Basic Self-Defense (1)
The Cheonmu Academy Church was busiest on the weekends.
On weekdays, the congregation was tied up with academy life, so they could only attend regular services on their days off—and most of the events the church hosted were held on weekends as well.
Cleaning the chapel from the early hours before the sun had even risen, eating breakfast only after dawn service ended, and then seeing off five or six more services of at least an hour each—the weekend schedule only truly ended when all of that was done.
It was a grueling itinerary that would leave an ordinary person thoroughly exhausted, but for Kim Isabel, who had given herself to the church before she'd even finished elementary school, it didn't feel like much of a burden at all.
She simply saw it as the natural duty she had to perform in order to remain where she belonged.
…If anything, it was someone else entirely who had recently been keeping her awake at night with worry.
"Good night, Sister Kim Isabel."
"…Yes. Have a good night as well, Sister Yoon Selena."
A certain man appeared and vanished in her thoughts several times a day. Lee Seonho.
-Click.
"…Whew."
Kim Isabel had finally returned to her private space after finishing the exhausting weekend schedule.
During the busy hours his face hadn't surfaced even once, but the moment she was alone, it began swirling through her mind all over again.
"Seonho…."
The short date they'd gone on outside the academy. And the private training that had continued afterward at his home.
Nearly ten days had passed since that day, and she still couldn't forget the 'strange feeling' she'd experienced for the very first time. If anything, as the days went by, her imagination only added to it, making the memory burn ever more vividly.
'The touch of Seonho's hands that I felt that day… it definitely felt good.'
Kim Isabel knew perfectly well, too. She knew that what she'd done that day—offering her chest to Lee Seonho—was a shameful act between a man and a woman.
She knew that in the heat of the moment she'd let slip the words that she deserved to be touched as well, and that looking back, those were words a girl should never have said.
Of course, it had been an unavoidable choice, if only to make up for that 'small mistake' she had committed.
She had gone and placed her hand on a shameful place of his that he hadn't permitted—so naturally, she too had to grant him access to her own shameful places.
By the time she'd actually parted from him, she'd been so mortified she couldn't get out from under her blankets all day… but once that first wave of embarrassment had washed over her and passed, the only thing left in Kim Isabel's head was the desire to feel that sensation from that moment all over again.
'What exactly was that feeling I got from Seonho's touch that day? I know for certain it was an incredibly pleasant sensation, but….'
Because of her childhood trauma, Kim Isabel had lived her whole life deliberately suppressing any exploration of sexual knowledge.
Naturally, she lacked even basic knowledge about a woman's 'orgasm,' and she still didn't understand that what she'd felt that day was, in fact, 'a lewd feeling.'
But she reasoned that something 'pleasant' couldn't be a bad thing, and so she found herself naturally looking forward to her next training session with Lee Seonho.
…Of course, she did understand that what had happened that day—having her chest touched by a man, and groping his—was itself a shameful act.
'I know that as someone who serves the divine, I shouldn't be doing such things. And yet….'
Because she had an 'indulgence' that made such acts permissible for her.
There was her condition—'androphobia'—that had tormented Kim Isabel since childhood. In order to overcome that fear of men, training with Lee Seonho was essential.
And so, she rationalized it to herself: everything that happened in the course of that training was simply 'something that had to be done.'
The temptation was simply too intense to keep refusing on the grounds that a servant of God should not do such things.
'It'll probably be fine. The androphobia training I've done with Seonho is something we've already been through several times.'
That training, which she had done with him so many times since his stay at the academy church—there was no way it could be improper.
Above all, Lee Seonho was, in her estimation, the only man she could trust to be safe, and he was someone who used a mental-type buff that helped treat her phobia.
And thanks to those many sessions of training, even the awkwardness that had marked their relationship at the start had softened considerably.
…Other men besides Lee Seonho were still unfamiliar to her, but that, too, was surely something time would solve.
'…Come to think of it, tomorrow is the day of that class I take alone with Seonho.'
'Basic Self-Defense'—a training course for students who weren't physical-enhancement ability users.
Originally, Cha Eunju was supposed to be taking the same lecture alongside her and Seonho, but thanks to her failed course registration, it had become a class for just the two of them.
With Cha Eunju—whom she secretly thought of as her 'rival'—out of the picture, they could attend the lecture together, just the two of them. For Kim Isabel, who normally had no chances to be alone with him, it was an opportunity she couldn't pass up.
'I'm not sure whether it would be all right for me to bring up the androphobia training to Seonho first. But I still haven't completely gotten used to being around men, after all.'
If only to cure her condition completely, there was a need to undergo that training again.
It wasn't as if she wanted to feel that sensation from that moment again or anything like that. She couldn't say it was completely not that, but at least her resolve to overcome the androphobia itself was the stronger motivation. …For now.
'But, well… if we do train again, will Seonho touch my chest like last time? I touch his body regularly too, so even just for the sake of getting used to physical contact with a man, it would be best to resume that training as it was….'
Without even realizing she was entertaining lewd fantasies, Kim Isabel flushed secretly to herself as she imagined the training she would receive from Lee Seonho.
Weekdays are long, and weekends are short.
That's treated as gospel truth by every student and office worker, but it didn't apply to me. Lately I've been so swamped with one thing after another that neither weekdays nor weekends felt long at all.
This week had practically flown by, most of it spent making progress with Choi Marie. And on top of an already packed schedule, I had to look after Im Yujin and Ma Nayeon of the treasure ch— er, exploration club, too.
'Even if Im Yujin has to take a bit of a backseat, I want to secure Ma Nayeon for certain.'
Setting everything else aside, Ma Nayeon is a heroine of the 'original work.' True, she was a character who joined to fill out the 'Combat Support' position right around the time things fell apart between Lee Seonho and the protagonist—but a heroine is a heroine regardless.
Ma Nayeon fell squarely within my goal of conquering every heroine from the original story, so of course I had to prioritize her over Im Yujin, who'd merely been a side character.
Naturally, if I could win Im Yujin over in the process, all the better. She had a charm entirely different from every heroine I'd conquered so far, after all.
'Honestly, on a purely personal level, Im Yujin appeals to me more than Ma Nayeon does.'
The kuudere type and the demure type were positions already covered by Choi Marie and Cha Eunju.
Of course, Ma Nayeon had her own distinct flavor, so I couldn't call them identical—but I couldn't help the impression forming all the same.
'Well, for now, just coordinating schedules with the heroines is keeping me busy enough.'
As of now, my firmly locked-in heroine schedule had three entries. Tuesdays for Cha Eunju, Wednesdays for Han Sora, and one day of the weekend reserved for Choi Marie's 'training.'
Fridays would generally be for showing my face at the club room, and Thursdays I'd invest as much time as possible in Do Yoonchae or Park Hana.
At this rate, I really only had about two days a week left to use freely. And one of those was about to be filled by a new commitment.
The 'Basic Self-Defense' lecture, scheduled so that I'd be taking it alone with Kim Isabel. Since it was the one class where I had her entirely to myself, I planned to set aside Mondays for her.
After all, the 'androphobia training' that had already progressed as far as my hands on her chest was due for its next step.
'In this round of training, at the absolute minimum, I need to make undressing in front of me feel like a matter of course.'
Any excuse I'd prepared would do. That getting accustomed to men required growing accustomed to their gazes as well; that touching skin directly was a faster way to adjust to physical contact with men than touching through clothes; or that I'd undress too and teach her about the male body, so we'd do it fairly, showing each other in turn.
Besides, aside from Cha Eunju, Kim Isabel was the heroine whose training had progressed the furthest, so there was a strong chance she'd meekly go along with whatever I said. In the original novel, Kim Isabel had never been a particularly assertive character anyway.
Having sorted out the day's plan in my head, I got up from bed—and there was Do Yoonchae, still dead to the world, blissfully unaware of it.
"Kuuul… kool… kuuuul…."
During our first week she'd made a point of going to sleep after me and getting up before me, but as soon as the weekend passed, it was as if all her tension had suddenly evaporated—there she was, sprawled across her bed even with morning upon us.
Presumably my absence from the dorm over the weekend had let her guard down completely. She'd had to sleep with her chest bound in bandages every single day up until now, so it must have been suffocating.
Since she'd saddled herself with a self-imposed 'poor condition' debuff to hide the fact that she was a woman, if this kept up long-term it was bound to start affecting her studies too.
'Once enough trust has built up, I'll engineer things so that the fact she was a woman all along comes out naturally.'
After that, I'd tell her I'd protect her secret and start working on her affection. At the very least, I'd make sure that within these dorm walls, Do Yoonchae came to see this room as 'a space where she could let her guard down.'
The inconvenience of sharing a room with the opposite sex would remain, but simply being able to stop concealing the fact that she was a 'woman' would transform her sense of psychological security entirely.
Besides, once her secret was out, trust and affection would have no choice but to keep accumulating even if I did nothing at all. Just by keeping her secret for her, Do Yoonchae would be unable to help feeling gratitude and a sense of debt toward me.
That sweet fruit still needed a little more time to ripen, so for now I simply treated her with studied composure, as nothing more than 'my male dormmate.'
"Yoonsung, it's already morning. You're not getting up?"
"…Nnngh. Wh-what…?"
"It's morning already. Were you busy over the weekend? You're always up before me, but you look tired today."
"Haaaah. Pointless prattle…. I will manage my own condition as I see fit. You need not concern yourself…."
-Swish.
"……."
As Do Yoonchae sat up with a yawn, the blanket covering her slid quietly downward, and with it, her upper body in its pajamas came into view.
…Along with curves that were distinctly abnormal for someone claiming to be a man, and a bit of compression bandage that had slipped loose beneath the fabric.
'Seo Woojin really is a goddamn idiot, spending nearly a year around a sloppy mess like that and never once noticing she's a woman.'
Of course, since I was working on conquering Do Yoonchae myself, for now I had no choice but to play 'didn't see a thing.'
Before she could even realize her bandages had come loose mid-yawn, I quickly turned my eyes away and pretended to change clothes, digging through the luggage in my carrier instead.
"Right, anyway—hurry up and get dressed, and let's go grab some breakfast."
"Hmph. As I have said, my schedule is hardly beholden to the opinions of Lee Seonh… hmm?"
Judging by the reaction I felt at my back, she'd probably just noticed.
To give Do Yoonchae enough time to pull herself together, I kept my gaze fixed in the opposite direction from her bed and carried on the conversation as naturally as I could.
"What, not eating breakfast? Don't just laze around in bed because you don't have first period. At the very least, breakfast…"
"I-I must use the restroom urgently! I shall step out for a moment! N-not that it needs saying, but you are absolutely forbidden from peeking, Lee Seonho!!"
"Who'd peep at another guy taking a leak…"
-Creeeak, SLAM!
"…Whew. Honestly."
Really, pretending not to know is exhausting. I'm worn out.
At this rate, I'll have to get her to drop that laughably transparent disguise sooner rather than later.