3 A Students Meal

With his body thoroughly soaked and scrubbed free of dirt, Noah decided to finally exit the bath. His hands held the sides of the tub and pulled himself to his feet with a stiff groan and popping bones.

"Gah, did this guy not know how to stretch once in a while?" He grumbled to himself as he rolled his neck with even more sharp pops.

Stepping over the side of the tub, Noah's foot came to fall on the chilly stone flooring, a deep contrast to the warmth of the water. But he couldn't complain much, he knew just as well as any how poorly wood and humidity went together, that was just asking for mold to start growing. And it wasn't as if this world has discovered concrete just yet, or, at least he thought so.

Stepping through the steam filled bathroom, Noah reached his hand out to the handle of the door leading to the changing portion of the room where he had stripped down and placed his raggedy clothing. A thought that made Noah cringe.

'should have asked if there was anything clean I could borrow…' he thought as his fingers found the handle, hooking the tips into the groove and slid it open. Frowning when the top part came off the rails and got stuck.

'This place is falling apart,' he sighed as he jerked the door back into place with both hands and slid it out of the way.

Pushing his way into the room, Noah failed to notice the woman knelt down by a wooden block laying down various pieces of neatly folded fabrics atop it. Her head having risen to him, eyes flaring open and cheeks burning bright as her eyes travelled along Noah's body, lingering just a bit longer on his lower half.

Noah looked left and right before his gaze fell onto a small towel just barely smaller than his chest hanging onto a small hook on the wall.

He was about to reach out and pry it off the hanger when he her a thud and a swiftly repeated, "aba-ba-ba-ba-ba," that fully drew his attention to the woman now fallen onto her butt staring up at him from the ground. Steam pouring from her head while hands covered her eyes. Fingers parted just slightly letting her peek through them.

"Right. Sorry, didn't expect you to be in here." He calmly said, his beard just barely concealing his own faint blush. A hand reached to cover his exposed manhood, the other going to grab the towel to provide a better wall to hide his manhood. Were he at all being honest, he really should have expected it, this wasn't his first time in such an oriental bathroom that had a separate changing room to the actual bathroom. So of course, Liora would enter into the changing portion.

Liora didn't respond at first, too flustered for her mind to even work properly. "N-n-no i-its my fault," she quickly rocketed to her feet and turned away from him. Her hands lowering to her chest feeling her rapidly beating heart. "I- you were bathing I should have knocked to let you know."

Wrapping the towel around his waist, Noah rolled the two sides together to keep them from falling. Inadvertently finding his eyes falling onto Liora's plump derriere that nearly peaked out from beneath her now dried nightgown—still stained with red markings of wine all over it.

Noah gulped, even under her loose gown he could tell just how meaty and full it was, to the point that the gap between them was small enough that he could barely see it without straining his eyes. He couldn't comprehend how she believed herself to be a old hag with curves like those.

"It's… It's alright," he forced a chuckle while scratching his cheek awkwardly.

Silence befell the two. One unable to pull the form of Noahh's near skeletal body from her mind, particularly his manhood that caused her own body to quiver in excitement. A feeling she had long since lost since her husband first fell ill.

"I-I'm going to prepare a meal for us," She charged towards the door and threw it over. "you look about my husbands size… maybe even bigger…" she added in a mumble and not seconds after did a loud slap ring out as her hand met her cheek.

The sound loud enough that Noah bounced up high, "Liora? Are you o-"

"I'm fine." She stopped him. "I-I've left you a clean change of clothes. Please tell me if they fit. If they don't I should be able to do some alterations." She didn't give him time to respond when she practically lunged for the door and sprinted down the hall leaving a void in the steam leaking from the bathroom door.

Noah's shoulders slump to his side, "this is going… well…" he hissed to himself. Letting his feet bring him towards the pile of fabrics, gently pulling up the top piece up. A thin green tunic. Nothing special or fancy, but as a shirt it was passable. His only gripe being the coarse fabric rubbing against his fingers. A fact he was going to have to get used to. If this world was sometime in the medival era they certainly didn't have access to the machinery needed to create the truly luxurious—in this worlds standard—clothes he was used to.

Beneath that was a pair of brown pants in a simple one colour scheme with a leather belt to top it all off. The only things he missed were socks and most importantly, underpants. Which he was certainly glad he didn't get; he couldn't live with the idea of wearing someone elses underpants.

Swiftly putting his foot through the leg hole, Noah lifted the pants to his hips, just about to slide the belt through the hoops when a thought came to his mind.

'This world does have underwear… right?'

***

If awkwardness could have a physical manifestation, it would be a widowed woman seeing you naked and being unable to look you in the eye after and was doing her utmost to seem as stalwart and not steaming red in the face as she slurped up some form of wheat pasta.

Noah couldn't help but feel a bit apologetic for letting that happening, he really should have been more on guard. 'oh well… nothing I can do about it now,' he sighed internally turning his focus to the meal before him.

And from what he recalled of his world, it was essentially ramen in its most basal form. Thick noodles in a bone broth topped with various small vegetable and an exceedingly thin slice of meat. So thin that he feared he'd tear the translucent thing to shreds just trying to pick it up with the chopsticks she'd given him.

'Come to a new world. Eat like a starved student…' he chuckled to himself pausing when he noticed a slight inconsistency with that thought, '…with a bit of money,' no way a student could afford afford all the things Liora had tossed atop the noodles.

While not an expert at the art of chopstick-fu, he had enough experience to be able to lift up a good portion of the tender noodle and brought them to his lips. Chewing on the broth filled pasta tasting an almost beefy taste from it. But it wasn't quite beef. There was something else about it, it was more potent than any beef broth he had had before. So much so that he noted a slight, almost gamey flavour to it.

"Mmm," he hummed swallowing what he could, "delicious. What's the broth made from if I may ask? It doesn't taste quite like cow." It was the best he could come up with to break the ice formed between them.

Liora visibly jumped hearing him speak out of nowhere, her eyes shooting to him which in turn caused her to envision him naked, once again sending a burst of red-hot steam from her head.

"It-it's minotaur," she squeaked.

"Minotaur?" Noah muttered, "like, cow people?" gods he hoped he didn't inadvertently become a cannibal. But knowing his luck, it probably did.

"N-no," Liora stuttered, "Minotaurs are a type of monster found around the kingdom. They're just large cows that walk on two legs. They look nothing like humans," her voice laced with nervousness, unable to keep her eyes on Noah's bearded face.

"So, I'm not a cannibal? That's good," didn't alleviate the fact he was still eating a bipedal humanoid creature. Even if he hadn't seen it in person he could still remember the various images he'd seen about the labyrinth living minotaur from mythology.

Liora nodded her head with a slight, "Nnn." But saying nothing after, returning an awkward silence to them with the only sounds being that of their slurping of noodles.

The silence was killing him and his attempt at breaking the ice failed.

He needed a new way to alleviate this awkwardness between them. Annoyingly, he came to the conclusion of just talking about what happened with her upfront.

Which he was not dumb enough to admit was like pouring oil onto a already towering flame.

"Uh, ma'am. I'm sorry for earlier. I showed you something unsightly due to negligence on my part. I hope it doesn't change anything between us. Especially considering we barely know each other I hope it doesn't colour me in a bad light." Noah laid his chopsticks down, lowering his head in a bow towards her.

Liora, not having expected that from him just blinked rapidly, pale yellow noodles dangling from her lips coating her chin in broth. Now she was feeling guilty for acting like this just because she saw… she saw a penis after so long.

Her eyes softened as she thought, 'I'm a grown woman. I shouldn't be so embarrassed about a penis,' even in her mind her own voice cracked and sent a spiral of red down her neck.

"Please don't be." Liora bit down, severing the noodles in half and resulting in those that hung from her mouth to fall back into the broth. "It… it was just an over reaction on my part. I shouldn't have entered the changing room without informing you. Even then I could have handed you clothing before you got in the bath. So, I am sorry for having no forethought about this."

Noah didn't like it that she seemed intent on taking the blame, "No, It's my faul-"

"Stop that!" Liora barked surprising him. "This is my house. Therefore, what happened was an oversight on my part. Not yours. I entered the changing room while you were bathing. How were you to know I was there? So, don't go attempting to take any fault in this. If anyone is to take the blame, it's this old hag." Her steaming head had disappeared, replaced by a figurative puff of smoke from her nose refusing any attempts Noah had of turning it to his blame. "So no more of this. Am I understood?"

Noah instinctively found himself nodding his head with his tail tucked between his legs.

"Good," Liora hummed happily. "Now let's finish up. I need to get into the fields for a bit before nightfall." Just as Liora was about to lift up a chopstick full of food to her mouth she paused, her expression turning depressed, "no… it's pointless…" she mumbled almost illegibly to herself.

Almost.