Chapter 4: The Shower Aftermath
The silence in the kitchen had become a physical thing, a weight pressing them into the grimy floor. Choso stood up first, her movements stiff, like a marionette with cut strings. She didn’t look at him. She walked out, her bare feet silent on the hall floor, and went straight to the bathroom. She locked the door. The click was definitive.
Yuji heard the shower start. The familiar groan of pipes in the walls. He was still on the floor, the smell of coffee and sex and guilt a sickening cocktail in his nose. He looked at his trembling hands. He got up.
He stood outside the bathroom door. The sound of water was a torrent. He pictured her under it, scrubbing at her skin, trying to wash him away. The thought was a knife twist. He leaned his forehead against the cool wood.
“Choso-nee,” he said, not sure she could hear him.
The water didn’t stop.
He tried the handle. Locked. Of course. He slid down the wall and sat on the hallway runner, pulling his knees up. He waited. The steam seeped out from under the door, carrying the faint, floral scent of her soap. It wrapped around him. He was still in his stained sweatpants. He felt filthy. And exhilarated. And terrified.
After a long time, the water shut off. There was a stretch of quiet, just the drip of the showerhead and the soft rustle of a towel. Then the lock turned.
The door opened a crack, a cloud of humid air billowing out. Choso peered through, wrapped in a large blue towel tucked securely over her chest. Her dark hair was a damp, heavy cloak down her back. Her skin was flushed pink from the heat.
She saw him and flinched, her grip tightening on the towel. “Yuji. Go to your room.”
“I can’t,” he said, his voice raw. He stayed on the floor, looking up at her. It felt like supplication. “Please. Just let me… be near you.”
“This is insane.” Her voice wavered. But she didn’t shut the door.
He saw his opening. He moved slowly, rising to his knees. He pushed the door open wider. The bathroom was a sauna, the mirror completely fogged, the tiles slick. She took a step back, her heel meeting the damp bathmat.
“You followed me in here last time,” he whispered. The memory of the accidental glimpse weeks ago, the silhouette through the fogged glass, was what had started this freefall. “You were singing. You didn’t know I was there.”
Her eyes widened. “Don’t.”
“I need to see you,” he breathed, the confession leaving him in a rush. “Not an accident. Not through a door. I need to… memorize you. Just once. I swear I won’t touch anything you don’t want me to.” The promise felt true as he said it. The touching in the kitchen had been a frantic, shared release. This was different. This was a need that felt older, hungrier.
Choso’s chest rose and fell rapidly. The towel slipped a fraction, and she snatched it back. She looked from his desperate face to the shower stall, its glass door still beaded with water, opaque and secretive.
“You’re still dressed,” she said, a nonsensical observation.
“I don’t care.”
A long, shuddering sigh escaped her. It was a sound of surrender, of a dam cracking. Without another word, she turned her back to him and walked to the shower. She pulled the frosted glass door open, stepped inside the wet cubicle, and let the towel fall.
It pooled at her feet, a blue circle on the white basin. She stood with her back to him, her spine a graceful curve, water droplets tracing paths down the dip of her waist, over the swell of her hips. The steam curled around her slender figure.
Yuji’s breath caught. He stood, his clothes suddenly an absurd, stifling barrier. He stepped into the humid room, his socks soaking up water from the floor. He didn’t go into the stall. He stopped just outside it, his hand coming up to press against the cool, fogged glass, right beside her shape.
He could see the blur of her, the pale gold of her skin, the dark waterfall of her hair. It was more intimate than full visibility. It was a suggestion, a dream.
“Choso,” he whispered.
Slowly, she turned. She faced him through the glass, her features soft and smeared by the condensation. Her hands hung at her sides, not hiding anything. She reached out and, from her side, placed her palm flat against the glass opposite his. Their hands aligned, separated by a quarter-inch of barrier.
Then she slid the door open.
The steam rushed out. She was there, completely revealed, water still gleaming on her shoulders, her throat, the full, gentle weight of her breasts. Her eyes were huge and dark, holding his without blinking.
Yuji felt a reverence so profound it hurt. He dropped to his knees on the wet bathroom tiles. The damp immediately soaked through his sweatpants. He didn’t care. He looked up at her, a devotee before a shrine.
He leaned forward, slowly, giving her every chance to stop him. He pressed his lips to the inside of her knee. Her skin tasted of lavender and clean water. She jolted, a tiny gasp echoing in the tiled space. He didn’t move his mouth, just held the kiss there, feeling the fine tremble in her leg.
He kissed his way up the delicate skin of her inner thigh, each touch a soft, closed-mouth press. He was mapping her. Memorizing. The smell of her, the heat of her, the slight give of her flesh under his lips. He skirted the heart of her, moving instead to the plane of her lower belly, dipping his tongue into the shallow well of her navel.
She made a choked sound, one hand coming down to rest, trembling, on his head. Not pushing him away. Anchoring herself.
He moved up, over the gentle curve of her stomach, along the jut of her ribcage. He kissed the underswell of her breast, then the peaked, tight bud of her nipple. He took it into his mouth, softly, and she cried out, her fingers fisting in his pink hair. He worshipped her there until her knees buckled, then guided her gently back against the cool tile wall, steadying her with his hands on her hips.
He looked up at her face. Her head was thrown back, throat exposed, eyes closed. Tears leaked from the corners, mixing with the shower’s residue on her cheeks.
“Yuji,” she pleaded, but it was not a stop.
He lowered his head again. This time, he went to the junction of her thighs, but he kept his promise. He didn’t enter her. He pressed his open mouth against her, over the soft, dark curls, and breathed her in. Then he used his tongue, a slow, flat stroke that had her hips jolting off the wall.
He did it again. And again. Learning her rhythm from the hitches in her breath, the silent pleas of her body moving against his face. He held her hips firm, keeping her steady as he tasted her, explored her, until her sounds became broken, until her thighs tightened around his head, until she shuddered apart with a long, low sob, her body sliding down the tile as her legs gave out.
He caught her, easing her down until they were both on the floor, huddled together in the damp. He held her, her back against his chest, both of them shaking. The shower dripped a steady, slow rhythm onto their heads.
They sat there for what felt like an eternity, wrapped in steam and aftermath. Finally, she stirred. She reached back, her hand finding his where it rested on her stomach. She laced her fingers through his. A simple, devastating connection.
“We’re going to hell,” she whispered, her voice hollow.
“I know,” he said into her wet hair. He pulled the discarded towel within reach and wrapped it around her shoulders. They didn’t move to get up. They just sat on the soaked bathmat, shivering in the fading heat, listening to the last drops of water fall from the showerhead into the puddle below. The world outside the bathroom door had ceased to exist. There was only this damp, stolen sanctuary, and the terrifying, unspoken future now stretching before them.