Good-for-nothing Me
Sometimes you just get like that. Times when you want to unload a story nobody else would give a damn about — something that's yours and yours alone. And when that story happens to be the kind you can't just tell anyone, you end up wanting to dump the whole rambling mess on a complete stranger.
People are social animals. They need to communicate, and every so often that need just has to erupt.
That was pretty much exactly where Good-for-nothing Me was right now.
Messages had been stacking up since Monday night, and I still had no idea what any of it was about. She seemed to have gotten her head back on straight as the days passed, but she still hadn't managed to get the actual story out. Which was why she'd been begging me to listen since Monday.
I was curious anyway. Calling it client management — she was a potential customer, after all — I decided to hear her out for a bit.
I opened the chat room and asked.
The little unread 1 next to my message vanished the instant the yellow reply field appeared. She'd seen it the second I hit send, and a new message popped up almost immediately.
Yeah. That's why I'm asking what.
I told her.
It was a little late, sure, but staying up late was just part of the routine at this point. More than that, I wanted to know her story. What the hell could have happened to make someone completely lose it like this?
My offer to listen seemed to finally crack the dam.
I muttered under my breath even as I typed back.
"Sounds like bullshit."
I couldn't picture that person drinking alone with a guy friend. Not even a little. Granted, I had no idea what she looked like... but there's a certain way people act behind anonymity, isn't there? That's what tanks your credibility.
The posts she'd written flashed through my mind.
Every last one of them was the kind of post that made your brain go fuzzy. That was the energy of a person whose sex drive was charged to the absolute brim, dumping their desires onto the page with zero filter.
Whenever I saw stuff like that, I always thought, well, at least she's living up to the username... but that person went out drinking with a guy? And not even in a group — just the two of them?
It didn't match. At all.
"...Well. I guess it's possible."
I forced myself to accept it. It didn't match, sure, but it wasn't impossible. And she'd said herself that she was pretty sociable. Of course, that was an internet claim, so the reliability was garbage... but just because something was said anonymously didn't automatically make it a lie.
Even an unbelievable story could still be true. Hell, I was a guy who drew NSFW art. If I told her I was a man, she wouldn't believe me either. In the end, anonymity always left room for the other person to surprise you.
Wow. A world with so few male NSFW artists that I still couldn't get over being a rare species.
While I was off on that pointless tangent, her messages kept coming.
Two and a half bottles of soju was a pretty serious amount. More than enough to turn a normal person's brain inside out. I knew that firsthand — I'd poured that exact amount into my own stomach this past Monday.
Which was how I'd almost ended up having sex with Lee Eun-byul.
...Come to think of it, our situations were kind of similar.
"Huh?"
Wait. This wasn't similar. This was exactly the same.
Same thing had happened to us. Once the cardigans came off, the bodies that had been hidden underneath were suddenly on display, and you couldn't help but become aware of the other person.
"What the hell?"
The way her story was unfolding was getting weird. I pushed her to keep going.
I didn't actually relate, to be honest. But I nodded along anyway. Had to, if I wanted her to keep talking.
From my end, it was probably the equivalent of her showing cleavage. I decided that was close enough.
Fortunately, Good-for-nothing Me laid out her turn-ons in thorough detail. How the way his muscles stood out had gotten her going. How the hollow of his collarbone had gotten her going. How she wanted those big hands wrapped around her chest. And how, thanks to all of that, she'd gotten soaked.
After sitting with that heat for a while, she suddenly felt like letting a little of that desire loose. The alcohol had settled in just enough. He was already looking her over. She let go of her reason for a second and hit the gas.
That was as far as I got before I set my phone down.
A violent wave of déjà vu sent my thoughts into a tailspin. I muttered like my soul had left my body.
"What the fuck?"
What the fuck, seriously. A dozen thoughts hit me all at once. Was I stuck in The Truman Show? Was this Good-for-nothing Me person pulling some kind of narrative trick on me?
It was identical to what I'd been through. The story she was telling overlapped with the one in my head so perfectly it was unfolding in lockstep.
It was a feeling I couldn't put into words. The feeling of a complete stranger suddenly seeming... familiar.
And then an absurd thought brushed through my mind. The possibility that this "Good-for-nothing Me" person might be someone I actually knew. The possibility that this perverted masochist was Lee Eun-byul.
But the moment I got that far, I just let out a hollow laugh.
"Pfft. No way."
Even for something that didn't make sense, this was too much. I'd watched way too much anime. I'd read so much doujinshi in my previous world that even my brain had turned into one.
How vanishingly small were the odds? How microscopically tiny was that possibility? That a classmate from the same university had been commissioning NSFW art from me this whole time. That a girl who looked like the most outgoing person in the room was actually a freak who cranked out horny posts every day or two.
A stray mutt walking past would've snorted at that.
I could practically hear something beside me screaming, Stop fantasizing already!
...And yet.
The possibility that the person on the other end of this conversation was Lee Eun-byul wouldn't leave my head. I wanted to say it wasn't her. But the situation itself was pointing right at it.
I needed more to go on, so I kept listening.
The stage of her story had shifted from the restaurant to the street. The guy had accepted her offer, walked right out of the outdoor bar, and started down the road — looking for a spot decent enough to feel someone up. According to Good-for-nothing Me, having his eyes all over her body felt pretty damn good.
And with every new detail, the déjà vu in my chest boiled hotter.
"No matter how I look at it, that guy is me..."
The situation, the way he acted — it was just me. Straight up. Everything she described her "guy friend" doing was a carbon copy of me that night. And besides — how many people in the entire country had been in a situation like that this past Monday?
Which meant the theory that Good-for-nothing Me was Lee Eun-byul just kept growing in my head.
Her story was already reaching the final stretch. It had happened that Monday, under a beautifully spread night sky, inside a little alleyway.
From this point on, I started listening as if the other person were Lee Eun-byul. What I was about to hear wasn't my own feelings from that night. It was what Eun-byul had felt.
So that's what she'd been feeling. Well, my heart had been pounding too. A thrill like stepping into an unknown world had taken over my whole body.
No, I just found out. Right now. I didn't notice it myself — you just told me with your own mouth.
I was sure of it now. The other person was Lee Eun-byul. Nobody else could have been in that situation Monday night except the two of us.
Yeah. It had been a sex situation. Both of us were worked up enough, and we had the "we were drunk" excuse ready to go. If we'd been a normal guy and girl, there wouldn't have been any reason not to.
...But.
Yeah, no shit. Why the hell did you run?
I still didn't get it.
So I asked.
This time, I wanted to hear the reason.