Shared Quarters
It took four days to gradually survey the surroundings.
Once everyone had confirmed that at least breathing the outside air wouldn't kill them, they were all out there, drawing deep lungfuls of the natural atmosphere for the first time in ages.
I just stayed inside. It felt like the mood would be better without me around.
Not that I hadn't looked outside at all. The instruments we'd planted at set intervals were feeding us real-time readings, so the airlock had been left open.
"…"
Everyone was smiling for the first time in a long while. They'd even named the spot where that first woman out had fallen over — the First Butt-Plant — and were laughing about it. Someone stood with their eyes closed, just breathing it all in.
I didn't believe in gods, but something about the scene stuck in my head like a cliché. Some kind of garden, maybe. I couldn't quite place it.
I wondered if there was religion here. At least among the passengers, I hadn't spotted any believers.
"What are you doing?"
A voice from behind me.
I uncurled from my crouch and turned. Dahyun came into view, giving my shoulder a light push as if to say sit back down, make yourself comfortable. Compared to that first day of stiff formality, the casual speech seemed to come pretty naturally to her now.
"Ah — just, you know. Resting."
I kept the answer short.
…How to put it. The truth was, facing people had gotten a little hard.
A moment ago I'd been telling myself I was staying in out of consideration for everyone else, but the real reason I was sulking in here was that I didn't have the face to look at them.
Three broken dishes. Following people around offering to help and only blocking their path. Trying to assist with cleanup and stashing equipment that was still needed into the storage bay…
"Mm. You never did like crowds. Want some?"
"……Is that even edible…"
I started to say it and stopped. The reason she was eating those tasteless cubes was because of me.
You could spin it as thrift on my account, but the reality was that without me, they might have been eating freshly butchered beef tartare by now.
"…"
"You're more of a worrier than I thought. Nom."
Dahyun tipped a cube into her mouth and immediately pulled a face.
"…But is it okay for me to be in here…? Ah — is this a shift change? Sh-should I go out? You could take a look outside yourself…"
It looked like everyone had gone out, but unfortunately a minimum standby crew was still required. That crew was three people, including Dahyun.
"Nah. Inside they're going at it like crazy — sucking face, the whole mess. Figured I should clear out. First private chat in a while. Heh."
…Hayun and Sumin, was it. We weren't close, but I'd at least memorized the names. I'd never dreamed the two of them were like that — so much for the lifelong single's powers of observation.
A rain that may or may not have been a squall came down hard and cut the short outing short. After wiping myself down lightly with wet wipes, I picked up my bedding and headed not for the room I'd already grown used to, but for a room with two bunk beds.
"…"
Three pairs of eyes stared straight at me. I didn't know their names, but those were the same eyes that had at least offered a greeting on the first day.
The quiet room gradually shook free of its silence as they started talking among themselves again —
But I still couldn't get a single word out.
…They're asking me to give up the room…?
It had come up in the meeting. And it was, if you thought about it, only natural. There was no reason to give a private room to someone who contributed nothing and only consumed resources.
Soyeon and Dahyun had pushed back from the sidelines, but their arguments ultimately had to start from the authority I'd already lost.
…I-it's fine. Me sleeping alone is, well, weird enough on its own…
Of course, it wasn't purely spite either.
In the end, after the failed attempt to hack the purification unit, the process of dismantling and rebuilding it needed more space.
Stripping the tech core and cobbling something together from the pieces meant the result was inevitably going to be bulkier than the original. They'd already forced open the locks on the captain's quarters and the other officers' rooms — physically — and converted them into workshops and equipment bays.
Anyway, I didn't want factions forming over me. We were in survival mode, and in a situation like this, division meant death.
So my choice ended that particular conversation. After that I only remembered scraps of what was discussed. Headcount and resource distribution, mostly.
I let out a quiet sigh and headed for the empty bunk. I opened the door, set my bedding on the mattress of the lower right berth — and a voice came from behind me.
"Ah. Someone's using that one."
"Oh — th-then, should I, go up…?"
A short-haired woman was already lying on the upper bunk. She looked down at me with a grin that was nothing like the stares from a moment ago.
"Can't you see I'm already here? Administrator? Hehe."
"…Ahaha…"
Apparently this wasn't a practical conversation.
Soyeon and Dahyun had each tried to take me into their own rooms out of something like concern — but those were already full.
Fairness had been one of the reasons I'd been kicked out of a private room in the first place, so pulling someone else out to put me in would have been strange in its own way.
"Ah — r-right, I seeee. Um, then where, where should I sleep…"
…A few short exchanges and they'd already flipped into teasing mode. One particular scene sketched itself in my head, but I couldn't jump to conclusions yet. Like with Soyeon — maybe this was just an awkward way of saying they wanted to get along.
"…Pfft! I'm kidding. You can sleep there. Wow, though — you're really not… no, you're a completely different person."
"Ahaha… th-things turned out that way…"
The woman sitting on the lower bunk across from me stood up.
"So — you really don't remember anything? What's my name, then?"
"Uh — th-that's —"
They were in casual clothes, unlike usual. This was a group that knew each other so well that wearing name tags during the day almost felt weird. I glanced at her chest, then let my eyes spin in little circles.
"It's Minseo! You're terrible!"
"Hehe…"
"Then what about me?"
"…I, I really don't remember anything…"
"Hah. Then I guess you also don't remember that I was your girlfriend, Administrator?"
"……"
Should I laugh? The odds of that being true were extremely low.
"We even synced our cryo cycles every day… matched mouths and eyes and everything… hmmph!"
"Ahaha! You lunatic, stop it. You're freaking her out. Though — I think I'm starting to get why people keep covering for her."
"Aha, ha… I, I'm also sorry I'm not, not any help —"
"Can I come sit next to you?"
"—so…? Ah? Huh?"
The woman across from me asked it. She clearly wasn't waiting for an answer — she came over and threw herself down so hard the mattress bounced.
Then she nudged the things I'd set down so awkwardly off to the side and started looking through them.
"Oh. Is this the Administrator's PDA? Can I look?"
"Th-that's —"
"Gimme the password. Hmmph."
…It was rude. But they were young enough to get away with it. And they wouldn't have put anyone with a twisted temperament on a ship this important in the first place.
More than that — this felt a lot more like actual human living than the dead silence from earlier. Even if the distance was a little too close…
No — honestly, if they hadn't pulled that joke about the bunk already being taken, I might have met them pretty gladly. I'd been wound tight all day; maybe this whole flinching thing was just a defense mechanism.
"…O-one one one one…"
"Wow. Completely disqualified as an administrator. Is your authority key something similar?"
I really hoped so.
Minseo — I still didn't know her last name — poked around the PDA screen with shining eyes, clearly excited about something.
The woman from the upper bunk across the way was climbing down, and the one still up top kept peering over the edge like a ghost, and with my phone-like device already confiscated, there wasn't much I could do.
"…Ah — b-bathroom… I should go…!"
And with that, I made a slightly obvious escape from the bunk. Lucky for me, all of them had their eyes locked on the screen.
Well. The personal terminal of a boss who'd always been so stiff — hard to kill the curiosity on something like that. I felt a little bad for the original owner of this body, but if this was how I started blending into the group, wasn't that a win?
I sat for a bit on the waterless suction toilet, flushed (figuratively speaking), and wiped my hands with a tissue.
By the time I came back, all of them had climbed onto my bunk entirely and were playing with my terminal.
"…Hehe — th-there's nothing much, right…? I looked too, and there aren't even any photos…"
"…Administrator."
"…?"
Minseo's face had gone stiff, as if she'd made some kind of shocking discovery. She opened her mouth carefully.
"……Administrator. So you watched porn too."
"…Nweh?"
The room erupted. Three women shrieking at full volume — my ears didn't stand a chance…
On the terminal screen in her hands, which should have held nothing but professional material, there was only a flood of moving flesh tones.
"Whoa. Whoa whoa. So this is the kind of heavy stuff you were into. Eek. Look at this. It's as thick as my forearm?"
"……"
A strange shame hit me. Something instinctive, universal — my face started to heat by degrees.
I tried to snatch the terminal back.
Aww why, just a little longer, so this was the Administrator's type, and so on — the three of them spat out lines that were starting to edge into actual harassment while defending the device.
"Kyaa—! Look at you putting your back into it! Are you that embarrassed—?!"
I twisted, strained, tried to take it —
And somehow ended up nestled right in the middle of the three of them. I was a pitiful creature who reacted to even a hand on me, but right now, more than that — I was a little happy just to be fitting in with people.
Of course, that feeling scattered the moment I registered the sensation of something pressing against somewhere on my body.