Negotiation (2)
I fell asleep leaving a suitable amount of doubt in Do Yoonchae's mind, and the next morning when I woke up, the scene that greeted my eyes was Do Yoonchae standing before me — in a room otherwise identical to every other morning, in a form that was unmistakably, categorically not.
"Haah, mmngh…."
"…You're awake."
"Yes, Yoonseong. Did you sleep well too—"
"……."
"Ah, ah…."
The sight that hit me the instant I opened my eyes nearly threw even me off balance for a moment. Sure, I had dangled the bait, but I hadn't expected her to come out this brazenly.
Do Yoonchae, standing there with her upper half completely bare, not even a pajama top draped over her shoulders.
That absurd performance — face flushed crimson while pretending nothing was out of the ordinary — almost pulled a genuine reaction out of me instead of the act.
"Wh-what are you doing, Yoonseong! I-I only said that if you were a girl, you might want some privacy…."
"Hmph. Just as I suspected. You're lecherous after all. Did you think I wouldn't grasp the true intent behind your words?"
"…What?"
"You told me to make myself comfortable inside the dormitory, did you not. That instruction meant you wanted me to bare my chest in our room — I have already deduced as much."
"……."
"You phrased it so roundabout precisely to avoid being caught on a technicality. And had I failed to understand, you would no doubt have used it as leverage to make some other demand later. I know how your kind operates."
Well, thank you very much. Truly, for behaving exactly the way I wanted Do Yoonchae to behave.
In a sense, her prediction was accurate. I had assumed that if I spoke that cryptically, she would inevitably interpret it however she wanted to believe.
The only thing she likely failed to anticipate was that this was precisely the development I had been hoping for.
As long as she didn't realize that my true goal was to create a crossdressing classmate who would casually, comfortably keep her chest on display while sharing a dorm room with me, it didn't particularly matter how she misconstrued the rest.
'Granted, "casually" might be a stretch, given how red her face is today too.'
Later on, it might be fun to layer a "gender inversion" suggestion on her and simply watch what happens. I'd grown a little curious to see her stripping down in front of me with total nonchalance, as if it were the most natural thing in the world — not just this blushing, squirming display.
Of course, if I did use it, only inside the dormitory. If she carelessly bared that chest in the men's changing room, it would be an unmitigated catastrophe.
And so I continued shamelessly playing the good guy for Do Yoonchae, who still couldn't quite let go of her suspicions about me.
"Yoonseong, you don't have to strain yourself trying to accommodate my feelings. Couldn't we just get along like ordinary friends?"
"…Ha. Shameless as ever. As if I don't know you're a scoundrel who preys on a woman's weakness and forces her into indecent acts."
"Seriously, where did this misunderstanding even come from? Have you ever actually seen me do anything like that?"
"Yes. Just yesterday afternoon, in fact, when Han So— ah, no! I have never witnessed such a thing, but there is a suspicious air about you that I can sense!"
Might as well just confess you watched me get a hand job and a blowjob at that point. She nearly blurted out Han Sora's name — the only person dense enough to miss that slip would be Seo Woojin.
Either way, judging by how openly she'd started baring her chest, Do Yoonchae's training seemed to be progressing just fine on its current course.
My ideal was to build up trust until her conviction and doubt about me sat at roughly fifty-fifty, but if that proved impossible, filling the scale entirely with distrust and starting from below zero was a legitimate strategy in its own right.
People, by nature, feel a far more dramatic emotion watching a bad man do a good deed than watching a good man do one.
In other words, if trust was off the table from the start, it was ultimately faster to plant myself in Do Yoonchae's mind as a villain and then let her perception climb upward with each reveal that — surprise — I was actually a decent guy all along.
The training along the way was a bonus. Though admittedly, most of that training was a byproduct of Do Yoonchae's own absurd paranoid delusions.
"Haah. Fine. If that's how you want to misunderstand things, Yoonseong, I suppose I can't help it."
"I am not misunderstanding. I am merely stating a clear and evident truth—"
"If that's what makes you comfortable, Yoonseong, I won't stop you. You've been wrapping your chest in bandages every single day in front of me — that must have been exhausting. It can't have been easy to breathe while you slept, either."
"……."
"But if you're doing this as payment for me keeping your secret, you really don't have to. I just want to share this room with you and graduate together, that's all."
For Do Yoonchae — who had already witnessed Han Sora going down on me — words like these probably sounded outrageously thick-skinned.
But I was deliberately playing up exactly that angle, fanning her suspicions on purpose, so it suited me just fine.
All that remained was to sit back and see how Do Yoonchae would react, now that she'd learned baring her chest accomplished nothing at all.
"You changed into sweatpants, so I take it you managed to wash up. Then I should start getting ready to head out too."
"…Do as you please. Whether you dress or strip, it's no concern of mine."
"Got it. So stop leaving your chest hanging out and get moving yourself. We're going to breakfast, and you're not seriously planning to walk out looking like that."
"I-I was already planning to! Mind your own business!"
With that, Do Yoonchae snatched up the compression bandages sprawled across the bed and hurriedly pressed them back against her chest.
While sneaking a discreet sidelong glance at her getting dressed, I changed into my outdoor uniform.
If there was a single mistake I'd made when building this semester's timetable, it was almost certainly signing up for this — Kinesiology and Physical Training, every Thursday.
A class designed to push the human body to its absolute limits was never going to be a curriculum that I, a mere Combat Support student, could keep up with.
Granted, it was a common core course with no restriction against non–Physical Enhancement students enrolling, which is why I'd registered in the first place — but two weeks in, the course was brutal enough to make me want to quit.
"Nnngh, hhuuuugh…!!"
"On your feet, Lee Seonho! Second in the entire incoming class, and you can't manage even this much?!"
"Haah, n-no, sirrr…!!"
The first week, when he'd merely run us half to death, was positively merciful by comparison. The moment the course-change window closed, this man started loading 150 kilograms onto the bar for a squats set — for me, a Mental Type ability user.
Being tested at the brink of my physical capacity by training of breathtaking stupidity, I was struggling to keep pace even with an Adrenaline Addiction suggestion running.
"Hhup, phaaaah…!!"
The instant I somehow managed to rise from the squat rack with the barbell still on my shoulders —
the professor, who had been glaring at me with mild irritation, blinked at the weight I'd lifted and shifted to an expression of faint surprise.
"You've got more grit than you look. Still far too wobbly to be second in the class, though."
…Something tells me this "second in the class" title is going to follow me all the way to graduation.
I really should have ceded the spot to Cha Eunju or Kim Isabel and slid down to around fifth. It wouldn't have caused any problems sharing a dorm with Do Yoonchae anyway — everyone above me would have been girls regardless.
I'd also caught more than a few pointed provocations from Physical Enhancement types I'd never even met — glorified extras, really — and caught professors giving me the occasional meaningful look. Nothing had escalated into a genuine problem yet, admittedly.
And of course, the "second in the class" title didn't only cut against me. Quite a few professors found it genuinely interesting that a Combat Support student had claimed the rank, and took extra care to look out for me.
Professor Shin Youngjoo, currently standing beside me running what amounted to personal surveillance, leaned toward that type himself.
'Though it would've been nicer if he were a female professor instead of a man.'
Still, he was the kind of person worth getting close to. He made quiet supporting appearances in the original story as one of Seo Woojin's allies, and as a hunter his credentials were solid, with a wide network — useful as a bridge to other opportunities down the line.
The fact that he shared this lecture with Park Hana and Do Yoonchae was another reason I'd chosen the class in the first place — alongside Professor Shin Youngjoo himself.
"WOOOOOH!! Now look at THIS, Park Hana!! They've got a one-ton barbell right here!!"
"Don't do something stupid — get your hands off that, you idiot! Don't go dropping it and breaking it for no reason!"
"Born a man, you ought to lift at least this much!! Watch closely, Park Hana!! Behold this body's deadlift—!!!"
-Grrk, grrrrk….
"Uu, UOOOOOOOOH!!!"
True to his characterization in the original novel as a man with nothing but absurd, brute strength, Park Cheonho hoisted the one-ton barbell clean off the floor.
At that ridiculous spectacle, the eyes of every student in the room — mine and Park Hana's included — had no choice but to gravitate toward him.
"AHAHAHAHA!!! I lifted it, Park Hana!!! This body is victorious!!!"
"Wow. What the hell is wrong with him?!"
"Wasn't that thing marked one ton? I thought it was just there for decoration…."
"Ugh, that moron, honestly…."
The other students stared at Park Cheonho's spectacle as if witnessing a marvel, while Park Hana pressed a palm to her forehead and shook her head, mortified by her brother.
For what it's worth, she could probably lift a one-ton barbell easily enough herself. The original novel established that Park Cheonho and Park Hana had virtually identical raw strength — the only difference being that his awakening ability specialized in defense while hers specialized in offense.
Someone with that kind of power was exactly why I'd gone out of my way to befriend them, regardless of gender. If they'd been pathetic specimens like Seo Woojin — the type to get handsy with my women — I'd never have bothered approaching them at all.
As I set the squat barbell down for a moment and caught my breath while watching the scene, the professor's gaze swung toward me with an oddly provocative glint.
"Come to think of it, you seem pretty close with that Park Cheonho kid too. You're just going to stand there and take a loss while your friend does that?"
"…Honestly, how am I supposed to beat him? I told you before, my ability is a Mental Type."
"Bah! A healthy body breeds a healthy mind! The belief that you can't win already rules your body — that's why you want to give up, Lee Seonho!"
Easy for a monster who deadlifts a ton one-handed to say. The more muscle Physical Enhancement types pack on, the more their brains visibly atrophy — I'm certain of it.
But if I showed no reaction and simply folded, getting chummy with this man would get that much harder. So, reminding myself that even for a Mental Type, simply demonstrating the will to try would win surprising consideration from him, I added quietly:
"Two more kilograms. …No, make it four."
"There we go! That's the right attitude. Now that's the willpower befitting second in the class."
So I'm going to be hearing "second in the class" at this class, every single week, all semester long.
In the end, unable to escape Professor Shin Youngjoo's intensive attention, I only managed to finish the afternoon class after renewing my personal bests across all three big lifts.
…Though I had an ominous feeling I'd be renewing them all over again next week, too.