Drunken Counseling
Kang Cheol-jin had just dropped the bomb: he'd slept with five people.
Naturally, Kim Seong-ju and Ahn Seong-hyeon couldn't hide their bewilderment.
"Did I hear that wrong? Five? What the hell, you lying bastard?"
Ahn Seong-hyeon's words, usually so careful around Kang Cheol-jin, turned rough. It wasn't just the alcohol talking. Ahn Seong-hyeon was decent-looking and in good shape, but tragically, he was still a kissless virgin.
Kim Seong-ju, meanwhile, quickly composed his surprised expression. He was simply impressed.
"Whoa, Cheol-jin's a real player. Want me to start calling you hyung from now on?"
"Hyung, I'm not bragging. I'm being serious..."
"Haha, it's a joke. So what's the problem? You think one of the five is gonna stab you?"
"Ah, hyung..."
"Whoa, hey, this isn't a joke, alright? If you mess around with five girls at the same time, you really could get stabbed."
"......"
Kang Cheol-jin swallowed hard without realizing it. When Kim Seong-ju said it that seriously, his words carried an unusually heavy weight.
Meanwhile, Ahn Seong-hyeon watched the two of them and thought.
'They're having this conversation for real? Fuck, what have I been doing with my life? Can't even get one, let alone five...'
Ahn Seong-hyeon unconsciously glanced down at his own right hand. A crushing wave of despair washed over him. His mood suddenly turned to shit, and he wanted nothing more than to walk out of the room.
Ahn Seong-hyeon's mood aside, the conversation continued. Kang Cheol-jin, momentarily spooked, snapped back to his senses and spoke.
"I was never running five at once in the first place."
"Huh? But you said you slept with five... Ah, they're all sex partners?"
"Calling them sex partners... isn't quite right, but anyway, we aren't dating."
A brief explanation followed.
He wasn't dating any of the five, and there were three women he was still actively involved with. Of the other two, one had drawn a line first, saying she wanted to focus on her daily life, and the other had become nearly impossible to even see after they'd slept together.
Naturally, he didn't mention any of the women's names. Kang Cheol-jin referred to them by letters of the alphabet, A through E.
"Hmm..."
After hearing the rough outline, Kim Seong-ju stroked his chin. Then he tilted his head and asked.
"There's no substance to this story, is there?"
"......"
"First, you said you don't meet D and E often, so we can exclude them, right? Are they part of the problem too?"
Kang Cheol-jin thought for a moment, then shook his head. He had met Lee So-yeon once more after she drew the line, but that was it. And Jeong Mi-na was a fourth-year, too busy to even catch a glimpse of her face.
Kim Seong-ju folded down two fingers.
"Then let's just talk about the remaining three. What's the problem? I need to know that first before I can give any advice."
"That's the thing. Sorry to say this, but honestly, I don't even really know what the problem is myself. Something's bothering me and it's frustrating, but..."
He'd asked for counseling and now he was saying he didn't even know what his problem was. What kind of bullshit was that?
"Hm. This isn't easy."
But instead of scolding him, Kim Seong-ju calmly tilted his glass. He'd seen this sort of thing from time to time in his life. It felt like there was a problem, but he couldn't pin down exactly what it was. People's hearts were inherently difficult to sum up in a single sentence, after all.
"Cheol-jin, drink more for now. Pick up your glass."
"Ah, okay."
Gurgle, gurgle. The glass was filled.
The two lightly clinked glasses and traded drinks back and forth.
Ahn Seong-hyeon's expression crumpled more and more as he watched them. An empty glass sat forlornly in front of him.
"Um, can I have some too..."
He was the very picture of a third wheel.
*
That's just the nature of troubles. When you're agonizing over it alone, no matter how much you think, you can't find an answer, but once you actually voice it out loud, it sometimes resolves easily. At least, that was how it went in Kim Seong-ju's experience.
So he first set about loosening Kang Cheol-jin's tongue. Meaning he got him plastered.
"Here, drink up, drink up."
"...Yep."
From the moment he asked for counseling, Kang Cheol-jin had no right to refuse, and he was forced to down every single drink Kim Seong-ju poured him and every bomb shot Ahn Seong-hyeon furiously slammed back.
For reference, Kim Seong-ju secretly threw away his drinks or pretended to sip them, maintaining a clear head. The one talking could get drunk, but the listener must never get drunk.
Eventually, Kang Cheol-jin's eyes went bleary and unfocused, and Ahn Seong-hyeon, exhausted by his own rage, slammed his head onto the table.
The Q&A session began in earnest.
"Excluding two of the five. What's your relationship with the remaining three? Just meet up when you're horny and fuck?"
"...No. We don't just meet up when we're doing it. It's just comfortable and fun being together."
"And if you get horny, you have sex too?"
"......"
"So it's more of a sex friend than a sex partner?"
"...Are those two different?"
Kang Cheol-jin blinked his bleary eyes. For how unfocused they were, he was managing the conversation pretty well.
Kim Seong-ju smirked and shrugged.
"Who knows? Normally, people probably don't distinguish between them, right? But I do."
"How do you distinguish them...?"
"The focus is different. A sex partner is literally about meetups where the goal is sex. Sure, you might talk normally and hang out, but if you aren't going to have sex, there's no real reason to meet? Since the relationship started with sex as the goal to begin with, they often even skip the hanging out part."
"...Then what about a sex friend?"
"Same as any other friend, just with sex added to the mix. A relationship where it's comfortable and fun to meet up even if sex isn't specifically involved... is how I think of it. For me."
"Mm... then I guess sex friend fits the bill..."
Kang Cheol-jin felt oddly sour about it. Seeing his expression, Kim Seong-ju asked back.
"You *guess* it fits the bill?"
"I kind of don't like calling them 'sex friends'."
It wasn't a lack of understanding; it was purely an emotional thing. He didn't like using the term 'sex friend' for the women.
"...For all three of them?"
"Yeah."
"Mm."
Kim Seong-ju clicked his tongue inwardly.
'Seems like he's not managing his distance properly.'
When bodies get close, hearts get close too. Starting as sex friends and then dating was a common enough occurrence.
'The problem is, it's three of them. And it doesn't seem like he thinks of any single one as special.'
Of course, if you looked closely, there might be one he leaned toward more, but it didn't appear to be a significant difference.
At this point, he could guess what Kang Cheol-jin's problem was.
'It's that kind of frustration that comes from an ambiguous relationship. And it's probably worse because there are three of them.'
After a moment's thought, Kim Seong-ju asked him point-blank.
"Out of the three, who do you like best?"
"...In what sense?"
"Ah, don't get the wrong idea. I'm not asking who you like doing it with best. I mean who do you have the most feelings for."
"......"
For an instant, a woman's face flickered hazily through Kang Cheol-jin's mind and vanished. The three faces overlapped.
"I... wonder?"
"Have you ever confessed to anyone?"
"Nope."
"That one was an instant answer. Then have you ever received a confession?"
"From one person... maybe? But it wasn't seriously like that, it was light."
That was from before he'd slept with Ju Hana. When he said he had no intention of dating anyone, she'd given that absurd reply, 'So sex is fine, then?'
Truthfully, the person who had properly asked Kang Cheol-jin to date was 'Jeong Mi-na', but that was a memory he'd already forgotten entirely.
"And you rejected her?"
"Yeah."
"Yet you've managed to stay sex friends? Usually it ends after that."
"...I got the confession before we did anything in the first place. Actually, I'm not even sure if I should call it a confession."
"What about the other two?"
"With one, that kind of talk never came up at all... and the other one, she just started doing it out of the blue, so I told her I had no intention of dating. Then she mocked me, saying who asked you to date, I'm just asking you to fuck."
"Whoa, what an American mindset."
"Right? Heh."
Kang Cheol-jin let out a short laugh. It was kind of ridiculous for him, a guy sleeping with three women, to be thinking this, but Pi Ah-reum was incredibly open-minded. Remembering how she'd been wearing a vibrator on their first meeting still amazed him. No, wait, was that just her being a sex parrot?
Kim Seong-ju posed another question to Kang Cheol-jin, who was snickering to himself.
"Why don't you want to date, anyway?"
"That's... Hyung, remember that conti I submitted at the club last time?"
"Ah, that comic?"
"Yeah. The thing is... that's basically my past."
Kim Seong-ju readily nodded.
"Well, I pretty much guessed as much."
"Haa, figured. Anyway, there's a part that's not in the comic..."
Kang Cheol-jin let out a sigh and opened up. He talked about how, once he'd started getting bullied, the bitch who was his girlfriend had not only turned her back on him as if she'd been waiting for the chance, but had even talked shit about him behind his back.
"Wow, what a piece of work. I can understand breaking up, but she even instigated it?"
"Maybe because of that, I just haven't felt like getting a girlfriend."
"Fair. That's enough to give you trauma. But... is that still the case?"
"...What?"
"I mean, is it still like that. You didn't get a girlfriend, but you still had sex. Are those two things separate for you?"
"Uh, that's... since there's no breaking up, there's no chance of getting betrayed..."
Kang Cheol-jin stammered, flustered. Kim Seong-ju stared intently at him, then pressed, almost cross-examining him.
"Do you only get betrayed if you're dating? And Seong-hyeon over there—you said he was the one who actually betrayed you. But you're getting along fine with him now."
"......"
"I mean, to be blunt, what if *I* betrayed you? Aren't you scared I might spread rumors to everyone, saying you're trash who's running around with five girls? What made you trust me enough to ask for this advice?"
In an instant, Kang Cheol-jin's face went pale. Seeing that, Kim Seong-ju chuckled and shrugged.
"Of course, I won't do that."
"...I feel stone-cold sober now."
"What are you talking about, your body's swaying like crazy."
"My mind is perfectly clear."
"Would you have spilled all your secrets like this if your mind was really perfectly clear?"
"......"
"Well, anyway, the gist of what I'm saying is this. Don't put too much meaning into the simple act of getting a girlfriend. What's romance, anyway? You give it a try if you kind of like them, and break it off if you don't."
"...Hyung, is it that easy for you to do it so lightly?"
His tone was somewhat aggressive.
Kim Seong-ju didn't mind, just smirked. A guy with trauma getting drunk and showing aggression, and it was only this much? Wasn't that an incredibly mild reaction?
He filled his own glass. He didn't pour any for Kang Cheol-jin. His body was swaying ceaselessly; he already seemed completely wrecked.
"Cheol-jin, it's not just me; everyone lives like that except you. Most people who date, in the first place, they don't go into it thinking they'll die without that person, do they?"
"......"
"They think 'Oh, they seem nice?' and try dating, and actually, there are plenty of cases where they genuinely fall for them *while* dating."
"......"
"They always say to date a lot when you're young like us. There are guys who switch girlfriends every month. Ah, I'm not talking about myself, by the way. Anyway, as long as you clean things up neatly afterward, that's all that matters."
"...Clean up?"
"Yeah. You draw a clear line. If you date, you date properly, and when you break up, you break up clean. Same goes for sex partners or sex friends. Actually, it has to be even more precise for those. If it's ambiguous..."
Kim Seong-ju emptied his glass and continued.
"If it's ambiguous, you end up with a lot of worries, just like you. Especially when there's more than one."
"......?"
"Want me to solve your problem? Confess to one of the three and date her. Then it's solved."
"?"
Kang Cheol-jin's head tilted sideways. Not just his head—his whole body couldn't keep itself upright and swayed back and forth. And then, soon... Thud! Kang Cheol-jin's head dropped onto the table.
Kim Seong-ju smirked and poured himself the remaining drink. Had he even heard that properly?
'Seems like he might not be self-aware yet, either.'
From what he could see, Kang Cheol-jin didn't seem to realize that he liked the three women romantically.
'No, wait. Could it be he's deliberately ignoring it?'
People were cunning like that, naturally inclined to unconsciously look away from problems that made their heads hurt.
There was another possibility. Maybe he *was* aware he liked them, but because of his trauma, he couldn't connect it to 'dating.' He'd made it sound easy earlier, but since the person involved had actual trauma, would spouting generalities really work? And Ahn Seong-hyeon was originally supposed to be his childhood best friend, so maybe he needed to be considered an exception.
Kim Seong-ju wasn't a psychologist or anything. He'd just been shooting his mouth off, saying whatever came to mind.
"Whoa, anyway, three is really something. The most I ever managed was two. Still waters run deep, as they say..."
He was muttering to himself in admiration when—
Kwang!
"Holy shit, what the fuck!"
Kim Seong-ju jolted in shock. The drink he'd been bringing to his lips splashed everywhere.
Ahn Seong-hyeon, who had shot up from his seat beside him, yelled.
"I want! To get a girlfriend! Tooo!"
"......"
"Sex."
"...Want me to introduce you to someone?"
"Se...x..."
Snore.