Virtual Date (2)
Boom. Boom—!
Night had fallen before I noticed, and fireworks were cracking open across the sky. After the zoo, we had moved on to a quiet stretch of riverbank. Moonlight lay across the water, and every time a shell burst, a face that had been lost in the dark flashed bright.
The start at the zoo had been light and pleasant, and the finish—a fireworks festival along the river—had caught the romance clean. This guy knew what he was doing. If I had truly been a woman, my heart would have been hammering.
Shut up!
This was all the fault of a body that had turned female out of nowhere. The original me would not have felt a thing! TastyLand's avatar was sneaking an arm around my shoulders, and I wanted to drive an elbow into his ribs—hard—but I barely held it in. Hah. So this was the weight of being a pro BJ.
The handles were familiar. These were viewers who had followed me over from my own room. Unlike usual, though, the chat had turned remarkably vicious. I had taken them for a well-mannered crowd. This was an unexpected side of them.
"How was it?"
"Mm... it was nice."
The fireworks ended, and we returned to the Bar through a portal. He was back in the bartender outfit, wearing that slick little grin. I wanted to hit him, but I held it in and turned toward the last contestant, the one who had been waiting all this time.
Username: HealthMan. A name that matched the avatar almost too well. A hulking mass of muscle. He came in slowly and suggested a costume change. Said we were going to work out.
Huh? Work out?
For a second I thought I had misheard. He only nodded, silent and sure, and that at least confirmed there was nothing wrong with my hearing.
We stepped through the portal. Once again, Clemoomoo was waiting at the entrance. I signed up for a membership and went inside, and it really was a gym—packed with machines, a place that had grown familiar at a ridiculous speed over the past week. Even after I had taken in the interior, some hopeful part of me still doubted. HealthMan planted himself in front of a machine and actually started working out.
At first I was dumbfounded. A little speechless, too. What was today's bit, exactly? Each of them prepared a date course they thought was good, showed it off to me, and waited to be chosen. Did this man honestly believe a gym date was going to be the one that got picked? By any normal standard? Hm? Not unless the woman was a gym rat herself...
But I was a pro BJ. Whatever role I was given, I played it to the hilt. Luckily, since I had started working out recently, I knew how to handle the basic machines, so I followed HealthMan and got to it.
The chat stirred up a sympathy I had not meant to feel, and I spoke to him. Asked him to teach me a little. At that, he gave me the brightest smile I had seen all day.
I put strength into the spot he indicated, pulled, and held until he said okay. Then I let go. He pointed out what was lacking, praised what I had done well, and one by one I conquered the machines. Most of the viewers were bored, and every so often, when the teaching turned into a hand on me, they raged that they had been betrayed. Honestly, though, of every date I had been on today, this was the one where I felt most at ease. It reminded me how hard I had been training lately, and HealthMan's bulk—big enough to loom over a woman—felt familiar instead, maybe because it resembled Myeonghun.
Not that HealthMan was Myeonghun. That guy was nowhere near Yunjin, but he was sociable enough in his own way.
"Thank you."
"Huh?"
The session was over. Out of nowhere, HealthMan offered his thanks, and then came a confession from the heart. Just as everyone had predicted, he was a lifelong single, and sharing the time he loved most with a woman had been a small dream of his.
"That time... working out?"
"Yes."
"..."
I thought he was living a rather joyless life. Still, if that was his way of living, didn't it deserve respect? And sincerity ought to be answered with sincerity. I told him, those nervous eyes fixed on me, what I had thought of the date.
"I liked it. I'd just signed up at a gym my friend's family runs, and I've been going hard lately. And looking at you, HealthMan, I keep thinking of that friend, so you feel familiar somehow."
"Th-then—!"
That was only my personal impression. And if I was not going to date HealthMan, I could not leave him living inside a useless delusion. So, careful not to bruise his mood, I gave his forehead a playful little push with one finger and said:
"But that's because it was me, okay? The next woman you meet, try thinking less about what you like and more about a date she might enjoy."
"..."
"You understand?"
"Yes! Yes!"
For a moment, HealthMan looked completely blank. What was that reaction? The chat, meanwhile, was every bit as loud.
"..."
I had not meant for any of that. Either way, today's date was over.
"Ugh, I'm exhausted. That was a production."
To celebrate a collab that had ended well, I had a light afterparty with Clemoomoo's family. Yuri unni's cooking was genuinely incredible. I had been seeing her often enough that a little familiarity had settled in, and that was what I called her now. In truth, back when I was a man we would have been the same age... but there was no point picking at it now. She already had two children. Same age or not, she was clearly far more of an adult than I was.
Anyway, I ate a delicious dinner of what Yuri unni had made, and even in the middle of it I escaped the eldest, Hyunwoo, whose little hands kept scheming after my chest, and barely made it home. A frightening kid. A reincarnator, no question. Three years old, and already knew a good thing when he saw it...
"Enjoyed it? As if!"
A man going on a date with a man and liking it? Did that even make sense? If anything, I should have been horrified and running for the door that instant.
"Th-that's because this body is female right now... Right. It was a biological reaction. Hey! Mentally, it wasn't."
"...Ugh, shut up! Read the room. You tactless little seed-eye!"
I forced the System Helper's mouth shut and called up the final highlight of the collab we had run today. The moment of choice.
All three dates were over, and we changed locations. The instant I saw the map, the absurdity of it cracked me into a laugh. This was a wedding hall, was it not?
The three of them must have been tipped off in advance. Every one of them had changed into a suit. Clemoomoo sent me a look: change back into the wedding dress from my first entrance. So a date, and if someone floored it, the next stop was the ceremony itself... I could not break the flow. I changed without a fight and stood before the dais.
By then Clemoomoo had taken the officiant's place. Solemn-faced, he called on me to choose the date that had reached me most today. In the same moment the three of them dropped to one knee, closed their eyes, and offered their right hands. A low BGM filled the space around us, the kind that quietly wound a person's nerves tighter, and the chat was one breath from exploding.
I looked them over, one at a time.
First, Leo. Films, plays, a little culture, and dinner somewhere with dignity. Not bad. If I had been a woman near marrying age, it might have been the date I preferred most.
Second, TastyLand. An amusement park, a fairground, a zoo, and fireworks over a beautiful river. The first half called up when I was younger; the latter, the years when I had actually been in love.
Last, HealthMan. Personally it had felt comfortable, but that was a quirk of mine alone. Objectively speaking, it did not quite work. If he wanted to appeal to a woman, he clearly still needed to try harder.
And so my conclusion...
His face was calm, but the hand stretched toward me was trembling, just a little. I took that hand gently.
"Ah!"
The chat had gone to pieces. Setting those reactions aside, I held TastyLand's hand and drew him to his feet. The moment our eyes met, surprise flooded his face. Leo and HealthMan gave a small round of applause and stepped back.
"Chosen as the best date of the day—our number one! None other than TastyLand! Congratulations!"
Every kind of effect burst at once to announce TastyLand's victory. His face was genuinely delighted. The praise rolled on, and then Clemoomoo, solemn again, put a line to him.
"Might there be anything you wish of Miss Hani?"
TastyLand looked me dead in the eye, as if he had been waiting for this, and asked with real nerve.
"Could I... have your phone number?"
The courage was admirable. Twenty-two this year—an age still full of guts, still glittering with youth. I smiled as I answered.
"..."
"..."
I had liked the date course. It had even brought back memories of old relationships, and that part had been fine. But that was that, and my number was a different matter. How dare some guy set his sights on this body!
Wait. Then until I get my original body back, how am I supposed to...
I could not exactly go around meeting women in a woman's body, either. A brand-new worry had just been born.