Jealousy
A few more days had passed since his date with Hanna.
"Haaaawn..."
Late in the afternoon, Taejin was half-reclined in the security office, staring at the CCTV monitors and letting out a bored yawn.
Anyone looking in might have thought he was slacking off on the job, but it couldn't be helped. He'd eaten spicy pork stir-fry for lunch, so the drowsiness settling over him was only natural. On top of that, he'd shoveled snow diligently and then downed a steaming cup of cocoa — there was no way his eyes weren't going to droop. Or, well, too bad if they did.
Part of it was also that celebrities had been especially active lately, which left security work quieter than usual.
So why not just go meet someone else?
People say you get tired of someone if you see them too often — that you should only meet occasionally. For the record, that was Hanna's take on the matter.
Sometimes it was nice to just enjoy some downtime like this.
And so he continued working in a posture that would have drawn complaints from any resident who saw him, until—
—Knock knock knock.
At the sound of knocking on the security office door, Taejin instinctively thought:
That's not one of the other security guys.
The knock on the office door, combined with it being a bit softer than a man's, told him that much right away. Probably some resident's mother coming to complain about something again.
Taejin instantly switched his expression to a bright, cheerful smile.
"Coming~!"
He went out wearing a smile that was two hundred percent positive energy. It was a skill he'd picked up — smiling like this tended to dial down the ranting a notch.
When he opened the door, what he found was—
"Ugh...!"
Garam's face, wearing an expression that clearly said: I'm mad at you.
Looking at her, Taejin wondered what he'd done wrong, then ushered her inside and handed her a warm cup of cocoa. For the record, she didn't refuse it — which left him starting to wonder if she'd just come by for no particular reason.
"Hoo... hoo... slurp."
After blowing on her cocoa and taking a few sips, Garam seemed to collect herself enough to look at Taejin and speak.
"Oppa... what did you do on your day off last week?"
The question left Taejin wondering why she was asking, but he answered honestly. Lying about something like this would just be ridiculous.
"Ah, I was with someone who'd booked a service."
"Euk...!"
At those words, Garam's eyes flew wide as she stared at him. More precisely—
Hmm, when my old part-time coworker was cheating, his girlfriend's interrogation face looked something like this, didn't it?
She was looking at him with an expression of maximum ferocity. Though calling it maximum ferocity — well, she was normally a bright, cheerful kid, so it wasn't actually scary. If anything, it felt more like a cute little sister (not an actual little sister) throwing a tantrum.
Even so, in a situation like this, you still had to half-apologize and play along.
This, too, is the wisdom of my part-time coworker...
Otherwise you'd get dumped on the spot — or slapped.
Anyway, under Garam's gaze, Taejin spent a moment genuinely wondering if he'd done something wrong.
What did I mess up...?
But he couldn't figure out what he'd done wrong. After all, they'd been texting diligently, and he'd even sent her photos of himself at work — they'd been communicating just fine. So when she reacted like this out of nowhere, Taejin asked, genuinely puzzled.
"Is something wrong? I honestly have no idea."
"Wrong... if something's wrong...! Ugh..."
Faced with Taejin's honesty, Garam found herself momentarily speechless. More precisely—
W-well, why am I even...
She herself hadn't fully sorted out her own feelings.
Oppa does provide services, after all, and going on dates like that isn't weird...
So why did her heart feel so uncomfortable?
That was it. Garam currently had something like romantic feelings for Taejin. No — she was basically half in love with him, she just hadn't properly recognized it herself yet.
Too easy a transition, you say?
Originally she'd been the type who fell for fairy-tale princes, but Taejin's light yet not-quite-ridiculous demeanor, the way he talked that always made her laugh, and finally—
After experiencing something like that...
Remembering the sex she'd had with Taejin, her reaction wasn't so strange. On top of that, she was a virgin herself, and her romantic instincts had been pretty much dormant — she still couldn't be completely honest about her feelings.
Taejin, for his part, had done Lover Play with her, but he never imagined she actually liked him as a person. Whatever else might be true, Taejin's romantic instincts had shriveled up so thoroughly that even Sohee's recent influence had only slightly revived them. He was still at the stage where if a beauty like this said she liked him, he'd call it a delusion.
In other words, despite Garam's behavior, Taejin was acting exactly like those denser-than-lead romance comedy protagonists.
"Uuuugh..."
Though unlike them, he was most definitely not impotent.
So Garam paused for a moment, then—
"Y-you never take anything when I offer to buy you stuff!"
She cornered him with a completely absurd reason. Though it wasn't entirely absurd. She had offered multiple times to buy him clothes or food, and Taejin had firmly refused every time.
"It'd be weird for me, the older one, to take money from you."
"I have plenty of money too!"
"No. It's not about the money..."
It just felt weird taking free stuff from someone who was basically like a little sister.
And who knows what those toxic stream viewers would say about Garam if they found out...
That was why he tried to avoid gifts and meetups outside as much as possible. The problem was that to Garam, it came across as Taejin avoiding her.
"I can't, but that person can!"
Garam said it in a voice full of resentment, and Taejin thought to himself:
What are you even talking about, Garam-garam...
Even so, at that level she'd know plenty of people — was bringing me along really the right call...?
While Taejin was internally baffled, she continued.
"I can do the same things she did for you!"
At that, Taejin felt he needed to take Garam's stubbornness down a notch.
Otherwise I'm going to have to listen to this whining for hours.
So he said something he knew would be a bit provocative for her.
"—Really?"
"Huh?"
"You think you can really do everything she did? It won't be easy once you hear what it was."
"Uh, well..."
At Taejin's words, Garam automatically started wondering just what on earth they'd done for him to talk like that. After all, when normally gentle Taejin spoke that way, you could tell it was something serious.
"...Was it some kind of sexual service?"
"Nothing major, just..."
And indeed, the content wasn't ordinary.
"Hieeek..."
When Taejin told her about the animal cosplay, Garam stared at him with an expression that said: You actually had that kind of perverted sex?
He felt a little bad about outing Hanna's private life, but if he didn't say something, Garam's mysterious stubbornness wasn't going to go away.
I'll have to tell her myself and apologize later.
Thinking that, Taejin figured Garam had been sufficiently cowed and was about to comfort her and send her on her way. He still didn't understand why she was acting like this, but that kind of play was probably beyond her.
Or maybe not. Looking at the time she brought those nipple patches, maybe not...
Anyway, he waited for her answer with that in mind. She wore a thoughtful expression for a moment, then spoke with a look of resolve.
"I-I can do that much too!"
"What. What do you mean..."
"I just need the outfits, right?! Just wait a little. I'll go get everything!"
Saying that with a look of determination, Garam set down her empty cocoa cup and headed outside. Taejin wanted to say, "No, just tell me why you're doing this," but—
"I'll look for the outfits and contact you!"
For some reason, Garam's action speed had gone into overdrive, and she was already out of the security office.
Watching her go, Taejin felt something had gone seriously wrong, but—
Well, it's not a bad thing... so it'll be fine, right?
He decided to think positively about it. Or more accurately, there wasn't really anything else he could do.
Listening to Taejin's words, Garam thought:
I-I can do that kind of thing too!
They'd had sex in cosplay? She could do that much just fine. No — she was confident she'd do it even better. After all, while her ad exposure hadn't been that high, she'd done cosplay a few times before. Thinking of the praise she'd received each time, her confidence wasn't unreasonable.
Cat cosplay? Hmph! Oppa likes dogs more than cats!
Nurse? I'll go with something even sweeter than a nurse!
The problem was that her head, half-blinded by jealousy, was spinning out of control and going into full runaway mode.
Today, Garam would take the day off streaming and diligently hunt down cosplay outfits.
I can do so much better than that woman!
...Probably until she lay down in bed and the post-impulse clarity hit.