Am I Being Fucked Without Knowing? (1)
4.
“·········.”
I stared at the characters floating above my head in the mirror, lost in thought.
The number went up.
Which meant that after I’d fallen asleep last night, Seoyeon had done something to me again.
But there was one thing I still couldn’t make sense of.
Why did the text above my head claim I’d had sex sixty-four times, when I was still a virgin?
Maybe what I thought I knew was wrong.
Maybe the number “1” actually means something else······
······No way. Just looking at Dongjun and Kyeongho, it’s obvious.
Then maybe this “Experience Count” didn’t strictly mean full-on sex.
If it covered every kind of sexual act — things like a handjob, for instance······
Seoyeon······ did that to me? While I was asleep?
That would explain it.
And it still wasn’t too late to stop this.
What she’d done was already wrong enough — but Seoyeon hadn’t crossed the final line.
There was still time to put things right between us. To undo this.
Yesterday I’d been so exhausted that sleep had hit me like a truck before I could say anything. But when Seoyeon came over later, I was going to have a proper talk with her.
I left the bathroom, flopped onto the bed, and glanced at my phone. A string of texts was waiting.
“·········Is this guy insane?”
Just yesterday, sitting across from me, he’d been badmouthing Seoyeon nonstop — saying she was terrifying, that the rumors didn’t even do her justice. And now, overnight, it was like he’d eaten something weird.
Something felt off. I opened my call history to dial Dongjun — and froze when I saw the log of a call with him from last night.
······No way.
I hurriedly called him back.
“Y-yeah, Hajun? What’s up.”
“Hey. Tell me the truth.”
“Huh? About what? I told you, it was all a joke — you actually believed that shit, you dumbass?!”
“Seoyeon called you yesterday, didn’t she.”
“············.”
The sudden silence told me everything I needed to know. My hunch had been right.
“Hajun.”
“Yeah.”
“I want to live a long life.”
“What?”
Dongjun’s completely random remark left me blinking in confusion.
“I mean it. I want to live a long, long time. Until I’m so old I’m smearing shit on the walls.”
“What the hell are you even talking about. Speak like a normal person.”
“I’m sorry, Hajun. We’ve been friends since high school, years now — but let’s not see each other for a while.”
“What?”
“Please······ next time, let’s meet again alive, buddy······.”
“Hey, hey! At least explain what the hell you’re—”
—click.
The call cut off with Dongjun’s one-sided farewell.
I stared blankly down at the dead phone in my hand.
What the hell is going on······.
He hadn’t given me any details, but there had been real fear in his voice.
Just what had Seoyeon said to him last night to leave Dongjun this terrified?
What was the real Seoyeon — the one I didn’t know — actually like······?
“So then··· Rina, when was your first time?”
“What?! M-my first time···?”
“Oh! That reaction — don’t tell me···?”
“I-I don’t, I don’t know about that kind of thing······.”
No matter how hard I thought about it, I couldn’t find an answer. So I’d come out to the living room to clear my head and put on the TV.
At first I’d just wanted to sort my thoughts — empty out the mess in my skull — but something about this was repulsive.
“Give me a break···. Twenty-one guys have been through her and she’s acting like······.”
It had never even occurred to me that the floating text would show up above the heads of people on television, too.
XX Fantasy — true to its reputation as a no-holds-barred show, the hosts’ questions were brutally blunt.
One of the girl-group idols on as a guest had gone bright red, squirming in her seat with a face that screamed I don’t know anything about that.
But I could see it.
The number of men who’d been through her could fill a truck.
“And what about you, Taehoon?”
“Ugh. I don’t know anything about that stuff! I spent my whole school life studying, and from the day I became a trainee until now I’ve never even had time to meet a girl.”
“Oh, sure. You were too busy meeting thirty-seven of them to practice, right.”
The male idol who lived off his model-student image was even worse.
It felt like I’d gotten a peek behind the masks of people who’d been living a lie.
I turned away from the TV, picked up my phone, and opened a livestream app.
If celebrities were like that, what about streamers?
“Oh my~ Our Hunter oppa just sent ten thousand superchats! Huh? Dinner? Oh my! I’m not that kind of easy girl, you know!”
Above the head of the woman saying that on my phone screen, the number 87 was floating.
“·········.”
Celebrities or streamers — it didn’t make much difference.
No, if anything, the streamers were worse.
Most of them were showing numbers north of fifty.
But even among them, a few stood out as special.
“Hmm? Juji? I have no idea what that word even means~”
What were they calling these people these days······.
VTubers, was it?
The ones who put a 3D character on screen and streamed like that — no numbers appeared above their heads.
Which made sense, I supposed.
If a number showed up over a 3D model that wasn’t even a real person, that would be its own kind of problem.
But maybe I’d just seen too much two-facedness today.
I had a feeling the VTubers weren’t any different.
They were probably out there playing innocent, fooling people, while doing god-knows-what behind the scenes.
“Anyway! That’s it for today’s stream! I’m signing off! Bye-byeee!”
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.
“Hajuuun! I’m home!”
Right as the stream cut out, Seoyeon threw open the front door and came bounding in.
The sight of her skipping toward me with that pure, carefree smile only made the disconnect feel sharper.
The fear I’d heard in Dongjun’s voice was still fresh in my mind.
“Seoyeon. We got cut off yesterday. Come sit down first.”
“Huh? Oh. Can we do that later? I’m starving right now······.”
“We’ll eat after we ta—”
—grrrroowl.
I’d been answering firmly, determined not to let her dodge the conversation — when my own stomach let out a loud rumble.
Come to think of it, I hadn’t eaten a single thing today.
Seoyeon, who’d been rubbing her own stomach with a pout, broke into a sly little grin at the sound and looked up at me.
“·········So we eat first, then talk?”
“···Yeah! Hehe.”
“·········.”
Sitting across from Seoyeon at the table, I kept sneaking glances at her while we ate.
No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t picture it.
This pretty, kind Seoyeon······ doing that?
If anything, looking at her only made the weird thoughts worse.
If my theory was right, Experience Count clearly didn’t just mean sex — it counted every kind of sexual act.
So then······ was kissing a sexual act too?
If it was, then those red lips of hers······
“······? Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Huh? N-no reason.”
“·········.”
She’d clearly noticed me glancing at her over and over. Her puzzled expression shifted into something a little strange around the eyes.
Anyway······. It was late to be realizing this, but she really was beautiful.
Up until now, Seoyeon and I had gone past childhood friends into something more like family, so I’d never really thought about it. But those damn floating characters above her head, plus everything Dongjun had said, kept filling my mind with weird ideas.
I hadn’t known it, but all this time Seoyeon had liked me.
So if I started dating her for real······
Sex with Seoyeon······?
—shake! shake!
“·········?”
Seoyeon stared at me like I’d lost it as I suddenly started whipping my head back and forth mid-bite.
I must have gone temporarily insane.
Seoyeon’s family. Family! What the hell am I thinking!
Even if I’d been starving for a woman all this time, having these kinds of thoughts about Seoyeon was wrong.
And what Seoyeon had been doing to me without my knowledge was wrong, too.
Today, I was going to set everything straight.
“You’re done eating, right? We need to ta—”
“No! There’s still more!”
I’d finished my food in silence, steeled myself, and was just about to bring it up — when Seoyeon shot up from her seat and came back with something in her hands.
“Here! Drink this!”
“I had this yesterd—”
“No! Mom said you have to take one every single day!”
Once again, Seoyeon held out a cup of what looked like some kind of black herbal tonic.
This stuff is seriously bitter······.
I didn’t remember yesterday all that clearly, but I definitely remembered how insanely bitter this was.
“Ahem!”
“·········.”
Hands on her hips, glaring at me just like a mom — I had no choice. I sighed and downed the whole thing in one go.
“Ugh···!”
“If you’re done, go sit in the living room! I’ll clean up and come over!”
At her words, I got up, walked over, and dropped onto the sofa.
How was I supposed to even bring this up with her?
“What the hell did you do to me!” feels wrong······. “How could you do that to me!” also feels wrong······.
Seoyeon, I know what you’ve been doing to me. Never do it again?
But the more I thought about it, the more I wondered if I even needed to······
As the worry deepened, my eyes started drifting shut on their own.
No······ I have to talk to her today······.
Through my closing eyelids, I could see Seoyeon coming out into the living room.
There was a strange little smile on her face.
The next day.
65
“·········You have got to be fucking kidding me!”