30 Seconds
Thirty seconds.
He seemed to be laboring under some grand misunderstanding, but I didn't bother correcting him point by point.
Yu Jin's reaction made sense to me, too. With the world in this state, the best bargaining chip a woman had to offer was her body.
Every survivor camp out there ran on the same ugly currency. Pay tribute, or sell yourself willingly for a single can of food.
And she had an injured brother in tow, dead weight that couldn't lift so much as a pack.
Feed me, shelter me, save my life… of course she'd assumed the price was her body. It was only fair.
Well, fair enough — that was how it usually worked.
But this place was a miracle shelter zombies couldn't get within a mile of. A few rounds of sex in exchange for lifetime residency? Practically a free ride.
Swoosh—.
Yu Jin finally gave up and let her arms fall limp at her sides.
She squeezed her eyes shut and exhaled a long, slow breath.
Ziiiip—.
The tracksuit zipper came down, baring the nape of her neck and her collarbone.
With trembling fingers she slid the jacket off her shoulders, then slowly peeled up her sweat-dampened t-shirt.
Boing—.
Her heavy breasts, compressed under the fabric, spilled free.
For a split second I almost imagined I could hear them.
Yu Jin bit her lower lip.
A thin sports bra was all she had on top. Now it was time for the bottom half.
Swoosh—.
The track pants slid listlessly down to her ankles.
Long, straight legs and a single pair of thin panties.
Head bowed low, Yu Jin pleaded in a voice that had shrunk to a crawl.
“P-please… be gentle……”
Seeing her like that, I let out a sigh.
“Take off your underwear too. Now. You plan on washing with those still on?”
“……What?”
Yu Jin blinked, her face flushing scarlet.
“W-wait. I'm not… mentally ready yet……”
“What are you so nervous about? You some kind of virgin?”
“I-I actually am… a virgin.”
“Oh. Right. I'm a virgin too.”
“……Seriously?”
“You buying it?”
In a world crawling with women who'd spread their legs for a single can, who was out here saving themselves?
No virgins, no celibacy — the whole planet was Sodom and Gomorrah, plain and simple.
I didn't want to catch some disease, and I was tired of getting played for a fool, so things down south had gathered a few cobwebs lately — but that didn't mean I'd never done it. I'd done plenty.
I just wasn't in the mood right now.
Up close, the stench was unbearable — the blood-and-iron smell baked into her sweat, mixed with the reek of rancid oil.
With a smell like that, even the randy bastards who came knocking with cans in hand would bolt for the hills.
I pointed at my crotch, where my poor member lay limp and lifeless.
“Here, look at this.”
“Ah…… Are you… a eunuch?”
“No, I'm not.”
“Then… are you gay?”
What the hell. Unbelievable.
“It's because of how you smell! It's not turning me on, so quit running your mouth and strip if you want to wash!”
“……Huh?”
Her blank expression hardened into a frown.
What I needed wasn't her body — it was the skill that had been unlocked thanks to her. Every new job assignment came with one free skill.
The free skill in the sanitation category was 30-Second Cold Shower.
In a world where the water supply was cut off, thirty seconds of free water was a massive privilege.
Wasting it on a thirty-second solo rinse felt criminal, so I'd decided to bring her in and wash together.
Do the laundry while we were at it.
There was some selfish motive in there too, sure — but hygiene came first, and what was a little nudity between adults?
Yu Jin asked in astonishment.
“……That's really why you told me to strip? For real?”
“Want me to make it for real right now?”
“N-no, that's……”
She shook her head quickly.
The shower room Yu Jin and I stepped into was, well — calling it a shower room was generous. It was just a bathroom.
A cramped sliver of space beside the toilet, but my heart was pounding in a very different sense now.
I worried whether we could actually get it all done in time.
“Ready?”
“Yeah.”
We braced ourselves back-to-back like soldiers before a charge.
“Three, two, one!”
“Aaagh, it's freezing!”
The moment the thirty-second countdown started, cold water came hammering out of the showerhead.
Intimate atmosphere? Shame about our nakedness? There was no time to spare for any of that.
Thanks to the stench, nothing down there was interested anyway.
We'd plugged the drain hole with our jackets and underwear and stood on top of them.
I slapped some shampoo on my hair, but no lather formed — just milky gray water dripping off.
“Quit zoning out and scrub!”
“My eyes — it's in my eyes!”
Clutching the showerhead in one hand, I splashed water at her face.
“Mmph! Kgh.”
“Just blink it out. Don't stop scrubbing.”
Then I aimed the stream over both our heads.
The plan was to let the shampoo-laden water wash down and rinse our upper bodies in one pass.
“Soap! Hurry!”
“Got it!”
In the meantime, Yu Jin grabbed the bar of soap in both hands and scrubbed furiously at the critical zones I'd marked for her in advance.
Priority on the smelliest spots: armpits, neck, crotch.
The moment she finished soaping an area, I wiped it down quickly with my free hand.
“Ahh! Go easier on me!”
“Just deal with the pain! I told you — thirty seconds!”
There was no time to admire how soft her skin was or whatever. If flesh was visible, I scrubbed it.
We rubbed ourselves raw against each other, desperate to squeeze every last drop from the falling water.
“Now the back!”
“Huh? Okay!”
Yu Jin ran the soap down my back. We couldn't even spare a second to rinse it off by hand.
Backs pressed tightly together, we scrubbed against each other while our free hands took care of our fronts.
A few seconds left.
Sticking out my tongue, I scooped water into my mouth and rubbed down the last of the suds clinging to my body.
All the frantic pivoting had crushed the gap between us to almost nothing.
Yu Jin's water-slicked, supple breasts pressed flush against my chest.
And at the same time —
Whether it was the pleasant scent that hadn't been there before, or her thighs brushing against mine in little teasing overlaps,
my fully roused cock pressed up against the inside of her thigh.
-Click.
The water cut off.
Only our ragged breathing and the burning heat where our bodies touched remained in the silence.
“……”
Yu Jin's gaze drifted slowly downward.
The instant she confirmed the identity of the rigid thing pressed against her, her face went beet red.
But she slowly turned her eyes away as if nothing had happened.
“Uh, um……”
Now a good scent was rising off her.
A sweet woman's body scent mingling with the faint traces of soap.
The already-cramped bathroom filled up with the smell of her.
Every time Yu Jin drew a breath, her soft breasts rose and fell. Within arm's reach. Touchable right now.
Inside this tiny bathroom, with nowhere to run.
I looked down at her.
“Move over already.”
“Huh? Oh… right.”
“You're not using the toilet, right?”
She nodded. She'd already taken care of that separately into a plastic bottle.
Good. That meant I could do the laundry rinse too.
I scraped up the wet clothes I'd laid out on the floor,
then stuffed them into the narrow drain hole at the bottom of the toilet. Instant makeshift washing tub.
“Hey, take this.”
I handed Yu Jin the plastic bottle I'd cut in half.
“When I pour the water, scoop it up with this. You'll use it to clean and rinse everything else.”
“But… you, um… went in here earlier……”
Yeah, I took a dump in here. And I flushed it clean as a whistle, didn't I?
The bowl was probably cleaner than a smartphone screen, so what's the problem?
Where else in the apocalypse were you going to find water this good?
And with that, the laundry was done.
We headed over to Room 2, which we'd cleaned out earlier. Nothing in there but bare concrete, but we scrounged up something decent to sit on.
I took my time pulling kitchen towels out of the burlap sack — loot from the corner store.
Toweling off properly made me feel like a new man.
How long had it been since I'd felt this fresh?
We only had one change of clothes between us, so I put on the shorts and tossed Yu Jin a loose, oversized t-shirt.
Then we carried out the wrung-out wet clothes.
In a corner of the tiny garden out front, I stuffed a pile of junk into a steel drum and set it alight with a lighter.
Heat rose along with the smoke. We strung up a line nearby and hung the laundry out to dry.
An act that should've been impossible anywhere else — and here I could do it freely. My house really is the best.
By the time I came back from hanging the laundry, Yu Jin was crouched on the floor.
Her knees pulled up into the oversized t-shirt, hugging herself small. She looked exactly like a turtle hiding in its shell.
Yu Jin muttered flatly.
“……Stop staring.”
“Nothing to stare at. Saw it all already.”
Honestly, I'd been too frantic to look at any of it. It was unjust, but bluffing was free.
“Why don't you go to your own room.”
“My brother's in there.”
“So what?”
Yu Jin tugged the hem of the t-shirt down, trying to hide herself.
“How am I supposed to show you this state?”
“So it's fine to show me?”
Instead of answering, she whipped her head away.
Ugh, damn it. I should've just taken her right there and then.
The next day, we had lunch with them.
After that, nothing much happened. The routine repeated itself: eat, sleep, shit.
The daily ration of hardtack and bottled water.
That was barely the minimum for survival, so I handed over every bit of food I'd stockpiled in my bag to the siblings.
The combat team needed to eat well.
Yu Jin munched a protein bar and asked,
“Boss, aren't you eating? Not hungry?”
“You eat. Eat a lot.”
After catching an earful from her brother, she'd started calling me Boss without fail. Normally it was just “hey” or “you.”
I couldn't leave the shelter, and sending Yu Jin out alone felt too risky.
These two were a 1+1 set item, clearly. Send Yu Jin out on her own and she'd run into trouble before she got far.
Besides, the zombie horde I'd dragged here would still take time to disperse naturally.
Though it was just about time, honestly.
“Yu Hyeon, take this.”
I held out a painkiller to him.
Yu Jin scowled.
“What? You had painkillers? Why give them to him only now? You're a literal demon.”
Hah. Rookies, every time.
There were different classes of painkillers, and you couldn't just hand out whatever you happened to scavenge.
Give the wrong one and it interferes with clotting. Feed that to someone right after surgery and they'd be visiting the afterlife in short order.
Who's the demon — me, for knowing that?
Yu Hyeon gave an easy smile.
“My apologies, Boss. Our little sister is a bit short on knowledge.”
“What? Oppa!”
I understood, though. Everything that should've gone to her brain must have been rerouted to her chest.
I checked his wound and rewrapped the bandage —
[Notification: An employee's condition has improved!]
Target: Yu Hyeon
Condition: [Severe Injury] ➔ [Minor Injury (Recovering)]
The status window chose its moment.
I'd invested in them diligently this whole time — now it was harvest season.
If anyone wouldn't let me down, it would be these two.
There I was, thoroughly pleased with myself, when the status window chimed again.
Yu Jin's loyalty had gone up. The reason wasn't listed.