If I Fail, the Photo Gets Sent?

Today's Recommended Outfit filled the screen. Little thumbnails clung not only to the top and bottom, the outer layer, the shoes, and the accessories, but to the bra and panties as well.

"It's even picking my underwear."

Seo-ah opened the closet and pulled out the shirt and jeans on the screen. From the underwear drawer she found the matching bra and panties and laid them on the bed.

For a light shirt, a bra that wouldn't show through from the outside. For bottoms that clung to the body, panties that would leave less of a mark. They had come as a pair.

When she met Yu-rim and So-hee at school, the two of them caught the change at once.

"ChatPT dressed you today, didn't it?"

So-hee looked her up and down as she asked.

"Is it that obvious?"

"Yeah. One look and it's obvious you didn't pick it."

"Was I really that bad at dressing myself?"

"Not bad, exactly. You just wore the same kind of thing every day."

Yu-rim cut in with a laugh.

"You've been different lately, though."

"So what you're really saying is I used to look terrible."

Seo-ah laughed and gave Yu-rim's arm a light smack.

For several days after that, ChatPT kept choosing different combinations according to the weather and her schedule. On rainy days it attached shoes that were easy to manage. On days packed with lectures, comfortable clothes she could wear for hours came up first.

When a shirt she had ordered a few days earlier arrived, the recommended size fit well too. Seo-ah turned once in front of the mirror and nodded.

"Okay. This one it actually nailed."

That evening she photographed a few more of the clothes and sets of underwear in her closet and registered them.

At first it had only been an app she installed to pick one outfit for the weekend.

A few days later, checking ChatPT every morning before she even opened the closet had started to feel natural.

A few days later.

7:53 a.m.

Seo-ah sat on the bed, looking over Today's Recommended Outfit.

Again the images were lined up side by side, from the top all the way down to the underwear. She glanced between the screen and the closet, sorting out in her head what she would wear today.

"Today's pretty safe."

Her finger, midway through scrolling, stopped.

A notice she had never seen before had appeared.

Seo-ah tapped the screen.

"A mission?"

She read the notice again.

"Like a wear-review or something."

Thinking that, she scrolled down, and the very next window appeared at once.

Seo-ah read the window again.

"This is a mission? Just a feature to confirm the outfit?"

All she had to do was take one full-body photo. Twelve hours was more than enough.

There was no reason to rush, but she had been planning to wear the recommended clothes anyway. She found the underwear on the screen first, put it on, and changed into the shirt and jeans.

After straightening the fit in front of the mirror, she picked up her phone. She framed the shot so everything from the top of her head to her feet was in view and took a single picture.

Click.

She checked the photo.

Nothing wrong with it.

She uploaded it as it was.

"That's it."

She waited a moment, but no other notice appeared.

Seo-ah grabbed her bag and left the dormitory.

The rest of the day was no different from usual. She sat through her morning lecture and met Yu-rim and So-hee for lunch. In the afternoon she worked on an assignment in the library, and only when evening came did she return to the dormitory.

By then she had nearly forgotten the feature she had seen for the first time that morning — the thing called a mission.

When she opened ChatPT again that evening, there was only a notice that ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠today's results had been applied, and a few combinations matched to the next day's forecast.

Seo-ah saved one outfit she liked and closed the app.

The next day, 8:12 a.m.

Fresh from the shower, Seo-ah sat on the bed drying her hair and opened ChatPT.

Today's recommendation was different from the day before.

An ivory shirt, a skirt, and white sneakers were displayed with their own images, and beneath them were photos of a bra and panties as well.

Seo-ah took out the skirt on the screen and held it once against her waist.

"It wants me to wear this?"

Normally she would have chosen jeans, but most of the combinations ChatPT had shown her over the past few days had been satisfying.

"Might as well try it on."

She laid the skirt and shirt on the bed and opened the underwear drawer as well.

That was when the same notification she had seen the day before appeared.

"Here again today."

This time her hand moved at once.

Seo-ah opened the mission window without any particular wariness.

Seo-ah's eyes stopped on designated location.

"This time it wants the photo at school?"

A designated location that hadn't been there the day before was attached, and the time limit had shrunk to three hours. Even so, if she reached campus before her first lecture, it would be plenty.

Is it checking how it actually looks once I'm outside?

Seo-ah closed the mission window, changed into the recommended underwear and clothes, and left the dormitory.

She arrived at school a little past nine.

Heading into the building where her first lecture was held, she stopped in front of the full-length mirror at the end of the first-floor corridor. Two students happened to be talking in front of it.

She almost walked past, then checked the time.

She still had plenty to spare.

She pretended to look at her phone and waited until the two of them left. Then she stepped back in front of the mirror.

"This thing really asks for everything."

She opened the camera.

She framed the mirror so her head, her sneakers, and everything between them fit on the screen. When a student passed behind her, she lowered the phone for a moment, and once the person was gone she raised the camera again.

Click.

Once she had actually taken it, it was nothing.

Students taking mirror selfies in school hallways were common. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Even if someone had seen her, it wasn't the sort of thing anyone would find strange.

Seo-ah uploaded the photo.

Seo-ah turned the screen off and headed for the lecture hall.

Yesterday a photo in the dormitory. Today a photo at school. A little annoying, maybe, but still nothing more than that.

After the first lecture she moved to the next classroom with Yu-rim, and around lunch So-hee joined them. The three ate at the student cafeteria, then shifted to a nearby cafe.

"So where are we going on Saturday?"

Yu-rim asked.

"I thought So-hee was finding a place."

"Since when was that me?"

"Yesterday."

"I thought we only picked a time."

Seo-ah stirred her straw and looked from one to the other.

"If neither of you looked, we can just go anywhere."

"Say that and I'm picking the most expensive place."

"Then you can pay."

"Where'd your conscience go?"

Seo-ah laughed.

The mission was already over. Her phone lay face-down on the table, and there was no reason to check ChatPT again.

Ding.

That was when a notification sound she had never heard before went off.

Seo-ah flipped the phone over.

The ChatPT icon sat at the top of the screen.

A little of Seo-ah's smile faded.

Urgent?

She drew the phone toward herself. Across from her, Yu-rim and So-hee were still looking for a cafe to visit over the weekend.

She tapped the notification.

Seo-ah read the screen again. It seemed to want to check the state of the outfit after she had worn it for several hours.

The problem was the time limit. Yesterday it had been twelve hours, and this morning three. This time it was only ten minutes.

In one corner of the screen, the remaining time was already ticking down.

Seo-ah frowned.

Taking a full-body photo in the cafe was awkward. If the restroom had a full-length mirror she could use that, or she would have to go back to the building where she had just had class.

It wasn't impossible.

But she didn't get up right away.

She had already verified once that morning, and being given so little time to do it again bothered her.

Seo-ah scrolled down the notice.

An item she had never seen before appeared.

Her finger stopped.

"A penalty?"

This wasn't a game. She couldn't understand why there would be a penalty at all.

She scrolled a little farther down.

Seo-ah stared at the screen for a long moment.

Item to send: Photo.

Until a moment ago the window had only been talking about verifying an outfit. The word that had suddenly appeared there didn't make sense right away.

"……Sent?"

"What is?"

So-hee asked from across the table.

Seo-ah looked up.

"Nothing. Give me a second."

She pulled the phone a little closer to herself.

If the photo that would be sent was the outfit shot she had taken at school that morning, it would be strange, but not a real problem. Next to item to send, though, there was a button that specifically said [Preview].

Seo-ah's thumb stopped over it.

The remaining time kept falling.

In the end she pressed the button.

The screen changed.

Seo-ah's hand went rigid where it was.

Her dormitory room appeared on the screen. The familiar bed and wall, even the background she always saw whenever she photographed her workout logs — all of it, exactly as it was.

And in front of that background stood Seo-ah, wearing nothing at all, facing the camera.

It was the photo she had taken herself and uploaded a few days ago, when ChatPT demanded the latest image that confirmed her current state.

Her naked body, standing straight toward the lens, filled the screen. Her large breasts, unsupported by anything, were bare down to the areolae and nipples. Below the narrow waist her hips flared wide. Beneath her lower belly the dark hair over her pussy showed plainly, and under that her pussy itself had been captured in a single frame with nothing left hidden.

Her own body was not unfamiliar. But the moment that same photo sat beneath [Failure Penalty], it looked like something else entirely.

Seo-ah yanked the phone tight against her chest on reflex.

She lifted her head.

Yu-rim and So-hee were sitting directly across from her. Fortunately, the two of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠them were bent over a single phone, scrolling through photos of cafes.

Seo-ah looked at her own phone again.

Beneath the nude photo was a polite sentence, no different in tone from the app's usual wording.

The smile left her face.

Seo-ah closed the preview and returned to the mission window.

Beneath the [Failure Penalty] she had just checked, several target tags were lined up in a row.

The tags themselves were not unfamiliar. They were the same categories she used when she sorted people in her contacts.

Seo-ah tapped #Friends.

A short list unfolded.

Seo-ah's gaze stopped on the first two names.

Very slowly, she raised her head.

Jeong Yu-rim and Lee So-hee were sitting with nothing but a single table between them and her.

"……."

She looked at the screen again.

The names she had filed under #Friends in her contacts were there, exactly as she had saved them.

Seo-ah tapped #University as well.

The list changed. Yu-rim's and So-hee's names were in that one too, and beneath them the names of people she knew at Seohankuk University kept going. She scrolled a little, and the list still ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠didn't end.

Unable to scroll any farther, Seo-ah closed the window.

Selection condition: any one match.

It read as if a person who overlapped several tags would still be a recipient so long as even one of them fit.

Only then did the line transmission range: targets matching the conditions land with a much heavier weight.

This was not a problem that ended with one or two people. She couldn't even tell how far the list of people who met the conditions went.

Seo-ah tapped [Preview] again, and the instant the nude photo appeared she closed it. She was the one who had taken it and registered it with ChatPT, that much was certain — but it was not a photo she had made for anyone else to see.

"Wait……."

She tried to back out into the settings.

When she closed the mission window, ChatPT's main screen came up, but the remaining time was still floating at the top.

Seo-ah opened the mission again.

The task itself was not difficult. Go to a restroom, or to a full-length mirror in one of the campus buildings, take one photo that showed the shirt and skirt she was wearing now, and it would be over.

But now something other than taking the photo was gnawing at her.

Why her nude photo would be sent simply because she had failed to verify the outfit again.

Why the categories she had attached to her own contacts were appearing, unchanged, in ChatPT's mission window.

How it had even pulled the names of the people inside those categories.

And how many names were waiting in the other tags she still hadn't opened.

Seo-ah read the screen slowly from the beginning. The task and the success conditions were not much different from the outfit verifications she had been doing until a little while ago.

What had changed was the [Failure Penalty] attached beneath them for the first time.

Seo-ah's eyes climbed back to the remaining time.

The numbers kept shrinking, without a single word of explanation.

Seo-ah gripped the phone tight.

And in a voice so small it was almost inaudible, she murmured.

"……If I fail, the photo gets sent?"