The Lion Queen's True Face
The girls scattered away from me silently but quickly. The girl who had been sitting in the very back seat by the window scrambled up and fled. Juran marched over, spun a chair around to face me, and sat down, glaring straight at me. Sitting in my assigned seat for the month, I didn't know what to do, so I looked away and stared straight ahead.
Silence fell over the classroom. Crash! Because of the quiet, the sound of something hard colliding and tumbling to the floor from behind sounded exceptionally loud. I looked back and saw a chair knocked over. Juran had kicked the chair next to her. Without taking her eyes off me, she opened her mouth. "Bring it here."
It was an obvious command directed at me. Sigh... She really is a mad dog... For now, I picked up the chair and set it down next to her, recalling Sua's suggestion from yesterday.
—Why don't you take this opportunity to tame Juran, Haun?
I wasn't trying to trigger some romance flag or play hard to get. I just didn't like the way she was acting.
"If you want something, just say it. You're scaring everyone." Her piercing gaze made my stomach drop, but I pushed past the fear and spoke with quiet resolve. It was only possible because, deep down, I trusted that she wouldn't actually hit me. I turned to walk away, as if I had nothing more to say to her, when—
"Sit..." Juran said, her voice noticeably softer as she avoided my eyes. Oh... I'm actually controlling her! A thrill shot through me, unlike anything I had ever felt before. A wild, ferocious beast that no one could ever hope to rein in was lowering her tail at a single word from me. So this was what conquest felt like.
I was curious to see how she would react if I insisted my seat was over there and walked back, but since I had just told her to speak up if she wanted something, doing that might invite some unpredictable retaliation. So, I sat down. The other kids were still watching us with anxious, tense eyes.
"Ah... could everyone just relax?" I said, before seeking Juran's agreement. "You'd prefer that too, right?" "Yeah..." she muttered, leaning her arms and chest against the desk with a pout. "Juran says it's fine." Without thinking, I glanced at Sua with a triumphant look on my face. She was watching us with a playful smirk. *Not bad,* her expression seemed to say.
As the classroom filled with the low hum of whispering students once more, Juran remained quiet for a moment before turning toward me. "I was just angry... I didn't mean to..." Her eyes, shimmering and unsteady, flickered as she hesitated to look at me directly. Resting her head on her arms, her shy face made my heart skip a beat. This was bad.
"I'll go grab my bag," I said, standing up. "After I use the restroom." Blurted out, I bolted into the hallway. I spent the time calming my racing heart and only returned just as the afternoon classes were about to start.
Unlike yesterday, when she had constantly poked me or waved her hand in front of my face to get my attention, Juran was remarkably quiet today. Whenever I felt her intense gaze and turned to look, she would hastily avert her eyes and stare out the window. The only reason this behavior felt so incredibly cute was because she was Juran—the girl everyone usually called the Lion Queen.
Suddenly, I wondered if I was the only one she showed this side to. Did Gyuhwan, who was close with Juran, know this side of her too, and was that why he was so obsessed? Stop thinking useless thoughts... She was a girl I needed to distance myself from anyway. Shaking off the stray thoughts, the bell finally rang to signal the end of the school day.
"Let's go," she said, standing up and looking at me. "But where are we going?" "First, to buy you some clothes, Haun." "Clothes? Why?" "Because we're going to drink." Even for adults, buying or ordering alcohol while wearing a school uniform is prohibited due to the potential negative influence on minors.
"I'm not drinking." Since my goal was to draw a clear line, I needed to keep a sober mind. "Ah... really? Then I'll just drink by myself. Hmm... in that case..." Her plans disrupted, she pondered for a moment before saying, "Let's stop by somewhere first then." She led me to an officetel building not far from the school.
"This place is..." "Where I work part-time."
[User recognized.]
[Welcome.]
"So you work part-time too." As we got into the elevator waiting on the first floor, Juran pressed the button for the fifth floor and replied, "Of course. Why did you think I was allowed to skip school so often?" "Does working a part-time job excuse you from school?" "Ah, you didn't know." The elevator doors opened, revealing a short hallway. I followed her as she walked down it with practiced familiarity. "If you submit an employment contract, those hours are counted as school attendance."
Having lived my life without any real plans for the future, assuming that as long as I kept up with my schoolwork the AI would figure something out for me, I had no idea such a system existed. I followed Juran inside after she authenticated her entry once more at the front door. I was immediately overwhelmed by the rows of various outfits hanging on racks and the photos covering the walls. They looked like the kind of pictures I'd seen in the women's magazines my mother and sister read, or on the fashion-related social media accounts that were always the talk of the town among the girls at school.
"Is everyone out on a shoot?" Juran's voice echoed in the quiet space. "Sit on the sofa and wait a bit. I'm going to change." Perhaps she had clothes in the bag slung over her shoulder, because she carried it with her into a room off to the side.
I slowly scanned the room, looking toward the door she had just passed through. Since it seemed to be a business related to women's apparel, all the clothes on display were women's clothing. The photos on the wall were all of women as well. They were likely fitting photos. Among them, an outfit caught my eye—one that wasn't familiar, yet felt like I had seen it somewhere before. That's... It came to me instantly. It was the outfit Mido and Yehyeon's gang had forced me to wear.
"Damn it..." I whipped my head away, only for another photograph to catch my eye. My gaze instinctively locked onto it. The woman in the picture was wearing what could barely be described as strings, making her look practically nude. Her pose was the epitome of a perfect S-curve. Her incredibly voluptuous breasts and hips, thrust out boastfully, were connected by a slender, flawless waist.
Because she was turned to the side, the front and back of her panties were hidden. The thin strings extending from the front and back were tied to a golden ring positioned right in the middle of her hip. Similarly, a thin string tied to a golden ring at the center of her chest widened just enough to barely cover her areolae before narrowing again as it wrapped around her back. At the peak of her breasts, which looked even firmer and rounder where the strings pressed into them, her nipples—covered by a tiny patch of black fabric—protruded beautifully, asserting their presence.
I wonder what her face looks like... The only disappointing thing was that the photo was cropped from the neck down to the thighs. "Sorry to keep you waiting." Aaaagh! Having been so engrossed in admiring the photo that I hadn't even realized Juran had come out of the room, I screamed internally in sheer embarrassment and whipped my head toward her.
She's barely wearing anything either... She wore a loose, low-hanging crop top and denim hot pants. The midriff exposed between them... It looks exactly the same... It looked as if it had been ripped straight out of the photo that had captured my attention just moments ago.
"Aren't you curious about what kind of work I do here?" She sat down softly beside me as I hurriedly looked away, worried I had been staring too much. "Well... I guess..." "I model." "Ah... modeling..." She pointed a finger at a photo hanging on one side. It wasn't very revealing, but it clung tightly to her body, showcasing her voluptuous figure. "That's me too."
This time, she pointed to a different photo. It showed a woman wearing a dress with a deeply plunging neckline. Her volume, too, was immense. "That one is a photo of me fitting the clothes, but with an AI-generated face superimposed on top." Why go through all that trouble...? Before I could even voice my question, she pressed her body close to mine. I felt the soft, yielding sensation of her breast brushing against my shoulder. Her face was so close I could feel her breath. "And... the one you were staring at so blankly is my body too."
My mind spun... This was dangerous. "Uh..." I slid over slightly to put some distance between us, asking a question like a student on a field trip. "If... if you're going to superimpose a face anyway, why do you even need to take the photos? Couldn't you just do the whole thing with AI?" Fortunately, Juran straightened her body, pulling back from me. "You can't modify the body wearing the actual clothing."
"I see... Is there some kind of law against it?" Good. Let's keep this conversation going. My wildly racing heart began to settle back into a calm rhythm. "There's something much scarier than the law." "Like what?" "The consumers." Raising her index finger, she continued speaking with an uncharacteristic air of boasting.
"AI can easily detect photos that are fully generated or heavily edited by AI. Even if it doesn't look much different to the naked eye, if someone notices that the fitted parts have been altered and posts it online, people go crazy, claiming it's not a real fit. It can be fatal for small brands." "Huh... people are really sensitive about that." Good, this was a nice atmosphere. Peaceful. The tension that had gripped my entire body began to melt away.
"They just want someone to hate. They're looking for a target to relieve their stress. They wait around for anyone to slip up, and the moment they spot something, they yell 'Gotcha!' and throw them to the crowd like prey. Then everyone just tears them to fucking pieces." She crossed her arms, her face twisted in irritation. For some reason, her expression carried a faint trace of anger that went beyond mere annoyance.
"I see... That's a shame." Hearing her answer, I looked back at the superimposed photo and let the words slip out without thinking. "Your real face is way prettier." It was a mistake.