Chapter 14: Indirect Mixed Bath
Ah.
A dumbfounded gasp escaped Shun's lips.
He felt as if the air in the room had instantly vaporized, going from zero to sixty in a split second.
It happened in a flash.
Truly, not once in his seventeen years of life...
...had even a single milligram of impurity tainted his blindingly wholesome daily life.
But now, something incredibly visual, sensory, and concrete...
...a vivid 3D image began to ruthlessly hammer its way into his mind.
Splash... splash...
“Ah... this feels so good.”
Brushing back her slightly damp hair...
...Raon soaking in the bathtub, her face flushed a rosy pink.
That dizzying image rendered itself in his mind in crystal-clear HD, frame by frame.
So, basically, right now...
...in that warm bathwater, which held her lingering body heat, her faint scent...
...and where her silky skin had just been splashing around...
...I'm supposed to... get in there naked?
Shun's voice dragged like a broken cassette tape. His gaze lost its anchor, wandering aimlessly through the empty air.
“Huh? Oh, r-right... Yeah, I'll be getting in too...”
“Ugh... Ueda-kun, entering the water I just soaked in... That's just, it's dirty. I-I sweated a lot today, so I'm not clean at all...”
Raon's violet-blue eyes trembled slightly.
Her resentful gaze made him feel, somehow, like she was looking at a total pervert.
In Japan, you wash your body thoroughly outside before entering the tub, so there was no way it was actually dirty. But currently, Raon seemed too close to her limit to make a rational judgment.
D-Damn it.
He hadn't even done anything, yet he was somehow turning into a creep.
Shun desperately blurted out in an attempt to salvage his dignity.
“No, wait! It's—it's not just me! My whole family uses it! My dad goes in, my mom goes in too!”
And that excuse...
...was, naturally, a terrible move.
Why was it a terrible move?
Because his explanation was entirely from a Japanese perspective.
It's not just me.
The whole family uses it.
There's no particular reason to be embarrassed.
If you're conscious of it—you're the weird one.
Against another Japanese person who shared the same bath culture, this would have been an airtight, unassailable defense.
But Raon was Korean.
She might have had Japanese blood running through half her veins, but she was fundamentally Korean.
Therefore, Shun's explanation that two more people would be entering after her was nothing short of a “Shame x3 Hyper Burning Event” for Raon, who had been desperately trying to ignore that reality.
Shun realized this a moment too late.
But the damage was already done. With a soft poof, a plume of white steam erupted from the crown of Raon's head.
“Y-Your dad...? And your mom too...?”
“Huh? Oh, no! I mean, that's just the order! My dad goes first, then my mom, and I go last!”
“So... the whole family takes turns using the water I bathed in...?”
“Taking turns makes it sound weird! It's just sharing! We're sharing it!”
“Ueda-kun's family... all of them in my water...”
“Wait! Scratch what I just said! Let's just pretend only I'm going in!”
“Ah, augh...”
Her unfocused violet-blue eyes spun in circles.
Her face was already so red it looked ready to burst, her ears and neck completely flushed. As if trying to cool down her overloaded brain, steam twice as thick as before puffed out from her head.
Other people entering the tub she had just soaked in, one after another...
Absolutely, positively impossible!
“That... that's basically... no different from an Indirect Mixed Bath...”
A completely dazed Raon mumbled incoherently.
An Indirect Mixed Bath.
A destructive combination of words he had never imagined encountering in his entire life.
Hit dead-on by her pitiful yet violent choice of words, a strange shiver ran down Shun's spine.
He stiffened.
It was by no means fear or disgust.
Rather, it was an incredibly awkward sensation that made his lower half tighten, as if he were unwittingly committing some unspeakable act of perversion.
...Is this why that idiot Suzuki is always getting into fistfights with his sister over sharing the bath?
No. That wasn't it.
Thanks, Suzuki. You helped me cool down.
Yeah. No matter how he looked at it, this was a completely different case.
If that side was a wild struggle for survival over mutual dignity, then this side was...
The bathwater a beautiful girl had just soaked in.
This was, quite literally, the ultimate reward...
No, you psycho.
What the hell am I thinking?
“Is... is there any other way...? Maybe I could just wash last...?”
With tiny tears now clinging to the corners of her eyes, Raon clutched her bath basket tightly and looked up at him with a pleading gaze.
Faced with the sight of a young lady utterly flushed with shame, the dam of reason erected in Shun's brain began to crumble helplessly.
Every now and then, bizarre articles popped up on the internet about foreign OnlyFans streamers bottling and selling their bathwater.
While he still couldn't comprehend why a streamer would do such a thing, Shun felt like he could finally understand a fraction of the beastly psychology of the guys who bought that water.
Because Shun's own intellect had just degraded to the level of a beast.
It was then.
Shun's frantically spinning brain managed to formulate a miraculous solution to break through this deadlock.
Its name:
Relative Shock Therapy
There was a famous saying by the ancient sages:
It is easier to ask for forgiveness than to beg for permission.
If one were to translate this into a modern interpretation, it would go something like this:
To bury a controversy, cover it with an even bigger controversy.
In other words, there was only one answer.
He just had to naturally...
“Then, should we just bathe together?”
...and throw a straight fastball.
The moment she heard that shocking proposition, the issue of “sharing bathwater” would instantly shrink into a trivial, secondary concern in Raon's mind.
Shun was impressed with himself.
No matter how he looked at it, it was a flawless, miraculous piece of logic.
However, this operation possessed a few minor drawbacks.
First, there was a 99.8% probability that Shun's primary residence would permanently relocate to a police holding cell.
Second, if things went south, he might get beaten to death by his father's wooden mallet, or be forced to commit seppuku to preserve the family honor.
But hey...
A 0.2% chance of success...
...wasn't that more generous than the drop rate for a UR character in a gacha game?
Regrettably, Shun's beast-level brain was currently incapable of realizing what was wrong with this equation.
“Then, Raon-san. Why don't we just—”
Just as Shun was about to cross the point of no return...
Click. The door slid open.
“Shun? Is something wrong? I've been hearing thumping noises for a while now.”
A face peeked through the doorway.
It was Shun's mother, Ueda Himari.
Raon stood there, blushing furiously while awkwardly shielding her chest with her bath basket.
“Ahhh~!”
Upon hearing the explanation, Himari clapped her hands together in realization.
Having barely regained his sanity, Shun was wiping cold sweat from his brow in the background.
Pant, pant.
What the hell was I just thinking?
I almost got erased from the family registry...
“Raon, dear, I didn't even think about that. I'm so sorry~!”
“O-Oh, no... It's just me being overly sensitive...”
“Overly sensitive? Not at all! You came from Korea, so of course your sensibilities and boundaries regarding privacy would be different from ours. I was being thoughtless.”
Himari stroked Raon's cheek, her eyebrows drooping in genuine apology.
For a foreigner experiencing Japanese bath culture for the first time—especially a sensitive teenage high school girl—the idea of someone else entering the tub after her was bound to be repulsive.
Even more so when that “someone else” included a healthy, same-aged male cousin.
“Besides, your parents are sending plenty of money every month for living expenses and utilities, so we don't have to worry about the water bill at all!”
Honestly, I told them they didn't need to send anything.
Himari smiled warmly and offered a clean compromise.
“From now on, this is our house rule: the rest of the Ueda family will bathe first, drain the tub, and then we'll fill it with fresh water so our Raon can have a nice, clean bath!”
The moment she made that declaration...
...the dark clouds of worry vanished from Raon's face, replaced by a bright look of relief as if she had just met her savior.
“T-Thank you...! Thank you so much, Auntie!”
“But in return...”
Himari raised an index finger, a slightly mischievous smile playing on her lips.
“Since you'll have to wait for everyone, including Shun, to finish bathing every day, you'll always be the last to wash. It'll also take extra time to refill the tub. Are you okay with that?”
“Yes! Yes, of course! I'm completely fine with that!”
Raon nodded vigorously.
The waiting time didn't seem to bother her in the slightest.
Compared to the humiliation of having someone else enter her bathwater naked, sleeping a little later was a tiny price to pay!
However, Himari rested her chin in her hand, falling into deep thought.
Hmm. Still, it's her very first day in Japan. It weighs on my conscience to make her bathe last...
She must be exhausted; Himari wanted her to bathe first and get some proper rest.
But if Raon bathed in fresh water first, and they had to refill the tub afterward, it would push Shun and her husband's bath times way too late.
Well, Shun was a healthy teenage boy, so his schedule didn't really matter, but still...
Isn't there some other way?
Himari's gaze naturally drifted down Raon's body.
The dizzying curves of her chest, which even her loose white T-shirt couldn't hide, and her slender, smooth legs extending beneath her Dolphin Pants.
Even to another woman, her fair, delicate physique was utterly mesmerizing.
In that instant, a brilliant idea flashed through Himari's mind.
“Ah!”
“...Yes?”
“Then, Raon, how about we do this just for today?”
Himari's eyes sparkled with a strange, passionate warmth.
She suddenly grabbed both of Raon's hands.
It existed.
A win-win solution that would save time and satisfy Himari's own selfish desires.
“Today, you and Auntie will bathe together, just the two of us!”
As the sole female of the Ueda household...
...who had spent years living among two sweaty males...
...Himari had a long-cherished dream, a bucket list item she had held onto for ages.
And that was sitting face-to-face in a bathtub with a pretty daughter, chatting warmly while washing each other's backs!
Unfortunately, she hadn't been able to have any more children after Shun, so she had half-given up on the dream. But now, this pure, dazzlingly beautiful niece had practically rolled right into her lap.
This was truly a godsend.
“Should... should we?”
Raon blinked, her eyes wide with surprise.
But soon, she offered a comfortable smile and gave a small nod.
If it was just bathing with her aunt, another woman, Raon didn't find it particularly embarrassing or troublesome.
“Sure... Okay. I think that would be fun.”
“Kyaaa~! My pretty niece is the absolute best~!!”
Himari jumped for joy and pulled Raon into a tight embrace.
“You're so soft! And your skin smells so cozy, just like a baby! Raon, Auntie is going to wash you squeaky clean from head to toe today! Shun! You can bathe later when your father gets home, okay?”
“Yeah, sure... I'll just go rest then.”
And so, humming a cheerful tune, Himari took Raon by the hand and led her toward the bathroom in the main house.