Suggestion: Hypnosis (2)
Late at night. One in the morning.
One girl tossed and turned in her bed, unable to fall asleep no matter how she tried.
'I like you, Cha Eunju.'
"Uuuuugh…!!"
Ever since she'd returned home, Lee Seonho's words kept circling round and round in her head, and Cha Eunju lay moaning into her blankets.
'C-calm down, Cha Eunju. Strictly speaking, it wasn't Seonho confessing to me directly, you know?'
That was right. Sure, the confession had come wrapped in a tight embrace of her own body, but that had been 'Cha Eunju under hypnosis', nothing more. It hadn't been a confession directed at her.
Which meant she had to keep acting exactly as she always had. If she showed any strange signs in front of him, he might realize she'd only been pretending to be hypnotized.
But… could she really act that brazenly when she saw him tomorrow? Cha Eunju was hardly skilled at lying, so it was only natural that worry kept sleep at bay.
'Will he… want to do that "hypnosis" thing again tomorrow too…?'
And if he did, did that mean she'd have to 'pretend to fall under hypnosis' all over again?
'It's not that I hate it. I don't hate it, but….'
The thought of hearing that embarrassing love confession face-to-face all over again made her heart pound in spite of herself. Back in her school days, it wasn't as though no boys had ever approached her with ulterior motives, leering at her oversized chest — but compared to them, Lee Seonho's feelings had felt so utterly pure.
She felt that, at least with him, it wasn't lust or desire but a genuinely sincere gaze turned toward her. And that was precisely why she couldn't help but take his confession with all the weight it deserved.
'Still… I did promise to meet him tomorrow.'
She'd have to take the practical exam to get into Cheonmu Hunter Academy anyway. And like Seonho said, the more hands-on training she could bank, the better.
Maybe tomorrow he wouldn't even bring up the hypnosis. Maybe it had just been one day of pent-up longing finally bursting free.
Of course, if he told her he wanted to put her 'under hypnosis' again, she had no confidence whatsoever in her ability to refuse.
…Not that she particularly wanted to refuse in the first place.
'F-fine, I should just hurry up and sleep. I have to wake up early tomorrow….'
Tomorrow she'd fix her hair a little neater before heading out. If she'd known this was coming, she would have bought a few more outfits in advance.
With such thoughts, Cha Eunju did her best to pin down her racing heart and force her eyes shut.
…
…
…
'I like you, Cha Eunju.'
"Uuuuugh…!!"
…It would be more than two hours later before she finally managed to slip into sleep.
Day two of practical exam prep with Cha Eunju.
Standing in front of the training grounds building and waiting for her to show up, exactly as we'd agreed the day before, my mood was not a good one.
The appointed hour had come and gone two full hours ago — it was already noon, and Cha Eunju had yet to show her face.
'Getting stood up starting on day two? Seriously?'
Everything had been going according to plan, so this was a scenario I hadn't anticipated in the slightest. The very idea of timid little Cha Eunju ghosting Lee Seonho without so much as a word was, frankly, beyond imagining.
'Did I push things too far on the first day…?'
…I'd figured that even for Cha Eunju, a hug and a confession would be well within what she could handle. Maybe I'd underestimated the immunity to the opposite sex that a shut-in hikikomori develops. Perhaps I should have played it safe and stopped at head-pats.
That a mere moment of skinship might have deepened her guard against me enough to make her stand me up entirely — that was a development I never saw coming.
-Bzzzt, bzzzzzzt….
"Hm?"
The moment I pulled out my phone, thinking I should at least send her a message before heading back, a call came through. It was from the very number I'd saved just yesterday — and with it came a flicker of hope that maybe my Cha Eunju campaign wasn't derailed after all.
"Cha Eunju?"
"S-Se-Se-Se-Seonho?! W-where are you right now?!"
"Me? In front of the training grounds."
"I-I'm sorry!! I-I swear I'm not lying, I really overslept…!! I-I'll get ready and head out right now, so… kyaaaaak?!"
"…Cha Eunju? Are you okay?"
"I-It's nothing…!! I-I just tripped over the clothes rack for a second, that's all…."
…Judging by that remarkably convincing reaction, the oversleeping excuse was probably genuine. I'd already confirmed just how clumsy her acting skills were during yesterday's hypnosis session, after all.
Besides, even through the phone, her voice sounded truly sorry. I could tell, naturally and without effort, that she hadn't stood me up on purpose, nor had she grown wary of me after what happened yesterday.
"It's fine, so take your time. What's one more hour of waiting at this point — hardly makes a difference."
"Thirty minutes…!! N-no, wait, I'll be there in fifteen!! I'm really sorry, Seonho!!"
"I told you it's fine. Take your time."
It was precisely moments like these where I needed to stamp a Debt of Heart firmly into place. So I deliberately answered with words heavy enough to make her feel a little extra guilt, then quietly waited for Cha Eunju to arrive at our meeting spot.
Being over two hours late to an agreed time, making not a single call or text, and leaving me standing there waiting for nothing — the guilt of all of it would pile on top of her.
The more Debt of Heart Cha Eunju owed me, the faster her training would progress. It was that simple.
"Haaah, haaagh, haaaah…."
"Slow down, slow down. You're going to collapse."
"Haaah… s-sorry, haaah…. Seonho, hah, hng…."
A purple-haired girl came sprinting toward the training grounds building, gasping for every breath.
With each step she took, her chest bounced up and down, and it was obscenely, distractingly lewd. It made me want to sink my fingers right into those soft mounds without a second thought.
Knowing Cha Eunju as she was right now, if I asked to grope her chest as an apology for being late, she'd probably let me. Idle fantasies like that floated through my head as I greeted her — twenty minutes past two hours late — with perfect composure.
"I told you, you didn't need to rush. I barely waited at all."
"…B-barely waited…? Haaah, th-that's not…. Whew, whew…."
"Friends can wait this long for each other, no big deal. Come here — your hair's a complete mess."
"Hng, hek…?"
The moment my hand touched her hair, she flinched in reflexive panic — but the instant she realized it was my hand, she bowed her head meekly and let me work.
She'd grown accustomed to my fingers in her hair over the course of yesterday, and more than that, she was currently carrying an unspeakable mountain of guilt toward me. She couldn't bring herself to refuse anything I said or did.
Seen in that light, her being late was actually a golden opportunity.
My plan had been to build up an appropriate level of 'debt' and have her pay it off bit by bit each time she fell 'under hypnosis', taming her slowly. But when she went and generated a massive lump of 'debt' all on her own like this? It made everything exponentially easier.
All I had to do was put on the mental hat of a debt collector and reclaim from Cha Eunju exactly as much as I pleased.
Thanks to her blunder, today I'd be able to push things far further than yesterday — which meant the two-odd hours of lost time were, in effect, an investment in conquering Cha Eunju.
"I-I'm sorry, Seonho…. Really, I'm so sorry…."
"It's fine, I said. Just be more careful next time."
"I-is there anything I could do to make it up to you…? I-if there's anything I can do, I'll do absolutely anything you want…!"
"…A girl shouldn't throw around words like that so carelessly."
"A-ah, s-sorry…! Th-that's not what I meant…!"
…'Anything I can do, I'll do absolutely anything you want.' Say that to a man and, honestly, it makes you want to test the limits of the offer.
But if I voiced what was currently running through my head, she'd undoubtedly panic and bolt. 'Now' was, of course, out of the question.
Still, the fact that Cha Eunju brought this up on her own told me that yesterday's little performance had, without a doubt, lowered her defenses. If she truly believed I'd hypnotized her and then done 'weird things' by her own standards, there was no way 'I'll do anything you want' would have come spilling out of her mouth right now.
She could say that because, underneath it all, she trusted that I wouldn't do anything too extreme with her. In her head, I was already firmly established as 'the innocent boy who needed hypnosis just to manage a hug.'
"…Hey, Cha Eunju."
"Yeah?"
"But seriously — if it's something you can actually do, you really would do anything for me?"
"……Huh?"
I shifted the mood and tossed her own words back at her, and Cha Eunju retreated a step, visibly flustered.
She looked faintly wary, as if worried I might make some strange request. Well, naturally — she did know that I liked her now.
"Eunju?"
"A-uh, yeah…."
"If it's really something you can do, you'll do anything I ask?"
"……Th-that's…."
"……"
"I-if it's something I can do… then, yeah…."
Even her flustered stammering was this adorable. Honestly, unfair.
I wondered just how filthy the images churning through her head were right now. Unlike Choi Marie, she'd gathered no small amount of lewd knowledge from manga and novels, so of course she was interpreting my question in the most obscene way possible.
After giving her plenty of time to let her imagination run wild, I delivered the one request Cha Eunju would be utterly incapable of refusing.
"So, about that favor of yours."
"……"
-Gulp.
"I'm starving, so buy me lunch, Cha Eunju. We'll call it even for you being late today."
"……Huh?"
"The original plan was to eat after training anyway, but since it's somehow already lunchtime — let's grab a hearty bowl at that ramen place from yesterday, then train. What do you say?"
"……"
A stunned exclamation she couldn't hide. An awkward silence that stretched on as if her brain had blue-screened. And then, not long after, a face flushing bright red with shame.
She'd momentarily failed to process the fact that I'd asked for something completely different from the favor she'd been imagining (mostly the lewd kind), and had just realized that she was the only one who'd gone off into dirty fantasies — the inference practically wrote itself.
"Cha Eunju?"
"A-uh, yeah?!"
"What, you won't do it? You make me wait two whole hours and won't even buy me a single meal?"
"N-no! I'll buy it! It's just… r-really, that's all you want…?"
"Why? If it's that you don't feel like ramen, I don't mind going somewhere else."
"N-no, it's not that…! Let's go eat ramen, ramen! I-I'll even order the large size for you…!"
"Pigging out at lunchtime is just going to make your stomach heavy for training. And I'm not going to play petty games over something like this, so let's hurry up and eat."
"O-okay…."
She probably knew it too. For making me wait two full hours past our agreed time, a single bowl of ramen was an absurdly cheap price to pay.
Not that it mattered — I'd be relieving her of that worry soon enough.
Because the Debt of Heart Cha Eunju owed me right now was scheduled to be milked for all it was worth during today's 'hypnosis' session.