Min Sohee, You Were a More Interesting Bitch Than I Thought
Sohee stared at the same spot for a long time, her eyes trembling. It was the locker with Kang Minsu written on it — and through the crack in the door, a scrap of fabric peeked out.
She simply stood there and looked, but inside her skull a war was raging. One army shoved her forward, screaming, Go to him right now. Get drunk on Minsu's scent. Indulge in the pleasure. The other dug in to hold the line: Think of your image. No — think of what a normal person would even consider. That is crossing a line. Those two vast hosts were locked in a struggle for every inch of territory inside her brain.
Haa... I've lost my mind. Min Sohee. Get a grip!
She pinched her own cheek and stretched it out, trying to shock herself back to her senses with the pain. It was no use. The viper's venom had already seeped too deep inside her. Not that she had any way of knowing that. All she felt was a bewildering rush of sexual curiosity that had bloomed, sudden and violent, over the past few days.
This is... this is actually a crime. Even so, she crept toward Minsu's locker, step by careful step. The war roaring through her head was tilting. The army that called itself a female's instinct was seizing the upper hand.
If Sohee truly meant to escape the clutches of lust, she should not have been standing there staring at Minsu's locker. She should have squeezed her eyes shut and walked out of the department lounge without a thought in her head. Or someone else should have come bursting in. Unfortunately, neither of those things happened.
There's definitely nobody here.
Her last class had let out so late that there were no lectures left in the building. And it was dinnertime — surely nobody would be coming to the lounge.
Hmm... hmm...
That certainty nudged her, little by little, into a swamp she would not be able to climb out of. She came up to Minsu's locker. Standing in front of it, she could see the scrap of clothing caught in the door — the shirt of the man who had thrown himself in front of her to protect her. The scent she had caught then shimmered up in her mind once more, like a heat haze.
Just for a second... that would be okay... right?
The moment she thought it and closed her hand on the locker handle, the army of reason — driven all the way to the rear lines — squeezed out one last burst of strength.
What if... even if there's a one-in-a-million chance I get caught... what happens then?
She had checked. She was alone in the lounge. Not a single footstep in the hallway. Nobody should be coming at this hour. But you never really know with people. That was how reality worked — you convinced yourself you were safe, and then the thing you had been afraid of happened anyway. If it did... what would become of her? She could not help thinking about it.
Pulling Minsu's clothes out of his locker and smelling them was abnormal by anyone's standard. Just opening someone else's locker in an empty department lounge and taking something out was already enough to get you suspected of theft. And if what you stole was a man's sweat-soaked clothes? And you were pressing them to your nose and inhaling?
"Hah... haa..."
Just imagining getting caught made the strength drain from her legs. There was a kind of dopamine that detonated in the brain from nothing more than standing alone in a darkening school building, in a vacant lounge, entertaining dirty thoughts.
If I get caught... that would be the end of my life at this school...
Sneaking a sniff of a man's body odor. By Sohee's own common sense, that was a perverted act that would get her branded a sexual deviant without anyone batting an eye. If someone saw her smelling Minsu's sweat-soaked clothes — and if word got out — a girl who until recently had never shown a shred of sexual curiosity would be facing a situation she could not possibly handle. A leave of absence would be the least of it. She might even have to consider dropping out. Of that, there was no doubt.
Once the thought went that far, Sohee came up with what she considered a clever workaround.
What if I don't take it out? What if I just smell it for a second?
Don't touch the locker. Don't touch the clothes. Just smell the fabric caught in the door. That would be okay, wouldn't it? She would not even lay a hand on someone else's belongings. And if someone suddenly walked in, she could come up with some kind of excuse.
That should be fine. Okay. Yeah...! That's it!
The war in her head called a ceasefire. Both sides had found a compromise and reached an agreement. But by then, most of her brain had already been occupied by a female's instinct.
"Hhn..."
Sohee came right up to Minsu's locker and drew in a deep breath. A damp, musky smell she had never encountered before clung to the lining of her nose.
"Haa... aah...!"
It was the clothing of a man who had been working out hard. The body odor wafting from it could not, even as a courtesy, be called fragrant. It was almost foul. And yet it was strangely addictive. Reason ordered her to turn away from that pungent sting. But the female instinct that already occupied most of her brain told her to stay planted right where she was and keep inhaling, deep and hard.
"Hhn... fwaah..."
"Hhn... haa..."
She breathed in and out, again and again. With every breath she felt a little more hazy, as if she were getting drunk.
Hwah... How can a person smell like this... Do all guys smell like this?
She had no way of knowing. What mattered right now was Minsu's body scent, slowly loosening every muscle she had.
"Coo-coo-coo—!"
"...!"
Sohee, lost in that dreamy haze as she drank in the smell, jumped at the sudden sound of a bird hitting the window.
"What the— it's just a pigeon... tch."
She wiped away the drool that had almost spilled from the corner of her mouth and tried to calm her startled heart. She had flinched because she had thought the sound had come from outside the door.
Okay. Let's go. I really can't do any more of this.
Now that she had snapped out of it, she seized the thread of reason with both hands. She squeezed her eyes shut, slung her bag over her shoulder, and walked out of the lounge. Only after escaping that room — which had felt like an anglerfish lurking with its lantern lure, waiting to swallow her whole — could she finally settle her taut nerves.
Okay. Let's be satisfied with this. I held out pretty well, actually.
That was what she told herself. The urge to throw open Minsu's locker and pull out his clothes. The desire to bury her face in them and drink his scent to her heart's content. She had pared both of those down as far as they would go, and she had settled for this. Even if someone had seen her, she had not stolen anything. She might have looked a little strange standing in front of his locker, but nobody would guess she had been there to smell him.
Having completed that razor-thin rationalization, Sohee left campus in reasonably high spirits and headed home.
"Hmm-hmm~"
The intoxication from Minsu's scent still had not worn off. Her steps home were light, and a little tune even slipped out of her. The worry that she might soon cross a line she could never come back from did not even register.
Lines are blurry things by nature. People walk a tightrope along that faint boundary until, eventually, they tip all the way over to one side. It happens all the time. The "clever workaround" she had congratulated herself on today had only delayed the inevitable. It was a path that would sink her deeper and deeper into the swamp of lust. The Sohee of that moment had no idea.
A few days passed.
The second week of March. A full week had already gone by since the start of the semester. Professors had begun to run their lectures in earnest. Students had begun to run through the night at the bars. And on that university campus, I was suffering, for the first time in my life, through a thing called academics.
"What kind of assignment is this... they just dump it on us with no answers."
"Are they insane? Like, seriously?"
"Do they actually think we can finish all of this? They probably just mean do as much as we can, right?"
I had just finished a class I was taking with Mincheol and Seowoo — fellow returnees — plus a few other students from our year, and we were heading back to the department lounge.
"What are we eating for lunch?"
"We've already run out of anything good?"
"We hit so many places freshman year. We already know how everything tastes."
I did not have much to say among my chattering classmates. I had other things on my mind.
Sohee should be reacting by now.
I had fed her my saliva — packed with mana — twice. I had even confirmed it was working. And yet, for some reason, there had been no real response since that first basketball practice.
The reaction's lukewarm. By now she should be clinging to me.
It had been so long since my mana was this depleted that my memory was hazy. Still, a female who had ingested my saliva should, by this point, be losing sleep at night thinking about me. That was the normal course of things. And yet Sohee would greet me warmly, smile, strike up a conversation — and then stop right there, with no sign of wanting to go any further.
"Hey. Kang Minsu."
"...Huh?"
"I asked what you want for lunch. We're voting."
"What are the options."
"Cafeteria or ramen."
"One vote for ramen."
A few of my classmates lit up at my casual answer. The rest pulled faces.
"Ah... so because of that one throwaway vote of yours, we end up eating ramen."
"What! What's wrong with ramen!"
I left the guys bickering over nothing and headed into the lounge. I wanted to stash my books in my locker before we went to eat. When I opened the door, groups from first-years all the way to fourth-year seniors were clustered here and there, each absorbed in their own conversations.
I opened my locker and started organizing my books when someone spoke up beside me.
"Minsu!"
I turned my head and looked down. A dense crown of black hair filled my view.
"Hi."
"Oh, Sohee. Hello."
She came up to me first and greeted me without any awkwardness. Thanks to exchanging numbers last time, we even traded the occasional pointless KakaoTalk. But that was as far as it went.
Still lukewarm.
It had been about a week since I first fed her my saliva. Holding out this long already counted as impressive. By now it would not have been strange if she had shown up at my place in the dead of night, begging me to fuck her.
"Working out at lunch again today?"
"Yes. I don't have class this afternoon, so I'll probably go a bit longer."
"Ooh... then would it be okay if I came by later to watch?"
"I'd love it if you did."
"Hehe. Great. I'll bring a bunch of drinks!"
Sohee beamed and trotted off.
She's practically dripping with heat.
Like a glass filled to the brim — it was time for it to spill over, and yet it was holding on by a thread. She was swollen up like a balloon about to burst, so what was stopping the explosion? What was that little air hole keeping her from going off completely?
I was still turning that over as I finished putting my books away and closed the locker.
"Hm?"
Something caught my eye. There was something on the locker door. A normal person would never have noticed. But the eyes of this body, which housed the soul of a Demon King, could see it.
Is this what I think it is?
I wiped the small amount of liquid off the locker door with my finger and sniffed it.
Min Sohee, you bitch... you were a more interesting bitch than I thought.
I could not stop the smirk from creeping up the corners of my mouth.