Chapter 9
I rested my face on the edge of the bath and leisurely watched Acard’s slapstick routine.
Even though his body flew that far and slammed into the marble floor with a bang, the fact that he didn’t seem hurt must just be my imagination, right?
“I-I’m so, so sorry!! I had no idea!!”
Acard sprang to his feet in that state, bent forward, and apologized to me.
“…Oh.”
There wasn’t a single thread covering his lower body, leaving it dangling… Wow.
Was that even a size that could be attached to a person?
It was the kind of size that would only be covered with a mosaic in a documentary about wild horses.
“How many centimeters is that?”
“…Pardon?”
Since there was no reason for me to accept an apology from another man, I asked out of pure curiosity how long that dragon was.
“If you don’t answer, I’ll scream.”
“!!!”
Only then did Acard realize that his lower body was exposed, and he hurriedly tried to cover his dragon with his hands.
But just as covering the sky with your hands doesn’t make it disappear, the dragon poked out to the side and dangled there.
“Here. Use this to cover it.”
I gladly tossed the towel in my hand to Acard.
I knew that even between men, some people didn’t like showing their bodies to each other.
Perhaps moved by my considerate gesture, Acard quickly wrapped the towel around his waist and breathed a sigh of relief.
“I’m sorry!! I’ll leave now!!”
He squeezed his eyes shut and started to leave.
“Excuse me.”
“…!”
I gave Acard a demonic smile and smacked the water in the bath.
“It doesn’t matter, so come in and keep me company for a while.”
After feasting my eyes on breasts of every variety, I felt like chatting with Acard, the man who had them all as wives.
All of Acard’s wives seemed close and happy, so I found myself wanting to become friends with him.
“If you don’t come in, I’ll scream.”
When I threatened the fidgeting man with the same threat again, Acard swallowed hard, terrified by the wicked woman before him.
“N-No, I can’t…!”
“Stop stammering and come in already.”
“I have wives!!”
But Acard squeezed his eyes shut, put up a perfect fence-like barrier with his arms in a pharaoh pose, and backed away.
…So that’s how you’re going to play it?
“If you won’t come, I’ll go to you.”
“!!!”
“I’ll give you three seconds. One. Twooo~.”
I kept up the relentless threats and showed signs of getting out of the bath.
“…Gulp.”
In the end, he surrendered with tears in his eyes, took the spot farthest from me, and entered the bath.
Even then, he stubbornly kept his eyes shut and showed no sign of opening them….
…? What? How did he do that?
He walked around just fine with his eyes closed?
There was never an end to the things that amazed me about this harem party.
At this point, was he going to summon a dragon as a familiar and send a mountain flying with one swing of his sword?
…I stopped the pointless thoughts and called out to Acard, who was fully immersed in the bath, putting his patience to the test.
“Hey. No… excuse me.”
Good grief… Whenever I talk to that guy, informal speech slips out before I realize it.
I cleared my throat and continued the question I hadn’t finished earlier.
“So, how many centimeters is that?”
“…What exactly are you referring to?”
“The thing covered by the towel.”
“….”
At my blunt question, his eyebrows rose and began to twitch.
Then Acard went silent!
“Excuse me~.”
“……”
“Can you not hear me?”
Since the bath was so spacious that sound echoed, I wondered if he couldn’t hear me and raised my voice.
“Your dick! How many centimeters is it?!”
“Pffft…!!!”
Acard’s composure, which he had tried to maintain by ignoring me, shattered when he swallowed water wrong, and a miracle occurred.
“Ms. Ria!! Grown women shouldn’t say things like that!!”
I had actually succeeded in making Acard lecture me.
He sprang to his feet and scolded me, yet his expression seemed to ask whether this was really appropriate. Perhaps he had lived such a good life that he had never had to lecture anyone.
“You’re curious, aren’t you?”
“No…! I mean….”
“Isn’t it uncomfortable walking around with such a huge package?”
Even covered by a towel, the presence of his third leg was so immense that surely anyone would be curious.
“Ms. Ria! Please, have some dignity—”
Sssslip. Another trial came to Acard, who had been boldly insisting that he was right.
“Shit.”
“…Oh. You said a bad word.”
The towel tied around his waist had absorbed water, failed to bear its own weight, and slipped away from him.
As he muttered a swear word he never used and tried to grab the towel being swept away by the bathwater, I saw his shamelessly bobbing dragon.
“…Is it about as long as my forearm? Is that its flaccid size?”
“Ms. Ria! Please…!”
Acard barely managed to catch the towel and wrap it around his waist again, then urged me to stop with an exhausted expression.
“So. How many centimeters is your dick?”
As a fellow man who had witnessed such an anomaly, I had to satisfy my curiosity.
If it had merely been reasonably large, I would have said, “Ugh, gross,” and left it at that, but I was genuinely curious whether its flaccid size was really as big as a human forearm.
“Your vocabulary….”
“Dick.”
“Stop….”
“Diiick~.”
As I kept teasing him with a bright smile, his muscular body began to tremble, and the water around him started rippling violently.
“Nineteen centimeters!! Are you satisfied!?”
Having given up on everything, Acard revealed the dragon’s length and plopped back down into the water.
…He’s surprisingly fun to tease.
Maybe it’s because he’s such a good person?
He didn’t even flinch at most of my pranks, but sexual jokes were apparently his weakness.
I giggled like a child who had successfully pulled off a prank and cautiously splashed the water.
“Sigh….”
Acard narrowed his brow and grunted, as if I were frustrating him.
That looked like an expression he would never show his other wives.
“…!”
It hit me all at once.
This was it!
With this, I could create a world line in which I never became his wife!
Since our circumstances made it impossible not to encounter each other while I lived in this neighborhood, I’d been wondering how to drive the final wedge between us.
At this rate, Acard might not hate me, but he certainly wouldn’t develop any affection for me!
“…Ms. Ria, I’m going to leave now.”
“Wait!!”
“…?”
“I haven’t finished talking yet!”
A good method had just occurred to me, but if my guinea pig escaped now, all my effort would be wasted.
“…Ahem!”
When the blond, blue-eyed woman in front of him cleared her throat, Acard sensed something strange, narrowed his brow, and took a step back.
“How many centimeters when you’re fully erect?”
“Aaaagh!!”
My prediction was perfectly accurate, and I began a paparazzi-style interrogation of his private life at point-blank range.
“How many times a week do you have sex with your wives?”
“Stop…!”
“Which position do you prefer most?!”
“Please…!”
“Which of the three was your first lo—”
“Ria!! Stop it!”
My perfect plan to make him dislike me worked, and Acard shouted in exasperation.
“…Ahaha. I may have gone a little too far…. Sorry….”
He had only narrowed his brow and barked at me, but his handsome face carried enough intimidation that I realized my mistake, cowered, and sank underwater with a gurgle.
I think I took advantage of Acard too much because he was so kind.
It was rude to ask such questions of someone I’d known for less than two days….
“…Sigh. …I’m sorry.”
Perhaps my cowering, with only my face poking out of the water as I watched his reaction, bothered him, because Acard sighed, scratched the back of his neck, and apologized.
…You’re genuinely a good guy.
I was amazed that everyone in this family possessed such perfect character.
Acard, looking just as drained as I felt, didn’t even think of running away; he sank back into the bath and gave a hollow laugh.
“If you’re that curious, ask my wives….”
“Ngh….”
Squeak—. He interlaced his fingers and shot a little water gun at me as he replied, as if I were hopeless.
“They ask me every day because they want to suck me completely dry every night…. …Is it really okay to tell you this?”
“….”
I felt strangely comforted by Acard answering all the questions I’d asked to raise my unlikability score.
…Why is this so touching?
I even felt as if I’d met a friend of ten years again.
“Um… Acard.”
As the warmth of our budding intimacy grew, I called him by his name for the first time instead of addressing him as “Hey.”
“Hm?”
“…Do you like big breasts?”
“….”
He had apparently been expecting some subtle question, but his mood immediately plunged when he heard it.
Still, when he saw the sincerity in my blue eyes, which told him that I wanted to become friends, he gave the matter serious thought.
“I don’t care about size. Just… well, anyway, that’s how it is.”
“Really? Then what do you look at?”
“What… are you talking about?”
“If you don’t look at breasts, then butts, thighs, or maybe hips.”
Acard realized that we were having the sort of conversation teenagers at that age might have.
Since sex was obviously the best subject for starting a man(?)-to-man conversation,
he realized that this was my attempt to become closer to him because I couldn’t think of a better topic.
“I just… look at their personality.”
“Liar.”
“I mean it.”
When I challenged Acard, who had given the usual dodge that he looked at a woman’s personality, he shrugged.
…Good-looking bastards always claim they don’t look at faces while looking at them more than anything else. What a liar.
“Karina, Vika, and Mira. They’re all incredibly beautiful, but you only look at their personalities?”
“That’s….”
“With a face like yours, there must have been tons of women who pursued you. You expect me to believe you only looked at their personalities?”
“…Fine, I look at faces! And hips, too! Why?!”
Defeated by my relentless pursuit, Acard shot a little water gun at me with his interlaced fingers and finally told me the truth.
“Damn it…! Did you just shoot water at me?!”
“Huh…? That sentence sounded a little weird…. Gulp!!”
Unable to let his sudden water-gun attack go unanswered, I interlaced my fingers and shot an accurate water gun at Acard.
I used to be a swimming instructor, you know!
I wasn’t good enough to win a medal, so I never made the national team, though!
“Wait… glub…!”
Acard seemed to be losing to the pointless water tricks characteristic of swimming instructors, but then—
“Kyahaha!! You were acting all high and mighty and pretending to be handsome, but you can’t even block something like th—?!”
“—Eat this!”
Fwoosh—! A massive wave suddenly surged toward me, and the bathwater came crashing over me.
“Phaaah!! Hey! Spraying water is cheating!”
You started by shooting a water gun with your fingers, and now you’re splashing water with your hands?
“You were the one who started the prank, Ria!”
“…What?! You shot water at me first!”
As the atmosphere grew more heated and we got more excited, we splashed water vigorously and kicked it hard with our feet, starting a late-night water fight.
“I-I lost!! Stop now!”
“Ha! All those muscles you built are useless!!”
Before long, Acard, who had accumulated far more experience in the water, completely overwhelmed me, and he declared total defeat.
“Haaah… haaah….”
“Phewww….”
Since water fights required more stamina than I expected, the moment the battle ended, we sat in the bath, which had lost half its water, and panted.
“…Pfft.”
“Heh….”
We laughed when we unconsciously realized that we had more in common than expected, then met each other’s eyes with the warmth of friendship.
“Puhahaha…. Huh…?”
“……”
“…? What? Is there something on my chest?”
With the water level lowered, my upper body was completely exposed, and Acard, whose eyes met the pink tips of my rounded breasts, couldn’t laugh and fell silent.
“Hey, why aren’t you saying anything?”
What was so special about these breasts that he was acting like this?
He got to look at his wives’ breasts as much as he wanted every single day.
“If you don’t say anything, I’m leaving.”
“……”
The fun atmosphere cooled when Acard stopped saying anything at all, so, deciding I had enjoyed my bath enough, I sprang to my feet and headed out of the bath.
“That was fun! Let’s play like this often from now on!”
Without forgetting to emphasize that Acard and I had more in common than expected, I declared that we should remain good friends and waved vigorously at him.
My breasts, as if they had absorbed water, swayed back and forth with the movement of my hand.
But why had Acard suddenly hunched awkwardly at the waist and gone silent?
No matter how much I thought about it, I couldn’t come up with a proper answer.
“…Ah. Damn it…!”
It was only when I was wringing the water from my hair with a towel in the changing room that I finally realized my body was a woman’s.
So all this time, I had been shaking my vulgar tits around and having a water fight with Acard…?!
“Aaaaaaaah!!!”
Only later did her shrill scream, born of belated embarrassment, echo through the changing room.