Chapter 21
“Ah……. Ngh.”
Baek Seol-ah thought, letting out a soft moan as a man’s thick hand pushed beneath her skirt.
This is bad. Han Taeyang seems even angrier than I expected.
‘I-I mean, I did go a little overboard with my teasing today, but…….’
Even so, why would he suddenly shove his hand beneath her skirt in such a wide-open place?
Baek Seol-ah hurriedly covered her mouth and swept her gaze around.
She had done so because she was worried that a third party might witness this scene as well.
Perhaps it was because the café where she had met up with Jeong Jaeha was located so far out on the edge of campus.
Fortunately, there didn’t seem to be anyone else within sight.
Baek Seol-ah felt relieved for the moment, but that didn’t mean the situation had particularly improved.
In any case, Han Taeyang’s hand was still kneading her buttocks.
“Hey, seriously. What are you doing out in the open…….”
But slapping that hand away—or at the very least, pushing Han Taeyang away—was difficult in its own right.
On an ordinary day, perhaps things would have been different.
But today, Baek Seol-ah was unquestionably in the wrong, so all she could do was freeze awkwardly and glance at him.
Her face had turned bright red, and her eyes trembled, but Han Taeyang didn’t budge at all.
“That isn’t exactly something you can say, is it? Have you already forgotten what you did in the lecture hall today?”
“N-no, thaaat.”
The rebuttal was airtight, leaving not even the slightest opening to exploit.
Indeed, invoking the fact that they were outdoors was not something Baek Seol-ah could say.
In the end, Baek Seol-ah was rendered speechless, and Han Taeyang continued in a chilly tone.
“I couldn’t even concentrate on class because of you. Are you going to take responsibility if I fail?”
“I-I’ll organize my notes and lend them to you later. That’ll make it up to you. Forgive me.”
“I don’t need them.”
“W-what……?”
Wait, where had all that concern about failing just moments ago gone? Baek Seol-ah turned around in disbelief, then swallowed a startled ‘gasp’ at how close Han Taeyang’s face was and timidly averted her gaze.
Her face grew even hotter, and by the time she was busily fidgeting with her clasped hands out of sheer awkwardness,
“Hey, see that?”
“……?”
Han Taeyang casually toyed with Baek Seol-ah’s snow-white hair with his free hand and gestured toward one side with his eyes.
Baek Seol-ah quickly shifted her gaze and spotted a convenience store near the café.
“C-convenience store? Why? Wh-what?”
“……”
“Ah, maybe you could buy me something……? It seems a little hot today, too—ice cream, perhaps. Yeah.”
She tried to put her wit to work and propose a deal, but Han Taeyang acted as though he hadn’t heard her and continued with what he wanted to say.
“Go buy some condoms. The kind I used last time.”
“……!”
“And tomorrow’s the weekend, too. That works out, doesn’t it?”
That one line came with a smile that made no attempt to conceal his lust.
Baek Seol-ah’s expression stiffened.
By contrast, her lower body involuntarily tensed up.
“N-no, I can’t. Not today. Seriously.”
Baek Seol-ah covered her lower abdomen with one hand and shook her head vigorously as it twitched without a shred of shame.
Even though Han Taeyang’s smile vanished and his expression turned cold, she didn’t back down.
She looked back at Han Taeyang at an angle, her eyes glistening with tears as she tried to look as pitiful as possible.
“I-I have a date with Hyunseong today. We’re going downtown.”
“……”
“I-I’m serious……! I’m not lying.”
It was a frightening expression from Han Taeyang—the first she had seen in a while, after his gaze toward her had grown fairly gentle lately.
Baek Seol-ah flinched, then hurriedly pulled out her smartphone to prove her innocence.
She hurriedly offered up the appointments marked on her calendar and the messages she had exchanged with Lee Hyunseong as evidence.
Han Taeyang snatched her phone away with a strangely displeased look and checked the contents.
“See……. It’s true, right?”
Baek Seol-ah breathed a sigh of relief when Han Taeyang’s hand finally slipped out from beneath her skirt.
She awkwardly reached down to rub her hip, and by then Han Taeyang had clicked his tongue pointedly.
“Tsk.”
He silently returned the phone to Baek Seol-ah, and fortunately, it seemed her explanation had been accepted.
Perhaps that also meant he was letting her off.
As Baek Seol-ah saw it, Han Taeyang was, unexpectedly, a rather considerate person.
If she had a prior engagement—especially a date with her lover—he was the sort of person who could respect it.
“Thennn, I’ll be going now……?”
“……”
In other words, she had seized a legitimate opportunity to get away from Han Taeyang.
Baek Seol-ah slowly edged backward while carefully watching his reaction.
As expected, Han Taeyang didn’t try to hold her back.
Of course, his expression didn’t look very pleasant.
His bluish eyes flickered with no small amount of displeasure as he looked at Baek Seol-ah, and even as she tried to turn away, she helplessly stopped in her tracks.
“Heyyy, don’t get all sulky just because of that, okay?”
Somehow, she couldn’t quite bring herself to leave feeling at ease.
Not while looking at that expression on Han Taeyang’s face.
“What, who says I’m sulking…….”
So Baek Seol-ah tried to soothe him with a little coquettish charm, but Han Taeyang merely snorted and turned his head away, looking unmistakably furious.
Baek Seol-ah simply couldn’t help but fidget, both because of her personality and her conscience.
‘I-is he really that angry……?’
Besides, she couldn’t bring herself to run off as though fleeing after doing nothing but make Han Taeyang feel bad.
Without even finding it particularly awkward to see herself worrying about Han Taeyang’s feelings—a thing she never would have imagined doing in the past—
“C-come here a second, Han Taeyang.”
“?”
Han Taeyang rubbed the back of his neck somewhat irritably, as though expressing the annoyance he was feeling in real time, and Baek Seol-ah summoned her courage to call out to him.
With a small, cute gesture, she crooked her fingertips and beckoned him over to her side.
“What is it? You said you had to go.”
As a result, Han Taeyang raised his eyebrows but obediently approached until he stood right in front of Baek Seol-ah.
“Just a moment…….”
“……?”
Baek Seol-ah didn’t hesitate for even an instant before putting into action what she had devised to soothe Han Taeyang, at least a little.
The moment Han Taeyang reached her, she rose onto her tiptoes and lifted her chin.
And just like that─. With a shy expression, she closed her eyes and kissed Han Taeyang on the cheek.
Smack-
“……?!”
Han Taeyang’s eyes went wide in an instant, and with her lips pressed to his cheek for a brief moment,
Baek Seol-ah slowly lowered her heels and moved away from Han Taeyang.
It was an unexpected peck on the cheek from Baek Seol-ah.
Han Taeyang couldn’t even blink.
Soon, their gazes, laden with different emotions, became entangled for a moment.
Baek Seol-ah was the first to break the awkward, ticklish atmosphere and speak.
“……I’ll do something better next time, so let this make up for today. I’m the one who was wrong.”
“……”
“K-keep it secret from Hyunseong……?”
Apparently finding it terribly embarrassing herself, she quickly looked away, her face red as a ripe apple.
After saying that, Baek Seol-ah moved her lips uncertainly for a moment before turning away as though to flee.
“Th-then I’m really going. See you next time, Han Taeyang…….”
“……”
Han Taeyang remained silent to the very end. He merely stared at Baek Seol-ah with a dazed expression.
That was embarrassing in its own way from Baek Seol-ah’s perspective, but she didn’t have the courage to ask how he felt.
After one last glance back at where Han Taeyang stood, she soon left at a brisk pace.
*****
Cheongun Academy stood on a broad, expansive plain stretching between Gyeonggi Province and the outskirts of Seoul.
Long ago, it had been an area where nothing but lofty mountains stood in isolation……
Now, it was a city where a new sphere of habitation had emerged after institutions for training Awakeners were established following the dawn of a new age.
Known as Cheongun (靑雲) City, it had more leisure facilities for academy students than they could possibly use.
There were café districts, bowling alleys, billiard halls, board-game cafés, arcade centers, karaoke rooms, and more.
There were also shopping malls perfect for dates and waterfront parks surrounding Palgangho.
“Phew, sorry, Hyunseong. I’m a little late, huh?”
“No, I just got here too.”
After hurrying back to the dormitory and changing out of her school uniform, Baek Seol-ah took a bus into the city.
Her outfit was a pristine frilled blouse that complemented her snow-white hair, paired with light-colored jeans.
Lee Hyunseong welcomed her with a natural smile at the beautiful sight of his girlfriend, whose appearance never failed to make him marvel.
Baek Seol-ah approached Lee Hyunseong with a bright expression and linked arms with him.
They were unmistakably an academy couple, a man and woman in a romantic relationship who warmed the hearts of onlookers.
“Shall we go, Seol-ah?”
“Mm-hm, let’s go.”
The two of them headed off for an early dinner.
Their date had only just begun─.
Lee Hyunseong had no idea.
He didn’t know that, just an hour earlier, his endlessly beloved girlfriend’s lips had touched another man’s cheek and pulled away.
What if he had known?
Would he have been devastated, as anyone naturally would, or……
Would he, true to Lee Hyunseong, have been happy?
“Seol-ah, did you file an overnight-stay request before coming out?”
“……Yeah, of course. Naturally.”
Who could say?