Detected (3)
Do Yoon-chae's burning gaze followed me straight through Monster Ecology class.
Last week she'd made a point of sitting a little apart from me and Han Sora, but today she was glued to my side, studying every flicker of my expression. Judging by the situation alone, it felt a lot like yesterday, when Kim Isabel and Cha Eunju had clamped my forearms between their breasts on either side of me. ...Granted, there was some discrepancy in cup size.
"Seonho, I missed that last bit of the notes. Can I take a quick look?"
"Sure, here."
"......"
I casually slid my notebook toward Han Sora, and Do Yoon-chae leaned in right along with it, face craning over my page. She hovered so close, so relentlessly, that you'd think I was transmitting some kind of secret code — monitoring my every move like a hawk.
"Yunseong, were you and Seonho always that close?"
"...Wh-what's that supposed to mean?"
"I dunno, you've just been stuck to him all morning..."
"N-no, I haven't. M-must be your imagination."
"...Hmm. Really?"
She was awkward about it, but Han Sora didn't seem to harbor any real suspicion.
Well, the contents might be an airhead, but the packaging is a handsome boy. When you don't know she's actually a girl, a few odd reactions here and there are easy enough to shrug off.
"If you want to see my notes, just ask. You don't have to sneak glances like that — I'll show you."
"Wh-who cares about your grubby little notebook! Th-that's none of my business!"
"Fine, suit yourself."
Not that refusing is easy when I've deliberately handed her a perfect excuse to cling to me openly.
As she persisted in her suspiciously roundabout surveillance, morning classes wrapped up, and after lunch Han Sora and I found ourselves walking in the same direction, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
"Want to run the same training as last time? Or would you rather try it solo with Artemis's Soul?"
"...L-let's do the training from last time. If you lean too hard on buffs, your actual skills never improve."
"Good call. Then let's bump the archer count up a bit — start with eight or so—"
The two of us mapped out the day's training schedule as we made our way toward the Archery Department Training Grounds.
"......"
Do Yoon-chae trailed silently behind us, clearly intending to follow us all the way inside — and Han Sora turned to her with a flicker of puzzlement.
"Yunseong?"
"...Wh-what."
"Do you have business at the Archery Department Training Grounds? It just seems like you've been following me and Seonho around."
"...I-I merely got a little curious! I want to gauge just how good your archery actually is, Han Sora. We need to start preparing for the Teamwork and Strategy assignment soon enough, don't we."
"Hmm, I mean, that tracks..."
Han Sora wore a faintly troubled expression, glancing carefully at me.
Our training involved pressing our bodies flush together, front to back — hardly something she'd want an audience for. If she brought it up herself, it would expose the fact that she'd been faking the hypnosis all along, so she was hoping I'd be the one to say it.
And frankly, if I wanted any private time with Han Sora, Do Yoon-chae's brazen spectating was going to be a problem. So for now, I gently deflected.
"Sorry, Yunseong. Sora's the type who can't concentrate when she feels someone watching her train, so we'll have to skip having an audience today."
"O-oh. Right. For the Teamwork and Strategy prep, let's just do a joint run together next time — with Senior Choi Mari in the mix too."
"...I see. Then I suppose I have no choice."
She showed no signs of digging in her heels. Listening to our excuses, she turned and withdrew with unhurried steps.
She won't give up here, though. This retreat is theater — she'll wait until Han Sora and I are absorbed in training, then slip back in. Her Sword of Shadows is an awakening ability specialized in exactly that: total presence erasure, infiltration, assassination.
Watch all you like. The harder you look now, the more enthusiastically you'll be serving me in the dorm room later.
With that thought — and today's plan to push her conditioning one step further — I stepped into the training lanes alongside Han Sora.
"Alright, let's start with the hypnosis, Sora."
"O-okay. Yeah."
Training with Seonho again after a whole week.
From the palm resting on the crown of my head, a faint trace of mana seeped into my mind.
Hypnosis
This "Hypnosis" buff always makes my heart race a little when I receive it. Even though, in truth, the name is the only part of it that's real — it doesn't actually do anything at all.
But it's thanks to this buff that I have a pretext to cling to Seonho for training. That's probably not what he intended, but hey, it's helping me either way. He corrects my form and movements so precisely that it's genuinely great for building real combat instincts.
Training solo, I can now handle about three goblin archers on my own. ...Though taking on seven at a time like I do when I train with Seonho is still beyond me.
Still, compared to before, I'm improving at a ridiculous pace.
Private coaching from a skilled archer is something I could never dream of affording at home, and I can't exactly ask a professor to spend an entire lecture hovering over just me.
And my form... well, having someone press right up against me and correct it inch by inch, the way Seonho does, is simply the most effective method there is.
I can't train like this with anyone but Seonho, so it can't be helped.
It's not like I mind, either.
Because really — if I didn't cling to him like this, would that Lee Seonho ever even see me as a woman? His eyes would just drift to the big chests, like Eunju's or Isabel's.
When I think about how those two treat wedging his forearm between their breasts like it's the most natural thing in the world, what Seonho and I do honestly doesn't even qualify as skinship.
It's not like he outright gropes my chest or anything. ...Okay, fine, last time I somehow ended up getting grabbed anyway, but still.
Speaking of which, that thing from last time... is he going to do it again today?
Not that I particularly care either way — I'd just feel bad if Seonho suffered for it. After all, if you roll around for hours with your body pressed against a pretty girl like me, it's only natural that his... lower half would react, right?
I looked it up online, and apparently if a guy doesn't get hard he's a eunuch. It's an unavoidable physiological response for men, so I should be understanding about it.
...Besides, compared to the training Seonho is putting himself through for my sake, it's nothing. I can just think of it as tuition. And it's not like anyone else is watching — as long as Seonho and I keep it quiet between us, no harm done.
"We'll start with seven goblin archers, same as where we left off. Let's shake the rust off and build up from there."
"...Okay. Got it."
I deliberately faked being hypnotized and answered a beat late, and before long the holographic monsters materialized against a backdrop of forest.
And then Seonho naturally pressed up behind my back, his arms wrapping around me from behind — and a faint, fluttering tension ran through me.
My heartbeat... there's no way he can hear it, right?
We've already seen each other's... everything, so getting flustered over this now would be a little ridiculous... but embarrassing is embarrassing, okay?
Evade Firing — incoming arrows!
Guh—?! Focus. Right now, focus on the training and shake it off. Yeah.
After a week apart, the warmth of Han Sora's body against mine again.
Today, just as before, the two of us pressed together front to back, weaving through the arrows loosed by holographic goblin archers in our ongoing evasion fire drill.
Piiiiing! Thunk!
Geh-heeehk...!!
"Three steps right! Reload while you move!"
"Okay!"
At my command, Han Sora frantically worked her arms through her fifth reload.
Seen only up to this point, it looked no different from our usual session — except that today, our training had an audience of exactly one.
Roughly thirty minutes after the session began, Do Yoon-chae had slipped inside and taken up a corner of the training grounds, concealing her presence entirely as she observed us.
Her ability to hide her presence really is something else.
I'd been on guard the entire time, and I still couldn't pinpoint the moment she'd entered. I'd only caught her because I swept the room around the thirty-minute mark, on the hunch that she'd be sneaking in around then.
Fortunately, I turned my gaze away smoothly, without any telltale reaction, so Do Yoon-chae didn't seem to realize she'd been spotted. Or maybe she knew and had simply decided I was tacitly permitting it — in which case she'd stay put.
Thuuunk!
"Haah, nnnghh...!!"
"Nice! Only four more!"
"O-okay...!!"
At the very least, she hadn't been caught by Han Sora, so you could call the infiltration half a success. And even if she were discovered — with Han Sora playing hypnotized, she couldn't exactly say anything, could she.
More importantly, Han Sora had no spare attention to spare on whether anyone was watching. Her body, wound tight for quite a while now, was steadily approaching its limit.
"Break left while reloading! And after that—"
Clatter.
"Ah......!"
Five goblin archers down, four remaining — and that was when the fatal mistake happened.
Judging this the perfect moment, I deliberately threw her off balance, dragging her down to the floor with my whole body wrapped around her from behind.
WHUMP!
"U-uhn?! "
"Forget the arrow you dropped — get down!"
"Y-yeah!"
All a "mistake." Tumbling to the mat, I seized both her breasts hard, one in each hand, as I pulled her into a crouch.
Han Sora, for her part, seemed drained enough that her posture collapsed without resistance.
About time she started wearing out. That was only her third run of the evasion drill.
Unlike me, whose role was simply moving my body, Han Sora had to reload, cycle her mana, and shoot all while dodging — her fatigue was easily triple mine.
Given our relative baseline stamina, the load was probably about even. But there was another reason she was struggling to concentrate.
My "equipment," which for some time now had been deliberately rubbing along the crease of her backside.
Ever since she'd registered how conspicuously harder it had gotten compared to when the session started, her mistakes had multiplied noticeably.
Even from behind, I could see the flush spreading across her cheeks and the tips of her ears. In her head, no doubt, she was already replaying every way our bodies had touched during last week's training.
"Up again, Han Sora! Get your stance!"
Squish.
"Uhn, nngh?!"
"Han Sora, why aren't you getting—"
Squish, squish!
"Uwaaah! S-sorry!!"
Same as last time, I tore my hands away from the breasts I'd "accidentally" grabbed and scrambled off her.
Before she could shake off her flustered panic, two holographic arrows slammed into Han Sora's frozen body as if impaling her where she sat.
Lethal wound registered.
Training terminated.
"Haah... huu... haaah..."
Collapsed on the floor, Han Sora panted hard — whether from the exhaustion of training, or from the lingering aftershock of what had just been touched, I couldn't say.
I stepped in front of her and, deliberately averting my eyes as if embarrassed, asked carefully,
"S-sorry...! I-I moved too fast back there, and it was an accident—"
"N-no, i-it's fine. I-I'm hypnotized anyway, so it d-doesn't really bother me or anything."
"...You did seem to lose focus partway through, though. If you're worn out, maybe we should start winding down?"
"......"
"...Or, i-is it because of this? It k-kept getting in the way, like last time...?"
When she stared at my lower half in silence, I gestured at it with a feigned start.
"......Yeah. Y-your, um... your thing has been, k-kind of brushing against me this whole time, s-so it was a little hard to focus."
Perhaps because she'd been through it once already, Han Sora's answer came out just a little more honest than it had last time.