I Have to Go Too
"..."
A soft whir. The door locked completely shut, and I sat down on the toilet—but the presence outside showed no intention of leaving...
From the sheer volume of that fluid alone, you could almost call them a different species wearing human skins. When they masturbated, maybe the proper custom was just to spray it anywhere and clean up afterward. That seemed more realistic than the idea that they'd simply lost all reason and come wherever they pleased.
Either way, escaping this awkward situation was the top priority...
Ideally, they'd vanish quickly while I pretended not to know...!
"Yeoreum..."
"Eek...!"
I startled so hard my body lifted slightly off the toilet seat, and I couldn't hold back the sound. It was like a scene from a horror movie. Outside the door wasn't Jiwoo at all, but some shapeshifting monster wearing Jiwoo's face—
"Um..."
Jiwoo kept hemming and hawing, clearly wanting to say something but dragging it out. Like there was something she needed to ask, but was too embarrassed to get it out on her own—the same way she always acted when she had Minseo's help, putting on that whole bashful routine...
Ah. Don't tell me. Was she about to ask for that kind of favor? Well, I'd never seen her stop at just once.
I opened the door. Once I resigned myself, there wasn't really anything to be scared of.
"...Ah, um, thank you..."
When I opened the door and we faced each other, that was the greeting Jiwoo offered.
Thank you? There was no need to go that far. When you thought about it, it was the price of survival. If it meant staying alive this far from Earth...
"U-uh..."
Jiwoo reached out a hand. Rationally I understood, but some instinctive revulsion still lingered. So I squeezed my eyes shut and went rigid. Preferably, given the mood so far, I hoped she wouldn't go as far as penetration...!
"Ah. I forgot. Um, if you need any... I think I'm going to need quite a bit. So..."
Wait. Something felt off.
Jiwoo was just taking the toilet paper from my hand. If anything, the fact that she wasn't touching me at all felt awkward in its own way.
"...Huh?"
"Ah, the toilet paper. Hehe. Minseo mentioned it, right? Thanks."
"......"
Heat flooded my face.
"...Ah! Ah. Y-yeah! Th-that's right! Ah, hehe. W-well then, I'll just...!"
"I'll just..."? Had I ever talked like that? My head spun a little as I hurried out of the bathroom. I was mortified that I'd jumped to conclusions all on my own.
Who did I think I was, anyway? At this rate I was turning into the type who assumes anyone who makes eye contact must like them.
Sure, shifting my perspective a little had dulled the old revulsion quite a bit—but that didn't mean I was going to make the first move. That would just make me a lecher—wait, lecher? Did people even use that word for women?
Either way, what I'd gained was the patience to endure it, not the courage to initiate. Someone might ask what yesterday's behavior with Soyeon was about, then... but that was something even I didn't understand. How was I supposed to know what was going on inside a person's heart? Yesterday, maybe my heart had just opened a little more.
"..."
I walked a little faster, my footsteps thudding. I filled a cup with water in the empty cafeteria, gulped it down, and headed back to the room. The moment Minseo saw me come in, she flashed a grin.
"...!"
Looking at it now, it was the same smile she'd worn when she told me to go check the bathroom. And that smile was packed with pure mischievous glee. The look that said she knew exactly what had happened in there was thoroughly annoying.
"Grr...! Wh-what is it...!"
I shouted. Looking at that face full of mischief, she must have at least known Jiwoo was planning to do something like that. Of course friends wouldn't say I'm gonna go masturbate in the bathroom real quick, but you could probably read the atmosphere easily enough. So she'd taken that and summoned me on purpose.
It wasn't like I was some kind of professional in that line of work. She acted like she was looking out for me, but deep down she was a thoroughly rotten human being. In my head, I demoted Minseo's standing by a solid three ranks.
"Pfft...! Whaat. C'mere."
And look at that attitude. Treating me—caught between a mean prank and a threat to my chastity—with nothing but laughter—
"..."
Of course, I didn't have anything else to do, and nowhere else to sit, so I went over and let her pull me into her arms.
"What was she doing? Hmm? She was jerking off, right?"
"...! N-no! She was— cough...!"
The moment I was in her arms, that uniquely soft feminine warmth nearly made me relax. Everyone here had been through training, so they had more muscle than average—it wasn't exactly pillowy soft.
"Don't lie. I can tell just by looking. I've known her for years."
"Ugh... I-I'm telling you no... Sh-she was just, um, taking care of business, and just w-waiting..."
I wasn't the type who preferred lying, but this time I had no choice but to try my hardest. I really didn't want to become the kind of person who went around spreading that kind of... that kind of thing about someone else. What if Jiwoo got mad? What if she told everyone I was a terrible person—that they'd thought I was nice, but I was just someone who went around gossiping about others?
"Whatever, then. Hmmph. Oh, right. What about that?"
"..."
Minseo smoothly changed the subject, and just as naturally started invading my top and pants. And yet the touch wasn't even sexual. It was more... how should I put it. If it had been sexual, at least the meaning would have been clear. I'd recently learned how to deal with that kind of thing, so I might even prefer it. At least I knew how to handle it. There were various ways to make it stop, too.
"What..."
I asked through silence what she meant, but Minseo was just happily kneading my body, so I asked again.
"Going there. The escape ship."
"Ah... I-I, um, d-don't know..."
"Yeah? Everyone's been talking about nothing else all day today."
"...Really? ...Nnh. W-wait a second. That spot is a little...!"
Her hand, stroking without any sense of danger, started working its way between my buttocks, so I grabbed her wrist and stopped her. She could have forced it if she wanted, but Minseo stopped.
"Whaat. Everywhere else is fine."
"Nnh— th-that's different..."
Even so, I drew the line at anything perverted. Stuffing something into a hole meant only for waste, outdoor exposure—well, indoor in this case—sprinkling semen on food......
"Yeoreum?"
"......Hah. A-anyway. Minseo... um, c-can I ask what y-you chose?"
"Hmmph. What if I don't tell you?"
"Ah..."
At least the warning had gotten through—her hand stopped heading that way. Not that it stopped her from fondling my arms, armpits, thighs, belly, every place imaginable.
"Aha...! Just kidding. Mm. I think it'd be better to go check it out. Look."
I didn't know what I was supposed to look at. Probably just a figure of speech.
"First off, something must have happened over there too, same as us. Right? Because if things were running normally, they would have sent us some kind of signal. A signal, a beacon, someone in person—something. Right?"
"......I-isn't it far...?"
"It's only fifty kilometers. So—ah, it's getting hard. Hmmph. Cute."
"Nnh...! I-it's just a physio—"
Deliberately resting her finger on my nipple and waiting for it to slowly harden before mentioning it—that was pure meanness. She could have just let it pass.
"It's a physiological response~. Hmmph. Anyway. At that distance, if everything was working normally, it'd be super close. A drone would have come, or someone on a rover, you know?"
"Rover...?"
"Ah. Right. Mm... roughly like a car with six wheels. Anyway."
Minseo looked like she couldn't be bothered to explain further. She also seemed to keep forgetting I'd lost my memories. Well, thinking about it again, the whole situation was absurd. Memory loss so complete I knew nothing—really nothing—not what we'd arrived in, not even how advanced the technology was. No. I'd acquired a mental disability, and yet listening, reading, writing, speaking, and thinking all worked fine... I could understand why people had thought I was lying when I first woke up.
"There's no signal from them either, so something definitely happened. Whether their administrator ended up like our Han Yeoreum, or everyone's dead, or only one or two people survived and settlement just can't progress—I don't know..."
"Hiek...!"
Minseo gave my nipple a light pinch and twist. She didn't use much force, so it was just a small, tingling pulse in my lower belly.
"We can't predict anything, so if we assume food synthesis is impossible... we can go a few days without eating and be fine, but they'd just starve to death, right? Or eat random plants and drop dead. So this is our chance to—"
"P-please stop..."
"—go check it out... Hmm?"
"Stop t-t-touching me..."
I ducked my head a little. It was instinctive—human beings tended to curl in on themselves when they felt pleasure.
"Aha. Whaat. It's soft but gets a little firm—the texture feels so good, that's why."
"Ugh..."
"Hard~. But soft. Hmmph! What should I do with these little beans? Hmm?"
"..."
She was treating me like a complete toy. I had to wonder if it was okay to handle a person's climax this playfully. I tried squeezing my legs together, but that wasn't going to stop anything. Maybe even the pressure of my thigh flesh was part of what felt good to her.
"..."
"Oh? Using force on me?"
So, well. I had zero desire to climax. Of course I wouldn't finish right away like this, but stimulation was still stimulation—if it went on long enough, I'd definitely end up feeling pleasure. I pushed Minseo's hand away and covered myself there.
"S-so. You're saying we should go...?"
"I'm saying it'd be good to go. What about you? Feeling a little iffy about it?"
At the same time, I blatantly changed the subject. Minseo played along well enough.
"...I-I don't kn-know. Wh-what kind of ch-choice would I even... I don't think I'd even be going..."
I was useless for anything, wasn't I? Even on a light mission of just twenty kilometers of walking, I'd completely wrecked two people's feet and arms through nothing but my own fault. At the very least, it was clear I had nothing to do with exploration, adventure, pioneering—any of that. Unless I started working out like my life depended on it from now on.
"...Hmm? Wait, what are you talking about. Didn't Soyeon explain?"
"Huh?"
That was what I thought when I answered, but what came back completely defied my expectations.
"If we go, you're definitely going, right? You're the only one who can do biometric authentication. You didn't know?"
"Uh...... w-wait a s-second...!"
I sat up. Minseo instinctively tried to hold me back, but I somehow broke free and left the room. It was a little late, so I carefully made my way toward Soyeon's room, wary of running into the security team.
"Ah, unnie...! Want to sleep together? C-come over here?"
"N-nooo... Um, well. Th-there's something. I'm j-just asking in case, just in case, but..."
The moment the door opened, Soyeon smiled like she'd been given the whole world—but I got my question out first. Even so, Soyeon's body didn't stop; she pulled me into her arms and headed for her bed.
"Mhm."
"D-do I go too...?"
"?"
Maybe I'd asked too abruptly—Soyeon tilted her head slightly, a question mark written across her face.
"U-um. If we g-go to the e-escape ship... do I go too?"
"Of course?"
Soyeon answered so casually, like how could I not have known. No—if I'd known this last night when she first brought it up, I definitely would have opposed it with everything I had.
"Uh. Uh..."
Of course, if it meant people could live more comfortably, I welcomed it. I had no idea how far entertainment had advanced in a world that sent ships to the opposite end of the universe—but if the printers got running and everyone had the leisure for a daily routine of sleeping, fucking, eating, and playing, then nobody would bother killing the freeloading bug sitting alone in a tiny corner room.
But still. That was true, and yet...
"M-me...?"
"Yeah. Ah, it'll be tough, but..."
Soyeon had completely missed the point. I wasn't fretting over the mere fear of walking a few dozen kilometers. What if I fell behind? No—falling behind was a guaranteed future. And if I pictured someone else carrying my pack because of me, or someone getting hurt because of me, or me getting hurt and people having to carry me—no matter how I thought about it, all I'd earn was a mountain of resentment.
"......Ah... u-um, c-can we check the v-vote totals or something right now...?"
"Hmm? Ah, well about ten people still haven't voted, but the 'go' side is at around sixty percent?"
"..."
A bolt from the blue. So I opened my mouth a little hastily.
"C-c-can you t-teach me how to exercise...?"
I said. It wasn't something I'd thought through deeply. I just figured I should do something—anything—to be even a little bit useful.
The time left for cleaning was steadily running out.