was plenty.
Because for a brief moment, I'd hoped Soyeon would come save me.
I'd hoped that someone who knew I was being tormented by the security team would feel something off about her not coming to dinner.
"Yeah. Me, well. I tend to think not going would be better. It's dangerous, and... we're managing fine enough as it is."
"Ah..."
"But well. Going wouldn't be bad either. If over there... uh. The chief medical officer and... the munitions officer—I mean, if just the key personnel are still alive, bringing them over to our side would unlock permissions too."
"..."
"If they're not there… we grab food at least… Mm. I don't know. For now we agreed the team leads would draft scenarios tonight."
Whether she knew what I was thinking or not, Soyeon chattered on like that, taking my hand and heading for the Control Room. I'd completely forgotten I was supposed to study today too.
"Ugh, I-I, I'll, I'll be going now... Hehe..."
"Mm. Bye? Hmmph."
She wouldn't let go of my pinched nipple, so I carefully stepped backward—but Yujin still wouldn't release me.
"Ehehe..."
"...Tsk. Boring. Go."
"Y-yes...!"
I bowed at the waist and scrambled off toward the opposite side. I thought I was going to die. Being another woman herself, she was an absolute expert at finding erogenous zones and tormenting them.
With every step I could feel my wet underwear sticking and peeling away, so I hurried back to my room and changed clothes.
Obviously, holding it in like that was pretty hard. I lay down on the bed half-asleep. I tried to force myself awake and review what I'd studied today, but—
"...Nngh...?"
"Aha...! Aw, you're so cute. Sleep more. Hmm? Sleep more."
Minseo was right in front of me. She'd completely changed her posture—wherever her terminal had gone—and was lying next to me, watching.
"...Huh?"
"Aww. Wait. When you were sleeping..."
Minseo tapped her terminal screen, then turned it around to show me. There I was for quite a long stretch, mouth working, about to mumble something. It even captured the snickering—and Jiu's voice, calm and quiet in a way that was nothing like how she talked to me.
The last one was Jiu. Her voice was pretty low. Well. She was a modest sort of person—put another way, not the type to thick-skinnedly sexually harass anyone.
And thinking about that differently—a wallflower, maybe. There were plenty of people whose voices only changed when dealing with women, weren't there?
Something in my peripheral vision made me dip my head, and Hyejin was looking at me with an incredulous expression. Still, it wasn't a mean look; maybe she'd felt some pity after seeing me yesterday.
"Yes. Yes. Um. Uh... I'm sorry."
"For what?"
Minseo stroked my cheek with her thumb. I felt a strand of hair that had been stuck to the mucous membrane inside my mouth peel free, brushing across my lips as it came out.
"......"
It was just an apology out of habit. When I closed my mouth with nothing left to say—
"Hmmph. By the way, want to go to the bathroom?"
Minseo wore a mischievous smile. Was it that again—did I have to do that thing? A sigh was about to escape from the heat rising in my gut when—
"No, just go look. Uh... the one at the very end? The middle stall there. Hmmph!"
"......What? Why, why—"
"I said go look. Tsk. Why don't you ever listen? Hmm?"
Was she not going herself? Still, something about being summoned to a bathroom felt a little off. What if I went and got surrounded by a bunch of people? Bathrooms always carried that association with hazing and violence, after all.
"Then pick."
Seeing my reluctance was obvious, Minseo held up two fingers in a V, then folded one down.
"Option one. Get fucked senseless until the weird stuff comes ou—"
"I-I'll go..."
The "weird stuff" Minseo meant was a word I'd used once during handplay, when liquid different from urine had been about to come out. My face burned as I sat up.
With the scratchy throat unique to naps, I got up from my spot, and Minseo sent me off kneading my ass like she was reluctant to let me go.
...Huh?
Come to think of it, it hadn't hurt that much back then. So why, when it was the security team—
"Ah. Yeoreum!"
She called from behind. When I turned, a white object smacked into my forehead and my body went stiff; looking down at the floor, I saw a roll of toilet paper tumbling away, drawing a white line across the ground.
"Aah...! What if you don't catch it! Does it hurt?"
"Ah. N-no. Sh-should I take it with me?"
Minseo hurriedly got up, came over, picked up the toilet paper and set it in my hands. She pressed her palm against my forehead, patting it.
She didn't need to put on this whole gentle act. Well. Better than getting hit, I supposed.
I said goodbye again and left the room, toilet paper roll in hand.
Probably the toilet paper had run out and she was sending me in her place. Thinking that, the anxiety I'd been feeling settled a little.
With a mild show of dissatisfaction, I headed for the bathroom. My terminal was quiet, so it seemed like a favor that had come to her. Wasn't this a bit much, making other people run errands—and then again—
If you thought about it, was there anyone who made other people run errands as much as I did? Odd jobs like this were, if anything, welcome.
Anyway, for a ship that was enormous yet somehow a little small, the bathroom wasn't far. Our room was toward one end, too.
I opened the bathroom door. There was a presence inside. Even though it was a bathroom, there was none of that cheap-perfume-trying-to-cover-ammonia smell that usually hit the nose.
"..."
Urinals, in a place packed only with people who looked like women.
With no stench to anchor me, I drifted into all kinds of thoughts before remembering why I'd come, and walked toward the middle stall of the five—
Swoosh. Swoosh. A soft sound of fabric rubbing...?
"..."
Rustle-rustle. Rustle. Hooo...
"......!!!"
That was it! No matter how you looked at it, that was the act in progress!
Nobody in my circle would deliberately do this in a bathroom. They had a sexual outlet they could use however they wanted—why would they sneak off to a place like this?
So I carefully stepped backward. One step. Another step. Hoping those back-and-forth sounds wouldn't stop.
It was one of the three great needs. And they'd come all the way to the most secluded bathroom to take care of it alone so as not to bother anyone. The least I could do was not shame them, even if I couldn't give a thumbs-up, so as I walked—
The sound stopped. The bathroom transformed in an instant into a place with only faint breathing, and I froze, not daring to so much as blink.
Rattle. Rattle. The door shook...?
"..."
Fuck. I could picture exactly what was going on. I'd taken it on the chin yesterday, so I had a rough idea of that kind of force.
Just as I was about to slip out quickly, my terminal buzzed. Hoping desperately that the vibration hadn't been heard while they were busy finishing on the door, I carefully pulled out the terminal—first to kill the vibration completely.
—...Ah.
A small sound of realization from inside the stall, like they'd noticed something was wrong. Then a long, long sigh, and the lock whirring.
Not some crude metal-bar public-toilet latch, but a mechanical lock turning—
A head poked out. The head carefully checked the opposite side, then turned toward me...
"...Yeoreum-nim?"
"...A-a-the bathroom is urgent. I-I need to quickly get into the stall farthest from the middle."
I creaked into the nearest stall and pressed the switch, the door whirring shut.