Two Uses Remaining
When the hypnosis lifted, the vacant look on her face snapped back to normal. The TA hesitated for about a second, then spoke.
"Then let's do another counseling session at your place this weekend. That work for you?"
I nodded at her, the expression on my face still completely blank.
"Y-yes. Yeah..."
"Alright, up you get. I've got your number, so I'll call you Saturday morning."
"Ah. Okay..."
The TA scooped up the empty coffee can and headed out.
"What are you doing? Aren't you coming?"
"Huh? I-I'm coming."
I scrambled out of the room after her. Her footsteps echoed down the hallway, unhurried, ordinary. She shut the door as if nothing at all had happened and started toward the teaching assistants' office.
I-is this actually real?
I stood there for a long time, staring at my phone. I opened the app again, but the screen had only one thing to say.
Trial uses remaining: 2
...Seriously?
It was completely impossible. And it was happening to me anyway. By the time I finally started moving again down that hallway, a full ten minutes had gone by.
I clattered down the stairs, frowning hard.
"Is this actually possible? There's no way..."
I was staring at my phone as I walked, not watching where I was going —
Thud.
"Kyaa!"
"...Ugh."
Neither of us went down. We just staggered. But the second she got her bearings and saw it was me, her face twisted.
"..."
"..."
The disgust was written on her without any attempt to hide it. She was a girl who'd hated me from the start — even before I'd put on airs or given anyone a reason to get the wrong idea. I had never been able to understand why she'd disliked me from the very beginning.
"Hm?"
A book had fallen to the floor. On the side of it, a student ID number and a name were written in highlighter: Kim Yi-kyung.
"Hey, you dropped—"
Kim Yi-kyung, who'd been heading up, glanced back. Her short bob swung as she came back down in a rush, snatched the book like she was plucking it off a belt, and went straight back up the stairs.
"What a bitch..."
I muttered it and kept going down. Right now I had something far more important than some rude girl.
Once I got home, the first thing I had to figure out was money. Rent was three hundred thousand won. The monthly subscription was four hundred thousand. That was seven hundred thousand before I'd even started. Add living expenses, transportation... I'd need a million won a month, easy. I sat in my chair running the numbers, then flung the pen across the room like I was throwing it away.
No matter how I looked at it, a million won was an enormous amount of money for a twenty-year-old. Where the hell was I supposed to get that? My monthly allowance was five hundred thousand — and even that already included rent. I was covering food on two hundred thousand a month.
In the end, if I wanted money, I had to start a part-time job. And if the app was real... then four hundred thousand a month wasn't even a loss. If I could hypnotize people for four hundred thousand a month, that was no loss at all. It was a massive profit. There wasn't a business on earth that paid out like this.
But does it work on guys too?
The question crossed my mind, but I had no interest in spending four hundred thousand a month using it on men. I frowned at my phone. If I was actually going to subscribe, I needed to find a part-time job right now. I opened the laptop on my desk and pulled up every job listing site I could find.
Even as I searched, I kept thinking about what had happened that afternoon, my heart pounding. I was seriously going to lose my mind. Just the memory of the TA obediently taking my every word sent a spike of pleasure through me, and down below I was already hard, burning. Earlier I'd been too shocked — it was my first time, and on top of that I hadn't handled the time limit well. Wasting one of my three trial uses so pointlessly was a real shame. And yet my heart was racing with anticipation over how I'd spend the two I had left.
This isn't the time. I need to find a job. That's how I pay for the subscription. I've never even subscribed to a game before.
I grumbled, but I kept digging through every corner of the listings.
Finding a part-time job wasn't hard. This was a college neighborhood — places looking for student workers were everywhere. Today was Friday, so I'd go to the interview in a little while. Saturday, the TA would call. I just wanted the lecture to be over.
The old professor's tedious lecture finally ended, and students got up from their seats. Chairs scraped.
"Thank you for your hard work, Professor."
"Haha, not at all."
Once the professor left, the TA came in.
"There were some of you who didn't sign for student reservist training last time. The male students whose names I call, come up and sign."
"Yes~."
"Okay~."
She was wearing jeans and sneakers, a sweatshirt under a padded vest. Even so, her proportions were good enough that the guys' eyes kept flicking her way, and the TA looked like she was quietly enjoying the attention. Not that I'd know, since I'm not a TA.
I thought that as I packed my bag and stood up. Tomorrow, the TA would be walking into my room. Just that thought was enough to feel myself getting hard. Gotta get out of here. The signature didn't matter anyway — I was still unenlisted. Right now I had a job interview to get to.
I headed outside and made my way to a cafe near my studio. A little bell chimed as I opened the door. Students sat at the tables studying.
"Welcome."
"Ah, yes. Hello. Um... I'm here for the interview?"
"Ah! You're twenty?"
"Yes."
A mature-looking woman held out her hand.
"Nice to meet you. I'm Lee So-eun, the manager of this cafe."
"Ah — yes! Nice to meet you."
The manager gestured for me to come inside, then glanced back at the part-timer behind the counter.
"Ah-hyun, watch the register for a bit, would you?"
"Yes~."
A calm-looking woman nodded, still fiddling with her phone. I followed the manager into a small break room in the back.
"I needed a guy for the position anyway. Hours are as posted — evening shift after classes."
"Ah, yes. Will I be working nights alone, though?"
"No, don't worry. I'll be here for the evening shift too."
She told me not to worry as she pulled out a contract and handed it over.
"Well, it doesn't look bad. Minimum wage, until midnight. The university library closes at 11:30, so."
When the campus library shut its doors, this place closed with it. I read through the contract slowly, and looked the manager over while I was at it. She was wearing a cafe apron over a dress shirt, so I couldn't see much — but her figure wasn't bad.
I want to use the hypnosis.
Now that I actually had the Hypnosis App, the urge to use it was boiling over.