Cohort Colleague, Guy Friend, Sex Partner

After sleeping with Park Eunseo… I slept so deeply that I only woke up when it was time to check out of the motel.

…If it hadn't been for the owner's phone call asking whether we wanted to extend, I might have slept straight through until the afternoon.

Anyway.

Thanks to that, Park Eunseo and I got up in a hurry and washed together, horsing around to keep yesterday's easy familiarity alive.

Then, once we were out, she suddenly started asking about hangovers…

"You don't get hangovers?"

"Hmm? Ah… yeah. I didn't drink that much yesterday. Why, do you?"

"Nooope. Not me."

"…You want hangover soup?"

"Hangover soup? I'd eat it if I could get some."

"Then let's get hangover soup."

"Oh, nice."

Just like that.

Still wearing yesterday's suits, we headed for a hangover soup place.

One in the afternoon.

It was lunch hour, but being the weekend, people in suits were genuinely rare.

On top of that, a man-and-woman pair.

And especially…

"I'm getting sundae soup. You?"

"I'll… have the same."

…Park Eunseo really did look like a fox — sly and alluring.

No matter what she wore, she drew other men's eyes without even trying.

Even right now.

"Auntie—!"

She shot her hand up to place the order, and the line of her underarm falling from that slender arm looked like it could invent a fetish that hadn't existed before.

…So I'd done it with a girl like this four times yesterday?

For now.

I wanted to check my phone right that second, but I decided to hold off a little longer.

Honestly… I had no intention of dating ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Park Eunseo, but having a partner this pretty was never going to be a bad thing.

If I were some silver-spoon heir or a certified handsome guy that women threw themselves at, maybe it would be ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠different… but coldly speaking, I wasn't.

At minimum.

Right now I needed to focus on Park Eunseo to keep our rapport at a healthy level.

"You not sore or anything?"

"Hmm? I'm fine. I feel… really refreshed, actually. Like I slept deep. It's nice."

"…Yeah?"

"I heard it from this unnie I know — when a woman is genuinely satisfied, she just crashes the second it's over. That was me yesterday."

Whether she'd really slept that well or not.

She grinned and swayed side to side, and every time she did, the black hair tied in a ponytail swished with her.

…So that was the neck I'd bitten and sucked on so hard yesterday.

I hadn't left any marks, but with yesterday's memories still fresh, I kept staring blankly.

No — snap out of it.

"Can I ask you one more thing about Manager Kim Yuhon?"

"What about him?"

"Have you… ever met the Manager outside of work?"

I asked both to keep focusing on Park Eunseo and to better understand my current situation.

"No? Why would I ever meet the Manager outside?"

"Then did Manager Kim Yuhon ever suggest meeting up outside?"

"Occasionallyyy… yeah, he really did ask me out for a drink every once in a while."

"But you never went."

"Yeah. I didn't think we were that close."

"Even before the Manager got married?"

"Yeah, why would I? He wasn't even in our department, and we weren't that close — the reason he was asking me out was way too obvious. Why would I go?"

Hmm… okay for now.

"Whyyy—? Trying to lock me down already?"

"……."

But wait, was she…

"…You said yesterday you weren't going to get clingy."

"Yeah. I'm not clingy. If anything, aren't you the one doing that?"

…I wasn't sure whether to call it a relief, but it wasn't what I'd been thinking.

"No. What era is this? Just because we clicked and did it once doesn't mean we automatically have to date."

"Yeah, I think the same."

Clean. And easygoing.

Park Eunseo had set our relationship at friends — and only friends.

And yet.

"…But you."

"Hmm?"

"You… don't have a girlfriend right now, right."

"Right."

"Sooo then… until you get a girlfriend, just do it with me, pretty much."

"……."

"Ah, this isn't a confession or me trying to lock you down or anything. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠It's just that yesterday… yesterday, that… uhmmm…."

…She was working to keep our current arrangement going.

"Yesterday was that good, huh?"

"…Yeah. Honestly I didn't know it could feel that good. Even now my lower half is still throbbing."

"Hmm…."

Well.

Once you actually sleep with someone, the guy women cling to harder than any silver spoon or pretty boy is supposedly the one who's a beast in bed.

And for Park Eunseo, I was sitting right in that position.

"Works for me too, then. But same goes for you — until you get a boyfriend, only me. I also…."

…But hang on.

Promising here that I'd only do it with Park Eunseo was basically the same as saying I'd date her.

And I wanted the other three as well, one way or another.

Sorry, but…

"…I'll mostly just do it with you."

I needed to lay a little groundwork.

"Okay!"

"But no locking each other down or any of that. Right?"

"Right. We're friends."

"Exactly, friends. Friends who help each other out. Yeah?"

When I nudged our relationship up from plain friends to something more like partners, Park Eunseo agreed to that part just as cleanly as before.

"Coming out—!"

"Ohh…."

And then.

The moment the sundae soup arrived, her already big eyes went even bigger and she started shoveling it in.

"You like sundae?"

"Of course."

"Then eat this."

She fished the vegetable sundae out of her own bowl and passed it over to me.

"You worked hard yesterday. You need at least this much to get your strength back."

"Come on…."

Smiling in that thoroughly sly way.

"Otherwise how are you going to keep helping me out, right?"

Friends, she said.

Before we parted, Park Eunseo asked me for a light peck.

…Yeah. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠A peck.

Too embarrassing to even call a kiss — just a little smacking sound of a peck — and then we went our separate ways.

And all the way home, switching between subway and bus, I still hadn't checked the Office Romance Management App.

…I felt weirdly guilty about it.

I held out somehow, worried other people on the bus or train might see.

I could have checked before leaving, but I was so impatient I didn't even think of it.

Still…

Beep-beep!

I made it home somehow, and finally got to check the Office Romance Management App in my own comfortable space.

After changing clothes first, though.

"Hooo…."

I swapped into comfortable shorts and a short-sleeve tee, flopped onto the bed, and picked up my phone.

A little tense, I tapped the Office Romance Management App…

"…Special?"

The app screen, which had already changed a little from what I'd seen yesterday, had changed again.

I'd already decided to tap, so I touched Park Eunseo's name.

"Hmm?"

More branching text appeared.

…That "Relationship" part seemed to mean the relationship between me and Park Eunseo.

Right now, Park Eunseo and I really were cohort colleagues, friends, and sex partners.

So what was the number after that?

"61… kind of ambiguous."

Our current relationship was… roughly somewhere above friends and below lovers.

Thinking of it that way, 61 definitely meant a solid amount of goodwill.

Judging from this.

If it dropped toward 0… the so-called affection level fell, and if it climbed toward 100, affection rose. That much was clear.

And the way to raise it would be getting closer to Park Eunseo; if things went sour between us, it would drop.

That much was easy to understand.

But…

Tap—

When I tapped the third relationship between me and Park Eunseo — Sex Partner — that part started blinking.

As if telling me to change it however I wanted.

"……."

But… right now, of all my relationships with Park Eunseo, the third one — Sex Partner — was the one I valued most.

I couldn't afford for that part to go wrong.

Just in case, I decided to experiment by changing the Cohort Colleague part — the one that wouldn't do much damage even if it disappeared — to something else.

What should I try.

"…Hmm?"

While I was thinking, the reaction she'd had when I spanked her ass suddenly came to mind.

I set it like that for now.

Since this was purely an experiment, I also checked whether I could change it back.

Okay.

Unfortunately, though, that number that looked like an affection or relationship score couldn't be edited by me.

Meaning… I was supposed to adjust that affection level through the "Relationship" itself.

Literally — "management."

"…This is broken as hell?"

It was looking more and more like fact that the Office Romance Management App held real power.

"If I use this right, the other three could end up like this too… right?"

In this country… people generally don't look kindly on someone juggling multiple relationships.

Which meant…

Park Eunseo, whose relationship I could rewrite at will, was fine — but things with the other women could get extremely messy.

But if I had the Office Romance Management App.

I could set my relationships with the other women however I wanted, use that, and still keep things going with Park Eunseo at the same time.

That sly fox face.

A body that was already excellent.

The only man she'd ever been with was me.

…And from the way she'd reacted when I spanked her yesterday, our tastes seemed to line up too.

For now.

The effort I needed to put into Park Eunseo was making sure she didn't start taking interest in other men.

I'd think about that gradually…

"…Knowing this much is… enough, sure."

But two things still had me curious.

What a Special Management Target even was, and why the exclamation mark had appeared next to Park Eunseo.

It seemed certain she'd been moved to Special Management Target because we'd slept together.

The problem was what made a Special Management Target different from a regular Management Target… but I couldn't figure that out right now, so I tabled it.

What mattered here was why that exclamation mark had shown up.

From the looks of it, you could only set a "Relationship" once that exclamation mark appeared.

"When did Eunseo's… first show up?"

Right — the chicken place.

It had been there when I checked while she was in the bathroom after we ordered at the chicken place.

So the exclamation mark didn't only appear after sex.

"Do I… need to create some kind of new point of contact?"

I still didn't know what that new point of contact was.

Maybe just talking was enough.

Maybe eating together did it.

Or maybe it just appeared for no reason at all.

But if I had to pick one moment… it was when we talked for the first time in ages and set up that dinner plan.

"…That's when it started feeling off."

Before that.

Park Eunseo had always kept a subtle distance from me.

We were friendly, sure, but only up to a point.

But today, even when I made an invitation that would obviously look like flirting even if I hadn't meant it that way, she'd nodded right along.

And I had one piece of testimony from Park Eunseo that was relevant here.

"She said she'd never… met Manager Kim Yuhon outside of work."

What that meant was.

"Is it because I linked it to my phone?"

At the company, Park Eunseo had been on reasonably friendly terms with Manager Kim Yuhon.

But that relationship never extended past quitting time, outside the office.

If the Office Romance Management App always worked at full power, the two of them should have been close outside the company too.

"And Eunseo said she shut him down every time…."

But Park Eunseo had rejected all of Manager Kim Yuhon's flirting.

And yet she'd accepted mine, hadn't she?

Which probably meant…

"…As long as this is in my hands, I don't actually need to do anything inside the company."

Like I'd thought earlier, there was a high chance it was because I'd linked the Office Romance Management App to my phone.

Which meant…

"Hmmmmm…."

If I found some pretext to run into these women, changes would follow.

We all worked at the same company anyway.

Opportunities to meet — and opportunities to collide — were as easy to manufacture as I wanted them to be.

And if I met them, and figured out how to make that exclamation mark appear…

Then the other three besides Park Eunseo could also have their relationships "set" however I wanted, the moment that exclamation mark lit up.