To Avoid Getting Caught, I Need to Be Packaged Even More Perfectly!
The weekend of easy rest came and went, and Monday arrived with it. Come lunchtime, I was once again out in the smoking area with my colleague Kim Jangcheol, a cigarette between my fingers.
"Hah..." I exhaled. "Hey, Jangcheol."
"What?"
"Hypothetically... just hypothetically, okay?"
I scratched my head, my face a tangle of conflict.
"There's this girl I know."
"She hot?"
"Yeah, she's pretty. And she likes me."
"...You're not just imagining that, right?"
"That's why I said hypothetically. But here's the thing..."
Should I even be talking about this?
I looked at Jangcheol with a serious face and opened my mouth.
"What if that girl turned out to be a masochist? What am I supposed to do?"
Jangcheol stared at me like I'd grown a second head. Then his inner voice reached my ears.
Idiot. Idiot. Idiot.
He opened his mouth with the exact expression of a man looking at an idiot.
"If she's pretty and she's into you, you'd date her. Isn't that obvious?"
"Yeah, I guess so..."
"Of course! And so what if her fetish is a little masochistic? You think it's easy asking your girlfriend for that kind of play? This guy doesn't even know how lucky he is."
No, it wasn't a "little" anything. This wasn't some soft, light play — this was hardcore as hell. We were talking a level so extreme a normal person couldn't even imagine it. It was hard to even put Senior's fetish into words. That's how original, how unprecedented, her play was. He was probably only reacting like this because he had no idea.
"And don't just casually lie about it. So did you confess to her or not?"
"I didn't."
"Good. Don't go getting infatuated and deluding yourself. Are you even sure she actually likes you?"
"I don't know."
"See? Figure that out first. That's my advice as a friend."
He said it with a bitter look on his face. Why the long face? The question had barely formed when Jangcheol's inner voice came through again.
Fuck. This reminds me of when I thought a girl liked me in middle school and confessed.
Ah... so that was the story. Poor bastard. He'd made a public confession in the middle school hallway and gotten shot down cold.
"Anyway, be really careful when you confess."
I decided to take Jangcheol's advice to heart. It was a story from experience, after all.
"More importantly, shouldn't you be heading out? You've got a lecture for the university students at one, right?"
"Oh, it's already that late? I'm off."
"Yeah."
I parted ways with Jangcheol and headed straight for the lab. Just as he'd said, today was the day of the university lecture. Technically, Senior was the one giving the talk — I was just standing beside her as an assistant.
The spacious auditorium of Korea Awakener University. Onstage, Senior Seolhwa was delivering a lecture to students who dreamed of becoming mages or Hunters.
"The physical structure of an Awakened and an ordinary person is different. The moment they take in mana, the strength of their skin, their respiratory organs, their internal organs and muscle structure all change. Or rather, 'evolve' would be the more accurate term."
I stood beside her, assisting with the lecture. Not that there was much to do. Handing her whatever she needed to match the flow of her talk, advancing the slides on the screen — just assisting as the situation required.
"For example, the average time an ordinary person can hold their breath is around thirty seconds, or perhaps ninety. But an Awakened is different. The moment of Awakening, the inside of the body takes in mana and the organs evolve, and as a result, lung capacity increases as well. A typical Awakened can hold their breath for twenty minutes — and some can go even longer than that."
She delivered the lecture with a completely expressionless face. Inside her head, however, it was a different story.
Should I ask Jihunnie to choke me during sex later?
No matter how many times I heard it, it never stopped being bizarre. How the hell could she think things like that so casually, with that completely blank face?
"Then, Mage, if I may ask — how many minutes can you hold your breath?"
At a student's question, Han Seolhwa stopped her explanation and looked at the one who'd asked. Honestly, I was a little curious myself. Just how many minutes could Senior last?
She answered the student's question with perfect composure.
"I don't know my own limit, either. I've never measured it precisely. However, I have held my breath for over thirty minutes."
That's a good point. How many minutes could I last? I should test it at Jihunnie's place later.
At that inner voice, an incredulous look crossed my face before I could stop it. Then another student raised a hand.
"As I understand it, Mage Han Seolhwa, you also worked as a Hunter for a year in the past, and your rank at the time was definitely S-Rank. Among S-Rank Awakened, America's Austin Bruce was known to come out of a collapsing building's rubble completely unharmed. Does that mean you, as an S-Rank Awakened yourself, possess a similar level of physical durability?"
"Compared to an ordinary person, yes, I do possess a somewhat higher degree of physical durability. But not to the level of the American Awakened Austin Bruce. I am a mage, after all. I've never precisely measured my limits where the body is concerned."
With that answer, Senior Seolhwa turned her head and looked at me. Her inner voice came through right along with the glance.
I should test this later too~
How was Senior Seolhwa even capable of thinking things like that in the middle of a lecture? I ignored her gaze and focused on the monitor, concentrating on my work. Senior Seolhwa, who had been staring a hole through me, opened her mouth, her face as expressionless as ever.
"Assistant Lee Jihun."
"Yes, Senior."
"Please go to the next slide."
I nodded and calmly moved the mouse, advancing the materials on the screen to the next page. After that, Senior Seolhwa used the materials on the screen to diligently explain the differences between the Awakened and ordinary people to the students.
I, however, couldn't focus on her lecture at all. Senior Seolhwa's inner voice just kept coming through.
Come to think of it... did I really not get caught?
It wasn't like she had two brains. How was she even capable of multitasking like that? Caught doing what, though?
I moved so obviously...
At those words, I understood exactly what Senior Seolhwa was worried about. She meant Friday night — when she'd been bouncing around way too obviously. She really had moved in a way that was far too noticeable.
Looking at Jihunnie's reaction, it seems like he didn't notice...
I'd already figured it all out, though... I swallowed the thought before it could reach anywhere near my mouth and focused on what Senior was saying.
But just in case...
With that thought, Senior Seolhwa snuck a glance at me. The moment I felt her gaze, goosebumps erupted across my entire body, and a faint tremor ran through me.
I couldn't get caught. If she found out I already knew the doll was her, I had no idea what she might decide to do.
Fuck, should I have pounded her even harder while thinking of her as a doll? I was starting to regret it a little.
As I was thinking that, Senior Seolhwa's inner voice continued.
Ah! Should I try that method?
What method? I looked at Senior, my face puzzled. But all that came through her inner voice after that was talk about the lecture.
That night, at ten o'clock.
Ding-dong.
The doorbell rang right on schedule, same as always. I'd been watching TV. I got up without thinking and headed for the front door. And there it was — the familiar cardboard box.
She's here.
I swallowed hard and dragged the cardboard box inside. What had happened at the lecture that afternoon kept replaying in my mind. I couldn't begin to guess what she was going to pull this time.
What if...
Was she going to test me, to see if I'd figured it out? Something told me that was exactly the kind of thing Senior would do.
If that's the case...
I steeled myself. This time, I swore I would treat her as a complete doll. No — if anything, I should be enjoying this.
The conversation with Jangcheol in the smoking area came back to me. Looking at the situation objectively, I was the one who should be grateful to her. Her fetish and her play were bizarre to the point of being otherworldly, but I'd never felt any aversion to any of it. If anything, I'd started enjoying the play from the moment I learned she was inside the doll. Every time I had sex with the doll, I got pleasantly, genuinely turned on.
Alright. Let's be honest.
I decided to accept my fetish. Or more precisely, the fetish I'd been stained with by her.
Having steeled myself, I tore the tape off the box and opened it. Whatever state she was in, all I had to do was make her feel good—
"...Huh?"
The moment I opened the box, a blank look stole over my face before I could stop it.
Whoa... now this is something else.
Then a gasp of admiration burst out of me. Looking at Senior as she was now, that was the only thing that came to mind. And for good reason. Because right now, Senior was—
Ugh! I-I can't breathe.
—stuffed into a sheet of transparent plastic and vacuum-sealed, the wrap sucked tight against every inch of her.
I'd heard of vacuum-sealing food in plastic to keep it fresh. I'd heard of vacuum-packing pillows and blankets to shrink them down. But this... what the hell was I even supposed to call this? Human — no, doll vacuum-packing?
Th-this way he'll really think I'm a doll, right? Hehe.
Looks like I'd had it all wrong. Testing me, my ass. Senior had delivered herself in an even more agonizing state, all so I wouldn't find out there was a person inside the doll. Stuffed into plastic, vacuum-sealed, unable to breathe.
And at the sight of her like that, my cock started straining against my pants like it was going to punch a hole right through them.
Fuck. It was just insanely, viscerally hot. Enough to stoke every sadistic impulse I had.
I couldn't help but wonder what today's request would be. I picked up the piece of paper resting on her stomach and began to read.