Chapter 18
“Why am I here? My ranking match just ended too……. I was just about to head back.”
“Ah.”
Thinking about it, it was an obvious question to ask. I awkwardly rubbed the back of my neck, while Lee Hyunseong stood there awkwardly in his own right, working his lips uncertainly.
Lee Hyunseong wasn't exactly close to me either, though not to the same extent as Baek Seol-ah had been in the past.
Since I'd lived as a delinquent and picked fights with his girlfriend, Baek Seol-ah, from time to time, he obviously leaned toward viewing me unfavorably.
……I suspect that the fact that this guy singled me out as the target for fulfilling his NTS tastes may have been influenced by that relationship, too.
‘I don't particularly want to know him that deeply.’
In truth, I wasn't especially interested in or curious about Lee Hyunseong's inner thoughts to the point of investigating that far.
Even if I learned what went on inside a man who wanted another man to take his lover away, it would only put me in a bad mood.
Honestly, even being face-to-face with him like this was uncomfortable from my perspective.
“……So, what are you planning to take?”
This protagonist seemed to want to talk to me. He asked despite fidgeting nervously.
Judging by his displeased expression, Lee Hyunseong didn't seem happy to be facing me either, which meant one thing.
He had something he wanted to ask—and hear badly enough to endure the discomfort of dealing with me.
And the reason for that state of mind was fairly obvious.
I let out a derisive laugh and answered.
“What, did my muttering sound as though it was about your girlfriend?”
“……No, well. It’s not necessarily because of that.”
“If you say it while looking like it’s driving you insane, do you expect me to believe you?”
Lee Hyunseong couldn't deny it any further and fell silent. He even blushed, apparently embarrassed.
……Seeing a grown man make a bashful face was truly painful to watch.
So, intending to explain quickly and chase him away, I flicked my wrist.
“You don't need to worry about anything pointless. It wasn't particularly about Baek Seol-ah, so go on your way.”
For the moment, it was true that my spectacular experiences over the past few days had made me quite fond of Baek Seol-ah. I couldn't deny that.
Moreover, because of that, it wasn't as though I had never thought about taking Baek Seol-ah away from Lee Hyunseong and making her completely mine.
At least, my muttering a moment ago—‘Should I just take her away?’—hadn't been about Baek Seol-ah.
I had been talking about Seo Ahyeon, who had gotten tangled up with some pathetic bastard and was living as a battered wife, making everyone who saw it uncomfortable.
It was that hard to watch. The relationship that barely even qualified as a romance between Seo Ahyeon and Kim Minjun.
In that sense, well……. Lee Hyunseong was actually the better of the two, aside from his abnormal sex drive.
He was still pathetic, but at least he didn't torment Baek Seol-ah.
In the first place, Lee Hyunseong wasn't even in a position to torment Baek Seol-ah.
At most, the best he could do would be to kneel before her and beg her to please let another man fuck her.
It was just as my thoughts reached that point.
Lee Hyunseong, who had frozen for a moment after hearing that my earlier muttering hadn't referred to Baek Seol-ah, reacted a beat late.
“Ah……. Really……?”
“……?”
If I hadn't seen it wrong—no, the reaction was too blatant to mistake.
For an instant, Lee Hyunseong had looked slightly disappointed upon hearing my words, as though he found them regrettable.
It was a reaction revealed for only the briefest moment, and it soon vanished without a trace.
“……Lee Hyunseong, you…….”
“Ahem, ahem.”
Even so, I too was a physical-type Awakener, just like Seo Ahyeon.
In other words, I couldn't possibly have mistaken even a fleeting reaction like that.
I stared at Lee Hyunseong with a complicated expression, as though I were looking at a lunatic, while he cleared his throat as if he knew what he had done wrong.
An awkward silence, so uncomfortable it went beyond awkwardness, settled between us for a while.
To break that unbearably uncomfortable atmosphere, I had no choice but to scratch my chin and change the subject.
“……So, did you check the video you took last weekend? Baek Seol-ah recorded it on her smartphone, so she should have it.”
“……Ah. Uh, I checked it.”
Honestly, this wasn't a subject I wanted to bring up while talking to Lee Hyunseong alone either.
Still, I had no choice. I couldn't think of any other expedient right then.
The troublesome possibility I'd feared—that Lee Hyunseong might want not merely to share Baek Seol-ah's body with me, but to have her taken from him completely.
This was the best way to pretend I hadn't noticed that possibility, which made my whole body break out in gooseflesh just imagining it.
Lee Hyunseong must have noticed what I was trying to do, because he took out his smartphone and continued answering.
“Seol-ah has been a little angry with me these past few days. We haven't met in person, but she did send me the video.”
“……Oh, did she.”
“It's all thanks to you, Han Taeyang. I put the video to good use over the weekend—... I mean, I watched it.”
“…….”
There was no mirror, so I had no way to check, but the expression on my face right then must have been quite a sight.
I could vaguely imagine that I looked both contemptuous of Lee Hyunseong in front of me and utterly drained.
I never thought I'd actually hear something like that from him.
I didn't want to hear it, and I didn't want to know.
No, it wasn't as though I hadn't understood what the video was for when he asked me to record it.
But having the person involved confirm it directly with his own mouth was a whole different level of shocking.
“……Ha…….”
I reluctantly raised a hand and rubbed around my eyelids, trying to relieve the mental shock I'd just received, even if only that way.
It was truly unfortunate. That wasn't the end of the shocks Lee Hyunseong would give me today.
The moment I had settled my mind and opened my eyes again, a sight happened to come into view.
“……?”
I froze for an instant and had no choice but to fix both eyes on that sight. Was he trying to show me the video he'd received from me?
Lee Hyunseong had taken out his smartphone and was holding it with the screen turned on.
“Fuck?”
The circumstances were so blatant that a profanity I rarely used, despite living as a delinquent, slipped right out of my mouth.
I stared up at Lee Hyunseong in genuine horror, and when he felt my intense gaze, he flinched and lowered his eyes.
“Ah…….”
Then he checked the screen of his phone, which was still on, and let out a short sigh.
How many meanings and emotions could possibly be contained in that single sigh?
To say it again, I really didn't want to know…….
Lee Hyunseong soon began stammering out an explanation.
“It’s just that, this absolutely wasn’t my choice.”
“…….”
Right, it wasn't your choice. If it had actually been your choice, I think I would have been devastated.
I half opened my mouth, but couldn't bring myself to continue, so I firmly closed my lips again.
……What had I seen on Lee Hyunseong's smartphone screen to make me react so wildly?
I really didn't want to be the one to explain it, but it wasn't as though there was much to explain in detail.
It was simply a single photograph that had no business being there, set as his wallpaper.
That's right.
Baek Seol-ah, who had barged into my dormitory last weekend, done this and that with me, polished off malatang, yeop-tteok, and even ice cream, then left.
A single photograph she had taken after suddenly climbing onto my lap just before leaving my dormitory.
In other words, that very two-shot selfie of Baek Seol-ah and me pressed close together like a loving couple.
That photograph, which was also saved in my gallery, was now the wallpaper on Lee Hyunseong's smartphone.
“…….”
“…….”
A silence far heavier than the one before settled around Lee Hyunseong and me, so much heavier that comparison was impossible.
Soon, with a bitter smile as though even he found this too difficult to endure, Lee Hyunseong muttered.
“……They say it was punishment for the sinful boyfriend who made his precious girlfriend go and be held by another man. She told me to use it as my wallpaper for a while.”
“…….”
“She said I could look at it and suffer every time I used my phone, or get excited. Either way, it was up to me.”
I could only gently close my eyes.
I never would have guessed it was Baek Seol-ah's order.
‘Seriously, this is not easy…….’
It really was. These couples had a talent for making my life difficult as a pair.
Once again, I realized that Baek Seol-ah was a woman with a screw loose somewhere, no less than Lee Hyunseong with his NTRase tastes.
“Phew…….”
I pressed a hand firmly against my throbbing forehead, sighed, and then instructed Lee Hyunseong.
“Hey, just delete it. Delete the picture too.”
“……What? But still.”
“I'll even plead with that bitch Baek Seol-ah if I have to and make her stop forcing you to use that damn wallpaper, so hurry up and delete it. Looking at it pisses me off.”
“Ah, okay.”
Had even using it as his wallpaper really been too much for him? Lee Hyunseong hesitated for a moment, but as soon as I told him that I would speak to Baek Seol-ah separately, he immediately began operating his smartphone.
And amid another hollow silence, Lee Hyunseong soon added a few quiet words.
“……Thanks, Han Taeyang.”
“Yeah. Sure…….”
I looked up at the sky with an empty expression and silently swallowed the sigh that was about to escape.
*****
“Han Taeyang.”
Several days later, one of the few general-education classes whose schedules overlapped with Baek Seol-ah's each week was in session.
As usual, the silver-haired, golden-eyed beauty sat beside me, setting her textbook down.
Baek Seol-ah glanced back at me as she casually tucked her snow-white hair behind her ear.
I met her eyes with resigned exhaustion, too tired to pick a fight.
From her neatly groomed hair first thing in the morning to her ramrod-straight expression, there wasn't a trace of the fatigue any student ought to have.
She looked exceptionally neat and proper. In fact, Baek Seol-ah was always this exemplary on campus.
It was only unusual when she was disheveled on my bed, moaning lewdly; normally, she was far more often this graceful.
Anyway, just as I was giving Baek Seol-ah's appearance a brief once-over, she shot me an oddly gruff look and spoke.
“You told Hyunseong to delete the picture I gave him, didn't you? And you even said you'd tell me yourself.”
“……Ah, that?”
I answered nonchalantly with my chin propped on one hand, my elbow resting on the desk.
In truth, I had more or less expected her to bring this up.
So I wasn't particularly surprised. When I yawned widely and smacked my lips, Baek Seol-ah poked me in the side with an even more displeased expression.
“Why do you get to interfere with our relationship whenever you feel like it? This is something I can be angry at you about, right?”
“……What's she talking about?”
Of course, all I could do was make an incredulous face in return.
‘I can be angry about this, my ass.’
I sincerely hoped she wasn't saying it seriously. Though if the opposite were true, that would be another matter.
With a snort, I gently pushed away the index finger Baek Seol-ah had insolently jabbed into my side.
“I should be the one getting angry. Why would you make your boyfriend use some picture like that as his wallpaper?”
“What do you mean, ‘some picture like that’? I told you from the start. I take pictures because they all have their uses.”
“No, that's not what I mean……. Sigh, forget it.”
I considered arguing the point again, but soon decided to abandon the thought completely.
Looking at Baek Seol-ah's expression, it seemed she wouldn't accept anything I said anyway.
It seemed best simply to ignore whatever she said beside me.
But today, that silent treatment was less effective than usual.
“Hey, answer me. Are you jealous that Hyunseong and I share even a wallpaper?”
Maybe it was because I'd chosen a fairly secluded spot in the lecture hall.
Even after the instructor came in, Baek Seol-ah's chatter continued without end.
The biggest problem was that most of that chatter was pointless nonsense. I had to struggle to hold back the sigh rising in my chest.
Come to think of it, had Baek Seol-ah actually set that picture as her own smartphone wallpaper too?
I was even beginning to think she might genuinely be crazy.
Anyone who saw us would think I was Baek Seol-ah's boyfriend.
“Answer me, answer me. Han Taeyang, answer me.”
“……Ah, please. Let's study.”
In any case, Baek Seol-ah, sitting beside me, was especially noisy today and kept harassing me with her chatter.
My fatigue steadily mounted, and naturally, my expression grew increasingly worn out as well.
Apparently, my reaction was of no concern to Baek Seol-ah. She poked my cheek with her ballpoint pen.
Her narrow eyes looked faintly pouty, and her cheeks were puffed out just a little.
“Hmph, so you're really going to keep ignoring me……?”
Then she muttered in a loaded tone, as though threatening me, but I gritted my teeth and refused to look her way to the end. I ignored her completely.
I believed that if I didn't answer, she would whine a little longer and soon tire herself out.
That was my assessment. At first.
……It was the wrong assessment.
Swoosh-
“……!”
All of a sudden, Baek Seol-ah, who had pressed her lips together for a moment and glared at me silently in displeasure, made her move.
She abruptly moved her hand from beneath the desk……. and touched the waistband of my pants with that furtive hand.
I finally turned to look at her in alarm, but Baek Seol-ah already seemed determined.
“Come to think of it, I still haven't fully repaid my debt, have I? I have about four times left now……?”
“……No. Hey, Baek Seolgi, are you crazy?”
Her voice was lowered to a whisper, quiet enough that neither the other students nor the instructor at the lectern could hear.
Baek Seol-ah narrowed her eyes into crescents and grinned, while I reached out in horror, but—
“If you grab me, I'll scream. I'll say you tried to molest me while sitting beside me.”
“…….”
After fondling the bulging upper part of my pants a few times with a familiar hand, Baek Seol-ah calmly propped up her chin and threatened me like that.
I opened my eyes wide in shock at the shamelessly relaxed expression on her face.
“……Heh, it's nice when you stay so obedient.”
“Baek Seol…….”
“Mm-hmm, good boy, right? Stay still, Han Taeyang.”
Then Baek Seol-ah lightly cut off my last attempt to stop her.
And without even the slightest hesitation—or even embarrassment—she thrust her hand straight inside my pants.
‘……Hup.’
It was the moment Baek Seol-ah's fairly cool hand finally slipped past my underwear and reached inside.
I swallowed a breath, my eyelashes trembling rapidly, and the smile in Baek Seol-ah's eyes deepened another notch.
Just in case I had to say it one more time.
This place was……. a lecture hall.