Chapter 5
“Gasp.”
The moment she opened her eyes, Baek Seol-ah instinctively realized that something was wrong.
There was plenty of evidence to support that ominous intuition.
For starters, the place where Baek Seol-ah had opened her eyes was somewhere other than the bed where she usually slept.
The dormitory stood on the same school grounds, so its ceiling did not look particularly different…….
There is such a thing as the atmosphere of a place, isn't there?
This was not her bedroom.
‘……Wait…….’
Then her memories began to return one by one. What had happened here last night?
It was a memory she would not have minded forgetting, if possible, but unfortunately, it all came back with perfect clarity.
She had not even been drinking yesterday, after all. It was only natural that her memories remained perfectly intact.
-Yeah, hyaah……! H-Han Taeyang, just a little, gently……! Ngh?!
“……”
That was precisely what made it horrifying. The moment those memories filled her mind, a chill ran down her spine.
Baek Seol-ah's already snow-white face grew even paler as the corners of her eyes trembled.
“……Crazy.”
The single word that escaped her lips before she knew it sounded quite chilling.
But she could not help it.
Baek Seol-ah squeezed her eyes shut as tightly as she could and clutched her head with both hands.
Soon, the memories came back in order.
Going with Lee Hyunseong to find Han Taeyang.
Asking him to engage in netorase play.
And finally, the things she had endured in the dormitory.
‘Did I seriously fall asleep after sending Han Taeyang off just like that……?’
But separate from the shame she could vividly feel, there was another reason Baek Seol-ah's pupils were now shaking so violently.
Having sought out Han Taeyang only after steeling her resolve, she felt less regret over finally exposing herself naked to him and suffering such humiliation.
The more serious problem was…… the ultimate conclusion to those unforgettable events of yesterday.
The problem was that the ending had been anything but clean—so much so that merely remembering it while drifting off to sleep made her flinch.
Han Taeyang had gone to the convenience store because he did not have a condom, leaving her to lie down on the bed.
And she had been unable to endure even the brief time he was gone and had fallen asleep.
“H-Han Taeyang……?”
Baek Seol-ah called his name in an awkward voice. She carefully sat up and looked around, her naked body wrapped in a blanket.
The bedroom was quiet. Curtains had been drawn over the window, perhaps out of consideration for the sleeper, and the only sign of anyone there was a faint presence beyond the door.
So Baek Seol-ah left the bedroom to find the person to whom she had inadvertently been discourteous the night before.
Creak-
“Oh, you're up now?”
“……”
When she opened the door, the living room came into view, noticeably brighter than the curtain-darkened bedroom. The person who lived there was there, too.
Han Taeyang had apparently finished getting ready for school, because he turned toward Baek Seol-ah in his school uniform.
He was eating a simple breakfast with a piece of crisply toasted bread in his mouth.
Of course, he did pause for a moment when he saw Baek Seol-ah, who had barely covered her important parts with a blanket.
Perhaps he was worried the atmosphere might become awkward.
He immediately averted his eyes and continued speaking.
“……What? I left bread and milk on the table, so eat them or don't, whatever. It's almost eight-thirty, so get ready quickly and come out, too.”
“……Ah, uh, um.”
Baek Seol-ah opened her mouth halfway, but could not manage to say anything in particular and quickly closed it again.
She clutched the blanket tightly while gauging Han Taeyang's reaction.
For a moment, an awkward silence settled between the two of them—two people who, under normal circumstances, would never have greeted the morning beneath the same roof.
“……Ahem. Then I'll head out first.”
“Ah.”
It was the moment Han Taeyang, unable to endure the awkwardness, turned away first.
A beat later, Baek Seol-ah called out to stop him, her voice filled with apology.
“S-Sorry, Han Taeyang. I fell asleep yesterday without even saying anything, didn't I? It, um, definitely wasn't on purpose…… I was tired, and it happened before I knew it.”
“……No, well.”
Though they were not exactly on friendly terms—if anything, they were enemies who snarled at each other.
The previous day, at any rate, Han Taeyang had willingly played along with their absurd request.
Baek Seol-ah knew that, which only left her even more at a loss.
Regardless, this made it look like she had taken everything she wanted and run.
In other words, she had been thoroughly pleasured by a man, only to fall asleep before they got to the main event.
And she had done so while the man who had worked so hard to make her happy(?) had gone to buy condoms.
Even between people who were not on good terms, there were certain courtesies one had to observe. Whatever the circumstances, all the more so after baring their skin and rubbing their flesh together.
“I'm really sorry…… I genuinely have no excuse. You'd be justified in getting angry. I'll accept whatever you say.”
That was why Baek Seol-ah was uncharacteristically flustered and apologetic toward Han Taeyang.
If she had made a mistake, she would honestly acknowledge and apologize for it, even if that person was her bitter enemy.
And taking such an attitude for granted was simply part of Baek Seol-ah's nature.
“……That can wait for now, hey.”
Perhaps that was why?
“Uh, huh?”
Baek Seol-ah found it strange that Han Taeyang was frowning and could not seem to look at her at all.
Nor did she understand why he kept eyeing her from the side while waving his hand as though he were at a loss.
It was simply because she had realized it too late. While focusing on offering Han Taeyang a sincere apology, she had failed to notice what sort of state she was in.
Baek Seol-ah only blinked after Han Taeyang sighed and gestured at her body.
“……Ah.”
It was not late at night but early morning, precisely the time when she should normally have been getting ready for school.
She belatedly discovered her fair, naked body fully exposed to the sunlight streaming in through the window.
Baek Seol-ah let out a startled gasp and froze in the awkward position of holding up the blanket, while Han Taeyang clicked his tongue and turned away.
“……You really do have a clueless side.”
“Ah, ahaha, ugh……”
At his added remark, Baek Seol-ah reluctantly let out an awkward laugh, but it did not last long before shame swallowed it up.
She soon bit her lip with a brief groan and lowered her flushed face.
Of course, she had already shown Han Taeyang her naked body in its entirety yesterday.
But that had been yesterday, in the evening, and even in the bedroom.
The time, place, and circumstances were different now, weren't they?
This embarrassment was not even remotely comparable.
“Agh……”
In the end, Baek Seol-ah hurriedly hugged the blanket to her chest and crouched down where she stood, expressing her mortification with a tiny groan.
And once again, silence.
“I'm really leaving first. Take your time and come out.”
Fortunately, the sole witness to her shameful state soon left after clearing his throat.
But even after Han Taeyang left the dormitory first, Baek Seol-ah could not move from the spot for quite some time.
‘I'm crazy. I'm seriously crazy, Baek Seol-ah…….’
The mistake of falling asleep first last night—and, strictly speaking, the netorase play that had ended awkwardly without going as far as sex—could be discussed later.
For now, Baek Seol-ah was simply unbearably embarrassed. Over the past two days, she had shown Han Taeyang, her long-standing nemesis, far too much of herself…….
It felt profoundly unfamiliar, and so embarrassing that her face seemed to burn.
The things she had thought she would show only one person in her entire life: her boyfriend, Lee Hyunseong.
It ranged from something as minor as being naked to moaning in sexual arousal and even squirting.
In any case, the flawless image she had meticulously built as the top student in her year had collapsed in an instant.
‘And of all people, Han Taeyang…….’
Now that no one was looking at her anymore, Baek Seol-ah covered her lovely face with a bashful expression and pressed her lips together cutely.
Her two golden eyes, filled with a jumble of conflicting emotions, soon cast a fleeting glance behind her.
The time displayed on the clock was already late enough that even if she hurriedly washed up now, she might barely avoid being late.
Baek Seol-ah stared in dismay at her bra and panties, as well as the school uniform—her shirt and skirt—strewn carelessly across the dark bedroom.
“……Damn it.”
Baek Seol-ah soon irritably tousled her snow-white hair and sprang to her feet.
For now…… for now, she would think about every other problem after making it to class without being late.
That was all she would think about for now.
Otherwise, she felt she might be overcome by self-loathing, curl up in the blanket, and lose her mind right there.
She would probably end up letting out shrill screams of embarrassment, too.
Since she could not let that happen, Baek Seol-ah forced herself to forget her emotions and hurried into the bathroom.
And, naturally.
It was probably the very bathroom Han Taeyang had used to wash up before she woke this morning.
*****
How anxiously had Lee Hyunseong spent the night? The feelings of that moment could not be described with just a few words or phrases.
While forcibly calming his frantically pounding heart, he had lain in bed and stared only at his smartphone.
……Worried that his girlfriend, who had gone with Han Taeyang to the latter's dormitory, might contact him, even belatedly.
But contrary to his hopes, Lee Hyunseong's smartphone remained silent all night.
‘I-It'll be okay. Nothing happened, surely.’
The more he tried to reassure himself, the more his insides burned with anxiety, but what else could he do?
After all, this was something he had started in the first place.
His beloved girlfriend was pressing her body against another man's and mingling flesh with him instead of Lee.
Lee Hyunseong's peculiar proclivity was to become aroused by a fantasy that ordinary sensibilities would naturally find disgusting.
And Lee Hyunseong was the one who had wanted to take it beyond mere fantasy and make it a reality.
In technical terms, netorase play.
To get Baek Seol-ah to agree to it, he had begged her desperately for days—truly, he had begged her on his hands and knees.
He had explained his abnormal sexual tastes in order to satisfy that shadowy desire of his.
-Say that again, Lee Hyunseong.
-You want me to go and do…… what?
Naturally, it would have been no surprise if things had gone badly between them several times during that process.
Unlike Lee Hyunseong, his girlfriend possessed perfectly normal sensibilities.
The chill of that moment when Baek Seol-ah, who had always looked at him and spoken to him with affection, regarded him with an utterly icy expression.
It had been enough to arouse Lee Hyunseong, who was fundamentally a masochist, but it had been even more frightening than that.
He was afraid Baek Seol-ah might come to despise him over this and break up with him forever.
Given that netorase was such an extraordinary abnormal desire, it was a perfectly natural concern.
-Haa, seriously…… Just once, okay?
Fortunately, however, Baek Seol-ah was a girl who cared for Lee Hyunseong very deeply.
She must have been profoundly disappointed, but even so, he had ultimately obtained her permission.
That was what had led to yesterday's events.
-Did you take some kind of drug or something……?
Even ‘that’ Han Taeyang, the delinquent notorious throughout Cheongun Academy, had reacted with shock.
Specifically, Lee Hyunseong had personally asked Han Taeyang to take Baek Seol-ah into his arms.
In truth, Lee Hyunseong did not know what had happened after Baek Seol-ah left with Han Taeyang.
All he had asked them for was a video recording, not a live call.
That was why he would have to wait until today to find out what had happened last night.
Lee Hyunseong headed to class, carrying the nervous anticipation he had felt since morning.
“S-Sorry I'm late!”
“……!”
Just as the hour hand passed nine, the person he had been waiting for finally appeared.
As always, the girl entered the classroom through the back door, her beautiful snow-white hair flowing behind her.
‘……That scent.’
She must have hurried there, for she was drenched in sweat, yet the radiant smile on her lips suited her perfectly.
If one were choosing the academy's prettiest girl, she would surely rank among the top.
For Lee Hyunseong, a man with such perverted tastes, she was a girlfriend far beyond what he deserved.
Baek Seol-ah.
As she casually passed by his desk, Lee Hyunseong clearly sensed it.
The refreshing citrus scent wafting from her long white hair, which fell all the way to her waist.
He realized at once that the scent was exactly the same as the shampoo Han Taeyang usually used.
Gulp-
Lee Hyunseong swallowed dryly without realizing it. Then, just as he lifted his head, his eyes met Baek Seol-ah's as she turned to look back at him.
Lee Hyunseong's eyes trembled as he looked at his girlfriend, who seemed somehow different in atmosphere after just one day apart─.
“……Hee.”
At the moment her usual lovely eye-smile was joined by an unfamiliar hint of mischief and the faintest trace of awkwardness.
Lee Hyunseong felt a powerful heat, just as he had when imagining Baek Seol-ah's situation the night before.
The front of his trousers, hidden beneath the desk, suddenly swelled.