They eventually separated. Alicia looked down, flustered, ashamed. Shen looked sideways to avoid her eyes.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I never saw... I mean... You are beautiful... And I never... Clothing... Skin..."

He was glad he was looking away from her because she raised her face to look at him.

Shen took a deep breath. "My culture is prudish by your standards," he said firmly. "I’ve never seen a woman wearing so little. I was surprised and looked at you in an unbefitting manner. I apologize."

Alicia bit her lower lip—he saw it in the corner of his eyes—then said, "No, I'm the one in the wrong. I kinda... Fuck. You're you. I thought you were beyond such things. I kinda forgot you're a fucking teenager. I kinda thought of you as an alien or something." Her face flushed so much it could be mistaken for a tomato. "That's why I reacted the way I did. I felt I was safe, then I was scared. But you know... Boys look at girls... Fuck, this is awkward."

Alicia turned back and walked to the kitchen. She stopped midway and looked back at Shen, who was still doing his best to ignore her.

"See? You're not looking now when a guy normally would... The way I’m used to, too..." She sighed. "Fuck, fuck, fuck. Look, no one will blame you if you admire a girl. Girls... We know boys look at us. If it's not in a creepy way, it's alright. Looking so openly, the way you did, that is fucking creepy. That is only allowed if the girl has feelings for the boy and it's a mutual relationship." Shen thought it was impossible, but her face became even redder. "So what I'm saying is, pretend you're not looking, then you can look all you want. Holy fucking fuck, I can't fucking believe I have to explain this to a guy. Fuck."

Shen just looked at her, not knowing how to respond. Not even his learning ability was enough for him to understand this culture. It was so alien to everything he believed in and had been taught that he was shocked he hadn’t short-circuited. He wouldn't be surprised if an arc flash spontaneously happened on his brain.

"Some girls are more open about it," Alicia continued, clearly embarrassed. "Fuck, most of them are. In this day and age, I'm the fucking virgin weirdo." She stopped, open-mouthed, wide-eyed, then hid her face. Then she turned back and ran away. "Oh my God, please kill me," she whispered as she threw herself at a sofa.

Shen took the opportunity to admire her back in silence. His heartbeat quickened. His blood rushed.

He started to wonder if he didn't like curves, after all.

Alicia took a few moments to recover, and when she did, she turned to find him looking to the same point on the ceiling he had been looking at before. He never thought he would one day use his D agility to pretend not to be looking at a girl who knew he was looking.

Mortal culture was weird.

She sat up. "It's about romance," she explained. "I... Girls like me like to pretend boys admire our personality rather than our... bodies. It makes the world feel more beautiful. Safer. Less... dirty. It's also a little game, I guess? I don't fucking know!" she yelled, then took a deep breath. "Look, I don't know how to explain it, alright? It's just the way things work. I'm sorry for overreacting, okay? And can you fucking look me in the fucking eyes?"

Shen did. That's when he saw the fear. She was forcing herself to explain herself and being apologetic because she was afraid he might leave otherwise.

That forced his mind to work again. He considered what she had said, sighed, and approached. He sat on the sofa opposite to her in the large living room.

"Alicia, you're my friend," Shen repeated softly. "My only friend. And if you disregard the friends I had as a child, who were ordered to befriend me by their parents, you're my first friend, too. That means a lot to me. And I do appreciate you for who you are, not how gorgeous your body is."

"In my culture... I'm not sure if what I did would be disrespectful. It's just not done. One's body is kept for one's husbands or wives. Well, maybe mortals were different in purely mortal settlements, but I wouldn't know.

"But things are different for you. You considered what I did to be disrespectful. I messed up, and you don't have to apologize for feeling disrespected.

"We also don't have to play pretend. If you want to live in a world where your best friend will not admire your body, I'll give you that world."

He swallowed, took another deep breath, and continued, "I can control myself. I was just surprised by your beauty because I never thought about you as a woman before, not until your... womanliness was slapped in my face. But I can never admire your body again if it makes you feel better.

"I'm sorry for looking at you impolitely in the pool and lying on the sofa. That won't happen again."

A strange silence followed. Alicia crossed her arms, then uncrossed them when she realized she was covering herself, then didn't know what to do with herself. She ended up just leaving her closed hands on her lap.

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"I should've known better," she whispered and started trembling again. "It was my fault. It's always my fault."

"What are you talking about?" Shen asked, completely lost.

She shook her head, then took a big breath, and stood up. There was a renewed fire in her eyes. "Listen, you were checking out a friend in a bikini, big fucking deal. This is blowing out of proportion too much.

"I was just surprised and reacted poorly, alright? I kind of have a story, which made me scared. The last people who looked at me the way you did... You know about Ken in the tutorial. I also had a boyfriend back in high school, and he wanted to have me before I felt ready for it. It made me scared of intimate contact.

"But I know it's not really their fucking fault, you know? You didn't mean to make me scared. I'm just too prude sometimes. I mean, Ken helped me against Mark, so I should know I had to repay the favor somehow, right? That's what a girl is supposed to do. I should also fuck my fucking boyfriend. It's natural. Everybody knows that. Everybody does that.

"You're a boy, I'm a girl, we're alone in a big house. I should—" Then she cracked, and tears started rolling again. "I should know better. Ashley was right; just look at me! Why do I keep this hot body if I'm not going to use it?! Of course, men will want a piece of this! And if I get something else in return, all the better for everyone, right?" She lowered her crying face, then looked at him with begging eyes. "So please, do what you want, but don't leave me?"

Shen immediately said, "Alicia, stop offending me. I don't need you to prostitute yourself to me, to stay friends with you."

Her eyes widened, her mouth opened so much her jaw looked like it would fall, and she stepped back as if slapped. "What?" she said finally.

"Listen to what you're saying. We should go to bed because we're alone in a house? That's stupid. You're obligated to give yourself to anyone who does you a favor? That's even more stupid.

"It's not your fault that you didn't fulfill another person's expectations about how you would use your property. Your body belongs to you; other people's lust is their problem, not yours. Would you be obligated to give them all your money if they were greedy for it? Of course not. Did I have to provide my clan's techniques to people in the tutorial just because they wanted it? No.

"What doesn't belong to you is light itself, or how it reflects on your body to create the image my eyes see. I can look at anyone who's showing their body. If we were strangers, that would be all there is to it.

"But did you forget the part where I said we're friends? You have expectations, limits, and feelings. They go against my belief in how I should be allowed to look because you're exposing yourself. So one of us will have to compromise if we want our friendship to continue. Your feelings on the matter are more important because it's your body, so I'll do it; I'll stop looking. That's all there is to it."

He stood up and started walking closer to her. "Look, you're obviously hurt, and I'm not good at dealing with such things. No, not just not good. I have no idea what to do.

"But I know you're—as you would say—spouting fucking bullshit from your fucking mouth. Shut up and believe me when I say this: I. AM. YOUR. FRIEND."

He said those last words loudly and paused. When he said the last one, he reached and hugged her.

"In fact, you're one of the very few people in the whole universe I care about," he said much more softly. "I'll be here for you, and you don't need to do anything for that to happen, okay?"

This silent embrace was much more comfortable than the last one. After a while, Shen broke it and held Alicia by the shoulders. He didn't like touching her naked skin for even longer like that, but he felt it would show how important his following point was.

"Now," he said, "I want you to listen very carefully to me, okay?"

She nodded. Her tears were mostly gone, and her face was almost back to normal.

"You need help," Shen said directly. "I'll not preach my morals to you, but you're objectifying yourself."

"What?" She got away from his hands. "What the fuck are you talking about?" She crossed her arms. "Since when are you a feminist?"

He smiled sadly. "As I said, I won't preach my morals to you. I don't need to. This is about you, Alicia, about what you said, not me.

"You talked about being abused, pretending to live in a 'less dirty' world, and how using your body should be expected. And you trembled and cried while doing so. You're obviously traumatized and trying to justify what happened to you in a weird way. The logic I figured out is that if what happened is your fault, you can fix it easily by changing your attitude. The world won't be a terrible place if it's normal for people to go through what you did; you just need to give in, and all will be fine."

She hugged herself tighter. "You're just making stuff up." She didn't sound convinced about that. "It's fucking stupid."

"Alicia, in the tutorial, I became closer to a computer than any other human in the world. I can make connections, and these were quite obvious. You're objectifying yourself because if you're a broken object, you just have to fix yourself, become functional, accept your place in the world, and everything will be fine. That's easier to deal with than a world where evil people can do what they did to vulnerable people.

"If you felt happy, truly happy, with that belief; if it was who you truly are, I wouldn't care. Our cultures are different enough that it would be just another thing to accept about you. It would be weird to know you experienced the pleasures of the flesh without getting married first, but I can deal with that.

"But look at you, Alicia. You're hurting, and you're afraid. That's not who you are, and forcing yourself like this is not healthy. You're my friend, and I'm thinking of your well-being when I say you need help. Professional help. The kind of help I can't provide."

The Feng Clan had people who specialized in taking care of its members' mental health. He didn't know how it worked with mortals, but he guessed something like that existed if the system had talked about it in the tutorial.

Alicia turned sideways and looked in the opposite direction to his.

Shen suddenly found it very hard to keep his eyes up. The way she crossed her arms created... hills of delight in her upper body, and her lower body's curves were also highlighted by her pose.

Yet he focused on her head and her head only. She didn't want him to look, so he wouldn't, and that was it.

"I'll think about it," Alicia said after a while without looking at him, then left the room without saying another word.

Shen swallowed, took a deep breath, and rushed to his room.

He needed to meditate at once.