The duo walked back into the underground parking, behind the car where her luggage was boarded. A porter was waiting for them with a trolley. Orochimi opened the trunk and the porter retrieved her small suitcase and Hyori's big one. Orochimi closed the trunk before locking the car. They walked through the same external door as previously. The porter took another route.
"He's taking the luggage route. He will join us in the pension residency apartment. Come on."
They walked past a few doors until they reached another door without any handle. Orochimi slid her card to enter; Hyori did the same after the door closed in her face. She will have a hard time with the doors shutting like that.
The apartment was underground. Halfway underground. Short and wide windows were lining the upper quarter of the wall. Ventilation was coming from vents above the windows. The platter ceiling lights were bright, probably to compensate for the poor access to natural light. Despite all of these flaws, the space seemed cosy. As cosy as the underground could be. The floor and walls were covered in white vinyl tiles. A low U-shaped cream sofa was facing a television screen. There wasn't any pillow or cushion on the couch. There wasn't any low table either. The only other furniture was a diner table with chairs and a fountain behind the salon. The living room looked like the typical townhouse living room displayed in Encyclopedia, minus a kitchen and a low table. The living room looked bare but the room was tidy and spotless. Did the hotel staff clean the apartment?
On the sofa, A tall plump girl was lounging with headphones on.
"Hello, Orochimi." She greeted them without any greeting gesture.
"Hello, Bliss. Can you get familiar with the new hire? Haze. She needs to loosen."
"Of course." She said before standing from the couch. She could have been a foot and a half taller than Hyori.
The doorbell rang. Orochimi, who was the closest, opened. It was the porter from earlier with the trolley. He unloaded Hyori's suitcase and Orochimi exited with him. Hyori was grateful this suitcase had wheels. Most of the inner palace's suitcases were old-fashioned accessories meant to be carried by servants.
"I will show you your room." Said Bliss while walking ahead.
"Thank you, Bliss." Replied Hyori while following the other girl.
The girls entered a hall between the salon and the dining table. There were a few closed doors on one side and a gliding door on the other.
"The gliding door leads into the communal bathroom. It's our only luxury in this apartment. I can show you later." Said Bliss.
Her brunette bob was swinging with each of her steps. She wasn't exactly plump. Her oval face was adorned with prominent cheeks creasing lightly when she spoke. Her upper body looked significantly slimmer than her lower body. Her loose cropped top showcased noticeable abdominal lines that evolved into a uterine pouch. Her high-waist pleated shorts flattered her high hips that curved into thick long legs. She turned around and her smile formed dimples on her cheeks. Hyori had never seen dimples. It was adorable and beautifully enhanced her small almond close-set eyes on top of a button nose and petite curvy mouth. Her hazel eyes were complemented by her shiny dark olive skin.
"Here is your room, princess." She said as she stopped in front of the fourth door."
"I'm not a real Princess." Replied Hyori with her eyes cast downward.
"It was teasing you. I can drop it if it makes you uncomfortable."
"Thank you… Bliss."
Hyori entered the room. The walls and floor were covered in cream-coloured vinyl tiles. The room had a short window across the whole length. A desk and a queen-sized bed were lined on the wall under the window. Behind the door, a closet covered the remaining of the wall. The room was empty of any other furniture, but spacious enough to bring in other items.
"The staff will bring us lunch at twelve. It's mostly leftovers from the hotel's brunch. The real meal is dinner since we get leftovers from the midday service. They will bring us milk in the morning. Drinking it is mandatory. They add the previous day's biscuits and pastries they can't serve anymore."
"Do they serve ice cream cake?" Questioned Hyori. She shouldn't have too many frozen treats. But once in a while, maybe once a month, will do.
"Only when requested. You will have to wait for a visitor to get one."
As if on cue, the apartment's door beeped. A rolling sound was heard. A hotel worker was depositing plates on the table. He exited with a nod of his head.
Bliss opened one plate's cover to inspect the inside.
"I have a benedict egg, raspberries, salmon toast and Greek yoghurt. There are three of us, including you. The other will soon emerge from her room."
Hyori walked to stand beside Bliss. The food seemed appealing. There were three plates. Hyori picked the closest one and opened it. She had the same plate with grapes instead of raspberries.
"Aren't they all the same?" She asked while taking her seat.
"Some pieces are different but they put the same nutritive value inside each plate." Answered Bliss while taking a seat. "We don't have a lot of Japanese dishes, though. They have to be requested. We can only have sushi on National holidays or with visitors. Hurry up, the worker will be back in an hour to retrieve the plates."
The girls were halfway in their meal when another joined them. She was tall, albeit not as tall as Bliss. Hyori wasn't used to being the shortest in the room. She wondered if the food had anything to do with their heights, or if they were chosen for their heights. She was a slim grey cat mutant without a tail or whiskers. She had boba eyes. That was incredibly cute. She was wearing a yellow ruffled off-shoulders that showed her stomach. Her long legs were on display under her white shorts.
"Hello, you must be the new hire. I'm Muse." Said the newcomer.
"Hello. I'm Hy- Haze."
She took a seat beside her and pulled a plate. Her paws didn't have claws. She had neatly cut and shaved nails adorning slim hands. Hyori was intently staring at Muse. The latter simply batted her long eyelashes while side-eying the girl with a smug look.
"Do you want to take a picture?" Asked Muse.
Hyori realised she was staring.
"My apologies for staring. It won't happen again."
"Oh my!" Exclaimed Muse. "Keep talking like that and visitors will bid for you. All polite and soft-spoken. Orochimi didn't find you in a dumpster, for sure!"
Hyori's eyes shot into Muse's with an incredulous look. She looked sorry for the feline girl.
"I'm teasing you. I wasn't left in a dumpster for being a mutant. I'm not even a mutant. My quirk lets me change my appearance." The girl changed her face into a raccoon face before changing back. "I just like this appearance the most."
"I understand." Answered Hyori before the silence fell again.
Bliss had her earphones back on her ears and Muse was on her touchscreen cellphone. She wanted to use that time to read. All of her Encyclopedias had been too heavy to carry in her suitcase. She only had practice instruments and her middle school textbooks for the upcoming semester. She was due to enrol in a regular school after the summer break. She will take the afternoons to study and practise her instruments in the morning. The free space of her room would perhaps be wide enough for some early morning stretches. She doubted she would be able to cartwheel and jump.
Hyori walked down the hall that led to her room. If there were three occupied rooms before her's, did Orochimi live inside the apartment? The woman looked like she wouldn't let herself live in a basement, as comfortable as it was. She probably wouldn't enjoy a space as bare as this one. Entering the room, she beelined for the suitcase she left lying on the ground. She toured the room starting with the closet. A full-body mirror was plastered on one of the three wooden sliding doors. The closet was partitioned into three vertical compartments. Each must have been one meter in width. The farthest compartment from the entrance was divided into five horizontal shelves. The two near the entrance were divided into one shelf at the bottom and a common hanging space at the top. The shelves were roughly forty centimetres high.
Behind her, the bed was thick and firm under her hands. It had been made recently, given the fresh smell of the bedsheets. The sheets were blank and had a cotton feel to the touch. She will try to get something softer. Then again, how? She wasn't sure Orochimi would provide anything that wasn't already in the apartment. She was tempted to ask her Mother to send her some furniture and Encyclopedia. There had to be a way for it. She might as well get her definitive instruments and tea set. She suffered enough for them.
She had been studying for… A while. She didn't have a clock. She hadn't seen one in the room. She hadn't even seen one in the living room. She climbed on her desk chair to look outside through the window. The sun wasn't setting yet. Given the time of the year, it might be sometime between four and seven in the afternoon. Guessing the time by looking at the sky wouldn't be effective. She climbed off of the chair and exited the room. Bliss was back to lounging on the couch and Muse was probably back in her room. The television was turned on some commercial spot. Hyori walked near the couch and peered at the other girl.
"Do we have a clock in the apartment?" She asked.
"I don't think so." Answered Bliss with a thoughtful expression. "We use our phones to read the time. I've never looked for a clock since I've been here." She said with a more relaxed tone while showing her screen to Hyori. The latter read twenty minutes past seven in the afternoon.
Hyori was turning around when Bliss stopped her.
"Wait." She sat. "Aren't you taking that yukata off?"
Hyori eyed herself.
"It's cute and all but aren't you hot underneath?"
"I'm not uncomfortable, thank you. Besides, I only own yukata and kimono dresses." Answered Hyori.
"Really?!" Exclaimed the taller girl.
"Really." Answered Hyori.
As the conversation dyed off, Hyori turned around again to walk into her room.
"Wait." Bliss halted her again. "Are you doing anything special at the moment? I want to show you the bathroom."
Hyori wasn't going to study anymore. She planned on playing music but sensed the other girl wanted to show her more than the bathroom commodities.
"Thank you for showing me the bathroom. I'll follow you."
Bliss snickered while climbing out of the sofa.
"Let's gather our toiletries and meet in front of the bathroom." Suggested Bliss.
The two girls walked into their respective rooms with Bliss leading. For the brief moment her room was open, the scent of cotton filtered in the hall. Hyori walked inside her room. She opened the closet where her instruments were put in the hanging area. The small koto case had occupied a quarter of her suitcase. She retrieved a towel, her toiletries purse and a silky yukata. As she disposed of the items on her bed, she decided to undress in her room and put the towel on. She didn't know if there were shelves in the bathroom. She will get dressed again in her room. Afterwards, she ousted her bedroom draped in her towel that reached her knees with her hair secured in a head towel.
Bliss exited her room a minute, or so, later and slid the gliding door open. The bathing room had sky-blue tiles on the floor and walls. The platter ceiling was illuminated with hanging lights. On one side, there was a twin walk-in shower with benches on the side. On the other side, there was an indoor sauna. The two areas were parted with a long bench in the middle before a double sink vanity with separate toilets on each side. The taller put her toiletries purse onto the bench and invited Hyori to do so as well. Once the purses were put away, Bliss walked into one shower. Hyori walked into the next. There were towel hooks on the inner sides of the doors.
Hyori took a cold shower while Bliss took a lukewarm one. The taller welcomed the water making her hair stick to her face. On the other side, the younger calibrated the water flow on the lowest setting to prevent wetting her crown.
"You might want to put a shower cap on your wishlist." Said Bliss.
"Do we address wishlists to Orochimi?" Asked Hyori.
"To our visitors." Bliss's smile could be heard in her voice. "Mostly to our regulars. We get paid but we can also receive gifts. We might as well get the most out of it."
They were getting paid. Hyori assumed it was the only way to get things in the pension.
"How do we get paid?" She asked. She had a vague idea of the means. She remembered the conversation she had with her Mother in the nursing room. She was in the pension to learn how to 'leverage desire'. The idea made her feel nauseous.
"I'm sure you already have an idea." Replied Bliss.
The taller girl turned her shower off.
"You need to relax. Come with me." She said as she opened her shower door.
Bliss sat on the shower's bench while Hyori closed the door behind her. The taller girl patted the space beside her, inviting the younger one to sit. Hyori did as suggested.
"Don't be so stiff. Can I touch you?" Muttured Bliss.
"Is it part of the training?" Asked Hyori with a murmur.
"Let's call it preliminaries."
"You can." Said Hyori after a few seconds.
Bliss gently tickled the younger girl.
"Can you guess why I was named Bliss?" She asked again with a teasing voice.
"I…" Hyori's words died in her mouth as a sigh escaped her.
"Can you feel it?" Purred Bliss in the crook of Hyori's neck.
Hyori was huffing and puffing, out of breath. She was indeed feeling the bliss travelling from her core to her heart. Suddenly, a spasm curled her toes and a cry resonated. She couldn't feel her trembling legs for a few seconds.
"My quirk is called 'Feels'. My fingertips can heighten sensations."
Hyori was regaining her spirit. She didn't realise she was held in Bliss's arms with dilated eyes.