A Fragment of a Crimson Heart

Shhhhhh—

Beyond the frosted glass wall, Cha Heejung's silhouette moved in a soft, shifting blur as she showered. I lay on the bed in a daze, watching her, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠then reached up toward the headboard to grope for my phone.

Ah. This isn't the right one.

I ended up hauling myself out of bed and digging through the pocket of the coat I'd flung across the room before I finally found my spare. While I was up, I figured I might as well air out the musky smell that had saturated every corner of the room. I pulled the curtains back, and there was the sun, sitting round and bright in the sky.

Whoa. First time I've ever gone at it until sunrise.

It was the dead of winter, so the sun came up late as it was. We really must have gone all out last night. I stuck a cigarette in my mouth by the window and checked the fruits of my labor on the spare phone.

Satisfaction of 98. A yield of around twenty-three thousand coins. I nodded, about to close the app, when something odd caught my eye.

What the hell? Why is her Difficulty like that?

If it dropped by one every day the way it always did, today should have been 208. So where had an extra twenty-five points come from all of a sudden?

Opening the Difficulty window made it obvious. A new trait had appeared, and her Technique Value had jumped. I didn't know exactly what Single-minded Devotion was supposed to mean, but I had a pretty good idea.

Single-minded devotion. Loving only one person, right? Unchanging love? Loyalty? That was how I'd always understood the phrase. Still, I had questions, so I tapped it with my finger. The explanation was painfully thin.

I swallowed the string of curses that tried to claw their way out and did my best to keep it clean.

Hah. This damn unhelpful app.

Shouldn't it tell you why a trait like this showed up? What it actually did, what it was supposed to mean? The Sex Coin app was great in every other way, but this — this was the one thing that drove me crazy. And staring at it any longer wasn't going to magically produce more information.

I flicked the cigarette, burned down to the filter, into the ashtray. The bathroom door opened, and Cha Heejung stepped out.

"Oppa, you should shower too."

"Why are you covering your face?"

"Because I'm not wearing makeup! Just get in there already!"

She didn't have a shred of shame about being naked, but a bare face was apparently mortifying. Had she forgotten I'd already seen her without makeup plenty of times?

"Alright, alright~."

She clearly hated the idea of me looking, and I didn't see much point in pushing it, so I did as she said and went straight into the bathroom. I showered in a hurry and came back out to find Cha Heejung already almost finished with her makeup. Our eyes met in the vanity mirror, and she let out a cute little cry.

"Oppa~! Don't look~!"

She already looked more or less the way she always did, but even that was apparently too much. I started to turn away, then something occurred to me.

"Heejung, don't you need to sleep? You're putting on makeup before bed?"

"I'll just take it off again when I get home. It's not like we can sleep here anyway."

At her words I glanced at the bed. The evidence of last night was, admittedly, a bit much. I wasn't about to crawl back into that after just taking a shower. Besides, checkout wasn't far off. Even if we did try to sleep, would we even get two hours? Going home and sleeping there would be more comfortable anyway, but still...

"Ah, but I sleep so much better when I'm holding you, Heejung..."

Sleeping alone and sleeping together were two completely different things. I was going to miss it. She must have heard me muttering, because she let out a little snort of a laugh.

"Well, too bad~. I get to actually sleep for once. Do you have any idea how lightly I've been sleeping every single day just so I can wake up before you?"

"Then just wake up after me."

"If I don't wake you up, you don't get up!"

Well. I did have to admit I'd been pretty weak to sleep lately. But I had my excuses. When you spend hours having sex after every shift, finish three times, and then try to sleep — wouldn't it be weirder if you weren't exhausted?

"Anyway, you've got plans today, don't you? Let's just go home and sleep. No point dozing off here and getting kicked out or stuck paying for another night."

Thanks to Cha Heejung's consideration, I managed to wake up in time for my plans. I went through the hair-styling routine I'd been doing every day lately, gave myself a light spritz of expensive cologne, and headed out.

Ugh. How long is it going to take to get to Seoul.

Today was the day we'd agreed to hit the club Park Sangyoon and I had talked about. That bastard who lived in Seoul and Kim Jiho, who went to university there, had ganged up on me in the group chat, insisting clubs were obviously a Seoul thing — which was how I'd ended up on an away trip I never signed up for.

Not that Seoul clubs aren't famous, but still...

I couldn't shake the feeling I'd been played. Which was why I was sitting on a train while the sun was still up.

Hah... this is why I can't stand Seoul guys. I'd been up forever, gotten fully ready, and was already on the train. I was jealous.

Maybe I should just live in Seoul too.

I had Sex Coin now. It wouldn't be that crazy, would it? Then university crossed my mind, and Cha Heejung, and Lee Jieun — and I dropped the idea just as fast. Maybe someday far down the line. For now, staying in Cheonan was the right call.

I fidgeted with my phone for a while, then pulled out the spare and opened the Sex Coin app for no real reason.

All that dedicated sex lately had apparently shaved a kilogram off my weight, bumping up both my Appearance and Figure values. And with the Sex Coin I'd mined from Cha Heejung today, I'd drawn one new trait and one new ability.

To be precise, I'd been saving for two days to buy another trait — 38,549 coins, about fifteen hundred short. Then I'd mined around twenty-three thousand today, which left me with over twenty thousand to spare, enough to purchase an ability as well. What came out of those draws was the trait Immune Constitution and the ability Contraception.

I used Contraception the moment I drew it. When was I ever going to get anyone pregnant? Hell — was I even going to marry someone and have kids in the first place? I'd considered a vasectomy after getting the Sex Coin app. This ability was almost too perfect. As long as I remembered to use it every December 31st, at the end of the year, there'd be no accidents.

And Immune Constitution. Obviously incredible. Didn't that mean I couldn't catch anything? If the description was right, I was safe from everything — colds, the flu, food poisoning, all the way up to every incurable disease there was. Nothing to complain about there. This was the kind of thing people would pay a fortune to have.

Except.

If it's all diseases, that includes STDs, doesn't it?

The timing was almost too perfect. The very day I was heading out for a one-night stand, both my STD worries and my pregnancy worries vanished at the same time. The coins I had wouldn't have been enough to draw both at once — not until Cha Heejung suddenly developed the Single-minded Devotion trait and everything lined up exactly.

Nah. No way.

Like the Sex Coin app was steering me, or someone was watching... no. That was ridiculous. It was the end of the year. I was just having a lucky streak.

I shook off the eerie thought, closed my eyes, and let my head fall back against the seat. If I was going to waste time on theories that didn't make any sense, I was better off getting some sleep.