Work Text:
“Am I allowed to ask a question?”
“Only if it isn’t about work again.”
“It’s not.”
“Then sure.”
“Why are you dressed like you’re going to star in a vaguely orientalist gay porn?”
Rafayel turned so quickly, I thought he might slip on the stones of the hot spring, which would be quite unfortunate because the last time I took an emergency aid training was eight years ago when I got my driver’s license. If he hit his head and started bleeding, I’d have to make the decision on whether to take him to the hospital or not and jury’s still out on whether he’s human and hospital-takeable or not. Somehow, he always managed to dodge the conversations about that quite efficiently, distracting me with one story or another, talking in circles until I forgot what our starting point.
“I don’t—what are you talking about?”
I gestured vaguely in the direction of his outfit. Chains wrapped around his throat and torso and the regular bath towel replacement, except it looked like some kind of designer short skirt, never mind the whole gold tattoo. “Is all that necessary for a hot springs vacation?”
The hot springs did look magical, more plants than I could possibly name growing around the natural water pools, bright butterflies and fireflies dancing through the air to turn this place into a picture-perfect fairy tale. It was the kind of place you’d want to dress up for if you intended to have a photo shoot and it did make me feel a little out of place with my regular normal-people sauna experience outfit.
Nevertheless, I refused to believe Rafayel’s choice of outfit was what all people here just casually wore.
So far, Rafayel’s outfits did match the regular game ones I’d seen before, but those were casual clothes, maybe a little fancy to match his bank account. However, there had been none of this chains fantasy cosplay style, so I’d chalked the images of those extravagant outfits up to gameplay and fanservice.
I’d seen the inside of his walk-in closet too because god forbid someone put away his laundry himself, but besides copious amounts of designer clothes matching his bank account, they were outfits you’d expect people to wear on the street. The clothes ordered for me were all pretty tasteful as well, even if the knowledge that one of the two men aware my identity had picked out my underwear was a little mortifying.
And yet, despite all the perfectly normal clothes, here we were, regular bath towel guy and maybe-mermaid prince dressed like he was going for a photo shoot instead of the relaxing, art material and inspiration finding vacation trip.
Well, vacation for him. Officially, I was employed as… something.
The work contract was normal and nothing incriminating, the hourly wage nothing to scoff at, but I still didn’t know what my official title was. Thomas had just smiled thinly at me and told me to do as I saw fit, which was not very helpful to newly transmigrated me, but to be fair, Thomas also had to deal with me. At least now that guy had to do less poor melancholic artist wrangling and could focus on his actual job for the low price of making me deal with the resident artist. Introducing myself as Rafayel’s assistant usually resulted in a slightly confused expression at best and at medium in a very confused giggle I already decided not to investigate any further for my own personal mental health.
“Like, I get wanting to go tits free, I really do,” I just continued talking. “I mean, if I didn’t have to deal with these, I would as well.”
Briefly cupping my own two unfortunate flesh mounds for emphasis, I truly empathized with him.
“I told you we can get rid of those—”
“I’m not having top surgery at your weird futuristic hospital,” I interrupted.
We had this conversation before and while so far, I couldn’t really find anything expressing hostility against queer people, the fact monsters are real was enough for me to decide I did not need yet another live changing upheaval. Besides, explaining how I lost my tits while stuck in some video game once I’m back in the real world would be a bitch. If I even got back in this body, in which case having top surgery would suck even more because imagine losing them and then getting them back? Urgh.
“Point being, why are you dressed like that?”
Rafayel spluttered, then just huffed, his cheeks slightly red. Ah, that was a four-star level memory pout right there.
“It just looks nice. Is it so bad to want to be a canvas at all times?”
That line worked in a video game, but not in real life.
“In a hot spring,” I spelled out slowly. “Where you want to be comfortable. And you are dressed like a perfume advertisement.”
“I am comfortable,” Rafayel asserted. “This is nice. I want to dress like this.”
“Sure,” I answered. “If that is your choice.”
“Whose choice would it be otherwise?” Rafayel asked, slightly leaning in.
That was another habit of his I’d observed; another one of those things I’d thought were game mechanics, but Rafayel actually did like leaning into other people’s personal space.
“I wouldn’t know, Ariel.”
He blinked slightly confused, same as he always did when I said something that he had no point of reference for. When I’d first arrived here, I hadn’t expected language to be something I’d miss.
“Anyway,” I held up the book I’d brought. “I will be over there reading. Have fun collecting samples for pigments.”
“I will,” Rafayel retorted and spun around to walk away.
Watching his back disappear in the mist, I only chuckled to myself. “’My choice’ my ass. Where did he even get the jewelry from?”
“I can still hear you!”
Laughing, I made my way to the nearest hot spring, and got started on my mini-vacation, that would last until however long it took for Rafayel to find a particularly intriguing color. I didn’t mind too much, it was nice to listen to him talk about art, distracting me quite efficiently from the conversations I couldn’t have anymore.