Acting
Whoosh—!
The instant I stepped through the portal, the cool, damp night air of reality washed over me. And the first thing to slam into my ears was a raw, desperate sobbing.
"Hic… Seo-jun…! Hngh!"
"Hnn… uugh…."
Park Yu-jin and Kim Ha-eun were crumpled on the ground, faces a mess, wiping away tears.
Park Yu-jin I can understand, but Kim Ha-eun? We only did it a couple of times and she's already like this.
Off to the side, Han Seo-ah sat staring blankly into space, with Baek Do-yoon fidgeting anxiously behind her.
"Seo-ah, are you okay…?"
The moment Baek Do-yoon carefully reached for her shoulder, she reacted like ice.
"…Do-yoon. Don't talk to me."
Deep disgust and rejection thickened her voice.
Self-loathing for abandoning a comrade to die and fleeing to save their own skins, and resentment toward Baek Do-yoon for pushing that escape—those emotions had her completely in their grip.
Exactly the reaction I wanted.
All that training had been worth it.
Then an Association staffer who'd been standing by to handle the gate spotted me emerging covered in blood and locked eyes with me.
The employee waiting for cleanup took one look at my rag-doll state and asked in confusion,
"Uh… who are you?"
"A survivor."
"Ah, a survivor. …Wait—a survivor?!"
He finally grasped the situation, yelped, and snatched up his radio. The deathly quiet around the gate exploded into pure chaos in a heartbeat.
"S-Seo-jun!"
Han Seo-ah was the first to snap out of it amid the uproar. She staggered toward me, took in the blood and wounds covering my body, and couldn't even bring herself to touch me—just stood there trembling violently.
"You idiot! I thought you were dead! Hnnn…!"
I deliberately played the drained, collapsing victim and buried my face deep between her breasts.
"Dunno… sleepy…."
Damn, her tits are soft.
As last resting places went, this was top-tier. Convinced I was slipping under, Han Seo-ah crushed my head even tighter against her chest and wailed.
"Seo-jun! Stay with me! Please, open your eyes!"
Park Yu-jin and Kim Ha-eun spotted me too, latched onto my hands and legs, and started bawling. Association staff were frantically yelling for a stretcher.
In the middle of this complete mess, only I was savoring the whole scene as the victor.
I nuzzled into Han Seo-ah's chest and murmured weakly,
"Seo-ah… glad you're safe…."
"You fool… look at the state you're in—what's there to be glad about…! Please just stop talking!"
Instead of answering, I kept my face buried in her soft warmth and deliberately forced blood back up, wrenching a cough from my lungs.
"Khahk…!"
"Seo-jun! Lee Seo-jun!! Stay awake!! No!!"
I lay on the crisp white sheets of a VIP hospital room, staring blankly out the window. Beside me, wrapped head to toe in bandages and receiving the same treatment, was Baek Do-yoon.
"You're loaded. Why the hell did you insist on sharing a room with me? Just take a private suite and get lost."
"Hmph. Seo-ah said she'd nurse you too, so I came because I was uneasy. Leaving a guy like you alone with her is like leaving fish with a cat."
"That just makes you a stalker."
"S-stalker?! I'm simply looking out for a comrade's safety as a fellow teammate…!"
"Whatever. Talking to you is a pain."
Spending time stuck in the same room with that slippery bastard had taught me something.
No way. He still hasn't even confessed?
After trailing Han Seo-ah around for so long and pouring devotion on her, the coward was still stuck in one-sided pining, terrified of rejection.
Does that mean Seo-ah's still a virgin?
99.9 percent chance. With a stalker glued to her side, other guys never even got a shot.
The thought alone almost made my cock stand up on its own.
My first love is a virgin. This is going to be hard to hold back.
Right then the door opened and Han Seo-ah walked in.
"Hey, guys, how are you feeling? I brought some fruit."
"Seo-ah, I'm totally fine now!"
"Fine? You're still wrapped like a mummy. Don't push it."
"Hehe."
"Ugh, what a loser."
"Seo-jun, you shouldn't say mean things like that to a friend."
"Ah, sorry. Looking at him just makes the truth slip out."
I'd gotten considerably closer to Han Seo-ah. Her naturally warm, kind nature plus the debt of me being her life-saver had already torn down whatever walls she'd had left.
Then Park Yu-jin pushed the door open and stepped inside.
"Seo-jun, I'm here."
The second she entered she ignored Baek Do-yoon and Seo-ah completely, rushed to my bedside, and clamped both hands around mine.
"How's your body?"
Park Yu-jin tugged my hand against her chest and sent a sly little invitation. Watching it, Han Seo-ah's eyes flickered ever so slightly.
"I'm fine. More importantly—where's Kim Ha-eun?"
"Ha-eun'll be here later. More importantly… are we doing it again today?"
She shot Han Seo-ah a sidelong glance and curved her lips into a knowing smile, as if the two of us shared some secret plan Seo-ah could never be part of.
Caught in that look, Han Seo-ah wore a complicated expression.
"What are you three planning?"
"Nothing much. Just a little fun exercise?"
At her words, Baek Do-yoon glared at Park Yu-jin and me from his bed with a face full of pure disgust.
"Ugh, so filthy and promiscuous."
"Right, like a virgin loser like you would know anything."
"What? What makes you think I've never been with a woman!"
"Because you reek of virgin from a mile away."
"I have not! I've done everything there is to do!"
Baek Do-yoon flushed scarlet and bellowed. That desperate yell only proved he'd never properly held a woman in his life.
"Sure, sure. Whatever you say."
"Grr…"
Just as he was about to fire back again, the door opened once more and Kim Ha-eun strolled in.
"Hi~ That loser is still here, huh."
"Hey, watch your mouth."
"Whatever, loser."
The two of them still couldn't stand each other even outside the dungeon.
"Seo-ah, I'm gonna take a short walk with these two."
"Mm… be careful."
With Han Seo-ah seeing us off, I led the two women out of the room toward the quiet rooftop garden where almost no one ever came.
"Hmm, you seem pretty interested in that girl. If you mess around with us this openly, won't you fail to seduce that innocent little thing?"
Kim Ha-eun rubbed her breasts against my arm and asked with a wicked little smile.
"She's right. From what I've seen, she definitely has feelings for you, Seo-jun. Won't this ruin it?"
Park Yu-jin refused to be outdone, clinging tightly to my other arm and chiming in.
"This way, later on when I fuck you two, Seo-ah will just accept it as normal."
I openly groped both women's tits while I continued.
"Whether I cheat right in front of her or throw an orgy under her nose—if she never calls me out on it, life gets easier for me and better for you two, right?"
At my blunt intent, Kim Ha-eun stared at me like I was unbelievable.
"Wow. You're actual trash."
"It's a kind of training, isn't it? Making sure Seo-ah can't reject any side of you…."
Park Yu-jin smiled sweetly and nuzzled into my chest.
Both of them called me trash out loud, yet neither showed the slightest urge to peel herself off my body.
If anything, they seemed to enjoy the fact that they'd become accomplices in this shameless scheme I'd designed.
"Exactly. I need to hammer in the image that I'm a free agent from the start, so later on she starts rationalizing whatever I do."
I squeezed their breasts hard as I spoke.
"Seo-ah's problem is she's too affectionate and too responsible."
"You're really evil. But… that side of you is even more of a turn-on."
Kim Ha-eun licked my neck and gave a filthy little laugh.
"Alright then—how about a little appetizer before we head back to the room?"
I grabbed both women by the hair and dragged them down between my knees.
"Um, hey, Seo-ah?"
"What?"
Baek Do-yoon lay on his bed, carefully reading her mood as he asked.
"A-are you still mad?"
"Me?"
"Yeah… because of what happened in the dungeon last time… you barely even look at me anymore."
"I'm not mad."
"But… your face…."
"What's wrong with my face?"
"I mean… it's really sharp and scary?"
"Mine…?"
"Y-yeah…."
At Baek Do-yoon's timid voice, Han Seo-ah paused and looked at the mirror hanging on the hospital-room wall.
The girl in the mirror had deep creases between her brows, was chewing her lip, and wore a thoroughly vicious glare.
…Why am I like this?
Her gaze kept drifting to the empty bed beside her—Seo-jun's bed.
It had already been over an hour since he'd gone for a "walk" with those two women. The image of Yu-jin and Ha-eun pressing their breasts against his arms and acting all coquettish refused to leave her head.
Why do I even care?
Without realizing it, the hand peeling the apple tightened.
Whether Lee Seo-jun played around filthily or not had nothing to do with her. He was just a classmate, just the benefactor who'd saved them in the dungeon.
Yet her mind was already flooded with filthy scenes she had no business imagining.
Right now he's probably somewhere happily sucking and licking and enjoying himself….
The vulgar moans Kim Ha-eun and Park Yu-jin had made while tangled like animals in the dungeon still echoed in her ears.
"…Tsk."
The short, irritated sigh that slipped out instantly froze the entire room.
Faced with a cold aura from Seo-ah that would have been unthinkable before, Baek Do-yoon on the next bed flinched and carefully watched her face.
"H-hey, Seo-ah…?"
"Just shut your mouth for a second. I'm thinking."
"O-okay… sorry."
When Baek Do-yoon closed his mouth, an unpleasant silence settled in.
She stared blankly at her own reflection in the window. She couldn't even tell what she was feeling anymore.
Is this… jealousy?
The girl in the mirror looked nothing like her usual self. She looked exactly like a child who'd had her toy stolen—poisoned and seething.
Am I actually jealous…? Of that player?
She was grateful to Lee Seo-jun, sure, but honestly his type was the kind she normally despised the most. Woman-chaser, rough mouth, a thug who charged ahead without thinking of consequences.
But I keep thinking about him.
More than anything, every time the memory of him handling Kim Ha-eun and Park Yu-jin like beasts in the dungeon replayed in her head, she couldn't deny the sharp, tingling heat that sparked between her legs.
I've lost it, Han Seo-ah. Imagining that kind of filthy stuff….
Her head whispered that he was a bad man, but the things he'd actually shown her made it hard to label him that simply.
Well… from Seo-jun's perspective it was more than enough to be furious, and the fact that he protected us to the end was almost weirder.
The more she thought about it rationally, the less ground she had to blame him. If anything, the violent charisma and arrogance he'd displayed had felt like the only symbol of salvation she could cling to in the middle of absolute terror.
Still… right out in the open with those women….
The moment her thoughts reached that point, her stomach twisted again.
Morally she knew it was wrong, yet at the same time a dangerous what-if slipped through her mind: if Lee Seo-jun had forced himself on her back then, would she really have been able to refuse?
"…Ha."
In the end Han Seo-ah set the fruit knife down.
What the hell am I even thinking right now. Snap out of it, Han Seo-ah.
He was trash, a bad man, a player. And the most important thing of all was that this was not a situation where she could even think about dating.