Exposed (1)
Wednesday morning. Somewhere between the tail end of dawn and the start of the day.
As always, it was me and Choi Mari who opened the morning by running laps around the academy track at the crack of dawn.
“Faster, junior! You're slower than you were yesterday!”
“Gah—yes, yes…!!”
Once again, Choi Mari ran beside me with her seemingly inexhaustible stamina, helping me build my endurance.
It was nice that she looked out for me to the point of sacrificing time she could have spent on her own training—but that had nothing to do with how hard it actually was.
Besides, I'd spent four hours yesterday having “private time” with Cha Eunju, so my reserves were running noticeably low. I couldn't exactly admit that outright, so I just played ignorant, threw a self-buff on myself, and kept pounding the track.
“Whew, haah, hoo…”
“One last lap! Once you finish this one, you can rest—so dig those heels in and run!”
“Haaah, hoooo…”
…I'm pretty sure she'd used that exact line to squeeze five more laps out of me at this point.
Back when the “hypnosis training” started last week, I'd been thinking of easing up somewhat this week, worried it might have been a bit much. That plan got canceled on the spot—this was plenty of stimulation already.
Or maybe she was just a little dissatisfied with the “training” I gave her last week and was taking it out on me like this. She's not the type to hold grudges, but it's possible her unconscious mind was dredging it up anyway.
“Gahh, haaah… S-senpai, I really, seriously can't run anymore…”
My body gave out the moment I finished my sixth “final lap,” and I collapsed face-first onto the track. Choi Mari turned back and looked down at me sprawled there.
“You should've run a little more, junior. That really was the last lap.”
“…Gah, th-that's what, hoo, you've said, haah, five times already…”
“Honestly. Did you have that much spare breath to count them all? If you had the brainpower to keep count, you should've been running, junior.”
“………”
…You're really in for it this weekend. I'm going to make you change into a maid outfit and serve me around the clock at my place.
I was busy plotting that when, perhaps worried about me after all, she carefully edged over to my side and sat down on her knees—and a half-melted Chocobar from her pants pocket caught my eye.
“Here, Seonho. Get some calories into you with this.”
“Thank you, Mari-senpai.”
“…Well. It's not like you need to thank me.”
Ever since the monster wave incident, she'd apparently had some kind of realization of her own, because gestures like this—openly showing goodwill—had gotten noticeably more frequent.
Having a conscience would do that to anyone. A woman who could feel nothing after watching someone nearly die and breezily acting like it never happened couldn't possibly be the main heroine of the original story, after all.
Choi Mari has her fair share of problems right now, but the moment romance takes root in her, she becomes the type to protect her man more faithfully than anyone alive. All I had to do was wait patiently until then.
With that thought, I took the mini Chocobar, slightly softened by her body heat, and popped it into my mouth. The lingering warmth made it taste even better, honestly.
“Still, your stamina really has improved compared to before. You used to hobble around like you couldn't even manage 10 kilometers in the morning.”
“Calling someone pathetic for failing a quarter-marathon before breakfast seems like a pretty steep baseline to judge by, don't you think?”
“You're not exactly an ordinary person anymore, Seonho. I saw you fighting just the other day—you were seriously quick. When you took on that Blood Howler at the end, too…”
“…Senpai. We agreed not to bring that up.”
“……Sorry. Right. We did.”
It didn't really warrant going stone-faced over, but I deliberately put on that stiff expression to let her stew in guilt.
If I acted like the incident had left a mark on me, it would serve as an even stronger inhibitor—one that kept Choi Mari from ever treating me carelessly again.
Accumulating guilt points like this in everyday life was also what would make her go along without protest when I eventually pushed her into slightly stranger “training.”
Then, pretending to lighten the mood, I casually steered the conversation toward the weekend.
“Oh, Mari-senpai. Will you have time this weekend, by any chance?”
“…The weekend? Saturday's out, but Sunday should probably work. Why do you ask?”
“If you're up for it, I was thinking we could continue the ‘Impulse Suppression Training' like last time.”
“Oh, that tickl—th-the Impulse Suppression Training, you mean.”
Judging by how she nearly blurted out the contents of the training on reflex, it clearly flustered her quite a bit.
Well, I had told her to play hypnotized and hold back her laughter while I did… things to her. No surprise she was embarrassed.
Still, she probably won't try to wriggle out of it.
She knew better than anyone that nearly getting me killed during a single training session was not something she'd been forgiven for.
And I'd just made a point of mentioning the incident moments ago—she was in an even harder position to refuse now.
“…Fine, whatever. I'll clear Sunday like you asked, Seonho.”
“Thank you, Mari-senpai. Then Sunday, after morning training, let's head to my place together.”
“…Right after training?”
“Since it's the second session, I want to try making it a little longer than last time. Unless you have other plans on Sunday?”
“…No, nothing in particular.”
Of course she didn't. She's too straightforward to lie, and apart from her dorm roommate, Choi Mari doesn't have anyone you could really call a friend—there was no way she had weekend plans.
I finished up my morning workout with Choi Mari, daydreaming about which excuse I'd use this weekend to get her into that maid outfit.
Nothing in this world, of course, ever goes exactly according to plan.
When it came to conquering the heroines of Surviving the Hunter Academy, I preferred to move according to strategies laid out well in advance—but no matter how much of a “character” someone was in the original, here in this world they were a living, breathing human being, same as me.
Which meant unexpected variables were always bound to crop up, no matter how well I knew the original characters' personalities and behavioral patterns.
Overexerting myself during the entrance exam and spending about a week under the church's care, for instance. Or Cha Eunju being conditioned toward the lewd far faster than I'd anticipated.
Fortunately, those unexpected variables had mostly worked in my favor so far… but I couldn't expect every single one of them to. That much was inevitable.
…For example—like the situation unfolding right now.
“I'm baaack~.”
I'd returned to the dormitory without a second thought after wrapping up morning training with Choi Mari.
It was a routine that played out almost every day, so I hadn't imagined it would trigger any special event today. And yet this morning turned out to be even more eventful than most.
“L-Lee Seonho…? Wh-why are you back alr—…”
“………Ah.”
The moment I stepped into the dorm room, what met my eyes was Do Yoonchae—dropping her guard in my absence and changing her clothes right there in the bedroom, completely out in the open.
One glimpse of the compression bandage slipping down between her breasts was enough for me to piece together exactly what situation the two of us were in.
For a girl this careless, what was she thinking, crossdressing and attending the academy?
Do Yoonchae was one thing, but the Cheongun Do Clan bastards who'd disguised her and shipped her off to Cheonmu Academy were colossal idiots too.
Then again, they were a semi-villain faction in the original story, so stupidity was par for the course.
In the original plan, I wasn't going to expose this until early next week… the schedule's slipped a bit.
No helping it, though. It also meant Do Yoonchae had let her guard down around her dormitory roommate—around me—far more than I'd expected.
In the original story, she stayed on high alert for a long time, clashing and bickering with Seo Woojin within the Swordsmanship Department. But no matter how close to the top of our class I'd ranked, I was still in the Combat Support Department.
It was only natural for her to underestimate me a little and relax her guard. Either way, the result was the situation I was now standing in—an unexpected variable, courtesy of her lowered defenses.
“Yoonsung, that thing you're….”
“…W-wait a moment. I can explain everything. Th-that is…”
“………”
“P-please, just give me time to think. G-given the chance, I will think it through properly and explain everything, s-so…”
That head of hers was apparently quite confident in its ability to “think it through and explain.”
Give Do Yoonchae an hour—no, give her a full day—and her brain still couldn't manufacture a plausible excuse. She had neither the smooth cunning nor the silver tongue for it.
So instead of listening to her fumble for a cover story, I turned my body away and spoke in an even tone.
“You don't have to explain anything right now. Just get dressed again first.”
“…E-easily said, but are you planning to contact the academy about this—”
“Get your clothes back on first. Whether you explain or we just talk, you can't do anything while you're standing there like that.”
“…U-understood.”
With that, I heard her hurriedly fumbling with something behind me. The sound of a compression bandage cinching around her chest, fabric brushing against bare skin.
She was moving at a noticeably frantic pace—embarrassed, presumably, at being in the same space as me. Frantic enough that I could hear the bandage snap from her over-tightening it.
Twang!
“Aaahh! D-don't you dare look over here right now, Lee Seonho!!”
“…I won't look, so take your time getting dressed.”
…It stung, having to deliberately ignore a situation that was practically begging me to look.
But before long, I'd be able to see as much of her chest as I pleased—so there was no need to rush things now.
About ten minutes after I'd returned to the dormitory.
Do Yoonchae, having somehow managed to get her clothes back in order, cautiously met my eyes.
“L-Lee Seonho.”
“Mm.”
“…I-I am asking merely to be certain. H-how much, exactly, did you see just now?”
Do Yoonchae sat on the bed across from me, warily searching my face.
Perhaps because she had zero talent for lying or deception, her probing was about as subtle as a sledgehammer.
Even if I told her “I didn't see anything,” she wouldn't believe it for a second. Rather than feeding her paranoia with pointless evasions, honesty served both her and me better.
“Would you rather I tell you straight? Or would you prefer I dress it up politely?”
“…You will tell me honestly.”
“I saw that the bandage thing wrapped around your chest had come undone. …And that what was underneath looked a little too large to be a man's.”
“…S-so it was.”
Do Yoonchae couldn't hide her fluster, shifting her gaze this way and that with a complicated expression as she kept stealing glances at me.
I could roughly guess what was churning through her head.
How to keep me quiet about what I'd just seen. And whether this moment would hand me leverage over her—a weakness she couldn't afford to have.
In the original plan, I was supposed to let her slip up after building a bit more trust first.
Sharing the same space for three weeks or so after enrollment was usually enough to foster at least some human-to-human trust.
But this incident had happened less than two weeks after we'd even met. No matter how gentlemanly I'd been about it, that was a little short for real trust to take root.
It's off-script, but so be it.
If Do Yoonchae's suspicion of me couldn't be dissolved, then the only move was to turn that suspicion against her—to use it, instead.