Hero Academy (3-3)
"Th-that… uh… that…."
Cho Seo-hyun had seized my shaft in her small hand and sat there with her mouth hanging open, looking for all the world like her soul had left her body.
At this point, any normal person would have jerked their hand away in panic — yet Seo-hyun held the pose for well over thirty seconds.
Watching her turn into a lingering spirit between my legs, I tried to talk her down.
"Uh… Instructor Cho Seo-hyun, please let go of my hand first…."
"Uh… that's… my… uh…."
"…."
No good.
Cho Seo-hyun… had zero immunity whatsoever.
This, too, seemed to fall under the category of failing to account for unexpected variables.
Having her touch me was nice from my perspective, but….
"Hah… uh… that…."
Right now Cho Seo-hyun was holding my cock and not moving a single muscle, mere stillness would have been the better outcome.
Like a ghost that couldn't pass on, she just kept repeating the same broken phrases between my thighs.
At first her flustered scrambling had been cute. Now it was just pitiful.
I took the hand wrapped around my penis and gently pried it free.
"Th-that… uh…."
"Instructor Cho Seo-hyun."
"Uh… yes?"
Only after her hand left me did her mind seem to return. I spoke to her calmly.
"I'm sorry. I'll take responsibility."
"…What?"
Cho Seo-hyun stared at me with a completely blank expression, mouth still open.
The long-haired Cho Seo-hyun in her neat cadet uniform was gone.
In her place stood a Cho Seo-hyun in jeans and a blue T-shirt, fidgeting restlessly in front of me.
In the empty faculty office, she kept repeating the same line over and over.
"Don't say things like that again, okay? Got it?"
"Yes, understood. Once again, I'm sorry."
"Ah! Stop apologizing already!"
Cho Seo-hyun snapped at my apology, her voice rising with irritation.
Earlier I had told her I would take responsibility — and by responsibility, I had meant resignation. I told her I had no excuse, that I would write out my resignation letter myself and leave.
Two hours.
That was how long Cho Seo-hyun spent clinging to me, begging me not to do it.
I had never seen her like that before. Guilt had her so tightly wound that she was practically pleading with me to stay.
Fortunately, today's class had been a full VR sparring session from start to finish — a physical aptitude check. If she had carried on like that during a regular lecture, we would have been in real trouble.
Seo-hyun sat down in a desk chair, scratched her head with an awkward laugh, and changed the subject.
"S-so, uh. Instructor Sung Su-ho… you're really skilled, aren't you?"
"Thank you. Since it was you I was facing, Instructor Cho, I gave it everything I had."
"Huh? Because it was me, you gave it everything?"
She didn't seem to catch the meaning. I rephrased the compliment more carefully.
"It was Instructor Cho Seo-hyun. Going easy would have been disrespectful."
"Ah! Haha…."
"Besides, you help me out all the time. The least I can do is give my best."
"R-right! Haha…."
Cho Seo-hyun's lips twitched and her eyebrows bounced.
Praise made her mouth and brows dance.
In the end, we agreed that everything that had happened today would stay our secret — that, for all practical purposes, it had never happened at all.
Whether Cho Seo-hyun could actually scrub the incident from her memory was up to her.
I bowed and prepared to leave the faculty office.
"Then I'll see you tomorrow."
"Where are you going?"
"…? I was about to go get lunch."
Seo-hyun shot to her feet, strode past me, opened the office door, and glanced back over her shoulder.
"C'mon, hurry up. I'm starving."
A small mercy, if you could call it that?
Seong Sua was not in the cafeteria.
'What? Did she spot me with Seo-hyun and go somewhere else on purpose?'
I collected a tray behind the humming Seo-hyun and received my food.
Something about her was different today — she looked genuinely happy, a far cry from the woman who had once called cafeteria food terrible.
The way her face lit up when she got Japanese-style pork cutlet told me she was a tonkatsu person.
'Hmm… no matter how you look at her, she's still a kid….'
'Do you like tonkatsu?'
Silver-haired kindergarten, little Armonia… likes tonkatsu. Noted.
I finished collecting my food while staring at the top of Cho Seo-hyun's cheerfully bobbing head, then sat down and ate with her.
The cafeteria was always at its most chaotic during lunch, and right in the middle of that chaos, Seo-hyun dove into her meal with pure abandon.
She sliced through her cutlet with joyful focus for a while — then suddenly came to her senses, cleared her throat, and addressed me.
"Ahem… E-eat faster. It's going to get cold."
"Yes, ma'am."
Having said that, she went right back to cutting her tonkatsu with a twitch at the corner of her mouth.
'…I think I just figured out why Seo-hyun never wants to eat with other people.'
'When her favorite food shows up, she completely loses it.'
People always said women went crazy for good food, didn't they?
Cho Seo-hyun seemed to be one of those.
She ate that tonkatsu with a happiness so pure it was almost hard to believe and from her perspective, letting other people see her like that was probably the last thing she wanted.
In other words — when she ate, she just wanted to eat comfortably, without worrying about anyone's eyes.
But whenever I saw this side of her, I felt a twinge of pity.
A woman whose life had been twisted by someone else when she was still a child, and who had never quite managed to set it right on her own.
Behavior like this probably grew out of that soil.
'Armonia, tell me about Hong Mi-sun — the one you said you'd fill me in on earlier.'
I was just about to hear Armonia's briefing on Hong Mi-sun when —
"Ah! Teach!"
"Khup—."
Song Ara came toward us with three slabs of tonkatsu piled on her tray.
The moment Cho Seo-hyun saw her, she swallowed the food in her mouth in one huge gulp, wiped her lips, and spoke in a carefully modest tone.
"Ah… here for lunch?"
"…Huh?"
Even someone meeting Cho Seo-hyun for the first time would have found that delivery unnaturally stiff. Cho Seo-hyun cleared her throat once and tried again.
"I mean… you here to eat?"
"Yep~"
Song Ara plopped down next to Cho Seo-hyun humming a little tune — and instead of starting her meal, she turned to me first.
"Ah! Instructor Sung Su-ho!"
"Hm?"
"Instructor Seong Sua asked me to pass something along earlier."
"Oh? What is it?"
"She said she was busy today and couldn't have lunch with you, and she's sorry."
"Ah, that's fine."
I smirked and picked up my spoon. Seo-hyun, hearing that, frowned.
"Come on, she should at least say something like that in person…."
"If she's busy, it can't be helped."
I answered with a smile.
Seo-hyun snorted and went back to focusing on her tonkatsu.
A quiet meal stretched on until Song Ara cleaned her entire tray and spoke up in an excited voice.
"Ah! Instructor Cho Seo-hyun! Once the smart watches are working, we can go out, right?"
"Well… yeah? What, you planning to leave campus too?"
"Ah… I might, yeah."
Song Ara scratched her head with an awkward laugh.
The smart watches handed out on the first day of the term had been unusable until now — a network issue.
With the system restored, they were functioning normally again.
Because the devices also tracked cadet locations, wearing one at all times was mandatory for safety during any off-campus leave or overnight stay.
As for me, the only reason I had ever use one was probably for the convenience of supervising the kids.
"I figured you'd just use it for the indoor training facilities… so, what, you finally made a friend to hang out with?"
"Th-that's… haha… something like that…. I'm gonna head out first!"
"Go on, then."
Song Ara scurried out of the cafeteria with her tray in a way that was completely unlike her usual self. Watching her go, I tidied the table and spoke quietly to Cho Seo-hyun.
"We should get up too."
"…Hold out your left hand."
"Pardon?"
"Hurry up."
I held out my left hand on reflex.
On my left wrist sat the smart watch issued by the Hero Academy.
Cho Seo-hyun operated hers, then held it close to mine.
A message appeared on my screen.
User 3256 — Official Instructor Cho Seohyun of the Hero Academy has requested to add you as a friend.
Accept?
I stared at the message, bewildered.
"Uh… what is this…?"
"Just accept it already. If we're working together, we should at least be able to reach each other quickly."
"Understood."
You are now friends with User 3256, Cho Seo-hyun.
Just like that, I had registered Cho Seo-hyun as a friend.
'Doesn't this feel like being in constant contact with your workplace superior? That's… unsettling….'
'Well, it's not like our work buries us under a mountain of tasks anyway….'
I was still fretting over the comm when Seo-hyun caught my expression and shot me a look.
"What? You don't want to stay in touch with me?"
"Ah, no…. It's just that I don't really have anyone I'm close enough with to message regularly, so I wasn't sure how to react."
"…You don't have friends outside?"
"There's no one I keep in contact with."
"…."
An awkward silence settled between us.
Around the time lunch wound down, we headed to our respective classes for the afternoon session.
I parted ways with Cho Seo-hyun and made for Magic Class 7.
Someone was already there, standing alone and gazing out the window.
The early visitor was none other than Seo Ji-eun — the rich family's daughter who ranked above even the official instructors.
Every window was shut. She stood demurely, her long hair hanging without the slightest tremor.
'Hmm… what do I do? Announce myself, or go invisible?'
'Aw, I just wanted to mess with her a little.'
Getting scolded by Armonia, I approached Seo Ji-eun with enough presence to make myself known.
She still hadn't noticed me enter, murmuring to herself as she stared out the window.
"Why… why is it only me…. Dad…."
"…."
Great. I had completely missed the window. Saying hello now would make me look like absolute garbage.
'Okay, just sneak back out….'
The moment I tried to slip away, a voice called from behind me.
"Ah! Instructor Sung Su-ho."
It was Seong Sua, smiling brightly.
Startled by her voice, Seo Ji-eun spun around with a look of shock I had never seen on her face before.
"Eut!"
"…."
And from the look in her eyes, I could be certain of one thing.
'I'm screwed'
That was the moment my image as an instructor hit rock bottom.
Fortunately, Seo Ji-eun didn't say anything to Seong Sua or the other cadets.
She barely spoke with her classmates to begin with, so it seemed natural enough that she wouldn't bring me up either.
Still, the damage to her impression of me was real.
The look she gave me was so cold it felt like it could freeze my heart solid.
'Well, she's not a target, and apologizing wouldn't do any good anyway….'
'Whether that counts as fortunate is debatable….'
It felt like keeping a time bomb next to me.
That time bomb, however, showed no reaction for the rest of class.
When the magic lesson ended, I headed to the cafeteria with Seong Sua for dinner. She apologized for lunch.
"I'm sorry about earlier. It's my first time teaching third-years, and I had no idea there'd be so many things to watch out for."
"It's fine."
I accepted her apology with a smile.
Honestly, she had nothing to apologize for.
She had simply been buried under more class prep than expected and missed lunch — we hadn't even made a formal plan to eat together.
And yet, gratefully, Seong Sua seemed to take having lunch with me as a given.
We talked about this and that on the way to the cafeteria, and a new worry started to form.
'…Cho Seo-hyun isn't going to be there, is she?'
….
What is she, Schrödinger's Seo-hyun? A Cho Seo-hyun who both is and isn't in the cafeteria until observed.
And the result?
"Today it's Korean food — the kind Instructor Sung Su-ho likes."
"Haha… lucky me."
Fortunately, Cho Seo-hyun was nowhere to be found.
The moment Cho Seo-hyun stepped into her dorm room, she flipped on the light and let out a long sigh.
"Haa…."
Without even changing clothes, she threw herself onto the bed.
She hadn't been able to focus properly through a single minute of the afternoon classes — all because of what had happened at lunch.
After the smart-watch friend registration, when Sung Su-ho said he had no friends, she had felt both pity and a strange kinship.
The truth was, Cho Seo-hyun was the same.
She had no friends around her — not even a single colleague she could truly lean on.
But something larger than pity or kinship had begun to close in around her.
Guilt.
"Haa… I should've just registered during class…."
She felt like she had needlessly dragged a painful topic into the open, and the guilt rose in a soft, smothering wave.
If that had been the only thing, she could have let it go but then Cho Seo-hyun remembered the earlier incident — the one where she had touched Sung Su-ho's most private place.
"I'm insane! Augh! I must be out of my mind!"
For the first time in her life, she had touched a man's penis — and she now understood exactly what it meant for one's soul to leave the body.
"At my age, what the hell am I doing…."
More than the act of touching him, what mortified her was how she had behaved afterward.
Looking like some pathetic woman with zero experience with men was humiliating.
"Haa… this is so annoying…. I can't do this. There's no way I can sleep like this."
She needed something — anything — that could blow this feeling away, even for a little while.
She reached down to the floor beside the bed, where a VR Headgear lay discarded like trash, and set it on top of the mattress.
As she did, both the VR Headgear and the smart watch locked around her left wrist entered her field of vision at the same time.
She stared hard at the smart watch, then muttered to herself.
"Come to think of it… doesn't this thing sync friend additions too?"