Chapter 466: Shower peep

After Kouhei finished his meeting with Petra, he decided that the best thing he could do was take a bath before finally heading back to his room.

He was really tired today, even though he hadn't actually done anything that should have been enough to leave him feeling this exhausted. In fact, Kouhei somehow felt more drained than usual despite the fact that most of his day had consisted of nothing more than talking with Petra.

Still, Kouhei couldn't quite figure out why he felt so worn out.

Perhaps it was because it was Petra he had been talking to.

That explanation honestly made more sense the longer he thought about it.

Because of his tiredness, Kouhei didn't notice the light coming through the small gap underneath the bathroom door. The light should have been an obvious sign that someone was already inside, but his exhausted mind apparently decided that such a detail wasn't important enough to process.

He opened the bathroom door without giving it much thought. The door wasn't locked at all.

Then he saw a woman.

She was beautiful, and there was no denying that she had an incredible body to go along with her appearance. Kouhei had known that Yuka had a figure that could easily attract attention, but since he wasn't particularly interested in her in that way, he had never really bothered to examine her appearance closely.

Usually, he would simply acknowledge that she was attractive and move on with his day.

Seeing her like this was obviously different.

Yuka was taking a shower at that moment, with her body fully exposed beneath the water pouring down from the showerhead. She was washing her hair as the water ran down over her body, and she appeared completely relaxed, apparently having absolutely no idea that Kouhei had just opened the door.

She was also washing herself down there, and the casual way she went about it made it more seductive.

Yuka had absolutely no embarrassment about being seen.

For a brief moment, Kouhei simply stood there.

His brain needed a few seconds to catch up with what his eyes were seeing, which was unfortunate because those few seconds were enough for him to register far more than he probably needed to.

It felt as though his mind had taken a mental photograph of the entire scene without asking him for permission first. The image was practically burned into his memory before he even had the chance to look away.

Yuka still hadn't noticed him.

Kouhei immediately tried to close the door again, hoping he could quietly retreat and pretend that this entire incident had never happened.

Unfortunately, he made one small mistake.

He closed the door too slowly.

Had he simply shut it immediately, Yuka probably wouldn't have noticed him at all. Instead, his hesitation gave her enough time to turn around.

When she did, she caught sight of Kouhei standing in the doorway with one hand still on the door, clearly in the middle of attempting to disappear from the situation.

"Kouhei-sama?" Yuka asked, looking at him with a curious expression.

"Uh..." Kouhei had absolutely no idea what he was supposed to say.

There wasn't exactly a convenient line prepared for accidentally walking in on someone while they were taking a shower.

Yuka looked down at herself for a moment.

She finally seemed to realize that she was standing there completely naked in front of him.

Rather than becoming embarrassed, however, she simply looked back at Kouhei with the same calm expression she had before.

"Don't mind it, Kouhei-sama," she said. "You don't need to be embarrassed about seeing me like this, because I certainly am not embarrassed about it either. I mean, there isn't really anything to be embarrassed about when my body has been perfected to this degree, isn't there?"

Yuka was practically flaunting her confidence.

She wasn't doing it because she wanted to seduce Kouhei, though. In fact, the opposite was true.

Yuka simply had that much confidence in her own body.

She genuinely couldn't understand why Kouhei would have any reason to feel embarrassed about seeing her naked when she herself didn't consider it embarrassing in the slightest.

More importantly, she didn't even really think of Kouhei as someone who should be treated differently simply because he was a man.

That was largely because of how Yuka had been raised.

She had been brought up with the belief that she should stand as an equal to men, and because of that, she had never developed the same kind of clear distinction between men and women that most people naturally possessed.

To Yuka, being a man or a woman didn't automatically determine how she should behave around someone.

It was a perfectly reasonable principle in theory, although her interpretation of it had become slightly unusual over the years.

Kouhei, strangely enough, didn't feel particularly affected by seeing her body either.

He was certainly aware of what he was looking at, but...

In Kouhei's defense, there had been plenty of beautiful women in his life whose appearances and figures were already impressive, and he had become accustomed to seeing naked attractive women on a fairly regular basis.

After enough exposure, perhaps even something that should normally have left a man speechless could eventually become strangely ordinary.

That probably meant both of them were somewhat messed up in their own ways.

"Uh... sorry," Kouhei finally said.

"It's fine," Yuka replied casually.

Kouhei closed the door and walked away, deciding that there was little reason to make the situation any more complicated than it already was.

He wasn't entirely sure what had just happened, but Yuka hadn't seemed particularly bothered by it, so Kouhei figured that perhaps nothing worth mentioning had actually happened.

At least, that was what he believed at the time.

***

Yuka continued showering for a while, apparently having already put the entire incident with Kouhei out of her mind.

She didn't seem bothered by what had happened at all.

Then, quite suddenly, she felt Petra wrap her arms around her from behind.

"What exactly are you doing?" Yuka asked, sounding more confused than surprised.

Petra's hands were now resting against Yuka's breasts.

"Damn, did they grow?" Petra asked. "It's impossible for them to grow, isn't it?"

"I am asking what you are doing right now, Petra," Yuka replied, making sure to emphasize the question because Petra seemed determined to avoid giving a straightforward answer.

"Admiring your breasts?" Petra answered without the slightest hesitation.

Petra gave them another playful squeeze, but Yuka barely reacted.

Her complete lack of surprise made it obvious that this wasn't the first time Petra had done something like this.

"More importantly, Yuka, don't you think that man's reaction was a little odd?" Petra asked.

"Odd?" Yuka asked, turning her attention back to Petra. "Odd in what way?"

"He saw your naked body in full view, but instead of reacting to it at length or becoming embarrassed about what he had seen, he barely reacted at all and simply acted indifferent," Petra explained.

Her tone had become strangely serious despite the ridiculous subject they were discussing.

"Don't you think that was somewhat unforgivable?" Petra continued.

She whispered the words almost sweetly, as though she were discussing some delicious dessert rather than Kouhei's complete lack of reaction.

"Why do you think that was unforgivable?" Yuka asked, genuinely confused by where Petra was trying to take the conversation.

"I am a human, even though I am a witch, so I know that human men normally have certain reactions when they see a beautiful woman with a body like yours standing right in front of them without anything hiding it," Petra said as she gave Yuka another playful squeeze.

"I am not particularly fond of such things," Yuka replied calmly. "Therefore, I am not bothered by his reaction in the slightest."

"Is that truly so?" Petra asked, sounding unconvinced.

She paused for a moment before continuing with a thoughtful expression.

"But hmm... I didn't think you had that little confidence in your body."

Yuka's expression immediately changed.

For some reason, those words bothered her far more than she expected.

Her mind went blank for a moment as she tried to understand why such a simple comment had managed to get under her skin.

The strange part was that Yuka had always been confident about her body.

She had trained herself relentlessly and worked hard to bring her physical condition to what she considered perfection. She knew exactly how much effort she had put into achieving it, and she had never considered herself someone who lacked confidence in her appearance.

That was precisely why Petra's comment bothered her so much.

"What do you mean?" Yuka asked.

"I mean, if he isn't interested, doesn't that mean your body wasn't good enough?" Petra asked, continuing to poke at the issue with an almost suspicious amount of enjoyment. "If the guy down there isn't reacting at all, couldn't that mean you simply aren't attractive enough to him?"

At that point, Yuka's eyes widened.