My Friend and I Reincarnated Into a Tragedy Dating Game

Chapter 27: A Motherly Jess

Jess began undressing me, and unabashedly stared at me the entire time she was doing it. I'm not sure if I was hearing things, but I heard a gulping sound.

I cooperated, moving my arms so that she could take them off, but in the back of my mind, I was wondering why this was even happening. She seemed quite unafraid and even picked up the pace while taking off my belt, almost like she wanted to hurry before I could back out of doing this.

In the end, I found myself completely naked in front of someone for the first time. It did feel a little weird, but it wasn't as embarrassing as I imagined. Maybe it was because Jess was my sister? But it was kinda hard for me to see her as one given that I wasn't actually Bryson.

I didn't really get it.

Jess took a little while, but she then did it on her own as well. I decided to step into the actual bathing area first. As expected of a noble's manor, it was pretty damn large. There were a few different areas to take a shower and a large bath in another section.

This was also why I felt it was fine to bathe together since there was more than enough space for us.

I turned on one of the faucets, letting the water rain down on me. When I heard Jess come in, I called out to her.

"Do you need me to wash your back?"

I reached over to the bar of soap, but before I could take it, Jess grabbed onto my hand.

"I don't need any help. I'm supposed to be bathing you, just like old times, remember?"

I blinked a few times.

"...Is that necessary? I'm fairly old now, right?"

Jess was stubborn.

"But I'm older."

My eyelid twitched.

Well yeah, of course. You're always going to be older. Does that mean you're going to treat me as a child even if I'm eighty-six?

"That doesn't make me a kid, you know?"

Jess clicked her tongue.

"Stop saying so many things."

Without waiting for my response, she began scrubbing me with the bar of soap, unafraid of touching my body whatsoever. It definitely felt a little strange, which was to be expected.

But honestly, it felt a little strange in a different way.

I wasn't sure before, but now I knew that Jess definitely cared for her brother a lot. For the first time in my life, I felt like I was truly cared for. It was definitely weird because I wasn't actually her brother.

It would probably be bad if she found out.

Jess was completely unreserved as she washed me, treating my body like it was her own. It was definitely really off-putting when she started to wash my more private areas, but I forcefully choked down my complaints.

Once she had finished, I figured that she was going to wash herself, but she was still behind me. I felt a little awkward to be honest. Although she wasn't directly touching me, I could feel her presence.

I'm honestly not sure if it was the same for other people, but I was always distinctly aware of when people were close to me. Even when they were just nearby, it felt like a weight was pressed onto that part of my body, making it tense up considerably.

Because of that, if someone was looking over my shoulder for maybe a minute or two, I would feel shoulder cramps and feel the need to stretch it out.

It seemed despite getting a new body, that fact didn't change. As such, I could feel my body uncomfortably tense up, which was honestly getting painful. Not wanting to feel that pain, I called out to her.

"Um, I think you should wash yourself now."

Yet, it was at this point that Jess suddenly went forward and wrapped her arms around me. This made my discomfort rise from a ten straight to a one hundred. A desire to break this hold and run away bubbled up in me, but I forced it back down.

Jess whispered to me.

"Why are you so scared of me?"

I didn't respond. I mean, how was I supposed to respond in the first place?

Jess deepened her hug and rested her head on my shoulder, letting her head lean against my own.

"Did I do something? I'm really really sorry if I have. I don't want to push you away when it's only the two of us."

I took a deep breath. Trying to prepare myself so that I didn't screw this up.

"It's not something that you did. At least, I'm pretty sure it isn't."

A small frown formed on her face.

"Then why did you want to get a separate room? When you even stopped taking baths together with me, it hurt a lot, you know? And when you wouldn't even eat at the same table... I thought... I thought..."

She started to cry. It was a little hard to notice because of the water already on her face, but the sobbing was enough to tell that much. After a minute or so, she calmed down.

"You really don't hate me?"

I shook my head.

"No, I don't."

To be honest, I didn't really feel anything about her. Even now, to me, I just thought of her as Nathan's 2D waifu. Though, it felt a little weird now that she was 3D.

"I guess it's just that it felt a little unnecessary to do all those things together now that I've become older."

That was probably what Bryson thought too. After all, I'm pretty sure most brothers and sisters don't shower and share the same room even after they're older than eighteen. Maybe sharing a house is reasonable, but past that is just too far.

Though, From the way Jess began hugging tighter, it seemed she disagreed.

"Unnecessary? Why would you stop just because it's unnecessary?"

The corner of my lip twitched. Maybe because it was weird as fuck?

Though, I definitely couldn't say that.

"It just felt... uncomfortable."

Jess let out a displeased murmur.

"I'll never hurt you, there's no need to worry about that."

A bitter smile formed on my face.

"Haha, I'm not worried about that."

Jess spoke softly.

"Then why are you still so tense?"

I felt the words get caught in my throat. She kinda stumped me right there. While I could say all the things in the world, at the end of the day, I wasn't that good at controlling my body language.

I suppose that's why Raisa said I was a bad liar.

Jess seemed to take my silence as an affirmation. She began slowly running her fingers down my muscles where they were most tense.

"Just relax them, ok?"

I blinked a few times. Right now, they felt locked harder than Alcatraz. I really needed her to get away from me to stop that.

"M-Maybe if you could get off me first?"

Unfortunately, Jess was against that.

"No. I'll get off once you aren't afraid of me. I swear on my life I won't hurt you, just relax."

It wasn't as though I didn't believe that, but while the conscious part of my brain agreed, subconsciously, it was still screaming to get away at all costs like Jess was secretly a demon.

"I-I get it, it's just my body is cramped up."

Jess became rather unreasonable.

"Then just stop cramping up."

...Was she being serious?

Well, given the fact she was still holding on to me tightly, I suppose she was. There was a tiny voice in the back of my mind whispering that I could just break her off and then everything would be fine.

It was so quiet but incredibly tempting.

However, my logic was still winning for now, as I knew doing something like that would ruin my relationship with her. I'm not sure if something like that happened in the game, but I'm not sure what Jess would do if I did.

In the end, it looked like the only safe solution was to stop tensing up. Unfortunately, that was harder said than done.

I spent a long time trying my best.

Even after thirty or so minutes, Jess stuck to her word and hadn't let me go. The entire time, she was also trying to help, brushing her fingers lightly across my body where it was most tense.

However, that was honestly part of the problem.

Though, while it took a long time, I found myself slowly getting used to her touching me.

At some point, it struck a chord within me as I realized how unbelievably weird it was to be in this situation. If you heard that two people of the opposite gender were clinging onto each other with no clothes, you probably would think of a certain other thing.

My eyebrow twitched in helplessness.

"I'm not sure if I can do this, Jess."

Jess was incredibly stubborn though.

"Please keep trying."

With a bitter smile, I decided to continue on. In silence, I continued trying and losing track of time in the process.

In the silence, Jess suddenly spoke up.

"Our mother and father are always out with their business. The servants may have raised us, but they will always keep their distance. I'm the only one connected by blood that will stay with you."

She blinked a few times.

"So... I'll always try my best to be a mother for you. I won't be the best, but I'll try my... my hardest."

Near the end, I could feel that she was breaking down. Once again, she began to cry. It was at this point I gently reached out to hold onto one of her hands. The words she had said to me were unbearably sweet, but I still caught on to what she was unintentionally mentioning as well.

That she hadn't grown up with a true mother or father figure either. Yet, she was still trying to go one step further, attempting to act like a mother even when she basically didn't have one herself.

I understood.

Jess was old, already nineteen. By Earth's society standards, that's an adult, even if the person in question is probably still pretty stupid.

But while Jess had lived the years, she was almost still a child. Not to mention, one that had tried to take far too many burdens onto herself. I guess I could see why Nathan liked Jess so much.

Though, this part of her definitely wasn't directly mentioned in the game. He must've caught onto some very discreet details if he was actually able to infer her personality to this extent.

After calming down, she continued to gently brush my body with her fingers. While my body was still tense, I truly put my all into relaxing the best I could. Slowly but surely, the muscles in my body started to loosen up a bit.

While that was the case, I could tell that they were ready to tense back up at any moment. If I felt even slightly agitated, then all the progress would've been lost, as my muscles would lock up once more.

Before, I was just trying to calm down for the sake of getting out of this situation, but now there was a second reason. I didn't want her to think that I was scared of her, because I really wasn't.

In the end, I began to slump. In my efforts to relax, I tried to stop using my muscles altogether. That ended up leading me to fall over, but Jess caught me, making sure I didn't fall.

This way, I was really leaning into her but decided to just go with it. My jaw also went slack, while my eyes were hardly open, simply because I didn't want to accidentally tense anything once more.

After an indeterminate amount of time passed, I felt my body actually relax, almost like it had become a ball of putty. This was actually a little mind-blowing to me because I never thought it would be possible for me to relax like this while someone else was touching me.

Jess had a big smile on her face as her hug tightened considerably.

It felt quite warm.

...Was this how it felt like to have a caring mother?

Jess gently stroked my hair and even massaged it. The feeling was so strange.

It felt so caring.

She then began wiping away at the bottom of my eyes. It took a while, but I soon realized the reason was that tears were coming down my face. Tears that I had no idea existed.

Jess whispered softly to me.

"Shh... just go to sleep."

My logic was about to kick in, telling me that I should change into my clothes and go to my bed.

Yet, before that, my eyes ended up closing as I drifted off to sleep.