Chapter 38: Childhood Memories
Holy crap!? Big Brother, did you misunderstand something? I didn’t want to bathe with you. No, wait, did Parul used to bathe with you?
My memories surfaced. Swimming and bathing by the river with him in the summer, him cleaning my body when I was sick, and the two of us happily playing in the water when it rained. So many happy memories.
Okay, completely devoid of any romantic feelings, it was just childhood sweethearts, innocently playing together. This happy memory was less about bathing and more about simple swimming and playing in the water.
This aligns better with my thoughts. I just didn’t want Jayad to see me as a girl. After all, I was originally a man. He just treated me with the attitude of a childhood sweetheart, not as a girl, and to be honest, I could accept that.
But the current situation doesn’t allow me to keep playing the ostrich and ignore the difference between men and women. This is a public bathhouse, and I’m currently in a girl’s body. Thinking about entering the men’s bathroom now would be utterly ridiculous.
It’s time to make a decision. The other men who entered with me looked at me with surprise. I gritted my teeth and nodded at Jayad, saying, “Then I’ll go over there. Whoever finishes first will wait for the other in the hall.”
With that, I turned and walked into the women’s changing room. Who’s afraid of whom? In my dreams, I always wanted to enter the girls’ changing room. Now that I finally have the opportunity, why should I back down?
Lifting the curtain, a wave of heat washed over me. It was so warm. The entire bathroom was permeated with warm water vapor, even affecting the changing room.
The entire changing room was made of smooth wood, somewhat like oak. I’m not very knowledgeable about these things. It wasn’t too large or luxurious, as this bathhouse was primarily cheap and accessible. The decoration was minimal, emphasizing a primitive style.
On both sides were two rows of horizontal cabinets, filled with baskets. It seemed the counter lady’s instruction to put clothes in a basket referred to these baskets.
There were no numbers or locks. All the baskets were placed openly, clearly visible. Perhaps commoners wouldn’t carry anything valuable when they came to bathe, unlike in my previous life when I had a mobile phone.
Another reason was that it faced the main door of the bathroom directly. The women’s changing room led directly to the bathroom. From inside, one could see what was happening in the changing room outside, so there was no fear of thieves.
I really wanted to complain about the structure of this changing room. There were no corners or partitions at all. The bathroom and changing room doors faced each other directly, forming a straight line from the corridor to the end.
This means if any man wanted to peep, he could simply lift the bath curtain in the changing room and see the scene inside the bathroom all the way from outside the door, completely unobstructed. This bath curtain was truly effective against gentlemen but not against scoundrels.
Perhaps these common people didn’t worry much about privacy. In Parul’s memories of bathing, there were plenty of girls bathing directly in the river or by the water tower. Who cared about all these formalities? Having a bath curtain was already good.
In fact, it was precisely like that. In front of me, quite a few female guests entered the changing room and started undressing on their own. They didn’t care if I lifted the bath curtain when I entered, nor did they wear bath towels. They walked into the bathroom nonchalantly.
Unfortunately, when faced with a scene that I should have anticipated with excitement, my heart remained untouched after I saw it. These women from the lower class were truly unattractive.
They were generally older, their bodies starting to gain weight, their skin rough, their figures deformed, flabby, and just plain unattractive. Some were even off-putting.
I glanced and then looked away. I shouldn’t have had any expectations from the start.
