“Elvia...?”
“Don’t fret, just stay right there,” she instructed, and then she set to scrubbing me—forgoing any kind of towel, using only her soap-bubble-covered hands. Maybe that’s just how she always used soap, but still...
“Hey...!” I said. I didn’t care what she had been told; this was too much. “Stop...”
“Don’t move,” she said. “Ya wouldn’t want to slip, would you?” Meanwhile, she kept sweeping her hands all over my body. I was basically getting a massage from a beautiful woman...
“Ahh... Oh...” I couldn’t prevent a moan from coming out my lips.
“Feels good, huh?”
“That’s not—”
Look, I know. I know Elvia didn’t mean anything by the question. That it was hardly different from a hairdresser who says “Let me know if the water’s too hot” when she’s washing your hair. So it would have been fine for me to just say, “Yeah, it feels nice.” But then... Then there were Elvia’s hands, running over my body among the suds. There was the way she braced herself against me so I wouldn’t fall off the stool, reaching around to soap me.
“You’re, uh, used to this, huh?”
“Yeah, I used to help Big Sis Ama and Big Sis Jiji get clean all the time when we were kids!”
“Oh, uh... Oh.”
That’s right—Elvia had two sisters, didn’t she?
In the end, I just let Elvia have her way with me, her hands going here, there, and everywhere, while I focused on trying not to make any embarrassing sounds. As for her, she was in such a good mood she was even humming a little tune. I didn’t recognize the melody—maybe it was from Bahairam. As far as she was concerned, the current situation wasn’t any stranger than being in the bath with one of her sisters.
And yet... And yet... Yes, I looked like a woman on the outside; at the moment, I lacked the organ that would have stood up and made my presence here inexcusable in a man’s body. But deep inside, I was painfully aware of Elvia’s nakedness, very much as a man. Elvia supposedly understood that awareness was there, yet she didn’t show the slightest hesitation in getting in the bath together.
I’d heard about how Elvia had dragged Shinichi-san to the bath before, but that was supposedly because of something or other that happened to her on account of the moon or something. And she was crazy for Shinichi-san anyway. With me, it was different. I wondered what she really thought about all this.
“I’m surprised you decided to jump in the bath with me, Elvia,” I mumbled.
“Huh?” She stopped scrubbing. “Somethin’ the matter?”
“Well, I mean, it’s just—I know I look like a woman and all, but... what’s inside hasn’t changed, you understand?”
I was a little reluctant to say it. After all, if she burst out, “Oh yeah, that’s right!” and got upset, it would suck. But at the same time, I couldn’t just let all this happen without at least trying to make sure we were on the same page. I needed to know what Elvia thought was going on when she hopped in the bath with female me.
“Oh yeah,” she said. “I guess you’re right.” Completely matter-of-fact.
That put me on the back foot. I blinked. I was briefly tempted to look back and see what kind of expression was on her face, but I resisted the impulse. So I guess she really hadn’t been thinking of me as a man. That made sense, I guess, but that recognition was mingled with a certain disappointment at her density—and in fact, for some reason, a certain disappointment in general. I wondered why.
As I struggled with feelings I myself didn’t completely understand, Elvia let go of me, came around front, and started scrubbing again. I looked away from her, but forced a dry smile onto my face.
“So you’re not like, This is so weird! or You make me sick! or something?”
“Not especially?” Elvia said, unconcerned. “Here, I’m gonna rinse you.” Then, before I could rephrase my question, she dumped a bucket of water over my head, rinsing away all the soap bubbles.
“But why...?” Had I dressed as a girl so long that she just didn’t feel funny around me now? Or could it be...
“Aren’t ya just yourself, Hikaru-sama?”
“Wha...?”
“If what’s inside you really hasn’t changed even though you’re in a girl’s body, then you’re Hikaru-sama, right? You don’t make me sick.”
She sounded as if all this were perfectly obvious to her. Me, I could sort of see it, but... I wasn’t quite so sure.
At that moment, though, a series of memories flashed through my mind. I’d never had a very distinct sense of myself. People had often said I wasn’t a very needy child, but I think that was a misunderstanding. My desires were just very outwardly directed: I wanted to make people happy, I wanted them to recognize me, to praise me. I wanted them to see me.
I’d always had soft, girlish features, and my parents went through a phase where they’d dress me in girls’ clothing, and then coo about how cute I was. I just couldn’t get that time of my life out of my head, and started to think maybe that was what people really wanted from me. And if that was what everyone around me wanted, I had to rise to that expectation. It became my whole reason for being, or so I started to think.
The next thing I knew, I discovered I was someone constantly aware of the gaze of others, without a real self to call my own. I was, in a word, empty. I didn’t have anything I could really argue passionately about, the way Shinichi-san defended a given anime or proudly got moe over a certain character. I didn’t have an interest so all-consuming that it influenced the
