Catching Isac’s gaze on her, Yukinoshita Yukino froze for a beat.
After hesitating a moment, she asked in a probing tone:
“…Want me to help wipe your back?”
Hmm.
By and large, in Nihon there really is a customary thing where women help men wash their backs.
So Yukinoshita Yukino offering to wipe his back right now was perfectly understand— the hell it was!?
“What did you just say?”
Isac wondered if he’d misheard her.
After all, with a girl of Yukinoshita Yukino’s type, there was no way she’d actually volunteer to help wipe down his body.
This kind of thing didn’t even happen in dreams!
“You can’t reach every spot wiping yourself down on your own, can you?
I can help.” Yukinoshita Yukino repeated herself, the seriousness on her face suggesting she wasn’t kidding.
You’re for real?
Isac looked a touch dazed — for a moment he had no idea how to answer.
Watching Isac react that way, Yukinoshita Yukino was suddenly hit by regret — had she been a bit too forward?
She’d known Isac for two and a half days, tops.
Before all this, the two of them hadn’t even been from the same country.
And even after going through everything they’d been through together, the most they could honestly be called was relatively familiar… friends?
Honestly, when it came to making friends, Yukinoshita Yukino didn’t have much experience to speak of, so she wasn’t even sure whether their current relationship had reached the level of ‘friends’ yet.
When she’d first said the words, Yukinoshita Yukino hadn’t actually thought it through that much.
She’d simply felt that doing it that way would be more convenient and more comfortable for Isac, helping him rest a little better.
Now, thinking about it again — even between friends, wiping someone else’s back down seemed pretty inappropriate.
After all, they weren’t the same gender, they were opposite genders.
Wiping the other person’s body down felt like the kind of thing that should be reserved for intimate relationships — couples, married pairs, that level.
Once that hit her, it was Yukinoshita Yukino’s turn to start losing her composure.
“I just said it offhand.
You don’t have to force yourself.”
But the second those words left her mouth, Yukinoshita Yukino froze again.
She realized that by phrasing it that way, what hadn’t originally been a ‘forcing himself’ situation had now started to feel exactly like one.
What now?
She had a creeping feeling that the more she explained, the worse this was getting.
“Then… I’ll trouble you for it?”
Seeing Yukinoshita Yukino had taken it this far, Isac figured that turning her down at this point would be downright rude.
And on top of that, doing it solo, there really were a few spots he couldn’t reach… OK, fine.
The honest truth was, he just wanted to enjoy a back-wash service from a pretty girl.
I mean — who in their right mind wouldn’t want to enjoy a back-wash from a pure, sweet, drop-dead lovely pretty girl?
Anyone who doesn’t is g@y!
“Mm.”
Yukinoshita Yukino put on a calm face and gave a noncommittal hum, but in reality her face was burning red by now, and her heart was pounding nonstop — like it was about to leap right out of her chest. Follow the newest chapters on novelping dot com.
“Mind if I wash my face first?” Isac asked carefully.
Even he wasn’t sure why washing his face apparently needed her permission, but a little extra asking never hurt anybody.
“P-please, by all means.” Yukinoshita Yukino sounded almost formal at this point, slipping unconsciously into more polite speech.
“All right.
Washing up.”
Isac quickly slapped the towel onto his face, scrubbed hard, then dunked the towel back into the water — lift, wring, wipe.
From the start of the face-wash to the end of it, the whole operation took less than twenty seconds — the whole vibe being a blitzkrieg attack on the cheeks, where a single extra second of effort would have qualified as a war crime.
Yukinoshita Yukino watched it unfold completely dumbfounded.
“You… you’re done?” There was a note of disbelief in Yukinoshita Yukino’s voice.
Sure, conditions weren’t exactly ideal right now, but did he really have to be that half-hearted about it?
Could that even count as washing your face?
“All done.” Isac said it without missing a beat.
Compared to his usual pace, today’s performance had actually been a little off — mostly because Yukinoshita Yukino was right there watching, which had gotten him nervous and bought him a few extra seconds of scrubbing.
So what you’re telling me is that you usually wash even faster?
Yukinoshita Yukino pinched the bridge of her nose — she could feel a headache coming on.
She asked: “Don’t tell me you wash your face like this on a regular basis?”
“That’s right.”
Looking at the matter-of-fact expression on Isac’s face, Yukinoshita Yukino felt a flicker of unaccountable annoyance — wasn’t washing his face like that just flat-out wasting that good-looking face of his?
“You.
Come here.”
Yukinoshita Yukino flipped to combat mode in a snap, expression dead serious as she pointed at the empty spot beside her.
“Oh.”
Faced with how serious Yukinoshita Yukino looked, Isac felt an inexplicable little flicker of dread.
He obediently followed her direction and sat down on the edge of the bed.
“Hand over the towel.” Yukinoshita Yukino reached out and seized possession of the towel straight out of Isac’s hand.
First, she dipped it into the water, leaving the towel half-damp.
“Lean your face closer.”
The girl kept right on issuing orders.
Isac complied.
“Eyes closed.”
The warm towel settled over his face.
Through the fabric, Isac could clearly feel the pads of the girl’s fingers traveling across his cheeks — pressure not too light, not too firm, but exceptionally careful.
It gave him this strange sense of being transported back to early childhood, when his mother used to help wash his face.
…Well, OK.
His mom probably hadn’t been quite that gentle.
Could it be that Yukinoshita Yukino was a woman capable of becoming his mother?
Damn — did I just get body-snatched by Wa-kouhai?
Once she’d scrubbed away for a good minute-plus and the towel had cooled noticeably, Yukinoshita Yukino finally dunked the towel back into the water.
Isac figured they were done — and the second he started to move, he heard it:
“Don’t move.
I haven’t dried it yet.”
Yukinoshita Yukino pressed down on Isac’s shoulder, slapped the wrung-out towel onto the boy’s face, and went at it with another round of scrubbing — only pulling the towel back once she was sure she’d soaked up every drop of moisture from his face.
There — much cleaner now.
A shame they didn’t have any facial cleanser — they didn’t even have a bar of soap.
This was about as far as they could realistically take it.
Yukinoshita Yukino thought to herself, a touch regretful.
Then again, the thought struck her — in conditions like these, washing your face too thoroughly actually wasn’t a good thing.
The skin’s naturally secreted oils served as a natural protective layer, doing real work to ward off frostbite on the face.
Wait — could it be that Isac’s earlier washing method had actually been the right one?
Yukinoshita Yukino sank into deep thought — but it didn’t take long for her to come back around.
Right my foot.
The way he was doing it, what was the actual difference between that and just getting his face wet and then drying it off?
Definitely not right.
Yukinoshita Yukino’s gaze sharpened again, and she said briskly: “Clothes.
Off.”
“I-is that really…?” Isac stared at Yukinoshita Yukino, dumbstruck — he had this nagging feeling something was off here.
Seeing Isac still standing there spaced out, Yukinoshita Yukino furrowed her brow: “What are you frozen there for?
Hurry up, the water’s going to go cold!”
“Oh…”
And so Yukinoshita Yukino quickly finished wiping down Isac’s back — although the actual experience deviated quite a bit from what Isac had been picturing in his head.
Mercifully, once she was done with his back, Yukinoshita Yukino didn’t push any further.
She handed the towel back to Isac and turned her body around to face the other way.
“You can handle the rest yourself.”
That left Isac feeling a little disappointed and a little relieved at the same time.
Finally back to the regular body-wiping portion of the program.
Like a thief casing the room, Isac stole a sneaky glance at the back of Yukinoshita Yukino’s head.
His eyes lingered for a beat on the bright crimson of her earlobes — and right then he cracked a quiet grin.
After thinking it over, he decided it was probably best to pretend he hadn’t seen a thing.
He quickly finished wiping down the rest, got his clothes back on properly, and cleared his throat lightly as a heads-up.
“Ahem.
I’m good.”
____
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