Imaginary Sex Doesn't Count
[Seolah]
[I'm really sorry]
[I did do something that could be misunderstood]
[But it's not what you're thinking]
After finishing his part-time job, Seungchul kept sending messages, but Seolah had no desire to reply.
She knew perfectly well that talking to him in this situation would only make her feel more miserable.
[I'm sorry]
[Let's talk later]
After leaving just that much of a reply, she turned off her phone.
Of course, she couldn't spend her whole life never seeing the person she liked, so she had to find some way to deal with it.
Fortunately, she had quite a few friends she could share this kind of worry with.
"Um, hey."
"Yeah? What's up?"
"Can I sleep over at your place tonight…?"
"Tonight? Well, I don't have plans with my boyfriend or anything…."
"Whoa? Suyeon's place? I wanna go too!"
"Me too!"
Including Seolah, there were four of them.
All friends from the Korean Language Education department, reasonably tight-lipped and all with boyfriends, making them perfect for sharing this kind of problem.
Above all, there was Suyeon, the one-year senior in the group.
Having retaken the entrance exam, she had a great personality and was extremely knowledgeable about relationships. Thanks to her help, five couples had formed in just one semester.
"Why, Seolah? Got some kind of worry?"
"It's not really that…."
"What do you mean it's not? It's obviously guy trouble. Is it that ahjussi you mentioned before?"
"H-he's not an ahjussi, okay?!"
"So it is guy trouble after all."
"…… I-it's just…."
Seolah's face flushed red as she lowered her head.
If only Oppa could read my feelings this easily too.
She thought to herself.
"Staying over is fine, but sorry, this unni's advice is a little expensive…."
"I-I'll buy you coffee. And tteokbokki later tonight too…!"
"Whoa, what about mine?"
"What about me?"
"You guys can buy your own…."
"Aww, if Seolah's buying for unni, then unni has to buy for the rest of us. Should we head to my place and keep talking there?"
"Yeah…!"
After sealing the deal, Seolah and her friends headed straight for Suyeon's studio apartment.
They changed into the comfortable clothes Suyeon handed them, ordered desserts and drinks through a delivery app, then lay side by side on the bed.
It was time for girls' talk.
"First, explain it again. I was drunk last time so I didn't really catch it. I only heard later that Han Seolah has a guy she likes."
"W-well, you see…."
If Ha Seungchul had gone through all-boys middle school, high school, and the military, then Han Seolah had gone through all-girls middle school, high school, and was now in a female-dominated department.
Of course, plenty of people there dated men just fine, but for someone as shy as Seolah, it had been impossible.
She had never really liked anyone before, after all.
It made sense that she had only realized her feelings for Seungchul a few months ago.
The three friends listening to Seolah's story were all smiling brightly without realizing it.
Nothing got the dopamine flowing quite like someone else's love life.
"So Seolah was a kissless virgin……."
"Didn't I tell you before?"
"I just thought you were making excuses because you didn't want to go to department meetups. Who would've guessed you were actually a kissless virgin."
"Did you check if that ahjus— I mean, if he has a girlfriend?"
"I don't think he does…."
"Did you ask?"
"I stalked his KakaoTalk profile and StarStar and there was no change at all, so I'm pretty sure he doesn't…."
"I-I see."
She left out the part about how it seemed like Seungchul might like a woman more attractive than herself.
She had already made up her mind to handle that somehow.
"Hmm, twenty-six years old…. Do you have a photo by any chance?"
"Here…."
Seolah enlarged the profile picture from Seungchul's KakaoTalk and showed it to her friends.
Though she didn't say it out loud, everyone except Seolah became certain for an entirely different reason that he didn't have a girlfriend.
No girlfriend would have let him keep such a terrible photo as his profile picture.
"Your taste is… really something."
"Unni, she won't understand if you beat around the bush."
"Whyyy…. Isn't he at least decent-looking?"
"No, it's not about his looks…."
How lovesick did you have to be to fall for a guy grinning like an idiot in a printed T-shirt in front of some event hall full of Japanese text?
Everyone had the words right at the tip of their tongues but held them back.
Still, from what they'd heard, he didn't seem like a bad person, and if you set aside your prejudice, his physique really was impressive, just like Seolah said.
"Don't you have any photos of him wearing normal clothes? You said he uses StarStar too. Show us those at least."
"He only seems to use it for workout records…. Here."
"……."
"……."
"……."
"Hehe, cool, right?"
"… Uh, yeah. Sure. He looks cool."
"Unni, stop sugarcoating it."
Suyeon was starting to wonder if Seungchul was actually thirty-six instead of twenty-six, and if he had held a knife to Seolah's throat while brainwashing her with "Kehehehe, I'm your six-years-older oppa!"
"…… Is this one bad too?"
"Huh? Oh, no, of course working out hard is cool…!"
"That doesn't look like working out. It looks like he's practicing how to kill someone…."
"Has he already killed a few people?"
"Umm, I didn't really want to show this because it's my treasure…."
After gauging her friends' reactions, Seolah pulled out a small ID photo.
Short hair, white shirt.
Even that looked a little intimidating to twenty-something female college students, but it was far more presentable than the horrific photos from KakaoTalk and StarStar.
If you said he was a bodyguard or a professional soldier, it would make sense.
"This one's actually not bad…."
"R-right?"
"Looking at it like this, he does kind of give off an athlete vibe, huh."
"Not my type, but… there are plenty of girls who like this kind of guy. Where'd you get this photo though? The background looks like a studio."
"I-I stole it from Oppa's room…."
"""…… Huh?"""
Even though it was a security guard job connected through an old acquaintance, a job was still a job.
Ju Inha, who was surprisingly strict about these things, had asked Seungchul to bring a resume, so he had gone to a nearby photo studio, taken the picture, printed it, and attached it.
What Seolah had taken were the extra copies that had been stuffed into Seungchul's wallet.
Since only one photo was needed for the resume, the extras had just been shoved in there.
"Of course I didn't go in there planning to steal…! I was going to wake him up because it was dinnertime, but he hadn't finished unpacking yet. I was trying to help and somehow it ended up like that……."
"Uh, yeah. That can happen."
They didn't say anything else.
At first, she had seemed like such a pure and cute girl that they'd wanted to get closer to her—and of course, she really was that kind of girl.
But they couldn't help thinking that in front of the person she liked, Seolah became endlessly gloomy.
Of course, that didn't make her unappealing. It was more like, Oh, so she has this side to her too.
If it had been some weird guy, they would've freaked out and stopped her, but from what they'd heard, that didn't seem necessary.
In fact, they were starting to wonder why she was even worried in the first place.
"Hey, Seolah."
"Y-yeah?"
"I don't know if I should say this, but if you just went and told him you've liked him since way back when, he'd probably burst into tears and accept you right away…?"
"Right?"
"Oh! I was thinking the exact same thing!"
They knew not every man went all doe-eyed over women.
But there was such a thing as intuition and statistics.
The fact that three out of four of them had the same thought was pretty solid evidence.
"R-really?"
"Yeah. Doesn't even look like we need to help…. If you're really worried, just ask him to go see a movie. While you're pretending to eat popcorn, hold his hand, and if he doesn't look like he hates it, confess right then and there."
"H-how could I do something like that……."
"Have some confidence, Han Seolah. You're the prettiest girl in our department, so what are you even worrying about?"
"What? N-no…! You guys and unni are way prettier! And your bodies are so slim…."
"……?"
What was this girl even saying?
Despite being born with the kind of chest the rest of them had to scrape their souls together to create?
For a moment their blood pressure spiked, but they managed to calm down by exchanging glances.
Still, there was no one as kind and cute as Seolah.
They told themselves that as her relationship seniors, they should be generous.
"Listen carefully, Seolah. Men… usually like girls with big breasts."
"Yeah…?"
"Since it's just us, let's be honest! Girls like guys with nice bodies and big dicks too. Wouldn't it be the same for men? Though I personally look at faces more. Hehe."
"Uh, uhh…?"
"Hey, tell us about your boyfriend instead. You said you went to the beach last week to celebrate the end of the semester."
"That? Sigh, unni, this kind of story needs alcohol…."
Before long, Seolah's problem had been pushed aside and everyone was sharing their own stories.
The level of spice was so high that Seolah wasn't even sure if she was allowed to hear it.
At least, that was how it felt to her.
Back in school, all she had cared about was studying, and she had only seen porn for the first time after entering university.
Hearing conversations about which positions felt good was far too intense a stimulus for someone who had never even masturbated in her life.
"Hey, hey."
"Yeah?"
"Look at Seolah's face."
"Whoa… She's gonna explode if you poke her."
"No, it's just…."
"Ehehe… What on earth was she thinking about?"
"I-I wasn't thinking about anything…!"
That didn't mean Han Seolah was completely ignorant about sex.
Late-blooming thieves were the most dangerous, after all.
The moment she became aware of her feelings for Seungchul, she had started rapidly turning her attention in that direction.
And the person living in the next room at the time had been Seo Jiyoung.
Which meant she had learned from exactly the wrong kind of person.
Of course, she had been too embarrassed to talk about Ha Seungchul.
"Oh. Speaking of movie theaters, I went to see a late-night movie with my boyfriend last time. And there were no other customers at all."
"Whoa… So then?"
"Hehe, well. There was a sexy scene, so I glanced over and he was super hard, you know?"
"Then what? Did you go straight to a motel?"
"How were we supposed to leave in the middle? So I just used my hand like this, like this…."
"Kyaa, you guys are actually insane…!"
Before long, Seolah was inserting herself and Seungchul into her friends' stories.
Of course, since she had never actually seen a man's body, it was nothing more than a flimsy fantasy, but that only made it more arousing.
The realistic parts flew away, and all she could think about was doing lewd things with the man she liked.
- Ah, Oppa…! Hnn, right there….
- We have to be quiet in the movie theater, Seolah.
She was imagining herself on the receiving end, not the giving end.
Seolah, driven wild by the sexy scene, begging him to fuck her.
The imaginary Ha Seungchul looked down at her clinging to him like he couldn't help it, then reached out and thrust into her.
With those large, firm hands, very roughly.
"Hey, this won't do. Let's bring out the soju."
"Do we have any snacks, unni?"
"There's tomatoes right there. We can just slice them up and eat them."
Even as her friend playfully poked Seolah's cheek, the fantasy didn't stop.
If anything, it was spreading uncontrollably.
And Han Seolah made up her mind.
If necessary, she would use anything.
Whether it was hypnosis, or her own body.
※※※
"Where are you going, Seungchul?"
"Oh, you're still awake? Seolah asked me to come pick her up. From her text, it sounded like she'd been drinking."
"Really? She told me she was staying at a friend's place…. Sorry, but could you go get her? I'd appreciate it."
"Yes. I'll be right back."