A Provisional Contract for Training
The weather was brilliantly clear, a perfect day.
A crisp blue sky without a single cloud. Or did it only seem lovelier because this was the moment I was heading out to meet Jueun?
I was a little nervous. The moment I would come face to face with my favorite cosplayer, no less. I had no idea where to even begin.
Cradling that tangle of thoughts, I headed for the cafe where we had agreed to meet.
Perhaps because it was the middle of a weekday, the cafe was quiet. I set my things down in the most secluded corner I could find. There weren't many people around, but something told me our conversation wouldn't be fit for other ears anyway.
I walked up to the counter and ordered two iced americanos from the kiosk.
After checking her reply, I sank into thought for a moment. What could she possibly want to talk about? Well... considering what had happened last time, one thing was certain: this would be no ordinary conversation.
And yet, right now, all I felt was happiness. A chance to talk with my favorite cosplayer, just the two of us. It hardly felt real.
"Your two iced americanos are ready!"
"Thank you!"
I picked up the drinks and headed back to my seat.
Ding-a-ling.
The bell above the door chimed softly in my ear. I turned toward the entrance, and there stood Hyun Jueun.
A face touched with light makeup. And in stark contrast to it, a staggering figure. She wore a white short-sleeved T-shirt that clung tightly enough to trace every line of her body, paired with black leather shorts. To a stranger, she would have looked like a popular model straight off social media.
"Jueun! Over here~"
"Oh! Siwoo!"
Spotting me, Jueun came over to my seat with an easy smile.
"You've been waiting long, haven't you?"
"Not at all. I just got here myself, actually. Oh, right—I went ahead and ordered for you."
"Oh my. Thank you."
Setting down her bag, she took her seat and smoothed out her clothes.
"It's a bit hot out there."
"It is. Summer's really here now."
"Isn't it? Ah—about why I asked to meet you..."
She got straight to the point.
"Hmm... how should I put this..."
Why was she drawing it out like this? What could she possibly have to say?
"Honestly? I asked you here because I wanted to get to know you better."
"Me?"
"Yes. It's... well, I was a nuisance to you first, after all..."
"A nuisance? What kind of...?"
She glanced around, then leaned her face in close to mine. Her face, and the valley of her cleavage, drew near enough to fill my vision.
"At... at the event...!"
Her whisper tickled faintly at my ear.
"Ah...!"
Honestly, to me it hadn't been a nuisance at all. More like a reward.
"I couldn't help feeling I'd crossed a line somehow..."
"N-no, not at all! It's... ahem."
A flustered cough escaped me.
"I'm a fan of yours too, you see... I thought this would be a good chance to get to know you!"
"Works for me. I'm a fan of yours, after all."
"Hehe. So we were each other's fans all along."
That was how I came to learn more about her. Her name was Hyun Jueun, twenty-three years old. She had loved cosplay since she was little, and posting photos of her costumes on social media had made her famous. Offers to model as a cosplayer gradually rolled in from there, and what had begun as a personal hobby turned into her line of work.
With university on one side and modeling offers on the other, she ended up juggling both. And as her cosplays grew steadily more revealing, the Junyang I knew was born.
"Apparently lots of influencers blow up these days just by running their own social media accounts."
"That's right. That's how I ended up working as a cosplayer, too. I got lucky."
"Well, your cosplay photos suit you so well and look so good—that's why you got famous. Haha."
"Hehe..! I suppose that's true, too."
Jueun chimed along with my words, a light smile playing on her face.
"Aren't you curious, Siwoo?"
"Curious about what?"
"About why I became your fan."
"Ah..."
Of course I was curious. I was meeting, in the flesh for the first time, a fan who loved my—how to put this delicately—utterly degenerate(?) commercial manga. And who could have imagined that fan would turn out to be my favorite cosplayer? Maybe that was why I found myself wondering, in turn, just how degenerate(?) her own tastes might be.
"Honestly, I was curious too."
"Hehe. I stumbled across your work on the internet, by chance."
As expected. Of course it would begin with chance. My work lived so deep in the underground that no one would have come across it any other way. So this was the kind of opportunity coincidence could create.
"At first it was a little... repulsive, I guess?"
"My work does have that effect. Haha. The content runs pretty extreme."
"So the first time, I closed it right away. Something like, what on earth is this?"
Ugh...! It stung a little, but maybe that was the natural reaction. Anyone seeing it for the first time would wonder what the hell it was.
"But... strangely, I couldn't stop thinking about it."
"Even after you finished it?"
"Yes! The part I saw was a scene where the heroine, her hands bound, was tied up with her chest bared...!"
"Ah."
So she had only seen the soft stuff. There were scenes in it several times more vulgar than that one.
"But... for some reason, that scene kept flashing before my eyes...! And whenever it came to mind and I went back to look, I'd get startled all over again and close it...!"
"I must have opened and closed nothing but the first page five times over... before finally turning through it slowly, one page at a time."
"So the work seeped into you slowly...!"
Saying that about my own work made my skin crawl a little, but still.
"Yes... and then at some point I was so absorbed that I was reading your work, lost to everything else."
As an author, there could be no higher praise.
"Then I finished one work and went looking for another."
"Haha...! That makes me happy, as an author."
"Hehe...! And while I was at it, I comforted myself, too...!♡"
At that part, Jueun's gaze darted away from mine. I was learning a lot about her—honestly, more than I needed to know, depending on how you looked at it.
"Um. Really, when it comes to that kind of thing, I've never read anything but your work."
"Really?"
She had entered this world through my work. That was praise upon praise, truly.
"Yes... strangely, nothing else ever caught my eye. Your work is exactly my taste..!♡"
I couldn't speak to anything else, but one thing was clear: at the very least, her sexual tastes belonged to a pervert as thoroughly degenerate as they came.
"So, um...!"
She trailed off, as if hesitating.
"I'd like to talk about your work with you."
I had been expecting something, so I was a little disappointed. Did she really need to agonize that much just to talk about my work...?
"My work?"
"Yes! Your manga and your erotica!"
"Ah~ haha. This is a first for me."
"Like hearing a live afterword straight from the author? A review? Something like that!"
So this was me swapping work stories with my favorite cosplayer, my devoted reader.
"Oh... hmm... this is a first for me too, haha."
"Hehe."
"Then... have you read all of my work, Jueun?"
"Of course! From the very beginning, where the heroine gets caught masturbating, tied up, and violated...!"
"Ah... ahem..."
Jueun's voice had spiked for a moment. Flustered, I coughed. The cafe around us was quiet. Still, this was the kind of talk you didn't want to be overheard having...
"Oh... I got too loud, didn't I...!"
Catching the meaning behind my cough, Jueun reacted with a slightly sheepish look.
"No, no... haha. It was a little embarrassing, but it makes me happy."
"That's a relief, then. Hehe."
"So... which work should we start with?"
"So that's how that came about...!"
"That's right. In commercial manga, it's practically a stock trope."
"Wow...! That's fascinating...!"
"Still, how should I put it... I take those well-worn tropes and cover them in my own way, filtered through my own tastes."
"That world runs deeper than I expected."
"I'd say I'm only just starting to spread my wings in commercial manga."
"What? Still? When I looked you up, you seemed pretty famous already."
"I've still got a long way to go. There are probably plenty of themes I've missed or haven't discovered yet."
The conversation ripened as it went. She listened to my stories with rapt attention, looking thoroughly fascinated.
"Wow...! Amazing..! Oh! I have another question!"
"What is it?"
"You mentioned before that you write erotica too, right?"
"Yes, that's right."
"It seems like you wouldn't strictly need to, so I'm curious why you juggle it as a second job!"
"Hmm... well, there's really only one reason. Working as a commercial manga artist in Korea comes with heavy restrictions."
"Ah...! But there are lots of adult webtoon sites, aren't there..!"
"If you've read my work, you'd know."
"Sorry? What do you mean...?"
"There probably isn't a single domestic webtoon site that could handle that level of explicitness."
"Ah...! That's true, actually."
"So I substituted erotica instead. Mine runs at about the same intensity—and there are no restrictions."
"I see. Hehe. Your erotica is incredibly lewd too, you know?"
"Haha. Thanks for the compliment."
It was a compliment, sure, but it sounded like a compliment of a distinctly sexual(?) variety.
"Hmm..."
Just as the conversation was hitting its stride, Jueun suddenly wore the expression of someone deep in thought. Was she about to bring up something even lewder?
"Jueun, you don't have to agonize over it. Just ask me whatever it is."
"Actually... this is something I've been debating whether to ask."
Jueun kept stalling. After hearing that she had masturbated to my work, what could possibly shock me more? It couldn't be that big a deal.
"Um... Siwoo... I have something I'd like to propose..!"
After her brief hesitation, Jueun finally spoke.
"Go ahead."
What kind of proposal? A request to use her as material for my manga or erotica? If so, I'd welcome it with open arms. Seeing Jueun's cosplay last time had already set off every lewd fantasy I had. If she was outright asking me to use her as fap material, then obviously, I'd welcome it.
"Would you train me... and turn me into something lewd..?"
"I'm sorry?"
A dumb sound had escaped me for a moment. What had she just said? Had I misheard?
"..."
Jueun avoided my eyes, her face scarlet.
"I-it is weird, isn't it...?"
"N-no. It's not. Hahaha..."
It wasn't so much weird as it was that my brain simply refused to process it. But what did she mean, train her and make her 'lewd'..?
"Do you... not like the idea...?"
"No... no, it's not that... haha.. I just wasn't expecting that answer."
"Not expecting it?"
"Yes. It's... how do I put this. It reminded me of the event."
"Ah... that time...!"
As if reliving it, Jueun turned her head away, her face flushing red.
"Back then it was like... I was drunk, somehow. I hadn't had a drop, but your work kept surfacing in my head until my mind went blank..."
So it had been a kind of accident. No wonder her expression had looked drunk that day. Except what had intoxicated her wasn't alcohol. It was lust.
"Ah... ahaha. So that's what happened. Anyway, I'm fine with it, but there are a few things I'm curious about first."
"Like what?"
"First, I'm most curious why you proposed it to me, of all people."
"Ah. Um..."
Looking embarrassed, Jueun averted her gaze and dipped her head slightly.
"Well, first of all, I'm your fan, and I wanted to be close to you and talk with you a lot more."
Even as she gave her reason, she couldn't hold my gaze.
"A-about the work! Talking about your work!"
She stumbled over the words, flustered.
"But training is one thing—what exactly do you mean by 'make me lewd'?"
"Ah. Um... the truth is, I'm also interested in high-explicitness web photobook shoots."
Ah. I had a rough idea what she meant. Adult web photobooks where the shots tease right at the edge of covering her pussy or her nipples. Occasionally the nipples came out fully exposed, too.
"If it's web photobooks, couldn't you just do them as they are?"
"I could, but looking at the photos, they're right on the edge.. There are even SM-concept ones.."
"There are concept shoots like that these days, yeah."
"But... I'm still clumsy at that sort of thing..."
"So, to sum up: you're asking me to train you to be lewd and get you accustomed to sex, essentially?"
"Th-that's right! I said 'training,' but... in the end, what I'm asking is for you to make me lewd."
"And if real training gets mixed into that, that's acceptable?"
I decided to throw a bit of a fastball.
"Oh...! I-if... if you're okay with that, too.."
Jueun let the sentence trail off. At the very least, she clearly wasn't refusing.
"In that case, I'm in!"
"Oh.. hehe...! Thank you...!"
She offered her thanks, shyly.
"Though that means we'll have to meet often, Jueun."
"Hmm... then how about, to start, you come with me to the event I'm attending? As my manager!"
"Your manager?"
"You wouldn't actually be doing manager work—it's just nominal, so you can get into the booth areas with me."
Let me think for a moment. It might cost me a little time on my manga and erotica, but there was no way I wanted to pass up an opportunity like this. A chance to stay close to my favorite cosplayer?
"I'm in!"
After only the briefest deliberation, I accepted.
"Hehe. Thank you."
I would have to stretch out my serialization schedule for the erotica and the manga.
'Train me to be lewd'...
How was I supposed to go about it? I felt a little lost, and yet excited. Right. All I had to do was make her lewd with my own two hands.
And along with it came the desire to make her subservient to me.