How to Go on a Date (1)
It's awful. Genuinely, genuinely awful.
Nothing good ever comes from getting tangled up with that Lee Seonho bastard. Not one single thing.
A pervert. A piece of garbage who does nothing but dig up other people's weaknesses and exploit them.
Why the hell does he have to go poking around someone's back door, seriously….
He was already a pervert to begin with, but now I know he's even worse than I thought.
And today, too—we ended up meeting, and the whole time it was nothing but weird stuff. At the restaurant, he had me sneak some strange toy down below without the staff noticing, and at the café, he made me beg him to let me do whatever he wanted. And at the hotel, he went and put it in me while the rotor was still inside. Every last bit of it, without exception, was the absolute worst.
…Okay, fine, I felt a little good at the end there, but that doesn't erase all the perverted things this bastard did to me.
Next time, I'm absolutely going to make it impossible for him to get what he wants.
What? Next time we're doing it in the back, so come prepared? Is he out of his goddamn mind? Who does he think is going to just do it because he asked? There's no way in hell I'm giving that bastard what he wants.
Lee Seonho needs to get a taste of his own medicine before he'll come to his senses. If I show up without preparing anything, he'll probably be the one caught off guard for once….
…Come to think of it, there's no way that perverted bastard Lee Seonho would get flustered over something like that, is there.
He probably wouldn't even care if there was something on my fingers. He'd just keep going with his perverted business as usual… and then I'd be the only one embarrassed for not having prepared. Pointless.
And besides, that thing he said about doing it for me directly didn't exactly feel like a lie, either. Rather than doing that sort of thing right out in front of Lee Seonho, maybe it's better to just come prepared….
Why do I have to agonize over something like this, seriously….
Anyway, if he'd just be a little less of a pervert, I don't know. If that bastard didn't pull this kind of crap, I could hang out with him just fine.
Why does he have to order something weirder every single time we meet? That's exactly why he can only ever date women by blackmailing them, holding their weaknesses over their heads.
I bet I was his first, obviously. The perverted virgin who probably couldn't even get a girlfriend unless he was threatening her. Hilarious, really.
"Yewon, I washed your pants and underwear, so I'm laying them out here. You can put them on tomorrow morning."
"…Do whatever you want. Leave them there or don't."
"Be careful not to accidentally knock them down in your sleep. And don't mess up the blanket like you did earlier."
"…Shut up. That only happened because you kept groping me all weird while I was sleeping."
"Right, right. I'll turn off the lights."
Click.
"……."
…That perverted bastard, acting all considerate only at the very end. Who does he think he's fooling?
Did he really think I'd give him what he wanted just because he said that? He can dream all he likes.
Whatever, I'll just think about whether to prepare or not when the time comes.
And if I do prepare, it'll be because I don't want the embarrassment. Not because I'm giving that bastard what he wants. Yeah.
The morning after spending a night with Min Yewon at the hotel.
When I woke up, Min Yewon had already slipped away without so much as a goodbye. Taking with her the pants and underwear she'd laid out on top of the radiator the night before.
Was it her way of protesting, a declaration that she couldn't stand another minute in my company? Every time I saw how poorly trained she still was, it honestly pained my heart.
But I can't be the only one in pain—so next time, I'll make sure Yewon hurts too. Not that I mean inflicting actual pain, of course. Just mentally tormenting her, that's all.
Maybe I should've just forced the enema on her last night after all.
I wanted to test out how effective that Slime Enema Liquid actually was. Guess I'll have to use it on a different girl.
Though right at this moment, no usable candidate came to mind other than Min Yewon. The only people I could pull a perverted play like that on, openly, were villainesses I was free to handle however I pleased—or Cha Eunju.
And since I'm fundamentally a master who rewards obedient slaves, there'd be no use for it unless Cha Eunju brought it up first anyway.
I'll think about it later. There are plenty of villainesses besides Min Yewon, after all.
It's not like the stuff has an expiration date, and if I keep it around, a use will turn up eventually.
With those thoughts drifting through my head, I washed up, packed my things, and stepped out of the hotel.
Starting at noon today, I was back on my date with Ma Nayeon. No time to sit around inside a hotel room daydreaming it away.
Saturday, 11 a.m. The back gate of Cheonmu Academy.
It being the weekend, the area around the back gate was relatively quiet, and I waited there in peace for Ma Nayeon.
Knowing Ma Nayeon's personality, she'll obviously show up thirty minutes early and wait around.
Her frozen expression made her seem awkward about showing emotion, but the truth was that Ma Nayeon's feelings were more sensitive than the average person's.
She wouldn't make a show of it, but her heart would flutter at the smallest gesture from someone she liked, and if she caused someone else a loss, she'd be genuinely sorry about it. Naturally, she'd try not to be late for an appointed time, which meant she'd arrive at least thirty minutes early. So I'd come out thirty minutes earlier than that and was now waiting for her.
Gaining psychological leverage over Ma Nayeon required at least this much. Otherwise, she was the kind of woman where you'd struggle to even find an opening to latch onto.
So I waited in front of the academy's back gate for about twenty minutes. Then, forty minutes ahead of our appointed time, Ma Nayeon appeared early, walking toward me from inside the academy grounds.
"Sunbae, over here."
"…?"
She clearly hadn't expected me to be the one waiting already, and her pace quickened slightly as she came toward me.
Watching her approach, her pale golden hair swaying in loose disarray, her expression had a way of making me feel drowsy just looking at it.
"…Am I late?"
"I came early. Didn't want to keep you waiting for nothing."
"There's still more than thirty minutes left?"
"You came out around this time too, sunbae. Honestly, seeing you this early is a nice bonus."
"…Right."
Ma Nayeon let my comment about it being "nice" slide right past her and averted her gaze as if the whole thing were a bother.
Her outfit didn't look like she'd put much thought into it either. A gray knit sweater and jeans. Her hair was thrown up in a careless ponytail.
Judging by this thoroughly everyday appearance, Ma Nayeon's favorability toward me right now was sitting dead at zero—not positive, not negative. She felt nothing about me as a man, and unless something special happened, nothing was coming in the future either.
I'd said it before, but this type was the hardest type to win over. You need some kind of emotion toward the target—like or dislike—to catch their interest and manufacture events, and this type of woman gave you no reason for any of it.
Well, even so, Ma Nayeon had her love triangle with Im Yujin and Han Jaewook going for her, so among women of this type, her prospects were actually on the larger side.
"You haven't forgotten why we arranged to meet today, have you? This isn't the place to talk, so shall we grab a café?"
"…Do whatever."
"Then let's go to the café on Culture Street, a bit downhill from the academy. If we drink somewhere near the academy, we might run into Yujin-sunbae or Han Jaewook-sunbaenim."
"…Fine, whatever."
No matter what suggestion I offered, Ma Nayeon just nodded along with a tired look, as if she had no will of her own whatsoever.
My goal for today was to somehow, by any means, make those listless eyes of hers a little brighter.
Looking like a certified iced-americano-only woman, Ma Nayeon surprised me by ordering a hot americano and taking her seat.
I, in turn, ordered my usual iced americano with an extra shot and sat down across from her, at which point she pouted her lips slightly and spoke first.
"I could've paid for my own."
"I'm the one who asked you to come out, sunbaenim, so I should be the one buying."
"…Fine. It's not like I'm helping you out of the goodness of my heart anyway. We're just cooperating because our interests happen to align, aren't we."
"Then next time, you buy. Today's already paid for, so let's let it go."
"…Okay."
Not that there'd be a next time I'd actually let her pay. Carrying a debt over someone's head so that turning down small favors gradually gets harder—it goes without saying, but it's Diplomacy 101.
Since this was a date with Ma Nayeon, building a good atmosphere with her would be nice, but the official excuse was that I was receiving her help to woo Im Yujin, so first I had to bring her name up and break the ice.
"Like I mentioned before, I really joined the club because I was aiming for Yujin-sunbae. That's why I'm shamelessly asking you for help too, Nayeon-sunbaenim."
"I heard. Shameless is right."
"So, with that said—could you tell me everything you know about Yujin-sunbae first? Even little things, anything at all. Whether it's something obvious or trivial."
"…Hold on. Let me think."
She wore that indifferent expression for my benefit all day, yet when it came to the actual question, she gave it surprisingly serious thought.
Probably because my success with Im Yujin would be a good thing for her too—the effort she was putting into it was plainly visible.
"First off, you know Yujin-unni's an otaku… that she likes anime, right?"
"Yes, I know."
"I don't really get it, but apparently anime has something called a season? A quarterly thing. So every few months she decides what she's focusing on watching that season, or so she says."
"I think I get what you mean. Do you happen to know what genres she likes?"
"…Genres? Isn't anime all kind of the same?"
Unsurprisingly, there was no nutritional value to be squeezed out of Ma Nayeon, whose otaku knowledge topped out at ordinary-civilian level.
I hadn't expected Ma Nayeon to know the tastes of Im Yujin—a hardcore otaku among otaku—from the start anyway.
When it came to Im Yujin, I probably knew more than Ma Nayeon did. She only got a speck of page time in the original novel, but even the information from that was enough for me to know her better than this ordinary girl would.
She kept up with seasonal anime releases religiously, and among those, her favorites were comedies and healing-type shows. Beyond that, she made a point of watching any popular series with meme potential, even if it wasn't her preferred genre—or so I knew.
That's why she felt a deeper kinship with someone like me, a person capable of otaku talk around the clock.
Han Jaewook did make an effort to watch anime and such in his attempts to court Im Yujin, but a guy who struggled to sit through twenty minutes of the same screen a day had basically zero chance of keeping up with her otaku temperament.
"What about food? Things she likes to eat?"
"She doesn't seem picky. Favorites are sweet and salty stuff."
"Do you know her ideal type in a man?"
"Pretty sure she said she doesn't look at height. A while back she mentioned some weird name, Japanese or French or whatever, saying that was her type. I forgot."
"…That was probably an anime character."
And odds were high that her type had changed again by now.
That's just what otaku are. Swapping out fictional lovers every season, rotating their favorites—it's standard practice—so the information wasn't much help.
We kept up the nutrient-free back-and-forth like that for a while longer, and about three hours had passed since our pointless exchange of trivia began.
"Oh, look at the time already, sunbae."
"…Yeah."
"You came out without lunch, right? Want to grab something simple?"
"…You still have more questions?"
"That, and—it wouldn't be fair if I were the only one getting help, so I should help you out too, sunbaenim."
"…?"
Ma Nayeon tilted her head and looked at me, clearly not understanding what I was getting at.
Meeting her eyes, I casually floated out the kind of proposal she was bound to take the bait on.
"While I'm working on winning over Yujin-sunbae, you need to be thinking about how to appeal to Han Jaewook-sunbaenim, right?"
"……."
"I'll help you. A man's heart is something only another man really understands, after all."
Because wooing Im Yujin had been nothing but a pretext to get Ma Nayeon alone with me from the very beginning.
This was my chance to go on a proper date, and to teach her a thing or two about men while I was at it.