One and Only

I woke and glanced beside me. Jieun was still asleep — makeup gone, bare-faced, and still not a single blemish on that milky skin. Long lashes rested over her closed eyes. There wasn't a thing you could pick apart in that cute face. She was smiling in her sleep, as if she were having a good dream, and I eased myself off the bed so I wouldn't wake her.

I actually pulled it off. Attaboy, Kim Minseok.

I patted myself on the back as I looked at the bright crimson stain on the bedsheet. All the effort I'd poured into this — and here it was.

Shame we only managed it once last night, though.

A woman's first time must be pretty painful. Jieun had hurt so much we never made it to a second round.

"Oppa, kiss me~."

Fortunately, aside from the pain, she seemed fine with the sex itself. She happily let me do every kind of touching except actual penetration.

I did manage to get her there once, somehow...

Still, I couldn't help worrying whether her Satisfaction would be high enough. The first time — the one with the Virgin trait attached — was the most important, and I couldn't shake the feeling I'd blown it.

I stole another glance at her sleeping face, then gathered my cigarettes and spare phone and headed for the bathroom.

The lighter hissed. I held the cigarette in my mouth and worked the phone with both hands.

I'd expected the Satisfaction to be low, but seeing the number with my own eyes dragged a sigh right out of me.

Only 62?

22,568 Sex Coins?

At this rate, it was no different from what I usually mined off Heejung.

How much did I just leave on the table?

And that wasn't all. The first times with Cha Heejung and Song Dayoung, I'd started before midnight. That had let me mine twice in a single night. This time, though, we'd gotten off work and it was already past twelve — so I'd only gotten one pass.

God, I really should've hit the jackpot this time...

Figuring the Virgin trait was gone and her Difficulty had dropped hard, I pulled up Jieun's numbers.

The number was higher than I'd expected, and it threw me.

313? Why is her Difficulty still that high?

I read it again, and the reason jumped out. The Virgin trait was gone — and in its place sat a new one worth 50 points: One and Only. Without it, her Difficulty should have dropped into the 260s. Thanks to this, it was still sitting over 300.

One and Only?

I'd never seen the trait before. I tapped it immediately.

The description made it click. Sleep with a virgin, and this was the bonus you got afterward.

Well. That's something, at least.

Unlike Spiderweb or Virgin — traits that vanished the moment you mined them — this one didn't disappear just because you'd cashed it in. It would go away if Jieun slept with anyone else, but...

Come on. Like Jieun's suddenly going to start sleeping around with other guys?

I wasn't too worried.

I flushed the spent cigarette and stepped out of the bathroom. Jieun was still on the bed in exactly the same position she'd been in when I got up. Checkout was coming up. I had to wake her.

"Jieun. How long are you planning to sleep?"

"Mmh... ten more minutes..."

She mumbled it, still half under.

Yeah, fair enough. She'd be exhausted.

Finish a shift, drink until dawn, have sex for the first time — and after that, fool around and stay up chatting with me for the rest of the night. Of course she was still sleepy.

I gave up on waking her and lay down beside her instead. The second I did, she wrapped herself around me like she'd been waiting for it.

"Mmh... Oppa, you smell like cigarettes..."

She scrunched her face at the smoke, but she made no move to let go. It was so cute I just stared at her, and before long she was breathing softly again, dead to the world.

Fine. Sleep all you want. I'll just extend the room. How much could it be?

I left her sleeping, pulled the spare phone back out, and opened the Sex Coin app.

A little short for an Appearance Change Ticket.

Being that close and still coming up short made yesterday's low Satisfaction sting all over again. Or would it? Even if it'd been high, I probably still couldn't have bought it, right?

Seventeen thousand... her Difficulty was 363, so...

The second I tried to actually run the numbers, I got lazy.

Whatever. I'll just see Heejung later, mine some more, grab the Appearance Change Ticket with that, and do my eyes and nose...

In the end, Jieun slept a good while longer, and I paid a room-extension fee for the first time in my life.

Lee Doyun had always put a premium on being a man, and ever since he'd come of age he'd been steadily buying home gym equipment. A few years on, you could fairly call the living room a miniature fitness center.

He was rather pleased with the space he'd put together, so here he was again, working out at home on a weekend afternoon.

On his back, Doyun pressed a steel bar loaded with heavy plates. The barbell was brutal — his thick arms trembled under the weight as he wrung every last bit of strength from muscles pushed to their limit. He'd only been at it an hour, and already sweat beaded across his skin.

"...eight, nine..."

That was when the front door eased open. Confirming it was his little sister, Doyun racked the barbell and stood.

"Hey. Lee Jieun. Where'd you sleep last night?"

He already knew she hadn't come home. His face pulled into a scowl as he asked. She'd been a legal adult for over a year now, but in his eyes his little sister still looked like a kid.

Jieun had seen this coming a mile away. She delivered the answer she'd prepared in advance without so much as a flicker in her expression.

"Me? I stayed over at a friend's place. Why?"

She kicked off her shoes and walked into the living room like it was nothing. She was so brazen, so ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠utterly unfazed, that Doyun bought it without much trouble.

"If you're gonna stay out, at least call home."

In the end, all that came out was nagging dressed up as concern. Jieun answered him half-heartedly and started for her room, then turned back.

"Okay~. I'll do that next time. Oh, right — Oppa, do you know a Choi Seongyong?"

He'd been about to lie back down and resume his set when the question left him stranded in an awkward half-crouch.

"Choi Seongyong? That name sounds familiar. Who is he again?"

Just because it was his sister asking, Doyun started genuinely racking his brain.

Who the hell was that?

He combed back through his memory, but the name hovered just out of reach. Jieun, who'd been waiting on him, seemed to get a better idea — she pulled out her phone and showed him Choi Seongyong's profile picture.

"Ah, wait. This guy. This one. Yellow hair, tattoos on his arm."

"Ah~ I remember him now that I see the picture. Geonu's junior. Why?"

The moment his little sister started asking about some guy, his face pulled into a scowl all on its own. It was even worse when the guy in question was a straight-up thug he actually knew.

Lucky or unlucky — Jieun's reason for asking about Choi Seongyong wasn't what he'd assumed.

"This guy keeps texting me, and even when I leave him on read and ignore him, he just obsesses by himself. It's driving me crazy. Yesterday he even showed up drunk at my work..."

"That so? Got it. Oppa'll take care of it, so don't worry about it. Go rest."

He said it evenly and sent his sister on her way, but inside, Doyun was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠boiling.

My sister's pretty, sure — but is Choi Seongyong out of his goddamn mind? Getting wasted and showing up at her job?

He left his workout sitting there — something he would never normally interrupt — and stood up with his phone already in hand.

The line rang. And rang.

That day, Choi Seongyong found himself face-to-face with Kim Geonu — the one person he feared more than anyone. After that, he never contacted Lee Jieun again.