Seeping Seol (2)
Time passed, and the day of the MT finally arrived.
Today the Computer Science majors were heading out to a pension in Sokcho, Gangwon Province. The itinerary was a one-night, two-day trip—early Friday morning departure, back around lunchtime Saturday—with athletic games and recreation sprinkled in between. But the real heart of it was the drinking party that would kick off late at night.
Freshly twenty-year-olds who could now legally drink sat shoulder to shoulder with their upperclassmen, trading stories and sharing bottles—a proper festival of bonding. Naturally the atmosphere was fantastic. Back when I was a freshman I had gotten completely swept up in it and drunk myself stupid. The result: more than a few embarrassing scenes that my classmates still bring up whenever they want to tease me about my drinking habits. So I had sworn that no matter what happened, I would absolutely not get wasted today… and with that firm resolution I arrived at the meeting point.
We gathered in front of the department building, where five sleek-looking express coaches sat parked in a neat row. Fifty or so students from our department alone seemed like too few for five buses, so I asked the department head and, sure enough, the Dance Department was coming with us. Combine CS and Dance and you were looking at nearly seventy or eighty people; once we arrived it was going to be chaos.
“Jehyun, once attendance is done we can just hop on any bus, right?”
“Yes. But don’t get on buses four or five. Those are for the Dance kids.”
“Oh, really?”
So we weren’t even riding together. Mixing everyone up would have made headcounts a nightmare, I supposed. Still a little disappointed, I glanced toward the Dance Department buses. The students already seated inside waved through the windows.
I almost waved back, then thought better of it—I didn’t know a single face over there—so I settled for a smile. That only made them laugh harder. A few of them looked openly delighted, holding up their phones and tapping the screens with their fingers.
…What is that supposed to mean?
The thought had barely formed when a voice came from behind me.
“…Oppa?”
I turned and found a familiar face. Soft rose-pink lips pushed out in a faint pout, a straight nose, large round eyes. She wore a slight frown and carried an eco-bag over her shoulder—Seolhwa, the girl who lately refused to leave my head no matter how hard I tried.
She was dressed in a snug white short-sleeve tee and a pink tennis skirt. She tilted her head.
“Hello.”
“Hey. You look a little tired.”
“A bit, yeah. …But.”
Long crew socks and chunky sneakers completed the picture of a fresh-faced freshman. Seolhwa looked at me, then flicked a glance toward the Dance Department bus.
“You seem pretty close with the Dance girls.”
“Huh? No way. I don’t know a single one of them. Total strangers.”
“Not even one…?”
She gave me a look that clearly said Are you serious? I nodded easily.
“Really. Go ask them if you don’t believe me.”
“…Never mind. It’s not like I was interrogating you or anything.”
She muttered it like it was no big deal, stepped closer, and casually linked her arm through mine.
“You already checked in with the department head, right? Come on, let’s get on the bus.”
“Huh? Ah—”
I had planned to sit with Kim Hyenseok, but before I could get a word out she was already dragging me up the steps.
True to the Premium lettering painted above the windows, the interior was surprisingly upscale. Curtains could divide each pair of seats into private little booths, the grab handles were soft, and each seatback even had a tablet-like monitor built in.
“Whoa.”
No wonder the MT fee had cracked seventy thousand won. Being able to ride something like this both ways made the price feel almost reasonable.
Still marvelling, I followed Seolhwa all the way to the rearmost seats. I gave her the window side of the two-seater and took the aisle. She poked at a few of the amenities attached to our seats, then murmured,
“The seats are pretty tight and the facilities are kind of meh, don’t you think?”
“Huh? Uh… yeah, I guess…”
They looked more than fine to me, but what did I know? I nodded along half-heartedly.
—We leave in five minutes! Everyone on board before then!
The booming voice belonged to Jehyun, the freshman class president. The moment he shouted, students began filing onto the bus one after another.
“Umm…”
Because I already had a seatmate.
I glanced sideways while still mid-conversation. Seolhwa must have felt my eyes; she turned from the curtain she was drawing closed.
“What is it?”
“…Nothing.”
Seolhwa wasn’t my girlfriend, but how the hell did he know? The curtain was drawn; nobody outside should have been able to see us.
My cheek suddenly felt hot. I whipped my head toward the window and there was Kim Hyenseok, already aboard bus number two, jabbing a finger at me through the glass.
“….”
Eyes bulging, he mouthed something at me. I couldn’t make out the words, but the way his lips stretched and tore left little doubt it was pure profanity.
I pretended not to see him and quietly typed.
…I froze.
The message I had been typing vanished and a single line landed.
“Seolhwa.”
“Yes?”
“You know any decent girls? Like, nice ones?”
“……Why are you suddenly asking that?”
I had tossed the question out without thinking, and her expression iced over in an instant. A chill ran down the back of my neck. I flipped the phone around and explained the whole exchange.
“Ah, so… I was supposed to sit with this guy. But since I’m sitting with you instead he’s pissed. I promised to introduce him to a girl to calm him down, and now he’s asking if any of your friends are free.”
“……Girl…friend.”
“……?”
What was with her?
“Seolhwa?”
“……Hah! Ah, yes. If that’s the case, of course. I kind of messed things up too, so I’ll make sure it happens. What type does your friend like?”
The back of her neck had gone pink. She asked in a flustered rush. I relayed the question.
“….”
“Oppa?”
“……He says he likes girls with beautiful hearts.”
“Oh, hearts? So someone with a good personality would work?”
“Yeah, that sounds perfect. When do you think you could introduce them?”
“I could do it right now if you want. But wouldn’t after the MT be better for everyone?”
…Good grief.
He was so happy the typos were practically pouring out of the screen.
I snorted and slipped the phone into my pocket. Right on cue, Jehyun’s voice rang out from the front of the bus.
“Anybody still missing? Bus number one is rolling out!”
Two hours later.
“…Mm.”
I cracked my eyelids open. Outside the window the bus was humming along the highway. The interior, which had been so noisy earlier, was now dead silent.
Everyone must have been exhausted from the early start. Right up until I closed my eyes the bus had been a racket; now they were all out cold just like me.
I stretched with a long yawn and gently pulled the aisle curtain aside.
Every seat without a curtain had its backrest fully reclined and its occupant’s eyes shut. It looked exactly like the return bus after a three-day school trip. Freshman year of high school, the ride home from our field trip had looked just like this. The only real difference was the presence of girls. I had gone to an all-boys school, so back then the whole bus was a sea of dark uniforms. Now the occasional female student mixed in made the view feel a little brighter.
Wonder what I should do first when we get there…
I was lost in that quiet nostalgia, staring down the aisle, when—
—thump.
Something settled against my right shoulder. I turned my eyes just enough to see Seolhwa’s hair.
“…Nngh.”
She had chattered away until she fell into a deep sleep and, in her dreams, leaned over onto me.
Her position looked uncomfortable. I almost woke her, then let my hand fall and simply watched her face.
Her lashes were long. Her lips were full.
…Maybe it was just because she was a girl.
“….”
She was pretty enough that if she just kept her mouth shut she would be damn near perfect.
I was entertaining that rude little thought when Seolhwa’s lips moved and her eyes slowly opened.
“Mm, haaah…”
She must have slept well. She stretched both arms high overhead, then locked eyes with me.
“…Ahem.”
As if nothing had happened she pulled her arms back and awkwardly straightened up. Her faintly pink cheeks looked so cute I couldn’t help a small laugh.
“Sleep well?”
“Yes. …Did you, Oppa?”
“Yeah, I slept fine.”
I spotted a bit of sleep in the corner of her eye and reached to wipe it away. She jerked her head back so fast I almost thought she was a boxer.
Having dodged my hand with impressive speed, Seolhwa rubbed her eyes with the back of her own hand and cleared her throat.
“W-we still have a ways to go, huh.”
“Yeah. We’re around Chuncheon, so maybe halfway.”
“……So another two hours at least?”
Probably about that.
I was about to answer when Seolhwa turned fully toward me, casually reached out, and took my wrist.
Then she gently pulled it toward herself, guiding my fingertips as if inviting me to touch…
“W-what are you doing?”
I stopped mid-reach, startled.
“…Heh. What do you mean? Don’t you remember our promise?”
“Promise…?”
There was only one promise I had with Seolhwa.
The utterly shameless deal that, in exchange for me serializing her story, she would let me touch her body.
“…Ah.”
The moment the realization hit, my whole body locked up.
Seolhwa smiled bashfully and slowly kneaded my fingers.
“Wait—you want to do it here?”
“Everyone’s asleep, so… isn’t it fine…?”
Fine?
…Of course it wasn’t fine.
Even late-night groping in the back of a highway coach required serious guts. Doing it in broad daylight on a bus to Sokcho, with people who might wake up at any second? If we got caught it was game over—both our social reputations would freefall straight into the abyss. The correct move was to refuse, to talk her down and ask her to wait.
But.
“…Oppa.”
My gaze kept sliding to the soft swell of her chest, hidden under that oversized T-shirt—the place I still hadn’t been allowed to touch.
It might sound like a pathetic excuse, but men are simply wired to lose focus the second they see a woman’s breasts. It’s not a matter of willpower. Call it instinct hard-coded into our DNA.
Just as a single person is powerless before the laws of nature, a single man’s reason is utterly helpless before the instincts men have carried since the dawn of time.
“I… I even left my bra off on purpose so it would be easier for you to touch me, Oppa…”
Thump.
Seolhwa placed my palm right over her chest.
“…What would you like to do?”