The Secret Library (2)
Cha Eunju followed behind Lee Seonho with careful steps, like a duckling trailing after its mother.
One hand pressed against her pounding heart as she imagined the skinship they would finally be sharing after so long.
-Ba-dump. Ba-dump.
'H-hypnosis training…. A-after so long with Seonho….'
It wasn't hypnosis training, of course. It was something lewd. And not just any lewd thing, either — it was full-blown sex.
Cha Eunju knew perfectly well that he was hypnotizing her and defiling her body, and yet she still went along with his so-called hypnosis training all the same.
To be precise, she didn't refuse because she was actually looking forward to his hypnosis training just as much as he was.
It was a little disappointing that it wouldn't be at Seonho's place, where she'd had her first experience, but there was nothing to be done about it. Within the academy, where leaving campus was forbidden on weekdays, that much had to be accepted as a given.
…And besides, going by what Seonho had told her before, quite a bit would probably have built up by now anyway.
'Even in a two-person room, masturbating alone at the dorm would be too embarrassing….'
She'd been under a little stress about that exact problem lately, too. It had already been three days since she moved into the dormitory, and in all that time she hadn't had a single chance to relieve her urges on her own.
Han Sora, her roommate, was a reasonably close friend, but they weren't close enough for her to ask permission to masturbate in the same room. Honestly, she doubted it was the kind of thing that would ever be possible with anyone, no matter how close.
If she, a woman, felt this pent-up, then Seonho, a man, had to have it even worse. Which was exactly why just being able to slip away somewhere alone with him during their free period was wonderful in itself.
No — truthfully, even if it weren't for the hypnosis training, just being alone with Seonho was enough to make her happy. Or even just knowing that Seonho wasn't meeting some other woman.
Because lately, Cha Eunju had been noticing more and more often the way Kim Isabel would oddly flutter around him right in front of her eyes, lover or not.
'That's right. I have to work even harder.'
Combat-type ability users were so abundant among hunters that they were practically a dime a dozen. Her position in the magic division — relatively rare even among combat types — was still no guarantee of security.
Recovery-type ability users, on the other hand, were always in short supply — the kind of position every party fought over.
If she wanted to stay by his side after graduating from the academy and working as a hunter, she had to try even harder. Only then would Seonho acknowledge her ability and choose her.
…And, being Cha Eunju — an otaku who had accumulated her fair share of rather indecent knowledge from subculture — she also wanted to showcase her 'other' talents as well.
"Ah, this door opens. Shall we take a look inside, Eunju?"
"Y-yeah…."
And so, without the slightest resistance, Cha Eunju followed Lee Seonho into the dilapidated Old Library.
-Creeeak.
"……."
"……."
Even though I'd brought her to the Old Library on the outskirts of the academy without a word of explanation, Cha Eunju simply trailed after me in silence, walking with careful little steps.
The way she glanced around, face flushed red as she nervously took in her surroundings, was honestly adorable.
She was probably thinking about nothing but where and how she'd be having sex with me right about now. I had spent a whole month training her that way, after all.
Stepping into the building stuffed with old bookshelves and desks, I nonchalantly murmured, as quietly as if I'd never set foot in this place before, "There are a lot of old bookshelves in here. Is this a library?"
"M-maybe it's one of those buildings they used as a library back in the day…? The central library next to the student council building is a brand-new structure, so…. Maybe this is where the library was before that…."
"Probably. Sounds like you're right, Eunju."
I knew, of course. An event set in the Old Library appeared once even in the original story.
From the very beginning, my plan upon entering the academy had been to secure a private meeting spot for each of the heroines, and the place I'd had in mind for my trysts with Cha Eunju was none other than this Old Library.
It wasn't a completely closed space, but neither was it fully exposed — a spot with just the right degree of openness, enough of a thrill to savor without going overboard. If I wanted to accustom her to bolder exhibitionism, this was without question the most fitting place for it.
'It's a location closely tied to Cha Eunju in the original story, too.'
After all, this was where she'd hidden after stealing Han Sora's underwear on Lee Seonho's orders and being chased down by the protagonist's party in the source material.
Even now, she'd come here because of Lee Seonho — so in that sense, not much had changed. Though the process itself couldn't have been more different.
Spotting a book abandoned beneath one of the shelves, I crouched down to check the title. It read Monster Ecology, Revised Edition 2000 — a textbook published roughly twenty or thirty years before the setting of Surviving the Hunter Academy.
The place did seem to be cleaned regularly — there wasn't any noticeable dust — but the fact that something like this had been left to rot under a bookshelf meant no one was actually managing the collection. Considering when this book would have last been used as a textbook, it had probably been about twenty years, give or take.
Reasonably clean, with nobody watching. For a man and woman to sneak away and meet in private, there could be no better space.
"It doesn't look like people come through here, at least. Shall we start here, Eunju?"
"H-here…? B-but someone could still walk in, you know…."
"Well, seeing things abandoned like this, I don't think anyone's maintaining the place. …Though who knows — maybe someone who needs a private space, like us, might wander in someday."
"…W-wouldn't that be bad, though…?"
"Why? It's just 'hypnosis training.' We're not doing anything strange."
"……."
Look at that face, all red and flustered. Adorable.
She meant she didn't want to enjoy sex that was risky to this degree just yet, probably. Perfectly understandable.
There was no need to force her into something she disliked just to tame her. That sort of thing was better reserved for Min Yewon and the other bitches — that was more than enough.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy training my pets, but I'm not the type to bring out the whip to break in a smart pet who already knows that good behavior earns her a carrot.
"Or — I noticed earlier there's a structure over there that looks like it leads into some kind of reading room. That room probably has a lock on the inside."
"…Th-then let's go check it out first. Y-you never know…."
"Right. You never know."
When the most dangerous person in the building wasn't some stranger but the man standing right beside her, Cha Eunju nonetheless walked deeper into the enclosed space with me of her own accord.
After following her into the inner reading room, I immediately locked the door behind us. Just as Cha Eunju wanted — so that absolutely no one could find us.
-Click.
"Hyaaah?!"
"What are you so startled about? I just locked the door. Had to check whether it actually latches properly."
"O-oh, I see…. S-seems like it locks fine…."
"Nobody's getting in here, that's for sure. The windows face the wall too, so there's no chance of anyone seeing in from outside."
"Y-yeah…."
"If you're still nervous, we could try somewhere else. There seemed to be an upper floor, too, from what I saw earlier."
"N-no, it's fine…. I-this is more than enough…."
Truth be told, her expression didn't look completely at ease even now, but she was apparently settling for a reasonable compromise. After all, if she made a fuss and we wasted time moving locations only for the 'hypnosis training' itself to fizzle out, she'd be the one losing out.
It had only been about two weeks since I last gave it to her, and she was already this eager. Adorable, really. If I had my way, I'd summon her to my room every single day and pound her full of cock.
'Maybe it's about time I start her training without the Suggestion.'
Coming up with the hypnosis training excuse every single time was getting tedious, and by now the groundwork seemed thoroughly laid.
Her act of pretending to fall under hypnosis did it for me, sure — but if I relied on it exclusively, I couldn't grope her freely in everyday life.
If I wanted to casually knead her breasts inside the academy without any hypnosis, or sneak a handful of her ass behind the others' backs whenever the mood struck, I needed to raise our baseline level of skinship, too.
"Ah, Eunju. Would you like to try training a slightly different way today?"
"Uh, huh…? A d-different way…?"
"Instead of hypnotizing you and training you like usual, from today on we'll be adding other training on top of that. Relying too heavily on buffs might mean your actual results fall short, after all."
"I-I see…. B-but then, what's this other training…?"
"Well, you started training with me in the first place to fix your timid personality, right? So the idea is to act a little bolder than usual."
"…A little bolder?"
"For example… ah, we've got an empty reading room all to ourselves — how about stripping down completely and owning it?"
"…Wh-what…?! S-strip…?!"
"Yeah. Nobody can see you here anyway."
Once in a while, she needed to get used to doing it without pretending to be hypnotized.
She was the fastest of all my pets to tame, after all — she couldn't spend the rest of her life buried in her act.
Lee Seonho's suggestion: to fix her timid personality, why not try undressing in an empty reading room where no one could see her?
On the surface, it sounded bizarre enough to be downright insane — and yet Cha Eunju felt a faint flutter in her chest at his words.
Because for the first time, from the mouth of a man who had only ever proposed lewd things while under 'hypnosis,' came a lewd invitation that required no hypnosis at all.
'…Was that a serious suggestion? Or….'
The truth was, she wanted it too, at least a little.
Ever since the two times she'd been with Lee Seonho, it hadn't been just once or twice that his face would drift into her mind and she'd find herself seized by desire, touching herself.
Yet no matter how much the longing piled up, Cha Eunju ached inside because she could never bring herself to make the first move. The fact that she and Lee Seonho did 'lewd things' under the pretense of 'hypnosis training' was a secret only the two of them knew.
'But… if Seonho got used to doing lewd things with the normal me, too….'
Then she would be able to carefully make the suggestion herself whenever she wanted. Of course, if she asked too often he might find her bothersome, so it would have to be only once in a great while.
As for experience, she had plenty by now — they'd already been together twice, and she'd done everything from fellatio to paizuri.
All she had to do was take what she'd been doing while 'pretending to be hypnotized' and drag it into 'reality.'
If it worked, she'd never have to put on that awkward act of falling under hypnosis again, and she'd never have to pretend afterward that nothing had happened between them.
…All those feelings she'd shared in the process of making love to him — she could share them with him fully, as he was in everyday life.
-Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Ba-dump.
Feelings she had never been able to tell anyone — feelings she hadn't even dared to show Seonho, locked away where only she could see them.
At the thought that she might finally be able to share them, Cha Eunju's heart began to race like mad.
Because love, in the end, was never something done alone. It was something two people did together.
At the thought that their secret relationship, hidden all this time beneath the hypnosis, might for the first time be officially acknowledged — she trembled with excitement.
"Ah, is it too much for you? We could just do the usual 'hypnosis training' instead, if you'd rather."
"N-no…! I'll do it…!"
"…Are you sure, Eunju?"
"Y-yeah…! I-I can do it…!"
Even without any hypnosis, she could give him anything he wanted.
…That feeling, at the very least, she wanted him to understand.