New Beginnings (2)
“Do you like me, by any chance?”
“……”
Baek Seolah’s reaction to my casual question was truly colorful.
At first she turned bright red, letting out a flustered “Hwet!”
Before long she seemed to snap out of the shock, her lips opening and closing several times while the corners of her eyes trembled. Eventually she managed to regain her usual composure.
Which meant—
“……Say it straight, Han Taeyang.”
Grab—
She hadn’t completely lost her reason, but a faint blush still lingered on her cheeks as she forced a smile and grabbed me by the collar.
I realized a dense, pale-blue-white mana had gathered over her opposite fist.
The force was so fierce that even I wouldn’t escape a hospital visit if I took a direct hit without defending.
Baek Seolah’s lips twitched as she smiled, her voice sharp with menace.
“Want to get hit, or are you taking that back? Hm? I’ll give you one chance to retract it.”
“Hmm……”
Instead of choosing between the two options she offered, I swallowed a thoughtful hum.
And thought to myself:
‘Guess not, huh?’
It had been a vague suspicion with some reasonable basis, but the possibility that Baek Seolah had started seeing me as a man was apparently a step too far.
I looked down at her and said lightly,
“Then I’ll take it back.”
“……!”
If I didn’t answer right away, her fist really might end up buried in my solar plexus, so I chose the option she wanted.
Besides, I wasn’t masochistic enough to get hit for no reason.
Naturally, my choice was to take back what I’d said.
What was so hard about that?
When I shrugged with my usual relaxed attitude, Baek Seolah froze instead, her expression stiffening.
‘Why, what?’
She looked like she couldn’t believe I could answer so calmly after she’d come on so strong.
But she was the one who’d given me the choices. She couldn’t exactly get mad at me for picking one.
Once I cleanly retracted my words, Baek Seolah couldn’t find any more justification to press me. With a complicated look, she let go of my collar.
I glanced at her as she tilted her head, clearly thinking “That’s not how this was supposed to go,” then asked,
“So? If it’s not that you suddenly started liking me because you ate something weird, then what is it?”
“……Huh, what?”
I still couldn’t shake my curiosity even after the first possibility had been denied.
From my perspective, it was a perfectly reasonable question.
Especially after the way Baek Seolah had acted in front of Seo Ahyeon and me today—completely unlike her usual self.
Even I, who’d felt like I was sitting on pins and needles between them, had found it striking.
It was hard to say out loud, but honestly, it had looked a lot like she was trying to keep Seo Ahyeon in check.
‘She even seemed a little jealous.’
From the moment she’d approached with that uncharacteristically sharp attitude and started arguing with Seo Ahyeon, to the way she’d gotten noticeably smug after I backed her up and started teasing Seo Ahyeon—
Just what part of that moment had made Baek Seolah so delighted?
I still had no idea.
Plus, her comment about “bonding” had been shocking enough to crack my confidence that I knew her pretty well.
That was why I’d asked if she liked me, even knowing I’d probably get scolded for it.
“Talk to me comfortably. I won’t think it’s weird.”
“……”
Since I’d already sent Seo Ahyeon off, I wanted to clear up this curiosity before wrapping things up.
Leaning back in the lecture hall chair with my arms crossed, I looked up at Baek Seolah.
“It’s not like you suddenly started seeing me as a romantic option, and you still like Lee Hyeonseong. So why did you fight with Seo Ahyeon? You.”
“……Um, well. I mean……”
Baek Seolah avoided my eyes, her face growing even more shadowed. I wasn’t trying to pressure her, and I was speaking pretty calmly, but she still couldn’t meet my gaze, fidgeting and mumbling.
If I just waited, I probably wouldn’t get an answer until sunset.
I clicked my tongue and tapped the back of my hand against my knee.
“Hey, Baek Seolah.”
“Uh, yeah?”
“Come here.”
I crooked my finger at her.
Like I was calling a puppy.
Baek Seolah’s expression stiffened again, but for a different reason this time. I paid it no mind.
I just looked at her with calm eyes and patted my knee.
She probably knew exactly what the gesture meant—she’d seen it right before first period started.
Sure enough, after hesitating for a moment, Baek Seolah took small steps toward me and……
After squeezing her eyes shut once—
“……Hah.”
She swallowed whatever conflict had flashed across her face and plopped down on my lap.
Just like Seo Ahyeon had naturally used my knee as a chair before first period.
But this time the posture was different—
Baek Seolah placed both hands on my shoulders and chest so she could face me directly.
If we were talking positions, it was probably something like a face-to-face seated position.
Well, we were both still fully clothed, at least.
Anyway, now sitting face-to-face, Baek Seolah squeezed my legs between her thighs and grumbled.
“Who are you treating like an obedient puppy…… Hey, just because you called, does that mean I have to come?”
“You came so obediently, and now you’re complaining.”
Of course, her grumbling wasn’t the kind of sulking that would work on me. It was cute, though.
Indulging her cuteness was one thing; actually giving in was another.
I simply reached out and lightly brushed the corner of her eye, then asked in a relaxed tone,
“Were you jealous? Because I was close with Seo Ahyeon.”
“……”
Baek Seolah pouted and stayed silent, but this time the silence didn’t last.
She soon turned her head irritably, her hair whipping across my cheek, and answered.
“Yeah, I was a little jealous. So what? Got a problem?”
“I didn’t say anything, though?”
“Bullshit. You made me look like an idiot in front of everyone.”
Before long she was pinching both my cheeks and stretching them out.
I let out a small laugh at her ridiculously timid way of expressing anger.
Baek Seolah narrowed her eyes like she found my smile extremely displeasing and added,
“Don’t get the wrong idea. This jealousy I’m talking about isn’t some soft, romantic kind because I see you as a dating prospect.”
“Of course not. I’m sure it isn’t.”
When I smiled even wider and nodded readily, Baek Seolah pulled harder on my cheeks as she continued.
“You’re…… You’re my sex partner. It’s not strange at all to feel a tiny, just a tiny bit jealous when your partner is fooling around with someone else.”
“Mmmph, thasss righ……”
“……Are you going to keep making that annoying face?”
Stretch—
Once again, my cheeky reply earned me immediate punishment.
At this rate, my cheeks were going to be seriously swollen when I looked in the mirror back at the dorm.
But I was satisfied—I’d sacrificed my poor cheeks to tease Baek Seolah enough. She, on the other hand, was full of complaints.
She soon let go of my cheek with a sharp thwack! and changed the subject.
“……Hey, how far did you go with Ahyeon?”
“How far?”
“I mean how far you’ve gone. Don’t dodge the question.”
She was curious about even those details at a time like this.
I let out a small, dry laugh.
‘How far.’
Normally, even in an open relationship, that would be something to keep private, but……
Given how Seo Ahyeon had acted toward me today, she didn’t seem particularly interested in hiding it.
So after a brief moment of thought, I answered honestly.
“We went all the way. It just kind of happened.”
“……”
Baek Seolah probably hadn’t been surprised by the answer either. After all, if she thought about the moments Seo Ahyeon had spent with me today……
That was why she didn’t show much change in expression even after hearing we’d gone all the way.
She only narrowed her eyes slightly—so faintly that I wouldn’t have noticed if I hadn’t been watching closely—and added one more thing.
“……I saw earlier. You two were kissing really naturally.”
“Mm.”
“Did you kiss too?”
I didn’t answer this time, but to Baek Seolah, that silence was answer enough.
She showed a more noticeable change in expression than before and silently grabbed my shirt.
“……Heh.”
The vivid marks from last night had apparently entered her line of sight.
Baek Seolah stared coldly at the red marks on my shoulder beneath the lifted shirt.
“……Baekselgi—no, um. Seolah?”
“Shut up. Stay still……”
Then, with a meaningful glint in her eyes that made me uneasy, she slowly lowered her head.
Pressing down on my opposite shoulder with one hand, she brought her lips to the kiss mark.
Immediately after—
“……Nom.”
“……!”
Chomp!
Without any hesitation, she pressed her own saliva over the mark Seo Ahyeon had left.
She opened her mouth and bit down over a wide area including the kiss mark, thoroughly coating it with saliva.
Baek Seolah’s canines sank properly into my shoulder.
“Kgh.”
The sudden, sharp pain made my eyes fly open as I straightened up.
Without meaning to, my hands naturally gripped her buttocks with considerable force.
“……Slurp……”
Whether I did that or not, Baek Seolah cleanly finished what she’d set out to do.
Only after leaving a mark even darker than Seo Ahyeon’s did she lift her head.
Baek Seolah licked her lips with a pale red tongue, then muttered with an obsessive look in her eyes.
“Don’t forget, Han Taeyang. You’re mine. You’re mine, and…… in exchange, my body is yours. That’s the rule, right?”
“……No, what—”
I didn’t even get the chance to retort that she was spouting crazy nonsense.
Baek Seolah suddenly leaned in close, cutting off my words.
Now we were close enough that our considerably heated breaths were directly intertwining.
“I feel like I already know the answer even without hearing it, but I’ll ask again out of courtesy.”
“……”
“Did you kiss that girl Seo Ahyeon? Taeyang.”
After asking that one more time, Baek Seolah nodded to herself as if satisfied.
“Open your mouth. Stick out your tongue.”
“──.”
“……You perverted bastard.”
With a strangely decadent yet alluring smile, she whispered coldly into my ear.
She grabbed my jaw roughly with both hands. And she was the first to open her mouth.
Baek Seolah’s tongue, glistening with an eerie silver sheen, approached my lips.
Thud!
“……Ugh, shit! Wh-what the hell!”
“……”
“……”
A voice suddenly rang out, shattering the sensual atmosphere between us.
Baek Seolah, who had been about to push her tongue between my lips, froze and turned her head to the side.
“……Ha.”
She then directed her words at the male student who had just opened the door to the previously empty lecture hall.
“You again, Jeong Jaeha?”
“……Wh-what?”
Our monumental first kiss had almost happened, but in the end the moment was ruined.
I also turned my head with an awkward expression, glancing at the guy sprawled in front of the back door.
The same witness from that time when Baek Seolah had helped me out in another lecture hall.
With his characteristic green hair disheveled, he looked up at us in disbelief.
“You guys…… What the hell are you doing again……? You do know there’s another class here soon, right?”
Jeong Jaeha.
The third male protagonist of the original novel, following Lee Hyeonseong and Kim Minjun.
“Tch.”
At his words about the next class being scheduled soon, I gently pushed Baek Seolah off my lap, and she clicked her tongue as well.
At the same time, she muttered quietly to herself.
“……It was just getting good. So annoying.”
“……”
I looked at her with an indescribable, complicated gaze and thought,
‘Seolah, Seolah……’
Before we even got to discussing the other guys’ perversions, this main heroine had already fallen pretty deeply.
Not that I was complaining, though.
‘What’s with this world? Is everyone here missing a screw or two?’
It was a somewhat complicated feeling, to say the least. In the original novel, Baek Seolah had been the one who resisted the original Han Taeyang the longest.
How had she ended up like this?
Once again, I could only repeat the same curse toward the same target.
Anyway.
‘That idiot Lee Hyeonseong, seriously.’
Thanks, you absolute moron.
Your girlfriend is really something else……