episode_0062

Thud.

After finishing my bath, I wiped the moisture from my hair with a towel hanging on the wall and opened the bathroom door wide.

Thinking to dress properly before Amy and Friede woke up.

But.

“Oh.”

“Uh, E, A, U, Hilde, Hilde…? Are you awake?”

Amy and Friede, who had already woken up or were in the process of dressing themselves, were waiting for me outside the bathroom with surprised looks in their eyes.

“Oh… you, you’re up…?”

I reflexively spread the towel to cover my body and awkwardly smiled.

Since the towel wasn’t very long, it only covered half of my chest and the end of my buttocks was clearly exposed.

“Ahaha….”

My face flushed.

Biologically, there was no need to feel embarrassed since we were of the same gender, but the human heart doesn’t always follow such rationality.

If I had been mentally prepared, like when entering a public bath, it might have been different, but revealing myself so suddenly caused considerable resistance.

Of course, saying that public baths are fine is just a metaphor; I’ve never actually set foot in one.

In those places, inevitably, you have to show your face, and due to the remnants of conscience and shame in my heart.

In this world, public baths are mostly mixed-gender. My skin isn’t thick enough to bathe nonchalantly in such places.

…I got a bit verbose.

In short, the situation right now was embarrassing and difficult for me to endure.

“First, clothes! Let’s get dressed first!”

“Oh, uh, yeah. Yeah…!”

I managed to answer clumsily with a blank face and hurriedly ran to the wardrobe, taking out new underwear and putting them on.

After urgently covering the important parts, I put on new pants and a shirt.

“Phew….”

Only then did I feel somewhat relieved.

◆◆

After dressing properly in everyday clothes.

I covered my still-damp hair with a towel and sat down on the chair next to the bed, rubbing it. “Ahem.” Then, I looked at Amy and Friede, who were sitting somewhat awkwardly on the edge of the bed, and coughed awkwardly. “Phew…” “Hmm…” Friede blushed as if recalling the scene from earlier and avoided my gaze, while Amy, with her eyes slightly closed, seemed deeply lost in thought. “Whew…” I put the damp towel heavily on the table, shook my head lightly, and let out a faint sigh. My stomach felt a bit stuffy. No, was it more like dirty? It felt like my throat was completely blocked. “Um… Can I ask you something?” Finally, the moment came when I had to find out what had happened last night. I really didn’t want to, but it was something I had to ask. “…What exactly happened last night?” That’s why I spoke. It was a hot night, or so I prayed desperately that I wouldn’t get an answer like “It was my first time.” “Cough!” Friede, who had been avoiding my gaze, stiffened her shoulders and coughed awkwardly. “Do I really have to hear this?” Amy asked me with a face that seemed to question whether she could handle it. A reaction that seemed to imply that something had happened very properly. ‘…What’s with this reaction?’ A dreadful premonition, as if my prayers had been betrayed, pierced through my mind like a thorn. ‘No way, no way…!’ From the tip of my toes, a chill crept up, giving me a shivery and dizzying sensation as if my whole body was freezing, and I stiffened my pale face, trembling my thin lips. “Oh, it’s not…? It’s not like that, right?” If only what came to mind now wasn’t true, I expressed the urgent feeling that whatever had happened, it didn’t matter. But reality was cruel. “…Take responsibility. I’m going to be married soon.” Amy raised both hands and slightly pressed her chest, whispering with a flushed face. “I, I too, um. It was my first time! Please take responsibility…!”

Frida also lightly brushed her neatly gathered thighs and shouted with a flushed face.

I couldn’t muster the spirit to respond to her words.

Responsibility. Marriage. First time. Responsibility.

Words that were so heavy and frightening that they were spinning wildly in my empty head, unable to think of any other meaning. Words from which there was no escape, an inescapable reality that struck my mind like a cudgel.

I committed it.

Was it because I completely lost my self-control due to being drunk? I can’t even remember, but I spent last night in a passionate embrace with minors, both legally and in appearance.

Did I. Touch them. These kids?

Both at the same time? In a state where I had been heavily drinking?

An unbearable shocking reality.

“Ah, ah, ugh…!”

As my consciousness faded in an instant, a strange groan flowed out of my wide-open mouth.

A dizzying sense of falling. It felt as if my soul, detached from my body, was convulsing uncontrollably.

Like a dagger plunged into the back of my head, my consciousness scattered like mist in a typhoon as my eyes rolled upward.

“Aaaaah……!”

I fainted just like that.

“W-what…? Hilde?! Wait, get a hold of yourself…!”

“Hilde?! Just kidding, it’s a joke!”

Amidst the ringing in my ears, the startled voices of the two people seemed to pass by fleetingly.

My hearing was almost gone, so I couldn’t understand what was being said.

◆◆

Forty minutes later.

I barely woke up again, lying neatly on the bed.

“What… was that a dream…?”

My voice was so weak, it was almost a whimper.

I closed my eyes and placed my trembling arm over my eyes.

Yes, it must have all been a dream.

Waking up nearly naked, finding Amy and Frida in the bed, the subsequent bath, and the shocking stories I heard from the two of them.

It was all a nightmare. When I think about it, I should have known right away. There’s no way I would do such a thing.

Really, why do I keep having these kinds of dreams? Is it because of the accumulated fatigue from past battles, knowingly or unknowingly? Or is it because of alcohol?

Yeah, I should refrain from drinking from now on…

“Hilde, are you awake? Thank goodness, thank goodness!”

The escape from reality ended there.

As I raised my eyelids, clearing my arms that covered my eyes from the voice digging into my ears, I could face Amy and Freide looking down at me with worried expressions.

Both of them were dressed just like in the ‘nightmare.’

…It wasn’t a dream, was it? Damn it.

“Should I just… continue to sleep forever?”

“No!”

As I tried to close my eyes again after uttering those words, Freide urgently grabbed my shoulders and shook me rapidly.

“It was a joke! A joke! Nothing happened! Nothing happened at all!”

She said, bringing out an unbelievable story.

“…A joke?”

A joke…?

What.

Was that?

So, nothing happened?

As my bewildered mind wandered like a flatboat through the calm waters, the meaning of that sentence reached my consciousness, and in an instant, my half-closed eyes became clear and wide open.

“A joke?!”

I exclaimed as I abruptly got up.

– Bam!

As if rebounding, I hit Freide’s head with my outstretched forehead.

“Eek!”

With a shocking impact that seemed to spark flames in my eyes, Freide, struck by my forehead, let out a chick-like scream and fell under the bed.

“Yikes?!”

Startled, she flinched her shoulders and desperately tried to avoid my body, losing balance and falling with Amy, who was caught on Freide’s arm.

With a clattering noise, the two girls rolled together on the floor of the room.

“Ow ow ow….”

I glared at the two girls, who were rolling around, while holding my throbbing forehead.

Even though I didn’t punch her, I must have gripped my forehead.

◆◆

A little while later.

Amy and Freide, who had untangled their arms and legs and stood up, explained to me the whole story of what happened last night.

Their talk about spending a hot night and taking responsibility was nothing but a joke.

I was actually staggering drunk, and they supported me to the room and laid me on the bed. I started taking off my clothes saying I was hot, and in their confusion trying to stop me, they ended up falling onto the bed.

Right after that, since they couldn’t hold their own drunkenness any longer, they just fell asleep.

They grumbled about responsibility, but it turns out it was a joke they made while I was waking up from sleep to wash up.

Amy suggested it, and Freida, after some hesitation, eventually agreed due to her persuasion.

Because they were still feeling the effects of alcohol, they thought it would be amusing to see my embarrassed state.

…It’s really unbelievable.

“No, there are jokes you can make and jokes you can’t!”

I knelt them under the bed and delivered an angry speech.

There’s a line even in jokes, and crossing that line, how could you do that?

“Do you understand? No matter how close we are, there’s a line to be kept—manners—and for someone two years younger than me—I’ve been too lenient—how surprised I was—”

That went on for thirty minutes.

“Um… Hey, Hilde? We messed up, so can’t you just let it go…? We’ve been repeating the same thing for thirty minutes already…”

Amy, unable to withstand my pressure, raised her trembling voice and begged for mercy.

“What? Bored? Still, keep listening. It’s a lecture and advice as an elder.”

Of course, I flatly refused. I had become a merciless judge to the extent that even the devil in hell would applaud.

Compared to the shock I felt, the numbness in my arms and knees was nothing.

“I, I’m the same age as you…”

“You’re doing the same thing!”

Freida, who was timidly trying to argue, shut her mouth with a pained expression.

At the end of the lengthy sermon that lasted an hour, finally, permission was granted to lower my hands.

I wanted to continue preaching for another two hours, but I decided to let it go this time because I was starting to get hungry.

Really, what kind of ridiculous joke did they make and fall for?

I thought I was losing my mind.