“Hmm….”
“Hmm….”
The Jelly Girl lay there, her body fidgeting at the sounds coming from both sides, but her body, tightly held in place, showed no sign of moving, unable to break free.
Actually, if she made her body slippery, she could have escaped, but it seemed the Jelly Girl was indulging in the soft pressure against her, using the excuse that the other two might wake up at any moment.
The truth, only the Jelly Girl would know.
Regardless.
As the Jelly Girl felt the warm body heat pressing against her, the “Jelly” inside her began to bubble softly.
How had it come to this?
The first thing that came to the Jelly Girl’s mind was the beer bottles that somehow ended up stuck in her head.
Giving up on resisting and leaning towards the vulgar option of snacking on something while drinking, the beer bottles lodged in her jelly-like head.
The golden liquid streaming from those bottles was something that even the Jelly Girl, who had been tempted by it, found quite perplexing. After all, her body couldn’t properly metabolize the beer pouring into her.
Reflecting on it, it was only natural. Jelly Girl, once human, had never experienced beer bottles being stuck in her head. If she’d been in human form, her skull would have shattered, so of course she was shocked. Although, thanks to her time in the Singularity, she hadn’t completely panicked.
Still, the beer she unexpectedly tasted confused her.
“Is this… how beer is supposed to taste?”
The Jelly Girl emitted soft sounds and suspiciously observed the liquid flowing into her head.
“Is this really beer?”
With that doubt, the Jelly Girl, now cradled in Han Seori’s embrace and jiggling, began to rummage through her memories.
She remembered the day when, dragging her exhausted body, she entered a convenience store, muttering, “Ah, the price of beer went up again,” and took exactly four cans to head home slowly.
Though it felt like long ago, the image of her studio apartment, now somehow unfamiliar, came vaguely to mind.
Unlocking the door and swaying in, she placed the beers in the fridge and went into the bathroom to shower, preparing for the small indulgence of drinking chilled beer after a hot shower.
“Come to think of it, when was the last time I took a bath?”
Could the times she was submerged in the Sewers and the Swamp be considered bathing?
…But somehow her body doesn’t smell bad.
The Jelly Girl, who had momentarily drifted off into her thoughts, returned to the time after the shower.
Steam rising from her head, she slowly made her way to the fridge and fetched the cold beer, along with some snacks from the cabinet.
Pock, tick.
Before uncorking the beer, she had first peeled the wrapper off the cheap snack.
Flick! Shh!
She opened the cold can, feeling the fizz of the carbonation. And then she poured it over her hot, shower-warmed body.
Gulp, gulp, the golden liquid slid down her throat.
Gulping, gulping, the cold sensation refreshed her throat, making her feel chilled to the core, with the words “Puhah!” instinctively escaping from her mouth.
Biting into the snacks complementing the beer, the stress and fatigue of the day seemed to fade.
The perfect combination: the crunch of the snack washed down with beer.
However.
“…It’s kind of bland.”
Inside the Jelly Girl’s head, the beer she imagined didn’t evoke the same sensation. She could feel the carbonation’s fizz, but that was all.
With the refreshing throat-pass gone, what stood out instead was the characteristic lack of flavor of Korean beer.
Moreover, the sensation of being intoxicated wasn’t felt, perhaps due to her changing body.
So… to the Jelly Girl now, beer merely tasted like a faintly barley-flavored, bland sparkling water. Had she been drinking another type of beer, she might feel different, but this one—and the beer from before—was her only reference.
Unable to bring to mind anything else, the Jelly Girl glared at the beer bottle stuck in her head and let her jelly continue to bubble.
“I can’t properly enjoy beer anymore.”
She felt a certain wistfulness as the beer disappeared from her system.
During the moment the Jelly Girl felt this way…
“Huh? What’s wrong? Was the beer not that good?”
Han Seori, who had arrived at the Jelly Girl’s room, gently asked while pulling out the beer bottle stuck in her head. The Jelly Girl shook her head silently, looking at her with lackluster energy.
In that state, Han Seori recalled the words of Hwang Bo-yul from before: the reminder that the Jelly Girl wasn’t human but from the Singularity. Shaking her head internally, she thought,
‘What he said isn’t exactly wrong.’
But…
Han Seori couldn’t treat the Jelly Girl that way.
Realizing this, she startled slightly but then looked at the Jelly Girl in her embrace, feeling moist and wriggling. She noticed the Jelly Girl was looking at her with a concerned expression.
“Are you worried about me?”
At Han Seori’s smiling query, the Jelly Girl wiggled her antennae and shyly avoided her gaze. Han Seori, finding this adorable, hugged her tightly while absentmindedly patting her head, but still felt some lingering discomfort.
After a brief consideration, Han Seori carefully lay herself down on the bed where the Jelly Girl always slept, carefully avoiding scattering the many blobs of jelly around. She kept the Jelly Girl firmly in her arms.
“Let’s sleep together again after a long time?”
Recalling how the Jelly Girl had slept encased in a glass jar, Han Seori gave a wistful smile and then spoke with brightness.
She adjusted her grip on the Jelly Girl, who was restlessly jiggling, and began to succumb to the rising tipsiness. The growing warmth in her body made her acutely aware of the Jelly Girl squirming.
“Cool… and soft…”
Han Seori, unknowingly already tipsy, fell asleep.
The Jelly Girl, feeling a little awkward but not entirely displeased, allowed herself to drift off.
But soon after,
An unexpected event occurred.
The firmly closed door opened, and a staggering silhouette stepped in, knocking some blobs of jelly out of the way. The silhouette, looking at Han Seori closely holding the Jelly Girl, hesitated for a moment.
With a face flushed from drinking, the silhouette climbed onto the bed. Han Seori, already sound asleep, didn’t wake, and the Jelly Girl, awake but startled by the unexpected appearance of Hwang Bo-yul, stiffened her body.
Hwang Bo-yul looked at the Jelly Girl with hazy eyes and murmured softly.
“Guard… guard…”
Babbling incomprehensibly, Hwang Bo-yul pulled the Jelly Girl into a tight embrace and fell asleep.
Taken by surprise, the Jelly Girl, now sandwiched between them, gave up trying to figure out what to do about the situation.
After all, she hadn’t initiated the predicament, so why should she care?
Thus…
It wasn’t that she was enjoying being between two beauties.
“…Would a commoner envy this if they knew?”
Perhaps.
After a brief wriggle, the Jelly Girl found a position where her body was snugly pressed against both of them.
Feeling their body heat, she closed her eyes.
Though she could no longer properly savor the taste of beer,
This lifestyle wasn’t entirely bad either.
…Occasionally, things got rough, but it was tolerable within reasonable limits.
“Wish every day could be like today.”
With that thought, the Jelly Girl fell asleep and woke up to the voices of Han Seori and Hwang Bo-yul.
Thinking how incredibly healthy they seemed,
The story continues.
—
The routine control room was filled with a slightly awkward atmosphere. The sources of the awkwardness? Two people—Han Seori and Hwang Bo-yul.
Since the morning they had woken up together in the Jelly Girl’s room, the atmosphere between them had been like this.
Watching them, Yang Ha-na and Kim Cheon-soo, especially Kim Cheon-soo, felt a complicated array of emotions.
“Exactly when did that person enter that room?”
Moreover, why was Dr. Han there in the first place?
Considering the two weren’t likely to be in a romantic relationship, and with the commotion the morning had brought, the situation wasn’t completely surprising.
Kim Cheon-soo thought to himself, imagining a similar scenario with someone of the same gender—his mood would surely have been very… hurt.
Ah, but perhaps…
A thought crossed Kim Cheon-soo’s mind, an image of the two lying together, though he quickly shook his head.
Why was he thinking something like Yang Ha-na would?
He glanced sideways at Yang Ha-na sitting beside him. She was watching Han Seori and Hwang Bo-yul with the kind of expression one might have while watching a morning soap opera.
“Where does she get the drama from?”
Anyway.
Their odd atmosphere didn’t last long.
Because a new problem had come their way.
