Areum Gets Fucked
Flat denial.
At that, Pi Ah-reum's face—which had been glaring at Kang Cheol-jin—flushed with embarrassment.
"Huh...? You're not dating Soyeon unni?"
"Nope."
"Uh, huh?"
Pi Ah-reum's head tilted from side to side. Then she soon widened her eyes again and glared at Kang Cheol-jin. Except all the venom had already drained out.
"D-don't lie. You've been going around with unni constantly lately. Sitting next to her every day, eating with Soyeon unni more than with us, and you were together in the evenings too!"
"That was because of the project. You know we were in the same group."
"...Oh, right? B-but you don't stick together that much just because you're in the same group! I did a group project too. I wasn't with the others all day like that!"
"Your group was five people, right? Three people in our group dropped the course. It was basically just me and noona—just the two of us. Obviously we had more work to do, didn't we?"
"...I guess so?"
"So that's why we spent a lot of time together."
"O-oh, I see......."
A deflated Pi Ah-reum nodded her head. Then she bent at the waist in a deep bow.
"I-I'm sorry! I was sure you were dating!"
"Even if you put it that way."
Kang Cheol-jin scratched his head with an awkward expression. He'd said it confidently, but the real reason he'd spent so much time with Lee So-yeon wasn't the project—it was because they'd been having sex.
Feeling a twinge of guilt, he spoke.
"I'm telling you this now, but I've got some trauma, so I have a hard time trusting people. Especially women."
"Uh, huh?"
At the sudden serious turn, Pi Ah-reum grew even more flustered.
He didn't want to make the mood heavy. The only reason he'd brought this up was so she'd understand. He explained as briefly as possible.
"Just—something happened a while back. I got bullied some in middle school... and the girl I was seeing at the time suddenly said let's break up, then led the charge in bullying me."
There'd been a girl who confessed first, dumped him first, and took the lead in tormenting him.
Even thinking about it now, it was absurd. He could fully understand breaking up because the situation was bad, but could anyone have imagined she'd join in on the bullying?
Because of that experience, Kang Cheol-jin found dating women uncomfortable.
Meanwhile, Pi Ah-reum immediately spat out fury. Her expression was terrifying, ill-suited to her petite frame.
"What kind of crazy bitch does that?!"
Pi Ah-reum, erupting in zero-to-a-hundred rage.
But then she sensed something odd and stopped talking. As far as she knew, Kang Cheol-jin had definitely never been in a relationship.
"Didn't you say you'd never dated?"
"I was too young, so I didn't count it. Even calling it dating, it only lasted about a month."
Kang Cheol-jin said it like an excuse, but honestly, another reason loomed larger.
I don't want to count something like that as a relationship.
He didn't want to leave his first relationship as that kind of memory. It was a sentimental reason, but psychologically, it provoked a deep revulsion.
"I see. No, that's not what matters... uh, um, I'm sorry. I had no idea......."
Pi Ah-reum didn't know what to do with herself, like she'd become a criminal. Her already small frame shrank even further, which was incredibly pitiful.
To lighten the heavy mood, Kang Cheol-jin smiled as if it was nothing and said,
"I'm sorry too. For always saying I was busy lately. It's not because I don't like you."
Far from disliking her, he actually rather liked her. He preferred being with Pi Ah-reum over his other same-sex friends.
Though whether that was because of romantic interest, even he couldn't tell. Compared to the past, his trauma had improved a lot, but the idea of having a 'girlfriend' still felt uncomfortable. A psychological barrier was unconsciously blocking his feelings toward the opposite sex.
At least it was fortunate that his misogynistic perceptions had disappeared. And Pi Ah-reum's influence had been immense in making that faint remaining misogyny vanish. Lee So-yeon and An Seo-ra had contributed too, but they couldn't compare to Pi Ah-reum.
That was why Kang Cheol-jin wanted to maintain his current relationship with Pi Ah-reum, so seeing her show jealousy like this left him feeling bewildered.
He hesitated a little, then asked carefully.
"Ah-reum, were you jealous, by any chance?"
"...Huh? Jealous?"
"Yeah. Because I've been getting close with Soyeon noona......."
Even as he said it himself, he felt embarrassed. A pretty girl like this likes me and is jealous of another woman? But nothing else came to mind.
Pi Ah-reum blinked as she looked at Kang Cheol-jin, then frowned. The reason she'd gotten mad at Kang Cheol-jin.
Why was I mad? It's not like it's jealousy.
The answer came quickly.
Pi Ah-reum said confidently.
"Obviously because if you date Soyeon unni, you can't have sex with me."
"...That's it?"
"What's with that look? This is a really serious issue, you know?"
Pi Ah-reum, arms crossed, launched into a speech.
"Think about it. If you're dating someone else, can you do it with me, or not?"
"...Obviously not, right?"
"Right. So you have an obligation to tell me—no, to tell us—if you start dating someone. Because you can't be hitting on someone while you're in a relationship, right?"
It was logically sound. Nothing to refute.
"I thought you were dating Soyeon unni. And I thought you weren't telling me. Why wouldn't you tell me?"
"......."
"Because you wanted to do it with me while dating unni! So you hid it—that was the conclusion! What kind of piece of trash does that?! Right?"
"Y-yeah, I guess so."
"But it turned out not to be true. I'm sorry for thinking you were trash......."
Pi Ah-reum bowed her head once again and apologized.
"N-no. It's fine, so you can stop apologizing."
As Kang Cheol-jin said that, cold sweat ran down his back.
Am I trash? It feels kind of similar to what Ah-reum said.
He'd never dated Lee So-yeon, but they'd had sex. And in the midst of that, he hadn't once thought he should cut off his relationship with Pi Ah-reum. In the end, he'd been carrying a mindset of doing it with both of them.
Kang Cheol-jin agonized over whether he should come clean right now.
But the conclusion was 'no.'
Wouldn't it be wrong for me to blab about it however I want?
Putting aside himself getting cursed out, he felt that going around announcing he'd had sex with someone was a massive discourtesy to the person he'd been with.
In the end, even while feeling queasy about it, Kang Cheol-jin didn't disclose his relationship with Lee So-yeon to Pi Ah-reum. Plus, he wasn't even dating Pi Ah-reum to begin with, so telling her felt even weirder.
Hmm. Now that I think about it, it's completely different.
Having comfortably reached that conclusion, Kang Cheol-jin pointed at the door with a much more relaxed face.
"If that's settled, shall we go? The lecture must've started by now."
*
After all the lectures were over.
Classmates immediately started recruiting for a drinking party.
"Let's drink till the end today! There's less than a month till exams—this is the last time!"
"Cheol-jin, you come too!"
"Sorry. I'm out. Got stuff to do."
I refused firmly. At first, turning them down had been genuinely difficult, but as I kept doing it, I got used to it. It was easier to get out by speaking definitively rather than leaving ambiguous room.
"Aw, what the hell. Kang Cheol-jin always bails!"
"Cheol-jin's ditching us again!"
"Ditching—that's a hurtful way to put it."
"You're the one bailing, so we're the hurt ones!"
I made an effort to leave the whining friends behind and headed home.
"Ah, I want to drink too."
It wasn't that I bailed because I hated alcohol. Even less so because I didn't want to hang out with friends.
"Gotta hold back. I just barely started working out again......."
It hadn't even been a full day since I signed the PT contract with Seora noona. I considered just starting the diet tomorrow, but once you start putting things off, it felt like there'd be no end.
More than anything.
- An Seo-ra: Take a pic of your dinner tonight and send it. You ate cafeteria food for lunch, so you know dinner has to be a diet meal, right^^?
- Me: Yes. I've got chicken breast at home.......
She was even sending texts like this and doing intensive management, so how could I take a photo of a drinking party and send it on day one? There was always the trick of secretly snapping a picture of chicken breast and sending it while drinking, but if I got caught, it'd be a total disaster.
Seora noona's fists are qualitatively different from Ah-reum's cotton fists. I could actually die.
Once I got home, I immediately set up dinner. These days, chicken breast products came in varieties that were easy to eat, so it was convenient. You just need to pop them in the microwave—no need to boil them separately.
Today's dinner menu.
A chicken breast product, blanched broccoli, two boiled eggs, a little kimchi. For rice, I went with brown rice. They say blood sugar rises slowly, which helps with dieting.
When I took a photo and sent it, a reply came right away from Seora noona. Had she been waiting? Kind of scary.
- An Seo-ra: Good. A few almonds added to that would be perfect. And since it's still early, you can have something like a fried egg.
- Me: Yes. Oh, also, should I buy protein powder?
- An Seo-ra: Don't buy protein powder. I'll get you one with good ingredients.
"Oh, I appreciate that. Saved some money."
She only charged half for the PT and she's even getting me protein powder—was she an angel?
No sooner had I thought that than an extra text came.
- An Seo-ra: Don't eat snacks after dinner because you're hungry. If you get caught, you're dead.
- Me: Yes.......
Well, so much for eating tasty stuff for a while.
After finishing my meal, I started studying, which I'd been putting off for some time. Self-studying skills like drawing, video editing, and modeling. All of these were my hobbies and my studies.
My short-term goal was creating a virtual avatar. Taking it a step further was implementing a virtual avatar as a hologram.
Someday, an era of the virtual, for the virtual, shall come!
So convinced, I honed my hobbies again today. Someday I'd make a living off these skills. Integrating virtue and work, where hobby and job coexist—that was my ultimate goal.
Like that, at a late hour of the night.
Suddenly, a phone call came in. It was Ah-reum.
"Hello?"
- .......
No answer came back. What the hell—bad connection?
I waited for a moment, puzzled.
- Ah, I said I have a boyfriend.......
- Come o...n... let's hang out. Look.......
Ah-reum's drunken voice and an unfamiliar man's voice.
I shouted in alarm.
"Ah-reum, Ah-reum?"
- I said no.......
- C'mon, get up.
- Hey, Cheongsa... just... let's meet.......
I immediately grabbed a coat, threw it on, and left the house.
Mak? Jumak? The Goryeo Jumak at Cheongdae Intersection?
For now, I ran that way.