Chapter 85: Hobby 2
Chapter 85: Hobby 2
Even in a world where literary quality had soared and Constellations presided over the arts,
the subcultures people indulged in weren't all that different from the ones in my old world.
Trends and genres shifted a little thanks to the existence of Incarnations and Constellations, sure,
but in the end, people still read webtoons and web novels, played games, and giggled at internet streamers — you couldn't escape the resemblance.
"So, this is the site I use. Lately, I don't know what they've been smoking, but they keep pushing these GL ads and stuff even to female readers. But I'm not great with the app settings... Constellation? You are listening, right? You're not getting the wrong idea, are you?"
The fiction-site app on the smartphone I'd commandeered
had a completely different UI from the one I'd used in my previous life, but I adapted fast.
She didn't dare snatch the phone from behind my back,
so I half-listened to Han Ye-ji's desperate explanations, her arms still wrapped around my waist, and scrolled through the web novels.
Han Ye-ji, apparently tarred with the same brush as those oozing female readers, clung to me in a back-hug, her chin hooked over my shoulder, pleading.
But this was the first web novel site I'd gotten my hands on in what felt like over a decade — I wasn't letting go.
Movies and dramas, there were plenty of masterpieces, sure.
Back before I could use a Clone, I'd put movies on Han Ye-ji's TV and
watched them through the screen in my Constellation's Space.
Now I had a smartphone to play with in my own two hands. It was glorious.
A quick skim of the site's top-ranked works laid the trends bare.
A modern fantasy reverse-harem about a woman chosen by a Constellation who gets forced to remain in the Continental Cabinet and gets courted by men;
an alternate-history piece where the protagonist returns to the past and uses modern knowledge to prevent a devastating invasion and become a cherished Incarnation;
an Academy story where the lead becomes an instructor through raw talent rather than a Constellation contract and fields calls from multiple Constellations.
Beyond those: a business-management story about building an enterprise with knowledge granted by a Constellation,
a chaebol tale about a wealthy wastrel who straightens out after a Constellation recognizes their talent,
even a degenerate-heir story that starts with a Constellation swapping souls to punish a gifted but lazy Incarnation.
The way modern life was saturated with Constellations and Incarnations meant
every story had to feature them — but aside from that, it all looked a lot like the novels I'd read back in my college days.
"Um, Constellation?"
"Stay still a moment, child. A few of these look interesting."
Was Han Ye-ji right to complain about the site constantly advertising GL fiction she'd never once looked at?
Her favorites list contained no GL-related novels whatsoever.
She knew that perfectly well, so her anxiety probably came from somewhere else entirely.
The site being primarily for adult novels meant most titles sported a bright-red 19+ label.
Even though it was Han Ye-ji's account — and her reading list seemed to gobble up every top-ranked title from the very top —
every single one of those bestsellers was serialized with a glaring red label.
Maybe that was why I could feel her heartbeat accelerating against my back.
Novels about entering a masterpiece and altering its story in exchange for points from the Constellation of Art,
or stories about ending up in a gender-reversed world and being worshipped by men despite being a woman — those genuinely piqued my curiosity.
But if I browsed them here, Han Ye-ji behind me seemed wound so tight her heart might actually give out, so I dropped it.
"Whew..."
Then, curiosity struck, and I opened the internet browser app.
I'd seen TV and movies, those video-based media;
I'd seen web novels and webtoons, those electronic-page media — but there was one thing I still hadn't gotten to.
"H-heuk! Constellation, wait — just a second, seriously!"
I tapped the address bar to see if she had any porn sites among her frequent visits, and
Han Ye-ji, panicking, threw her whole body over me and snatched the phone away.
Maybe she never had to show anyone her phone, so she didn't bother clearing her browsing history?
Pressing down on her Constellation with her body was pretty insolent,
but all that softness filling my face made it more than tolerable.
No underwire poking me — she must have taken off her bra to sleep.
"Why, is there something you can't show me?"
We tussled lightly over the smartphone.
By my standards, it was affectionate, playful roughhousing between a man and a woman.
By Han Ye-ji's, it was a desperate fight to keep Pandora's box sealed.
That thought stirred a little guilt, but curiosity won out. It always does.
And honestly — searching a porn site on the smartphone I'd received as an offering at the Academy Temporary Sanctum
was probably worse than using Han Ye-ji's phone, wasn't it?
"Ah, Constellation, hold on — really, just a moment."
"Trying to clear your history, aren't you? That's exactly what I want to see."
Pressed together beneath the blanket, we squirmed and grappled.
Han Ye-ji curled around her phone like a shrimp, desperately clinging to it,
while I poked and prodded her ribs, her chest, her forearms — a gentle torment.
Maybe it was the light sleepwear, but the yielding softness of her body seeped through, and my hands found themselves squeezing for no real reason.
Then, under the dim dark of the blanket, our eyes met.
A dazed face, half-lit by the smartphone's glow.
Face to face like that, Han Ye-ji let out an awkward "hehe" — her guard dropping — and
I smiled back, secretly reaching out.
※
A world where the concepts of men and women, chastity and desire, were reversed.
In that world, I — a male Constellation — held an absolute advantage in little skirmishes like this.
I wanted to look at a smartphone; how exactly was she going to stop me?
It wasn't as if Han Ye-ji had bookmarked any porn sites anyway.
"Oh. So women like this sort of thing?"
"Yes? ...Yes."
Was this the face someone made when told the world would end tomorrow?
Now an accidental porn-site guide curled up in my arms, Han Ye-ji explained it all with an expression so ambiguously pained it defied description.
Browsing a site flooded with flesh-tones and moaning — while wrapped in a man's embrace — must have felt surreal.
Maybe aesthetic ideals didn't change, even if the world's concepts of chastity and gender did.
The most common sight on the site was fair-skinned, blond men with stunning figures.
Thumbnails flaunting their impressively endowed equipment were everywhere,
but female genitals were also spread and exposed with equal explicitness, so it never tipped into genuine revulsion.
I mean, you don't go to a porn site to get mad at dicks. That'd be mental illness.
You're there to watch them get vigorously pounded — that's the whole point of the site.
Sure, a minority probably wanted to watch rubbing instead of pounding, but I wasn't in that minority.
Casually scrolling through the site, I came across some genuinely peculiar things.
"Does that actually feel good? I mean, there's nothing there."
"Uh. Maybe they're doing it because it does?"
A gender-reversed version of sex, I supposed?
A woman, naked from the waist down, was writhing her hips with desperate intensity
on top of a man whose chest was as broad as a plank of wood.
Not on a rod — on his pectorals.
A woman grinding her slick, wet sex against the kind of massive chest muscles
that made you want to ask how much he benched.
I couldn't imagine it felt good, but true to their porn-star billing, the man and woman alike moaned with faces flushed and heated.
Watching it, something in my brain felt like cognitive dissonance kicking in.
Beyond that: a woman who hooked a man's forearm between her thighs and rocked her hips back and forth,
a woman who knelt and rubbed herself frantically against a man's knee while he stayed seated,
even a woman enjoying a man wielding a dildo and thrusting it into her.
Swap the genders around and it probably resembled the porn from my past life,
but in this warped visual form, it looked less like porn and more like a raunchy 19+ comedy sketch.
Like those un-erotic adult variety shows they do in sex-obsessed nations — guess the chest size, that sort of thing.
"Is there anything in there you'd like to try?"
"No, no! Nothing at all."
Even for Han Ye-ji, this genre was a little awkward, and she shook her head, face stricken, in response to my question.
I'd seen everything worth seeing, and if I started switching categories here,
I'd likely end up watching the kind of things men — not women — endured in porn. So I closed the site without hesitation.
What I was curious about was women's naked bodies, not men's.
If I ended up watching close-ups of aroused male faces or someone else's oversized cock drooling,
my pleasantly heated body would've chilled right back down.
I had a woman in light sleepwear wrapped in my arms,
her fingers navigating a porn site alongside mine — a lewd little scenario.
I didn't want to shatter the mood.
I closed the browser and handed the phone back. Only then did color return to Han Ye-ji's face, and she quietly sent the phone sailing far across the room.
She might lag behind a once-in-a-generation genius like Kim Ha-eun in raw talent,
but she could handle magic power perfectly well.
The smartphone drifted like a leaf on a breeze and settled onto the distant desk.
Watching that, I ran my hands slowly, softly over Han Ye-ji's body in my arms.
Stroking from her plush chest down to the smooth belly where faint abs might or might not be showing, I slipped a hand into her waistband.
I wasn't the only one who'd gradually heated up — inside her pants, a moist warmth radiated out.
Then again, my own Clone was lightly dressed too.
She'd been held in her beloved Constellation's embrace and made to watch several rounds of porn. If she'd shown no reaction, she'd be a eunuch... Wait, what did they call that in a woman?
A stone maiden? Whatever — she'd be some kind of cripple either way.
Even if it wasn't Han Ye-ji's personal taste, the porn had been made for women's eyes.
As my fingers teased her thighs and her increasingly damp underwear, a soft touch began stroking me between my legs.
The early days — when she couldn't even hold a dirty dream without her lucid dream popping like a bubble — were behind her. Now Han Ye-ji had learned to reach out first.
Indulging a swell of sentimentality in the strangest possible place, I quietly slid her underwear down.