Maid Senior (2)
…So I really did end up wearing it.
The maid outfit she'd been changed into at the request of her junior Seonho. In all honesty, Marie felt somehow more exposed like this than she had earlier, when her lower half had been laid bare.
Until a few minutes ago, she could at least tell herself it had been stripped off of her by necessity, all in the name of training. But this ridiculous outfit had, for all practical purposes, been put on her purely to satisfy Seonho's personal desires.
The skirt was short, and of all things, she had nothing underneath it. She didn't know whether the boy had simply forgotten, or whether it was unavoidable since he didn't own any women's underwear in the first place.
…Well, I suppose it'd be weirder if a guy living alone just happened to have women's underwear lying around.
If anything, having him hand her a set to wear would have been far more alarming. A man living by himself keeping women's undergarments stocked in his home was the kind of detail that would raise far more red flags than it answered.
The maid outfit was strange too, but it at least fell within the realm of a harmless hobby. Maybe it was an ex-girlfriend's taste, or something he'd prepared hoping to dress a future lover someday.
Come to think of it, did Seonho even have a girlfriend?
She knew of a few juniors he was close with. There was Han Sora, who shared his Teamwork and Strategy class, and that purple-haired girl with the generous chest he'd been with when she'd visited him in the hospital. She'd never paid close enough attention to know for sure, but even so—she knew Seonho was dependable for a junior, a better sort than most guys his age.
Still, if he's not a Physical Enhancement Type… yeah, it's a little much.
Choi Mari's type hadn't changed one bit: someone solid enough that she could trust him to watch her back. Even stretching things as far as they'd go, some casual flirting might be one thing—but actually dating him would probably be a bridge too far.
Oblivious to the tangled state of her thoughts, Seonho was calmly appraising her maid outfit and offering his commentary.
"It's cute on you. I knew it would suit you."
"…Right."
"The laundry's got about an hour left, so please bear with me a little longer. I know you're under hypnosis right now, but… just think of it as not being hypnosis at all and relax."
What a pushover.
Even with hypnosis supposedly in effect, he still tiptoed around her feelings like this. It was so consistent that she almost wondered if this was really the same junior who'd, minutes ago, openly groped her body under the pretense of training.
Was it simply that no matter how perverted a guy tried to act, he couldn't hide his true nature? Because at his core he was considerate of others, he just kept ending up like this again.
…The lingering resentment over what he'd touched during training hadn't entirely dissolved, but paired with the thought that he really wasn't a bad kid after all, there she sat—docile in her maid outfit on the sofa, quietly waiting for the laundry to finish.
"……"
"……"
"……"
…This is a little much.
What exactly was so good about this outfit that he'd been staring holes into her for the past several minutes?
Were all men like this, or was Seonho just a special case?
Meeting his eyes any longer felt absurd, so she'd deliberately drifted her gaze off toward some middle distance—and that was when his voice, coming out of nowhere, snagged her attention.
"Honestly, I've wanted to see you in this outfit for a while now."
"…Is that so."
"Somehow I just thought it would suit you, Marie-ssi. You always come across a bit headstrong, so I wanted to know what it'd feel like to be on the receiving end of your service for once."
"…I see."
"I know I'm not exactly your type. Nobody falls for a Support Department guy who can barely manage mental-type buffs, right? I'm not handsome like Yoonseong, and on the inside I'm just a pervert nursing sleazy little fantasies all day."
"……It doesn't have to be like that, you know."
"Well, maybe, maybe not. Anyway—I'd never say this to you normally, but since it's a moment like this, I figured I'd get it off my chest."
"……"
Listening in silence, she realized that at some point her junior had been laying his heart out with quiet, genuine weight.
That, too, was only possible because he firmly believed she was under hypnosis. Otherwise, there was no way he'd have opened up those deep, private feelings so casually.
She'd sensed it vaguely for a while now, but hearing it straight from his mouth left her head a mess. She'd known he harbored feelings for her—she just hadn't imagined the emotion ran this deep.
And of all times, he had to say it while pretending to be hypnotized….
If he'd opened up like this under normal circumstances, even if she couldn't have accepted his confession, she'd at least have given him some serious relationship advice.
Those words of his—casual on the surface, yet soaked in desires that were rather hard to miss—stirred an unexpected twinge of guilt in her chest.
Doesn't this make it feel like I'm the only one exploiting Seonho's feelings here?
And in truth, it wasn't far off. It was Choi Mari who'd hatched a plan to leverage the junior's feelings for her in order to salvage her failing grades.
Worse, she was already planning to take more classes alongside him next semester. Just overhearing this much sincerity left her guilt running considerable.
Dating's out of the question, but… maybe I can comfort him a little.
She owed him any number of debts, big and small—and today's training, however strange its content, had at its core been genuinely good for her.
With the thought that it wouldn't hurt to indulge the junior's wishes a little, a careful sort of sentence—one that seemed to take a single step toward his desire—slipped out of her mouth.
"Should I… do the service thing?"
"…Sorry?"
"You said you wanted to know what it's like being served. Go ahead and order me around."
"……Are you serious?"
"You've got me under hypnosis anyway, what does it matter? I won't even remember when I wake up."
…What am I even saying right now?
She'd added that last part offhandedly to cover for the words that had escaped her, but looking at it coldly, it might have been a touch careless. She'd essentially handed Seonho an opening to do whatever strange things he pleased under the banner of her own instruction.
He'd touched her most sensitive places mere minutes ago, so it was only natural that her imagination was already blooming in that particular direction.
…Still, I did say it. No taking it back now.
As long as it wasn't some line-crossing, deeply weird request… it would be fine. Probably.
Knowing Seonho's personality, he wasn't likely to demand sex out of nowhere or… things of that nature.
She couldn't swear it was a hundred percent out of the question, but if he really did try something truly irreversible, it wouldn't be too late to expose the truth then and there.
"Then… I feel a little guilty asking this, but…."
"……!"
Entangled in all those complicated feelings, Marie held her breath waiting for Lee Seonho's next words—and the instant his mouth opened again, her body flinched with a slight, reflexive tension.
"Marie-ssi, can you cook, by any chance?"
"……Cook?"
"Yes. Cooking. Chicken breast."
"…I know how. I eat it every day."
…Why on earth is he asking about cooking at a moment like this?
Given everything the junior had been doing just minutes earlier, anyone watching would have assumed he was about to demand something lewd. Instead, what came out of his mouth veered absurdly wide of her expectations.
"Then please make some chicken breast in the kitchen. Teach me the recipe too, if you would."
"…That's all?"
"Yes. It's not every day I get to be served by my senior, after all."
"……"
…Right. So why, exactly, is he using that precious once-in-a-lifetime opportunity like this?
It wasn't that she was disappointed, exactly. It was more that she'd actually been prepared to grant him a request that crossed the line.
He could have asked to touch her body some more, like before. Or turned it around and asked for permission to lay hands on his.
She'd steeled herself to at least that degree—so the comparatively trivial request that emerged from Lee Seonho's mouth left her deflating like a punctured balloon.
"Fine. Okay."
…Honestly, there was never any chance of Seonho making me do something weird.
Yes, things had gotten a little steamy earlier, but that had probably been an unavoidable accident.
She'd shown up in somewhat revealing clothes, and all the physical contact during training had naturally gotten them both a little worked up. A minor mishap, nothing more.
If anything, this version of Lee Seonho—demanding ordinary household help and calling it service—was far closer to the junior she knew.
But wait. That means I was the only one who let my imagination run off into weird territory, doesn't it?
Only now realizing she'd been the sole party conjuring indecent thoughts about her junior, Choi Mari quietly flushed red.
Flustered by my out-of-nowhere request to cook, Marie had nodded along and shuffled off to the kitchen.
There she was, obediently pulling the pre-boiled chicken breast from the fridge and beginning to slice it—and somehow, the whole sight of her was awkward in a way I couldn't quite name.
Going by her reaction, she really did let her mind wander all the way to the lewd stuff.
If I'd been bold enough to ask, she might have gone as far as a handjob. Maybe even fellatio.
I briefly entertained the idea myself, to be fair, before dropping it. Factoring in how long the washing machine had left, this was the point where I needed to switch from performing the 'pervert' to playing the 'innocent junior Seonho'.
Someone who gets momentarily swept up in desire but is, at heart, naive and sweet. A guy who, whatever else you say about him, ultimately can't bring himself to do anything truly awful.
That was the flavor of ending I needed, to run the affinity grind and leave Marie with the right impression. Only then could I be forgiven for having crossed the line earlier and gotten my hands all over her body.
If this were real hypnosis—capable of wiping memory clean along with everything else—I wouldn't have bothered with all this tedious cleanup. But as long as I was training people through Suggestion, I had no choice but to think about 'next time'.
The golden rule: never breach a heroine's final psychological line of resistance. When conditioning does cross the line the way it did today, the aftermath demands exactly this—carefully rebuilding trust to cover the breach.
And honestly, this has its own appeal anyway.
She was still wearing her sports bra up top, but from the waist down she had nothing beneath the maid dress. As she cooked, the lower curve of her ass kept flashing into view under that short skirt in tantalizing little glimpses—which, in its own way, wasn't bad at all.
Once I'd trained her properly later on, I'd have her do it in a naked apron, nothing else.
"…Seonho, how salty do you want it? Are you the type who eats things salty?"
"Just normal, please. I'm not picky, I'll eat anything."
"I'll go by my own tastes then, since I'm cooking. Fair warning—I like things on the bland side."
"Yes, senpai."
A pinch of salt, a dash of pepper. Cubes of chicken breast sizzling away in the same pan as bell peppers and broccoli.
For someone who'd steeled her resolve and vowed to serve him, it had to sting a little with irony—here she was, cooking health food for the man she'd been braced to serve in a very different sense.
"……Pfft."
And there it was—a soft laugh escaping her before she could stop it, trailing off into a faint smile.
I deliberately pretended not to notice, lounging at my ease and waiting for her 'service' to be complete.