Living in someone else’s house isn’t easy. There’s no way the things you already had would be in someone else’s home. Naturally, that included clothes and underwear of all kinds.
I obviously should have packed them, but since the other person had brought me here without giving me any time to prepare, I couldn’t pack underwear or anything else.
Surely she hadn’t brought me here thinking this far ahead.
When I woke up, the girl had vanished from the bed, and on the desk lay a note written in neat handwriting: “Change into underwear from my drawer. You’re not going to wear the same dirty ones from yesterday, right? You’re not going to go out without underwear, where something might show if you stretch in front of others, right?” I couldn’t simply ignore it.
...Not because I was scared of the threatening words contained in that note.
Obviously, it was to maintain my previous lifestyle habits.
Before possessing this body, I had been a young man famous for being clean. I had even applied skin toner and lotion every day—things others presumably found bothersome—so it was only natural.
Being rumored to be dirty by others was no different from being rumored to be stupid. In other words, it was unbearable.
Showering wasn’t difficult. The scars engraved on my wrist didn’t hurt at all when they touched water, just as I’d expected. A phenomenon presumably brought about by this body’s ability.
The scars were deeper than the ones I had possessed, yet I had survived. If they had been drawn thin because I hadn’t wanted to die from the start, the depth should not have been so deep.
In other words, my ability might be related more to survival than protection. Though I had pondered deeply to put off the task before me, I stopped my evasive thoughts regarding what I eventually had to face and squeezed my eyes shut.
...Should I try once more?
“Hnnnnnng!”
Since my eyes kept drifting to my chest, I had closed them completely and was attempting to fasten the bra hooks.
However, perhaps because this body had never stretched before, or because it had always left bras to someone else’s hands, my attempts missed their mark again and again.
Doing it blind was no different from not looking, so I knew it was harder than when others did it, but I was too embarrassed and ashamed to ask Inna for help with just this.
Honestly, even middle schoolers could do this; the idea that I alone couldn’t was absurd.
Of course, failing was somewhat expected when I couldn’t use a mirror, wasn’t holding the bra against my chest, and was trying to fasten the hooks first.
Even without a mirror, if I had at least aligned the bra against my chest first, the chances of success would have increased.
But that was—
“I shouldn’t do that.”
It was simply something I shouldn’t do because of my conscience and pride.
This body was mine from now on. Though I shouldn’t feel ashamed of it and had to get used to it, that was a story for when I was in this body forever.
This body was precisely something borrowed. I, who would escape this place by overtaking those presumed to be rivals, had a duty to use this body cleanly and return it. Showing a naked body to a man’s eyes was something I must not do.
Though I was in the position of borrowing a body I would someday have to return to someone else, I had to see the ending and escape this world.
If only to see the endings of the games waiting for me.
...Someone at the game company, or someone, really ought to recognize what a considerate man I am. Just then, as if in response to my thoughts, even with my eyes closed, a translucent window popped—into my field of vision.
[The ability is pleased. Awakening rate increases by 0.1 percent. Current ability awakening rate: 0.2]
And simultaneously, white lightning that I could sense even with my eyes closed struck once more. The straps I had been holding slipped from my hands.
When I opened my eyes, the white bra was safely fastened on my chest.
Was this part of my ability’s functions?
It had activated despite there being no crisis, resolved the situation, and vanished without a trace.
“...Do the bottom too.”
What good is doing only the top and disappearing? By “bottom,” I meant I was afraid to attempt it because if I failed, I would fall and hurt down there. However, no matter how long I waited, the ability wouldn’t activate, so I closed my eyes and slowly lowered my gaze below.
‘Well, I just found it bothersome, but I could do it if I wanted to.’
A chill I could feel despite not being able to see it. I picked up the piece of cloth I had placed beside me and tried several times to step into it.
It was different from fastening hooks. Since I was already holding it, I just had to put my feet in. Failure. And another failure. After experiencing several failures, I managed to get one leg in. Now I just had to get the other leg in.
As I was thinking thus and trying, I heard an ominous sound of something opening.
Creak.
“Why are you taking so long? Did you fall asleep again or...”
When I opened my eyes, by the door stood a girl pretending to cover her face with both hands while watching everything about me through the gaps between her fingers.
“Aha, so you were just slowly changing? Take your time and come out~.”
“Stop talking and get out!”
Heat flooded up to the tips of my ears. I had thought she would at least knock before entering, so I was dressing at my own pace, but now that this had happened, I had to finish quickly.
Before even processing anything by looking down, I stuck my legs in and finished putting it on, then put on the undershorts beside me. Before I could finish changing completely by putting on the skirt as well, I approached the girl who was continuously peeping at me from beside the door in order to do what had to be done.
They say a man who raises his hand against a woman is a bad man, but because I was a kind gentleman who upheld gender equality, my hand went to her face. —This is what gender equality is.
*
Not being a type where you merely looped straps over your shoulders, it could be intentionally a bit difficult.
But to think she was taking this long when I thought she would finish quickly and come down. Hadn’t just her interpersonal relationships been reset? If her knowledge had been reset too...
“What should I do?”
The girl standing in the kitchen wearing a white apron muttered.
Even without her needing to do anything, Erika was already alone. She wouldn’t ask her new family for help, and her reputation at school was already the worst.
Even if a problem arose and her older sister tried to help, she would refuse that help on her end.
Thus, if someone tried to force themselves on her, the problem would be none other than her ability.
An ability that, if she deemed the “situation” itself unfair to her, created the power to break through that unfair situation until she escaped it.
To think the ability she had once thought so reliable would now become an obstacle.
“Should I buy one of those superpower suppressor devices that have been circulating secretly lately?”
Having said it herself, the girl snickered alone. There was no rush, and she had no reason to do something that would make her so hated.
Slowly and step by step.
If she didn’t betray her from her side, she too would only approach without stepping out of position as her precious friend.
So as not to fail this time.
The girl who had failed once went up to the room where someone who had forgotten her failure was. No matter how she thought about it, she had been too slow.
And what the girl saw when she went up was a single “prize,” as if someone were praising the girl’s choice. What happened immediately after was the same.
*
“I really wasn’t going to ask, but let me ask just one thing.”
After a commotion ended, sitting at the table with omurice before me, I chose to converse with the girl in front of me rather than focus on the meal.
I asked her face, which still bore the mark where I had slapped her cheek—laden with motherly concern that I should hurry and eat before the omurice got cold.
“When did you find out my underwear size? It fit perfectly.”
“Ah, the size is something you can roughly tell just by looking. Maybe I have the qualifications to be a genius designer...? How about we gloss over it?”
If she hadn’t said that last part, I would have been fooled. Had she not revealed the perfect act up to that point as a lie, I would have believed it.
Was it because I had lightly slapped her cheek earlier? ...Perhaps because her skin was sensitive, the fact that one side of her face was still red made me feel strangely guilty.
However, the fact that she had deliberately stayed without leaving and watched was so detestable and shameful that my hand had moved of its own accord.
...Thinking about it like this, I feel like I’m becoming trash. Honestly, I had wanted to hear her retort—asking why I hit her or something—but since she acted so friendly without a word after that, I felt even more guilty.
“It just means we were close enough to go underwear shopping together.”
“And... is your cheek okay?”
Since hitting with a fist would have been insane, I had switched to my palm mid-swing, but it still bothered me slightly. At my question asked without picking up my spoon, the girl smiled gently.
“It’s fine. When I peeped at you changing clothes, you hitting me was like our promise. Seems your body’s reflexes kicked in.”
So on top of being a straight-A student who routinely caused self-harm incidents, I also have a violence attribute? Good grief, just how many attributes does this body have? It was enough to make me dizzy.
However, seeing as how the earlier act had been routine, apologizing would probably be stranger. Besides, the one who committed the perverted act first wasn’t me, but her...
Thus, though I didn’t apologize, I lifted my spoon, scooped up some omurice, and brought it near her mouth.
An expression of my apology. Since she had made the omurice herself, I thought she might not take it, but she chomped down on the spoon I offered with a bright expression I’d never seen before.
As she chewed with her lips, smearing her saliva all over my spoon, I thought inwardly. I may have been somewhat in the wrong this time, but she definitely seemed to be a pervert...
“If you’re so sorry, eat with this.”
A spoon that had been clean without a single grain of rice now had a glossy sheen of saliva...
“Come to think of it, I’m not sorry.”
Paying respects to the magic that made even my existing guilt disappear, I subtly refused. As if she had expected me to do so, she smiled.
“Well, it can’t be helped.”
Was it something she did deliberately to forgive my impulsive act, or was it a corner of a perverted act trying to really feed me her saliva?
If my body possessed the attributes of impulsive violence, self-harm, and a smart brain, what attributes did that heroine possess as a heroine? At the very least, I could tell she had the cooking keyword and the pervert keyword.
I stopped my idle thoughts and quickly extended my spoon toward the omurice. Though waking up early had allowed me to take care of many things at a leisurely pace, it was about time to head to school now.