Bringing Condoms on a First Date Is Perfectly Natural
I was going to have sex with Seo Ji-young.
I'd always figured these things arrived out of nowhere, yet somehow this one came with a full advance notice.
Like that prince who claimed he'd be happy from three o'clock onward if you showed up at four, I got to savor that happiness starting days before the weekend even arrived.
Which is to say, I nearly died trying to hide how hard I was.
After issuing the order, Seo Ji-young went right back to leaving me on read, as if she had no intention of dealing with me until the weekend. Yuki, somehow reading the mood again, just kept smirking with her eyes. And Seol-ah—
"I'll head out first……"
"Uh, yeah…"
Left on unread again.
At this point I didn't even want to think about it.
Whether she was genuinely trying to get herself a boyfriend instead of me or whatever else was going on, I was a man who was about to escape virginity (pending).
I needed to play it cool.
So, since things had already come to this, I decided that for the weekend meeting with Seo Ji-young I wouldn't even jack off. I'd tough it out.
Thanks to that I spent the next few days in a near-constant state of half-arousal, but with a monk-like emptiness of mind the time just slipped past.
At last, Saturday arrived.
A text from Seo Ji-young came through as well.
Obviously that wasn't what she meant, but with my head stuffed full of filthy thoughts, I basically read it as Be waiting with your dick standing at attention at six.
No—surely we weren't jumping straight into it.
I'd told her we should at least set the mood.
Grab a simple dinner, maybe catch a movie.
And then head straight for a motel.
…… Heh heh.
A perfect plan.
And in service of that perfect plan, I arrived at the convenience store where Choi Do-hoon was in the middle of his shift.
For the record, Choi Do-hoon is the friend who lent me his studio apartment before I moved into the boarding house.
Why the convenience store all of a sudden?
Condoms. I needed to buy condoms.
For twenty-six years of my life I'd been under the impression that condoms existed solely so people could masturbate with them on.
But today I was buying condoms to have sex with a woman—and not just any woman, a huge-breasted beauty.
"Welcome."
"Yo, Do-hoon. I— huh?"
I'd been planning to teabag Choi Do-hoon, the guy who always mocked me for being a perpetual virgin, but standing at the register with a box of condoms clenched in one hand was a sharp-featured woman I'd never seen before in my life.
"Uh, um. The usual part-timer for this hour is…?"
"Choi Do-hoon?"
"Y-yes."
"I'm Do-hoon's older sister."
"Ah, aah. I see…!"
I reflexively bowed a full ninety degrees at the waist.
So this guy had an older sister. Thinking about it, he might have mentioned something like that before.
"I'm Ha Seung-chul, Do-hoon's college friend!"
"The one he lent his place to?"
"Yes, ma'am."
But Choi Do-hoon, you little shit, you'd clearly said it yourself.
That if your hair just grew a little longer you'd basically be your sister.
Did you have zero conscience whatsoever?
In what universe did this cool-beauty tomboy type of older sister look anything like you?
"Nice to meet you. Choi Do-yeon."
"Ah, yes. Nice to meet you, Noonim."
She casually stuck out her hand, so I awkwardly shook it with one of mine.
A faint scent, something like soap, brushed past me.
Judging by her looks alone I wouldn't have been surprised if she reeked of cigarettes, so that was unexpected.
"Drop the 'Noonim' stuff… just call me Noona. Talk casual, too. Why are you being so formal with your friend's big sister?"
"I-if you go casual first…"
"Fine, then. Let's see… if you're Do-hoon's friend, that makes you twenty-six?"
"Yes. I mean, yeah."
"Must be nice. I'll be thirty next year."
A few more questions about each other's situations followed after that.
Here's what I pieced together.
Choi Do-yeon, twenty-nine.
Unusually for a woman, she'd graduated from an engineering school and joined an IT company, only to burn out on the brutal workload and quit a few months ago. She was currently taking a break while prepping for a new job.
Covering Do-hoon's convenience store shift had also been her own idea.
Something about how simple physical labor refreshed the brain.
"You really don't want rent money? That place is in a good location—the monthly fee can't be cheap."
"How am I supposed to take money from his sister instead of him? It's weird taking cash from a friend anyway. Besides, I already paid this year's rent in advance. Got a bit of a discount for it."
"Oh… so you've been living responsibly. Looking at that body of yours, I can kind of believe it."
Along with those words came a gaze that seemed to rake me up and down.
In the old days I wouldn't have thought anything of it, but lately I'd been colliding with women's bodies so often that it felt a little embarrassing.
Even so, getting hard in front of a friend's older sister was out of the question.
That would be social death.
While I was furiously filling my head with wholesome thoughts, Do-yeon Noona's gaze shifted to my hand.
Specifically, the hand gripping the box of condoms.
"You just need those rung up, right? Hand them over. Noona'll buy them for you."
"Ah, that's……"
I was fucked.
I'd never once imagined a scenario where I bought condoms in front of a friend's older sister.
But putting them back now would also be weird, wouldn't it?
I bit my lip hard and reluctantly set the condoms down in front of me.
Do-yeon's reaction, of course, was—
"Pfft."
"……"
"Were you on your way to meet a girlfriend? Heh heh. Enjoy it while it lasts, kid. Choi Do-hoon was whining the other day about getting dumped."
Maybe I should just die.
No—I still had to have sex with Ji-young.
Dying was off the table.
"Ah, that's actually hilarious……"
"… Just ring them up, please."
"Okay, okay. Me buying these for you would be kind of weird though, right? Next time you're with Do-hoon, call me over. Noona'll treat you to a nice meal."
With that, Do-yeon spread her palm flat and held it out toward me.
"Alright, hand it over."
"Money? I was going to pay by card."
"No. Your ID."
"Excuse me?"
"I know you're an adult. But I've always wanted to try this."
"……?"
For a second I looked at Do-yeon wondering if she was joking, but she was smiling with the purest, most innocent expression imaginable.
Do I tell her, or not?
It was awkward for both of us, so I didn't really want to point it out, but… hmm.
This was purely me, as a former convenience-store part-timer myself, doing her a kindness.
It was absolutely not revenge for her teasing me first.
"You can buy condoms even if you're not an adult."
"…… Huh?"
"Try scanning it on the POS. There's no age-check prompt like there is for cigarettes."
"F-for real…?"
Beep.
The red light from the scanner hit the barcode, and at the same instant Do-yeon's face flushed bright red.
"No, this is, I mean—"
"I'll put my card in."
Once the payment went through, I casually slipped the condoms into my pocket.
Wearing a subtle victor's smile.
"Hey, hey…! If you tell Choi Do-hoon about this, I will kill you?!"
"I'll think about it, Noona."
"Hey!!!"
I carefully lifted the hem of the dress I was wearing.
Even the air brushing between my legs felt so unfamiliar I thought I might die of embarrassment.
"D-does this not suit me at all…?"
After years of wearing nothing but pants—or just panties—I had no frame of reference.
Seol-ah had been avoiding showing her face lately, and my pride wouldn't let me ask that bitch Yuki.
In the end I'd asked Jamminai what would make a good first-date outfit, and she'd picked out this white dress.
To my eyes it looked like someone had ripped up a tablecloth and roughly stitched it together, yet it had cost five hundred thirty thousand won.
Had I just gotten scammed?
No. No gloomy thoughts allowed.
I'd even bought and swallowed a calming pill just in case my depression flared up.
Besides, Ha Seung-chul was a guy whose brain was ruled by his dick. Once we got to the motel and I showed him my chest, he'd go wild like a monkey.
Still… it'd be nice if he thought I looked pretty even without taking anything off……
"Ji-young."
"Y-yeah…?"
A low, deep voice reached my ear.
I turned my head and found Ha Seung-chul standing there, smiling awkwardly.
"You're early. It's only five-thirty."
"Ah, well……"
Why the fuck is this bastard early, goddammit—no, no!
Absolutely no getting angry.
I'd ordered this to be a date.
The email from the app developer had clearly said so.
No matter what command I gave, the app would interpret it to fit my situation—but if I, the user, didn't immerse myself properly, the hypnosis could break.
So right now I had to become a girlfriend on a date.
It wasn't because I actually liked that bastard. Absolutely not. I just couldn't let the hypnosis get found out.
Yeah. That was it.
"I just came out early. W-why are you already here?"
"Me? I didn't want to be late either."
As he said that, Ha Seung-chul's gaze drifted toward my dress.
Why, why is he looking?
Does it not suit me? Does it look bad? Do women who waste money on clothes like this seem like they have no life skills, and now he's turned off? Should I just take it off? Should I just tear it—
"The dress looks pretty."
"……"
What do I do.
I think I just got wet.
Come to think of it, Ha Seung-chul had come out wearing a proper shirt for once.
Normally he complained that collars were stuffy and refused to wear anything that choked his neck, always sticking to undershirts or whatever and hoodies.
"Y-you cleaned up and came out too. Look at you all tense—no wonder people call you a virgin loser……"
"Does it show? I actually went to a salon yesterday and got my hair cleaned up. Cost me almost a hundred thousand won."
I deliberately packed my words full of meanness and spat them out, but Ha Seung-chul just casually told me his honest feelings like it was nothing.
Of course I knew it was the hypnosis making him spill his true thoughts without any filter, but that only made my heart race more.
Because those were Ha Seung-chul's real feelings.
I should've just said let's go straight to a motel and fuck already.
Then my heart wouldn't be pounding like this shit.
"It's a little early for dinner, right? Want to walk for a bit? Or—it's hot out, so maybe grab a coffee? You look warm."
"……"
Look at him playing the boyfriend.
But he seemed to have prepared something, so generous me decided to go along with whatever he was doing.
Even if he was also awkward and saying all kinds of stupid shit.
"Did you put on sunscreen? You don't go outside much so you probably don't know, but if you don't take care of your skin while you're young it really goes to hell overnight. Later when we get home I'll—"
"Hey."
"Huh?"
"Just shut up and walk……"
"O-okay……"
Sunscreen? The future?
Was he saying he was going to start managing my skin now so he could look after me until I died of old age at ninety?
Or that the moment my skin went bad he'd brand me a washed-up hag and run off to that bitch Yuki?
No, please. Just a little.
Seung-chul wouldn't do that.
The only thing anxious here was my own heart.
Believe. I have to believe. I have to believe, but—
"… Hey, Ha Seung-chul."
"Yeah?"
In the end, this was the only choice I could make.
Men were the worst kind of creatures—they got hard the second they saw a woman's body.
If I carved my body into every corner of his mind, he'd still remember me even if the hypnosis broke.
With that thought, I tightly grabbed the forearm of the man standing beside me.
"…… Can't we just go straight to a motel? Hm?"
This is all your fault, Ha Seung-chul.
It's because you're such a goddamn whore of a dick-snake bastard.
It's because you seduced me with those thick arms and that body that things turned out like this.
I didn't do anything wrong.
You're the bad one.