The Campus Food Chain
The next morning, my steps toward the lecture hall felt weightless, as if I were walking on clouds. The smartphone in my pocket wouldn't stop buzzing. Every notification that rolled in nudged the leading digits of my bank balance another notch higher.
The Bitcoin bull market was in full swing. For a man who already knew the future, those charts were nothing more than an ATM.
"Hey, Park Dohun! You win the lottery or something? What's with that face?"
A classmate slung an arm around my shoulder. I grinned.
"Yeah. Unofficial lottery."
The moment I stepped into the lecture hall, I felt a strange current in the air.
Choi Yura, the campus goddess of the business department, and Seo Jisu, the student council president. On any other day those two would have been holding court like queens among their respective cliques. Today they sat hunched and diminished, as if the air itself had grown too heavy for them.
Choi Yura occupied a window seat, chin propped on her hand, staring at nothing. Instead of her usual designer bag she clutched an eco-tote against her chest. The shadows under her eyes were dark, and no amount of makeup could hide the worry carved into her face — the shock of yesterday's so-called cleaning job, no doubt, plus the debt collectors tightening the noose around her family.
And Seo Jisu. She sat in the front row with a textbook open, but the page hadn't turned in ten minutes. Every so often she glanced back over her shoulder, checking for me, looking for all the world like a frightened rabbit. Last night in my apartment was still burned into her like a brand.
This is fun.
The two women who had stood at the very peak of this campus were, in truth, dancing in the palm of my hand. That thrill wasn't something money could buy.
I tossed my bag down and, making a show of it, took the seat right next to Seo Jisu.
"Morning, sunbae."
The bright greeting sent her shoulders leaping.
"Uh... y-yeah... morning..."
She answered in a voice that barely crawled out of her throat, eyes sliding away from mine. Nearby students stared, puzzled. The girl who normally would have been handing out lectures was behaving like a docile little lamb.
"Did you get home all right last night? How's your body feeling?"
I asked it with a carefully constructed look of concern. Of course, the only two people who understood what I meant by body were sitting in these two seats.
"......Be quiet."
Seo Jisu bit down on her lip and whispered it. Her face went scarlet in an instant. She was remembering last night — panting underneath me, rocking her hips.
"Why? I'm just worried about you. Oh, and this."
I pulled a canned coffee from my pocket and set it on the desk.
"Have some. You worked hard yesterday."
It wasn't just a can of coffee. The tab had been lifted slightly, ready to pull. But in Seo Jisu's eyes it might as well have been a payment — kibble tossed down by the man who held her secrets in his fist.
"I don't want it... you drink it..."
"Come on, you'll hurt my feelings if you ignore the gesture. Now where did I put that backup of the video..."
I muttered it like I was talking to myself. Seo Jisu's eyes flew wide.
"What...? A backup??"
"Yes, a backup. Those intimate little contents that were on the USB yesterday."
I smiled at her, all innocence, and a curse started to tear its way out of her mouth.
"You crazy—!"
"Shh. Keep it down. Planning to let the whole neighborhood know you're a slut? Or should I spread the word for you?"
I fished the USB from my pocket and gave it a little wave. Seo Jisu's face crumpled.
"So... are you going to drink it, or not?"
I said it with a grin, and she snatched the can off the desk at the speed of light.
"I-I'll drink it! I'll drink it!"
Her hands shook as she cracked the tab. Then she tipped it back and gulped, swallow after swallow, like someone forcing down poison.
"You look even prettier when you drink it, sunbae."
I reached under the desk and set my hand on her thigh.
"Hhk—!?"
She started to cry out and clamped her mouth shut just in time. The lecture hall was packed with students. Kick up a fuss here and the rumors would write themselves.
"Stay still. Just until class starts."
I kneaded the soft flesh of her inner thigh at my leisure, her warmth seeping through the stockings. She twisted her legs together and endured it. Tears welled along her lashes, bright with shame, but she couldn't refuse.
Getting off at school too, Madam President?
I laughed at her inwardly and took my hand back. The professor walked in, and class began. Seo Jisu didn't lift her head once. She spent the entire lecture staring a hole through the desk.
Lunchtime. The student cafeteria was packed, but I headed off campus to a high-end restaurant. Cafeteria slop no longer suited my palate.
I was cutting into my steak when the phone buzzed. Choi Yura.
First contact in two days, and the way she addressed me had gone from a blunt hey to Oppa. That was the sound of a girl who needed money.
I finished my meal at a leisurely pace. No reason to rush. She was the one who needed me.
Thirty minutes later, the cafe. Choi Yura was waiting in a corner seat, dressed as plainly as she had been yesterday. But that very plainness only threw her innocent looks into sharper relief. Male students at nearby tables kept stealing glances.
"You're here?"
I sat down across from her and she startled, head snapping up.
"Oppa..."
"What'd you call me for? Out of money already?"
"......"
Her lips worked soundlessly, and then she hung her head.
"Dad... called again today. We put out the immediate fire, but... the employees' pay is overdue and the union's threatening to sue..."
"And?"
"Ten million won... can you lend me just ten million more?"
She looked up at me like she was begging. The prideful goddess of the business department, the girl who until a few days ago had treated a returning student like an insect, was sitting here pleading for cash.
"Ten million. That's not a small amount."
I folded my arms and gave her a look that was all calculation.
"The three million I gave you last time is a little much to write off for one cleaning job, don't you think?"
"I know... I'll pay you back. I'll take a leave of absence and work part-time if I have to. So please..."
"Part-time? What kind of job are you going to work to pay back that kind of money? A convenience store? A cafe? That'll barely cover the interest."
I laid the facts down cold.
"Think realistically, Yura. Your body — how much do you think it'd fetch if you put it on the market?"
"......"
"A high-end hostess club in Gangnam, you'd pull twenty or thirty million a month. But you know what that does to a life. Pouring drinks, selling smiles, going for a second round and spreading your legs."
Choi Yura's shoulders started to shake. She knew. She could feel her future sliding in that direction all by itself.
"I don't want to send you there. It'd be a waste."
I reached across the table and took her hand.
"I'll lend it to you. Ten million won."
"Really...?"
Her eyes lit up.
"But the terms are changing."
"The terms...?"
"The cleaning gig is over. From now on, it's a girlfriend-for-hire gig."
"Girlfriend... for hire?"
"Yeah. When I call, you come out. We date, we eat, we watch movies. To everyone else, a real couple."
Something complicated moved across Choi Yura's face. If it was just dating, that wasn't so bad. It might even be easier than cleaning. But she could read my eyes. She understood what a real couple included — the physical part.
"Does that... include sleeping together?"
She asked it carefully.
"Well. Couples usually do, don't they? We'll take it slow, so don't worry."
I rubbed my thumb across the back of her hand.
"If you don't want to, forget it. I won't force you."
"......I'll do it."
The answer came faster than I'd expected. She didn't have a choice. With her father on the verge of prison, what was her chastity worth?
"Good decision. I'll transfer it now."
I sent the ten million won right there at the table. Money was scrap paper to me. But if that scrap paper became the contract that purchased Choi Yura's soul, its value was infinite.
"Keep tonight free. First date — we should go somewhere nice."
"Okay... I understand."
She nodded without a fight. Just like that, she was my girlfriend. A girlfriend bound by contract, closer to a slave than a lover — but mine all the same.
That afternoon I headed for the school library. Not to study. I was there to see Seo Jisu.
She was working in a corner of the reading room, true to form. During exam season the student council president was a permanent fixture of the stacks. I came up behind her and tapped her on the shoulder.
"Sunbae."
"You scared me! Why are you—"
She whipped around in a panic. Nearby students shot us looks that said keep it down. Seo Jisu clamped her mouth shut and dragged me outside.
"Are you insane? Following me all the way to the library."
"I missed you. Studying going well?"
"I can't study at all because of you. Whose fault do you think that is!"
Her face crumpled toward tears. Between last night and this morning's lecture, her nerves were shot. Of course she couldn't focus.
"Let's get some air. Clear your head."
"No. I'm busy."
"Oh, really? Then should I set this video as the desktop wallpaper on the library computers? Give the bored kids something to watch while they study."
I gave my phone a little shake.
"You... you're a real devil..."
Seo Jisu glared at me, trembling from head to toe.
"Thanks for the compliment. Come on."
I took her up to the roof of the school building. A deserted stretch of concrete. The rusted iron door swung shut behind us, and the space belonged to no one but the two of us.
"What are you trying to do here..."
Seo Jisu backed away, uneasy.
"Sunbae, you're student council president. You know every corner of this school, right?"
"Why?"
"A place on campus with no CCTV, where people don't go. Where is it?"
"What?"
"A club room? A department lounge? Or... a professor's office?"
I stepped in and slid an arm around her waist.
"I was thinking we could try a date with a little more thrill."
"Let go! You psycho — what the hell are you doing at school!"
"Why? You did it with Gang Minho in a car. School would be even more exciting, don't you think?"
I popped open a button on her blouse.
"Don't... what if someone comes..."
"That's why you have to be quiet. You know you're the only one who'll be ruined if we get caught, right?"
I breathed the words against her ear.
"Name a place. Fast. Or I do it right here."
Seo Jisu gripped the rooftop railing and shook. But she couldn't refuse. As long as I held her weakness, she was my puppet.
"The... the old building, third floor... the storage room at the very end..."
She confessed it in a voice that barely existed.
"People don't really go there..."
"Of course. There's nothing you don't know, Madam President."
I smiled, satisfied, and took her hand.
"Let's go. Time for some field research."
Seo Jisu let herself be led down the stairs like a cow being walked to the slaughterhouse. Midday on campus. Students sat in lectures, laughing and talking, all inside the same building where we were about to commit the most secret, most transgressive act imaginable.
The third-floor storage room of the old building. Abandoned desks and chairs lay under a skin of dust, and the light was almost gone. I locked the door and sat Seo Jisu up on a desk.
"All right. Show me the real student council president."
I spread her legs. The tight skirt hiked up, and the pale skin underneath gleamed in the dark.
"Haa..."
Seo Jisu closed her eyes as if she had already given up. A tear slipped free and rolled down her cheek. But her body remembered my hands. Her thighs trembled — and parted.
The forbidden space of a school. The title of student council president. All of it fed the heat in my blood.
"You can't make a sound. People walk by outside."
I put a finger to my lips and made a little shh. And then, in that hidden room, I began to take her in earnest.