A Forced Dry Spell
"Oppa, is something going on with unnie?"
It was a fair question. Someone who'd been having a perfectly good time had suddenly taken off like she had somewhere urgent to be. I just didn't have an answer I could give Jieun.
We drank a little more, and as these things tend to go, found ourselves heading to a motel. I threw everything I had into my second time with her — every trick, every bit of know-how I'd picked up from Heejung and the other women I'd been with. The results, unfortunately, were underwhelming.
A Satisfaction score of just seventy-one. I couldn't tell if Jieun was simply the type who had a hard time getting there, or if Song Dayoung and Cha Heejung were just more responsive — either way, it was a frustrating number.
I put the Sex Coins I'd mined toward the Appearance Change Ticket I'd already been planning to buy.
Between withdrawing coins to send my little brother some spending money and a mining yield that had come in way under what I'd expected, it was a close call. If her Satisfaction had been even three points lower, I would've come up short again.
Same as last time, I used the Appearance Change Ticket to refine my face as a whole. My slightly asymmetrical features snapped into perfect symmetry, and without any dramatic overhaul, I just... looked better. Handsomer.
My Appearance Value had jumped thirteen points in a single week, but surprisingly, nobody seemed unsettled by it. Maybe it was because I hadn't strayed too far from the original — nothing like the reaction I'd gotten when I jacked my height up like a lunatic.
That was about the extent of it. Still manageable, for now. If I used another Appearance Change Ticket, people would definitely start noticing — not that it mattered. When was I ever going to scrape together 256,000 coins?
That was a long way off either way. Even at an average of twenty thousand a day, it would take almost two weeks. And that wasn't even my only problem.
I'd always come and gone as I pleased, so the idea of being "grounded" had never even crossed my mind — but that was exactly what Jieun had just been hit with. I was starting to understand why she'd gone twenty years without ever dating anyone.
On top of that, Heejung refused to have sex while she was on her period. I wasn't the type to get off on blood either, so I didn't push it. And just like that, I found myself living a few days of completely unintended celibacy.
"Minseok, you worked hard. Come by sometime. I can't give you freebies, but I'll hook you up with plenty of extras."
"Of course~. I couldn't eat chicken anywhere else after this."
Dongmin burst out laughing at the brown-nosing.
"Then just take a chicken with you. The boss said even if we can't do a proper send-off dinner, we should at least send you home with one."
"Come on, I just ate. Why would I take another one to go? I'll order later. By the way — still haven't found an afternoon delivery guy?"
"Can't find anyone at all..."
Choi Seongyong had gone dark after the last incident. Whether he was too embarrassed or what, he'd been ignoring every call, and the boss was the one left scrambling.
"Aigoo, maybe it's because he's young, but the kid's got no basic manners."
"Right? He doesn't have to work a few extra days like you did, but he could at least pick up the phone. Anyway, you did good. Get home safe."
"Yes, sir! You drive safe too, hyung!"
I'd been walking every day to see Heejung, so catching a ride in Dongmin's car for the first time in a while felt nice. I watched the Avante pull away, then fished out a cigarette.
That's it. It's really over.
Starting tomorrow, Heejung would be covering the hours I'd been working. I hadn't quit with any particular plan in mind, but I felt nothing but relief.
That aside, coming home at night like this... it's been a while.
I'd been practically living in motels lately, so heading home at this hour felt strange. Even after Heejung's period started and sex was off the table, we'd still gone to a motel after every shift to sleep together. Honestly, it would've been weird to stop seeing each other just because we weren't having sex. But then Heejung said she needed to get her own routine back on track and suggested we skip tonight — which was how I'd ended up coming home for the first time in ages.
I flicked away the spent cigarette and headed up the stairs.
"I'm home~."
Nobody was there to answer, but I called it out anyway as I stepped into my studio, just for the hell of it. I flipped on the lights and sat down at my desk.
So... what now?
I still had a long wait before I went back to university. I started thinking about what to do until then. I'd rather spend the time on something worthwhile than just kill it with video games...
Starting a workout routine was a given. But I couldn't work out all day, and that still left a ton of leftover hours. I thought about studying, since I'd be back in school soon enough — then immediately thought, I just need to not fail, right?
It's not like I'm going back to get a job. I was going back to meet women. Did I really need to study ahead? It definitely wasn't that I just hated studying and was making excuses. Probably.
Anyway, once I ruled out studying, nothing else came to mind.
"Haa... let's think this through."
What I actually needed to figure out were two things: how to raise my Sex Coin Value, and how to pick up women. The only way to raise my coin value that I could think of was working out. Or just having a lot of sex and investing the coins.
So what would actually make women fall for me? Looks would take care of themselves if I raised my Sex Coin Value, like I'd already said. Personality? That didn't seem like something I could change just by putting time into it. A job? I was a college student either way.
Wait — not a job. A calling card.
Valedictorian. Top of the department. Sports car owner. Building landlord. Chaebol heir. Not an actual business card printed on paper — more like something that dressed me up. A title. Reputation, in a way. A calling card that decorated you like a rank badge was definitely a bonus stat with women. There was a reason guys at bars pulled out their foreign car keys and left them sitting on the table.
So what could I actually pull off?
Top of the department... yeah, honestly, I didn't want to study. Grades weren't something that jumped just because you put in a few hours a day, and being "pretty good" didn't mean much anyway. But everything else I could think of came down to—
"Money..."
Every single one required money. Which all circled back to Sex Coins. But if I cashed out coins because I needed cash, I wouldn't have enough left to invest in raising my Sex Coin Value at the shop.
So I need to pick up more women?
How? Wasn't the whole reason I was going back to school that I had no way to meet women in the first place? I considered just asking random girls on the street for their numbers, then shook my head hard. That would mean chatting on KakaoTalk until we got close, and I had zero confidence when it came to texting.
Calling card... money... coins...
Coins?
I sat there turning it over and over, and then something clicked.
"Oh. Bitcoin!"
I'd been too locked in on Sex Coins alone. Come to think of it, I'd found this whole thing in the first place while looking into Bitcoin and altcoins. The thought had barely formed before I was calling Park Sangyoon.
Riiing. Riiing.
"The hell? Why are you calling me in the middle of the night?"
He picked up before it even rang twice, just like I knew he would. I'd figured there was no way he'd be asleep at this hour.
"You weren't sleeping anyway. Hey, I gotta ask you something."
"Funny, I was gonna hit you up tomorrow anyway... but go ahead, what's up?"
"I'm thinking about getting into coins. Is it hard?"
"Huh? Now?"
"Yeah, I quit my job today. I've got time now, so I figured I'd give it a shot."
"Dude, your timing is insane. Bitcoin just completely tanked."
What the hell was he talking about? Sangyoon's words didn't quite land.
"Tanked?"
"Do you not watch the news? The government's talking about banning it, this and that — everyone holding coins is getting slaughtered right now. Eunchae even called me about it today."
I remembered Sangyoon warning me it was dangerous, back at that bar in Seoul.
"It got that bad in just a few days?"
"It halved in a week. Nobody knows how much further it'll drop from here. Starting coins right now is actually insane, so don't even think about it."
I looked it up online while he talked. He wasn't kidding. I didn't know much about crypto, but I knew stocks well enough to see how completely unhinged the Bitcoin chart looked right now.
"Wow... yeah, I could never do that."
I couldn't help thinking I was lucky I'd quit my job so late.