Pull My Pants Down During Class?

Seo-ah checked the time she had left and got to her feet.

"I'm gonna run to the bathroom."

So-hee looked up from her phone.

"Right now?"

"Yeah. I'll be right back."

Taking only her phone, Seo-ah left the café and headed for the women's restroom at the end of the hall.

When she pushed the door open, two students were standing in front of the full-length mirror. One was fixing her hair; beside her, the other was reapplying her lipstick, the two of them talking as they worked.

Seo-ah walked straight past them and slipped into an empty stall.

She locked the door and checked the time.

"......Seriously."

It was only a full-body photo, the same kind she had taken that morning. Any other ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠day she would have snapped it without a second thought, whether or not someone was standing at the mirror. Now even the voices outside the stall set her nerves on edge.

Seo-ah stayed where she was, phone in hand, and waited.

The sound of water at the sinks cut off, and the laughing conversation drifted farther and farther away. Only after she heard the door open and shut twice did she step out of the stall.

The space in front of the mirror was empty.

She opened the camera at once and lined herself up so the frame caught everything from her head down to her sneakers.

Click.

She checked the photo. The ivory shirt, the skirt, the white sneakers — all of it had come through properly.

She went back into ChatPT and uploaded it.

A moment later the screen changed.

"......Done."

Seo-ah lowered the phone.

Minutes ago she had bolted for the restroom just to watch a timer bleed down, and all it had amounted to, in the end, was a single picture in front of a mirror.

When she got back to the café, Yu-rim asked,

"What took you so long?"

"There were people in there."

"Was there a line?"

"Yeah."

The moment Seo-ah sat down, So-hee held out her phone as if she had been waiting.

"Look at this. How about here on Saturday?"

The screen showed photos of a café that had just opened, along with the menu.

"Looks nice."

"Two o'clock?"

"Works for me."

"So here, then?"

"Yeah."

So-hee hit save at once, and Yu-rim swiped through the menu photos.

Seo-ah put in a few words of her own, but she left her phone facedown on the table and didn't open it again.

It was evening by the time she got back to the dormitory.

Fresh from the shower, Seo-ah sat on the bed toweling her wet hair. On a normal night she would have opened her laptop first. Tonight she opened ChatPT.

The home screen looked no different from usual.

Today's recommendations, her saved outfits, and her purchase history came up one after another.

She went straight into settings.

Account. Personal information. Notifications.

When she scrolled down, Account Management appeared.

"There it is."

Seo-ah tapped Delete Account.

A moment later a small notice rose onto the screen.

"What?"

Seo-ah closed the window and tapped it again.

The result was the same.

"It's my account. Why can't I?"

She tapped the help link at the bottom, but no real explanation appeared.

She went back and pressed the delete button one more time.

The exact same line.

Seo-ah stared at the screen for a few seconds, then pressed her lips tight.

"Fine."

She backed out to the home screen and long-pressed the ChatPT icon.

This time the menu was the ordinary one she saw on every other app.

She tapped it at once.

The icon vanished from the home screen.

She swiped over to the next page and typed ChatPT into the search bar as well. Nothing came up in the list of installed apps.

"There. Gone."

Seo-ah set the phone down on the bed.

Not being able to delete the account still felt wrong, but wiping the app itself had been almost insultingly easy.

Only then did she turn on her laptop and start her assignment.

Partway through, the Saturday plans came up again in the group chat with Yu-rim and So-hee, and she sent a few replies. When ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the assignment was finished, she set her alarm.

Before she went to sleep she plugged the phone into the charger and checked the home screen one last time.

ChatPT wasn't there.

The next morning.

Seo-ah shut off the alarm and lay in bed, checking the messages that had come in overnight.

She read through a few of the conversations piled up in the group chat, scrolled down through the university notices, and was just about to sit up when she saw it.

A familiar icon, sitting on one side of the home screen.

ChatPT.

Her hand stopped.

"......Huh?"

She swiped to the next page, then swiped back.

It was still there.

She had deleted it herself last night. She had confirmed it was gone from the search results. It hadn't been there when she looked one last time before falling asleep.

Seo-ah tapped the ChatPT icon.

No install screen appeared.

It didn't send her to the store.

ChatPT simply opened, the way it always had.

A moment later the screen she had been using through yesterday reappeared exactly as she had left it.

The recommendation history was still there.

So was the purchase history.

"I definitely deleted it......"

Seo-ah backed out to the home screen again.

When she long-pressed the icon, the Delete App option appeared just as it should.

It was the same as last night.

She couldn't bring herself to tap it. Last night she had deleted it with this very button. She had watched the icon disappear.

And now it was sitting in the same place again.

"What the hell......"

She stared down at the icon for a long moment, then let her hand fall away.

Without meaning to, she had tightened her grip on the phone.

Only then did a thin thread of fear pull tight.

Seo-ah hurriedly turned the screen off and opened the closet.

For days now, the first thing she did every morning was check ChatPT. Looking at the outfit it recommended for the weather and her schedule, then hunting the same pieces out of the closet, had become a habit before she noticed.

She didn't want to do that today.

Without opening the recommendation screen again, she pulled out the white T-shirt and jeans she wore all the time. From the underwear drawer she chose a bra and panties herself.

Dressed, standing in front of the mirror, she looked about the way she had before she ever started using ChatPT.

Seo-ah tugged once at the hem of the T-shirt.

"This is more comfortable."

She grabbed her bag and left the dormitory.

By the time she reached the building for her morning lecture, about ten minutes remained before class.

Seo-ah set her bag down in her usual seat and took out her book.

The lecture hall was already nearly half full. Up front, people were talking about an assignment; from the back came the scrape of chairs and scattered laughter.

A student passing by caught sight of her and said hello.

"Hey."

"Hey."

Seo-ah answered lightly and got out her pen.

When she set her phone on one side of the desk, the screen lit up.

A chime.

Seo-ah looked down at the notification.

Seven minutes until class.

The app she had deleted yesterday showing up again was bad enough. Now there was another mission, first thing in the morning.

She left it alone for a moment, then opened ChatPT anyway.

"......What?"

Seo-ah read the last condition again.

What she had on today was jeans.

If she was going to prove in a photo that she wasn't wearing panties, she would have to pull her pants down in the middle of class.

She glanced around.

Class hadn't started, and students were still coming in. In the front row two people were looking at a single laptop together. Across the aisle, someone set a drink down under a desk.

Who in their right mind pulls their pants down during a lecture and takes a picture?

"This is insane......"

She scrolled a little farther, and a familiar entry appeared.

Seo-ah's eyes stopped.

"Again......"

Yesterday it had been everyone who matched the conditions.

This time it was one person, chosen at random.

She hesitated, then tapped Preview.

A photo appeared.

"......"

There was no face. The frame had been cut just below the neck, leaving only a portion of her upper body, centered on her breasts. Almost nothing of the background remained that would have marked it as her dorm room.

Seo-ah knew what she was looking at the instant she saw it.

Her own chest.

A crop from the frontal nude she had registered with ChatPT a few days ago — only that part of it.

It was the same body she saw in the mirror and in her own photos, and yet it felt different now, sitting under a label that said it would be sent to someone.

"It's going to send... this?"

She closed the preview and opened it again.

The same photo.

Everything above the neck was gone, and the frame ended not far below her breasts.

Nothing in the picture alone looked like enough for a stranger to recognize Baek Seo-ah.

She went back to the penalty screen.

One person from school.

One of the people she had filed under #University in her contacts.

Without meaning to, Seo-ah looked around the lecture hall.

It might even be someone sitting in this room right now.

The thought that one of them might see that photo made something twist, low and uneasy, in her chest.

But when she called the preview back to mind, there was no face.

And more than that, she had never once failed a mission.

The screen said the photo would be sent if she failed. She had never actually seen it happen.

Right. There's no way it would really send them. Not unless it was completely out of its mind.

Seo-ah scrolled ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠back up to the mission window.

The success conditions were unchanged.

She would have to sit through the lecture with her panties off, and take a photo that showed the lecture hall and her bare state at the same time.

She turned the screen off and set the phone facedown on the desk.

Just then the professor walked into the lecture hall.

Students began taking their seats.

Class began.

Seo-ah listened to the professor and took notes the way she always did.

For the first stretch she didn't look at her phone.

Turning the screen on would only show her the same mission.

The professor finished explaining the first set of materials and moved to the next slide. Seo-ah underlined the important parts and added a short note in the margin.

She wrote a few more lines, and when she set her pen down the phone on the desk caught her eye.

She turned the screen on for only a second.

The mission was still in progress.

The time limit was shrinking toward the end of the lecture.

She turned the screen off again and looked forward.

Class went on as if nothing were happening.

Someone asked the professor a question and the explanation paused. A few ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠students drank water or shifted in their seats. Seo-ah leaned back in her chair and rolled her shoulders once.

A few minutes later she started taking notes again.

The mission occupied less of her mind than it had at the start.

The photo was still sitting somewhere in her head, but she had no intention of pulling her pants down in the middle of a lecture over a picture that didn't even show her face.

Class passed the halfway mark.

The professor began working back through what he had already explained, this time with a new example.

Seo-ah was copying it into her notes when her hand stopped. She seemed to have missed one explanation that tied into the earlier part.

She was filling the blank, glancing between the board and her notebook, when the professor said,

"This could show up on the exam, so mark it down."

Seo-ah underlined it at once and added the explanation beside it.

Only after she had written several more lines did the phone at the edge of the desk catch her eye again.

The screen was dark.

She didn't reach for it. She kept her eyes forward.

As the lecture drew toward its end, the room around her loosened a little.

A few students unplugged their chargers. From the back came the sound of laptops closing. The professor had the last slide up and was summing up what they had covered.

Seo-ah turned her phone on.

The number tightened something in her that hadn't been tight a moment ago.

When she first saw the mission, she had thought it was absurd.

When she checked the photo, she had thought there was no way it would actually be sent.

Now there really wasn't much time left.

Seo-ah glanced at the success conditions at the top of the screen.

......Should I just do it now, while I still can?

For the first time, the thought occurred to her.

If she met the conditions before class ended, she might still keep from failing.

But when she read the verification requirements again, she came back to the same conclusion as before.

The lecture hall and the fact that she wasn't wearing panties had to show in a single photo.

Seo-ah looked toward the front of the room.

The professor was still talking. The students around her were still in their seats.

If she was going to do it now, she would have to pull her jeans down in here.

She scrolled down again.

One person.

And no face.

Seo-ah set the phone down on the desk.

No.

The professor's voice went on.

It won't send them.

When she checked the time again a little later, less than a minute remained.

Only then did her heart pick up.

Seo-ah didn't close the mission window.

If it really did send, someone was going to see her breasts.

She wouldn't know who.

The chance of that person recognizing the body in the photo as hers was small.

It was still her picture.

Seo-ah pressed her lips together once.

Don't worry.

The remaining time dropped into its last few seconds.

There's no way it would actually send them.

Seo-ah didn't move from her seat.

"That's all for today."

Almost in the same instant as the professor's words, the screen changed.

Seo-ah couldn't put the phone down.

All through the lecture hall, chairs scraped back and students began getting to their feet one by one.

A moment later the next notice appeared.

Seo-ah's eyes dropped to the line beneath it, and stayed there.