Chapter 8: The Absurd Shared Shower

The whistle marking the end of physical education class sounded like a horn of salvation, finally concluding what Kazami Jin considered nothing short of torture.

The scorching sun baked the synthetic track, and the air was thick with the scent of sweat and youthful exuberance.

Her legs felt like two limp noodles, her lungs burned with a fiery ache, and she could barely stand without leaning on the nearby horizontal bar.

Lin Wan, by contrast, seemed utterly unfazed, sporting only a fine sheen of sweat on her temples, her cheeks flushed, and her eyes sparkling with astonishing vivacity.

Bounding over to Jin in a few energetic steps, she unceremoniously latched onto Jin’s sweat-dampened arm, practically hanging from her.

“Ah, it’s scorching, absolutely scorching! I’m dying for a cold shower after that run!”

Lin Wan pressed her burning cheek against Jin’s slightly cooler skin, letting out a contented sigh.

Then, lifting her head, her eyes blinked with an innocent yet entirely matter-of-fact expression as she dropped a bombshell: “Jin! Let’s go to the showers together later! I’ll even scrub your back for you!”

“Pfft—cough! Cough, cough!”

Kazami Jin choked on her own saliva, having failed to catch her breath properly.

Her eyes widened, fixated on Lin Wan’s radiant smile, which was now so close and practically screamed, ‘Say yes to me.’

Her blood rushed to her head with a buzzing sensation.

‘A-a shower together?! And scrubbing my back?!’

Just imagining the scene made Jin feel like her CPU was about to fry.

A steamy, enclosed space, standing naked opposite each other… Lin Wan’s overzealous hands on her body…

‘Stop! I mustn’t think about it anymore!’

“N-no! Absolutely not!”

Jin shook her head like a rattle, her voice rising in pitch as she desperately tried to pull her arm from Lin Wan’s embrace, though it proved futile.

“Why not?”

Lin Wan pouted, holding on even tighter.

“We’re both girls!

And it’s perfectly normal for good friends to shower together, isn’t it?

We can even help each other reach those tricky spots!

Don’t worry, I won’t make fun of you—even if it’s small, it’s still cute~”

She spoke with such righteous conviction, as if this were the most natural thing in the world.

Just then, a cool, clear voice intervened in this one-sided ‘invitation.’

“Wanwan, stop being silly.”

Xia Yue had approached at some point, having just finished an extra round of stretches.

Her breathing was steady, and even the collar of her school uniform remained perfectly neat.

She gave Lin Wan a fleeting, indifferent glance before her gaze settled on Jin, whose face was beet red and whose expression was one of utter panic.

“It would be inconvenient for Jin.”

Xia Yue’s tone was calm, yet it carried an undeniable authority.

Lin Wan immediately bristled like a cat whose tail had been stepped on.

“Inconvenient? Where is it inconvenient?

A Yue, you just want to monopolize Jin!

It was the same last time at the arcade; you only know how to hold Jin’s hand!”

Xia Yue pushed up her glasses, the lenses reflecting a calm light.

“That was necessary guidance.

Moreover, such an overly intimate act as showering together requires respecting Jin’s own wishes.”

She deliberately emphasized the words ‘overly intimate.’

“Hmph! Such high-minded talk!

You’re just jealous that I can be closer to Jin!”

Lin Wan retorted indignantly, tightening her grip on Jin’s arm as if asserting her claim.

Xia Yue’s brow furrowed almost imperceptibly, and her voice deepened by a few degrees.

“Wanwan, mind your words.

I am merely stating facts to avoid causing Jin any unnecessary trouble.”

“The fact is you want to shower with Jin too!

Why are you pretending to be so proper!”

“I am not as… impulsive as you.”

“Yes, you are!”

“Unreasonable.”

****

Caught in the middle, Kazami Jin listened as the two (former) magical girls escalated their argument from mutual accusations to an almost childish quarrel over the absurd question of whether or not to shower with her.

Her entire worldview felt as if it were collapsing.

Other students who hadn’t yet left the field cast curious glances their way, making her wish she could simply dig a hole and disappear into it.

“Enough!”

Under the dual pressure of shame and the fear of public humiliation, Jin practically cried out.

The argument ceased abruptly.

Xia Yue and Lin Wan both turned to look at her.

Jin closed her eyes in despair, then, with a defiant resignation, yelled, “Stop fighting!

We’ll… we’ll all go together, alright!”

For a moment, the world fell silent.

Lin Wan’s eyes instantly lit up like searchlights.

“Really?

Jin, you agreed?!”

Xia Yue was visibly stunned for a moment, observing Jin’s ‘ready to face death’ expression.

Her lips moved slightly, but she ultimately said nothing, effectively giving her consent.

****

And so, five minutes later, Kazami Jin, like a lamb being led to the slaughter, was dazed as Xia Yue and Lin Wan ‘escorted’ her, one on each side, into the school’s rather small public shower stall.

“Click.”

Lin Wan locked the stall door behind them.

Within the cramped space, the atmosphere instantly became incredibly subtle and stagnant.

The cold metal showerhead silently faced them, and the faint scent of the previous user’s shower gel still lingered in the air.

The three of them exchanged glances.

No one moved.

The assertive energy they had displayed during their outdoor argument had vanished without a trace.

Lin Wan, uncharacteristically, showed a hint of awkwardness, her fingers twisting at the hem of her clothes.

Xia Yue subtly averted her gaze, a barely perceptible blush seemingly creeping up her earlobes.

Kazami Jin, meanwhile, remained frozen in place, her mind a complete blank.

Why on earth had she blurted out ‘all go together’ earlier?

What should she do now?

Take off her clothes?

Which piece first?

In front of them?

A peculiar silence permeated the air.

Only the faint sounds of other students’ laughter and running water from outside the stall underscored the profound stillness within.

“Um…”

Lin Wan finally broke the suffocating silence, speaking in a small voice.

“…Who goes first?”

The question hung in the air, making the atmosphere even more abstract.

Xia Yue cleared her throat, attempting to maintain her composure.

“We should go in order.

Jin first…”

“No!”

Lin Wan immediately objected.

“If Jin showers first, what do we do?

And we said we’d go together!”

“The premise of showering together is to take turns using the showerhead, or…”

Xia Yue paused, seemingly weighing her words carefully.

“…to have other reasonable bathing arrangements.”

“But there’s only one showerhead here!”

Lin Wan pointed out the crucial problem.

Three people, one showerhead.

Kazami Jin stared at the solitary metal nozzle, which was clearly incapable of simultaneously satisfying the needs of three people, and her heart filled with a sense of the absurd.

So, they had argued fiercely outside, only to come in and discover that the goal of ‘showering together’ was utterly impossible to achieve?

It was as abstract as two people arguing over a bottle of water, finally agreeing to share it, only to find the cap wouldn’t twist open.

“How about…”

Jin weakly suggested, clinging to her last shred of self-preservation.

“…I just go out?

You two go first?”

“No!”

This time, Xia Yue and Lin Wan refused in unison, their gazes simultaneously locking onto her.

Jin instantly fell silent.

Ultimately, in an extremely bizarre and awkward atmosphere, the most abstract communal bathing plan in history was achieved:

Kazami Jin stood under the shower, rinsing her body as quickly as possible, her head bowed the entire time, not daring to look at the other two beside her.

Every second felt like an eternity.

Xia Yue and Lin Wan stood a little further away in the dry area, one on each side, their backs to each other (and loosely, their backs to Jin), like they were performing some sort of silent sentry duty.

There was no laughter, no playful splashing, none of the ‘back-scrubbing’ they had imagined.

Only the rushing sound of water and three figures as stiff as statues.

Jin haphazardly rinsed herself, with only one thought in her mind: this was probably the longest, most shameful, and most inexplicable five minutes she had ever experienced in both her lifetimes combined.

When she finally turned off the faucet and picked up the towel with trembling hands, she felt as if she had just fought an exhausting battle.

And the outcome of this abstract bathroom farce was that all three of them had showered (albeit in different ways), but none of them seemed to have truly experienced the joy of ‘showering together’ (if such a thing could be called joy).

For a long time afterward, no one ever brought up the suggestion of ‘showering together’ again.