Meeting Friends While Crossdressed
"N-no... wait? Me?"
"Yes. You."
The man hauled the girl over like he meant every word of it and shoved her toward us.
"W-wait a second... this is..."
"What~ Come on, say something already~ haha."
"U-uhh..."
The way she flushed scarlet and panicked was so damn cute.
Twenty-two years as a virgin... and something like this is finally happening to me...!
No matter how tough I talked, a corner of my heart had always been gnawing on the fear that I might die a virgin.
And I'm the one getting picked up...!
That legendary luck with women they say a man only gets three times in his life was rolling straight into my lap.
"U-uh... then maybe just... a-a cafe nearby..."
"Oh, a cafe? Sounds good~ Eunyul, a cafe's fine with you, right?"
"Huh? O-oh, yes..."
"So your name is Eunyul... that's pretty, haha. For the record, I-I'm Kim Minjun... hehe."
It had been ages since he'd talked to a girl at all, and talking to a girl this pretty was basically a first. And yet the atmosphere wasn't half bad.
"H-hey, Kim Minjun... I thought you were into thick girls..."
Lee Hyunwoo cut in from the side with zero tact.
Look at him getting jealous... some friend. Can't even help, and this is what he does...
"Ah, so what? You jealous?"
"Doesn't this feel off from the jump? A girl like that being into you? That's not even possible. Looks super suspicious..."
A glare like a knife.
"Shut the hell up, you moron."
This was a chance that had just rolled in on its own. He wasn't kicking a blessing to the curb over one friend.
"...You bastard..."
Hyunwoo chewed his lip raw with jealousy and finally shut his mouth.
"I know this, uh... famous? cafe around here... l-let's go together, hehe."
He took the lead like a man was supposed to.
"Sounds good. Shall we head over?"
The other guy was playing along nicely, so they started walking with Minjun showing the way.
W-why this asshole of all people? I could treat her way better...! She's exactly my type...! Why the hell does it have to be this guy whose type is fat pig chicks...!
A smug little smile of victory flicked his way.
Hyunwoo, watching it, felt his insides catch fire.
Man, these boys' pissing contest is something else~ lmao
Master found the whole thing hilarious. This was the point. Get the two of them at each other's throats. If he'd thrown Eunwoo at Hyunwoo, whose type was slender girls, Minjun—who had less to lose—would've just given up clean.
Now then... what's about to go down? lmao
"Ah, I'll be heading out now."
M-Master?!
The moment they stepped into the cafe, those words dropped from Master's mouth like a bolt from a clear sky.
"O-oh... you're leaving?"
Color flooded Minjun's face.
"Please take good care of my friend."
"Y-yes! Of course!"
Despair, meanwhile, settled over Eunwoo's face.
T-this can't be happening...?!
She looked up at Master, trembling like a puppy that had just been left on the side of the road.
She's scared stiff. Not like anyone's gonna find out anyway lmao
The way she looked right now, anyone would have sworn she was a girl through and through. Nothing to worry about.
So he gave her shoulder a light pat and leaned in to her ear.
Don't disappoint me. Encouragement, of a kind. A pep talk, if you wanted to be generous.
A shiver ran through her. Master's low, deep voice branded the order into her.
Eunwoo kept her head bowed and gave the tiniest of nods.
Cute little slut lol
The instant he confirmed she'd understood, he was already turning away.
"Well then..."
The cafe bell chimed.
"Have a lovely time~"
Master walked out without looking back.
"...You're not leaving?"
There was still one more obstacle left.
"Why would I bounce. Forget we were hitting the PC cafe?"
"Dude, read the room..."
Minjun clenched his teeth and hissed it like a threat, but it didn't land at all.
"Just talk like I'm not here. I'll be on my phone."
"Ah, um... it's fine if you both stay..."
Eunwoo stepped in to mediate. She'd always been the one who broke up their fights, so the role sat on her like an old coat.
"Huh? Ah, w-well then..."
Minjun looked disappointed.
"Thanks so much. I'll stay quiet~"
That way of talking, fuck...
Hyunwoo's face, on the other hand, lit right up.
Phew... if it was just the two of us I'd have died of awkwardness...
Thanks to that, Eunwoo could breathe a little. Leaving Hyunwoo there for the awkwardness felt like the safer call. A one-on-one would slide into personal territory, and personal territory meant her identity might slip.
F-for now I'll just play along, keep the conversation going, then meet back up with Master...
Her phone buzzed in her bag.
"Ah, one second."
A text from Master.
Ah.
Her mind went white. A five-star difficulty mission, dropped on her without warning. Practical problems and emotional ones churned together in her chest, and she wasn't even given time to get her head back on straight.
"S-so... um... what about me did you like?"
Minjun came in swinging.
"...Excuse me?"
The whole thing had officially become a blind date, and her soul briefly left her body.
"I mean, uh... your friend said I... that I caught your eye..."
A vein jumped. She'd been swept along in the moment earlier, but now that she'd cooled off a little, hearing it out loud made her blood boil.
You moron! Use your head! You think a girl would come onto you first? With a man like Master standing right there? Be a little suspicious, you piece of shit!!!
She kept that thought where it belonged—inside her skull—and served up something else instead.
"Well... ah, I was impressed by how earnestly you were talking with your friend. I think a man who's passionate about something is... cool."
It wasn't even remotely convincing. Not that it mattered.
"Ah... hehehe... thank you..."
With a stunning girl sitting in front of him, Minjun's brain had pickled itself in hormones. He swallowed it without a single thought.
...He likes that. Idiot...
That dopey, split-open grin made her skin crawl. She'd always thought her friend was pathetic, but a beta male's crush, aimed at a "girl" sitting right in front of him, was somehow extra disgusting.
"U-um..."
"Yes?"
This time Hyunwoo, who'd been listening from the side, cut in. Something else was eating at him.
"D-did you happen to overhear what we were talking about...?"
"No, I couldn't really tell what you were discussing..."
Eunwoo denied it cleanly.
"H-huuuuh~"
"Th-thank goddddd..."
Hyunwoo and Minjun sagged with the kind of relief people show after dodging a natural disaster.
...What is this?
Watching her friends flounder in front of her like that, something new started to leak into her.
These assholes... they look different than usual.
A composure she'd never had before began to surface.
Hah... why do they look so small?
She'd always thought they were pathetic, stupid, useless—but she'd never thought of them as beneath her as people.
"Come to think of it, what were you talking about earlier?"
People don't tense up around small fry.
"H-huh? It wasn't anything, really..."
"Is that so? If it wasn't anything, tell me~ I'm curious what topic got you two so heated."
The heat in her head cooled. The hammering in her chest settled. She could feel the conversation's reins sliding into her hands.
"It's also why I got interested, after all..."
She leaned across the table, bringing her face in close.
Minjun and Hyunwoo both went scarlet and short-circuited at the same time.
Idiots... they're shaking like leaves. I'm a guy, lmao
Watching them, a sly little urge to play with both of them started to show.
"A-ah... we were, um, talking about games a bit..."
"You like games? I like them too~"
"Wait, for real?"
The second she showed interest, Kim Minjun plunged into the conversation like a man possessed.
"What genre do you like? F-for the record I mostly play FPS...!"
He dumped everything he knew like he was emptying a bag, and Eunwoo just smiled and let him talk.
"Minjun, you know a lot, don't you~"
A reaction here, a little prod there.
"Ah, I've heard of that one. That's the one coming out next month, right?"
The common ground she tossed out made his affection climb so fast you could watch it happen.
"Eunyul, you play a lot of different games too, huh?"
They'd been friends to begin with, and Eunwoo had originally been a guy—she knew men's interests inside out.
"M-maybe we could hit a PC cafe sometime later... ah, that's getting ahead of myself, isn't it? Hahaha..."
Watching him sit there grinning like an idiot and rattling on by himself was almost funny.
When Hyunwoo, who'd been sitting quietly and listening, started to sulk, she tossed him a line too.
"Hyunwoo, what do you usually play?"
"O-oh...! I mostly play RPGs...!"
And just like that his mood bounced back.
These guys are way too easy lmao
She was starting to get a taste for this.
After the hormones, Eunwoo's way of thinking—and her way of handling men—had been tipping steadily toward the feminine. Apparently she'd picked up how to hold the reins in a conversation with guys, too. Against all her earlier dread, she found herself relaxing into it and keeping the talk going.
Then she flinched.
Maybe she'd relaxed a little too much. A different, more physical problem started creeping in.
She squirmed in her seat.
"A-are you not feeling well?"
"Nnh... I-I need the restroom for a second..."
"Ah... ah...! Yes! G-go ahead..."
She started toward the cafe bathroom, then—
"Ah... th-that's the men's..."
Talking guy-to-guy for the first time in a while had dragged an old habit back up.
"A-ah, I'm so sorry..."
She swallowed the panic as best she could and slipped into the women's room instead.
S-she's got a cute clumsy side too...
Even that, apparently, counted as charm to Kim Minjun.
"Hey. Lee Hyunwoo."
"...What."
"This... this is it."
The three of them had been talking so easily it had felt like chatting with a classmate from school. Hyunwoo had been an impurity in the mix, sure—but the one who'd been told from the start that he had her interest was Kim Minjun.
He flashed his friend a victory smile.
"Hyung's heading out first. lol"
A virginity-escape announcement, delivered like a taunt.
Hyunwoo's brain briefly left the building.
Fuck... this is an emergency. Emergency...!
If he sat here and did nothing, his friend was going to stop being a virgin. A catastrophe.
Right now...
He snatched up his phone and started typing a message.
I have to tell Jo Eunwoo...!
Backup. He needed his ally.
At this rate the two of us are going to be the only virgins left...!