Chapter 9
Late at night. One in the morning.
A girl who couldn't fall asleep was tossing and turning in bed.
‘I like you, Cha Eun-joo.’
“Uuuuuugh…!!”
Ever since she returned home, Cha Eun-joo had been moaning beneath her blanket at Lee Seonho’s words, which had replayed in her head over and over.
‘C-calm down, Cha Eun-joo. Strictly speaking, Seonho didn’t confess directly to me.’
Indeed.
She had confessed while tightly hugging herself, but that had only been ‘Cha Eun-joo under hypnosis,’ not a confession directed at her.
So she had to maintain the same attitude as before as much as possible. If she showed any sign of acting strange in front of him, he might realize she had only pretended to be hypnotized.
But…could she really behave so brazenly even after meeting him tomorrow?
Cha Eun-joo wasn’t good at lying, so it was only natural that worry kept her from falling asleep.
‘Tomorrow too…will he ask to do that ‘hypnosis’ thing again…?’
If so, did that mean she had to ‘pretend to be under hypnosis’ again tomorrow?
‘It’s not that I hate it. It’s not that I hate it, but….’
Thinking about hearing that embarrassing confession of love directly from him again, she couldn’t help her heart pounding.
During her school years, it wasn’t as though men with ulterior motives had never approached her after noticing her large breasts, but compared with them, Lee Seonho’s feelings had seemed so pure.
Cha Eun-joo felt that he looked at her with pure affection rather than lust or desire, and so she couldn’t help taking his confession just as seriously.
‘Still, I did promise to go out tomorrow.’
To enroll in Cheonmu Hunter Academy, she had to take the practical exam anyway. And as Seonho had said, it was better to get as much practical training as possible.
Perhaps tomorrow he wouldn’t suggest doing anything like hypnosis. Maybe he had merely needed to relieve his desire because he couldn’t stand going even one day without doing so.
Of course, even if he told her he wanted to hypnotize her again, she wouldn’t have had the nerve to refuse.
…In the first place, she didn’t particularly want to refuse.
‘F-for now, let’s go to sleep. I have to get up early tomorrow….’
Tomorrow, she would have to fix her hair a little more neatly before going out. If she had known this would happen, she would have bought a few more outfits in advance.
Thinking that, Cha Eun-joo clutched her pounding heart and desperately tried to fall asleep.
…
…
…
‘I like you, Cha Eun-joo.’
“Uuuuuugh…!!!”
…But it was only after another two hours that she finally managed to fall asleep.
⁎ ⁎ ⁎
Day two of practical exam preparation with Cha Eun-joo.
As promised yesterday, I stood in front of the training facility and waited for her, but I wasn’t in a particularly good mood.
Even though two hours had already passed since our agreed time and it was now noon, Cha Eun-joo still hadn’t shown up in front of the training facility.
‘Surely I wasn’t getting stood up on only the second day.’
I had thought things were going according to plan, so this was a development I hadn’t anticipated at all.
The idea of timid Cha Eun-joo suddenly vanishing without saying a word to me was simply impossible to imagine.
‘Did I advance things too far on the very first day…?’
…Even for Cha Eun-joo, I had thought that a hug and a confession would be well within the bounds of what she could accept.
Maybe I had underestimated her resistance to the opposite sex as a shut-in hikikomori. Perhaps I should have played it safe and stopped at merely patting her head.
I never expected her wariness toward me to grow so much over something as minor as that physical contact that she would leave me waiting like this….
-Bzzzz, bzzzzzz….
“Hm?”
Just as I took out my phone, thinking that I might as well contact her once before leaving, it happened to ring.
It was from the owner of the phone number I had saved only yesterday, so I felt a glimmer of hope that perhaps my strategy for winning over Cha Eun-joo hadn’t gone wrong after all.
“Cha Eun-joo?”
「Se-se-se-seonho?! W-where are you right now?!」
“Me? I’m in front of the training facility.”
「S-sorry!! I-I swear I’m not lying—I overslept…!! I-I’ll get ready and head out right now… Aaaahhh?!」
“…Cha Eun-joo? Are you okay?”
「N-nothing…!! I-I just tripped over the clothes rack…」
…Judging by that lifelike reaction, she probably hadn’t been lying about oversleeping. I had already confirmed her poor acting skills while trying to hypnotize her yesterday.
Moreover, her voice on the other end of the phone really did sound apologetic. It was easy to tell that she hadn’t meant to stand me up or become wary because yesterday’s actions had made her uncomfortable.
“It’s fine, so take your time. I’ve already been waiting two hours, so waiting another hour or so wouldn’t really make much difference.”
「Thirty minutes…!! Ah, no, I’ll be there within fifteen!! I’m really sorry, Seonho!!」
“I said it’s fine. You can take your time.”
At times like this, I needed to make sure she felt properly indebted to me, so I deliberately answered in a way that would make her feel somewhat burdened, then quietly waited for Cha Eun-joo to arrive at our meeting place.
Not only was she over two hours late, but she had also made me wait endlessly without contacting me, leaving her with the guilt of making me wait.
The more indebted Cha Eun-joo felt to me, the faster the process of conditioning her would proceed.
⁎ ⁎ ⁎
“Haaak, haaak, haaak….”
“Slow down, slow down. You’re going to collapse at this rate.”
“Haaah, huh…. S-sorry, haaah…. Seonho, haaah, huff….”
A purple-haired girl came running toward the training facility, breathing heavily.
With every step she took, her breasts bounced up and down with an obscenely enticing rhythm. I wanted to knead those breasts so badly that my fingers seemed ready to sink into them on their own.
Perhaps Cha Eun-joo as she was now would even agree if I asked her to let me touch her breasts as compensation for being late. With that idle thought, I calmly welcomed her, even though she was two hours and twenty minutes late for our appointment.
“I told you that you could take your time. I haven’t been waiting that long.”
“…N-not waiting that long…. Haaak, ah, no…. Hoo, hoo….”
“Friends can wait this long for each other. Come here. Your hair’s completely mussed up.”
“Uhh, huff…?”
She reflexively panicked the moment my hand touched her head, but after realizing it was my hand, Cha Eun-joo lowered her head again.
She had probably grown accustomed to my hand stroking her hair over the course of yesterday, and above all, she was carrying an indescribably heavy sense of indebtedness toward me now, so she couldn’t refuse anything I said or did.
In that respect, her being late for our appointment was actually a good opportunity.
My aim had been to slowly condition her by building up an appropriate amount of ‘debt’ and having her repay it whenever she was under hypnosis, but if she created a massive amount of ‘debt’ on her own first, things became much easier.
I merely had to take on the mindset of a debt collector and recover as much of the debt Cha Eun-joo owed me as I pleased.
Thanks to her mistake, I would be able to make much more progress today than yesterday, so the loss of a little over two hours was practically an investment in winning Cha Eun-joo over.
“I-I’m sorry, Seonho…. I’m really sorry….”
“I said it’s fine. Still, be more careful next time.”
“W-what can I do to make you forgive me…? I-I’ll do anything I can…!”
“…A girl shouldn’t say things like that so carelessly.”
“Ah, I-I’m sorry…! I-I didn’t mean it like that….”
…If she said she would do anything she could, it made me want to have her do absolutely anything.
But if I said what I was thinking right now, she would obviously become terrified and run away. I couldn’t say it ‘now,’ of course.
In any case, the fact that Cha Eun-joo had brought this up first seemed to mean that what I had done yesterday had definitely lowered her guard.
If I had hypnotized her yesterday and done anything ‘strange’ by her standards, there was no way she would now be saying something like ‘I’ll do anything.’
The only reason she could say such a thing was that she fundamentally believed I wouldn’t do anything too extreme, even if she offered.
In her mind, I had already become ‘an innocent boy who could only attempt a hug even after using hypnosis.’
“…You know, Cha Eun-joo.”
“Hm?”
“But will you really do anything if it’s something you can do?”
“……Huh?”
I changed the mood and asked her about what she had just said, and Cha Eun-joo took a flustered step backward.
She looked a little wary, as though she was worried I might make some strange request. After all, Cha Eun-joo now knew that I liked her.
“Eun-joo?”
“Ah, y-yeah….”
“Will you really do anything if it’s something you can do?”
“……Th-that is.”
“…….”
“I-if I can do it, yeah….”
Honestly, even her flustered reactions were this cute.
Just how many lewd fantasies was Cha Eun-joo imagining right now?
Unlike Choi Mari, she must have picked up quite a bit of sexual knowledge from manga and novels, so of course she was interpreting my words with a strange intention.
After giving her enough time to imagine all sorts of lewd things, I made a request Cha Eun-joo could never refuse.
“Then, about that favor you mentioned.”
“…….”
-Gulp.
“I’m hungry, so buy me lunch, Cha Eun-joo. Let’s call that repayment for being late today.”
“……Huh?”
“We were originally going to eat after training, but it somehow ended up being lunchtime. Let’s have a filling meal at the ramen shop we went to yesterday, then train. How does that sound?”
“…….”
A startled exclamation that failed to conceal her shock. An awkward silence followed, as though her thoughts had stopped. Then, before long, her face flushed red with embarrassment.
It was easy to infer that she couldn’t immediately process the fact that I had asked for something completely different from the favor she had imagined (mostly something lewd), and that she was blushing with shame after realizing she was the only one who had been imagining anything sexual.
“Cha Eun-joo?”
“Ah, y-yeah?!”
“What’s wrong? Is it a problem? You made me wait two hours, and you won’t even buy me one meal?”
“Ah, no! I’ll buy it! B-but is that really all you want…?”
“Why? If you don’t want ramen, I don’t mind going to another restaurant.”
“Ah, no…! Let’s go eat ramen, ramen! You can even order the large portion…!”
“Eating too much at lunchtime will only make your stomach feel heavy during training. I’m not going to be petty over something like this, so let’s just hurry up and eat.”
“Ah, okay….”
Cha Eun-joo probably knew it too. Considering that she had been two hours late for our appointment, one bowl of ramen was an absurdly cheap price to pay.
In any case, I would ease her worries shortly, so it didn’t matter.
I planned to milk the sense of indebtedness Cha Eun-joo currently felt toward me for all it was worth with today’s ‘hypnosis’.