The Date
Inside the office.
On the desk sat an empty soju bottle, already drunk dry.
A disintegrating space. A peeling away of one’s true self.
Impulses rising, and right in front of me, one person.
“Oppa….”
I reached out a hand.
My hand and his met halfway, crossing like shadows in the dark.
The emotion was thick, so thick. Real. Instinct and heart collided.
“Hup… chup… paha…”
Maybe we both felt the same way.
Hye-won spoke without a word, opening both arms wide toward Sun-woo.
“…I want to have sex.”
It was so blunt, so simple.
For her, whose insides were all twisted, it was a kind of courage.
Just like that, I pulled her into my arms and whispered.
“Sorry.”
“…What?”
That was a refusal.
***********
After the cherry blossom festival.
Anyone who’d been watching would’ve known the relationship between Hye-won and me had stepped forward one more step.
“…You’re one minute late.”
“Sorry.”
Like my lateness, for example.
“You have to take punishment, right?”
“Of course.”
Every time I showed up one minute, three minutes, five minutes late and had to “serve” in the office.
Everyone already knew what “punishment” meant in that office.
“Do you have time after?”
“Hm?”
Like after work, for example.
“…Want a drink?”
“I’m fine with that.”
The two of us who always stayed late in the office for nothing.
No matter how you looked at it, it was obvious.
‘They did it.’
‘19+ CG unlocked.’
‘They did.’
You could ask any stray dog on the street to wag its tail and yell the answer.
And though they were different people who all belonged to Nature, there was one thing they all had in common.
“President, if it’s not a big deal, I have something I want to ask.”
“Harin-ssi?”
The Nature trio.
All virgins. Zero experience with men and women.
“I want a memorial for my favorite character’s event…!”
“Sujin-ssi?”
Only indirect experience.
The kinds of rumors you hear when you walk past.
“President, I know the instructor and I… it’s because of us, right?”
“…Even Yeonhwa-ssi too.”
In short.
“Tell me the tea. How far did you go with the instructor?”
They were at the age when everything about men and women was interesting.
“…Yes. I want to. I was thinking maybe I shouldn’t say it.”
“……?”
The problem was the person standing in front of me was Hye-won.
…
..
.
First.
“Since that day… Sun-woo oppa and I became that kind of couple, yes.”
“As I thought…!”
“Affinity points surpassed the limit!”
“So you did it?”
The two of us who had finally realized it about each other.
We naturally approached, faced each other, and both wanted each other.
“Whenever we pass each other on the way… and when we’re alone in the office…”
“Don’t tell me the last time the air in the room felt extra hot?”
“Or the way we kept exchanging weird glances…?”
“So you did it?”
This was the key.
No matter how you looked at it, this was the key.
Could a pure love that had been sealed for almost ten years bloom at this exact moment?
“So last week… I made everyone leave early and we drank together in the office.”
All they needed was the tiniest spark.
Hye-won had directly summoned the courage and approached Sun-woo.
“And I rejected her.”
“……?”
“Why…?”
“…That’s what I want to ask instead.”
Yeonhwa scratched the back of her head and closed her eyes.
No matter how you looked at it, Yasug.
But a man had rejected her.
At least according to Yeonhwa’s experience, the problem in a situation like this…
“…He’s not impotent, right?”
Everyone here already knew Sun-woo had normal function.
The faint night-blooming jasmine scent still lingering in Hye-won’s bathroom proved it.
So the remaining problem was…
“It doesn’t make sense to say ‘she’s not ready yet.’”
One was the second daughter of Yuseong Group.
The other was an A-class spirit contractor.
If the two of them came together, they could have a marriage life far richer than any normal couple.
“So.”
Whose problem was it?
Sun-woo’s? Hye-won’s?
Yeonhwa rolled the problem around in her head and at the end she found the answer.
“Um. I don’t know!”
“Yeonhwa-ssi…”
“Don’t say you don’t know when you don’t know. If you say you do, it’s just more pathetic.”
“But…”
Yeonhwa knew something, right?
She’d helped at moments like this, so maybe she knew the answer?
I’d thought that, but…
“…I’m the one who knows about this. What do you want from a woman who’s never done it?”
“……”
Yeonhwa was also a virgin.
She was an amateur when it came to the real thing.
She’d seen plenty of human figures, but she’d never seen a human drama or a morning drama.
In the end, as far as men and women were concerned, Yeonhwa couldn’t give an answer.
The only somewhat sensible opinion among them was…
“Haa… is it my turn here?”
“Su-jin, not you. Harin. Anything coming to you?”
“Eh, why?!”
Of course Su-jin’s opinion was ignored.
The reason was simple.
“…I don’t think she’ll give a normal answer.”
“What?! I’m the kind of girl who can do it when the time comes!”
“Then say it.”
“Uhh… put me in a room I can’t leave unless I do it?”
“Please be realistic, Su-jin.”
“……Yes.”
But being a virgin was one problem.
Having a massive otaku complex was another.
She had zero experience but a mountain of delusions, so the theories came out like sausages on a conveyor belt.
“…I’ve thought about it.”
“………”
That’s why Harin’s opinion was the only normal one. The conscience of Nature.
Harin thought hard and looked at Hye-won.
“A newly one-week couple talking about sexless… isn’t that a little weird?”
“Ah.”
A couple who’d only been dating two weeks straight to a motel?
Where did that animal couple even come from?
“Couples are supposed to be normal, right? I don’t think the instructor would have confessed first… so was the president the one who confessed?”
“I’m not sure if he confessed… or didn’t.”
“……What?”
“Exactly…”
More than anything, the words “I want to have sex” could never mean “I love you,” but…
“If you think about it, when we were drinking last time the instructor said he wanted to do it with the person he loved and a virgin girl.”
“He did… say that?”
Sun-woo was a romantic virgin who kept his purity until nearly thirty because of one heart called “love.”
So when you put it all together.
“The instructor might actually be pure before marriage?”
“…………”
Everyone went silent.
They’d already erased it from their heads.
‘The man is pure before marriage.’
Yeonhwa was the first to deny it.
“What… nonsense. A man pure before marriage? Come on, I’d rather he stays a virgin his whole life…”
“You’ve been a virgin all this time? The instructor is.”
“……”
Denial was shot down as the mainstream.
No, actually Yeonhwa’s claim was perfectly logical.
A man with power. A man with lots of potential.
A man like that? Yeonhwa had never seen that kind of sex life because she’d been blasting through dungeons as a dungeon conqueror.
But still, why was Sun-woo a virgin?
“Ending CG… possible!”
She affirmed it.
“No matter how you look at it, he’s pure before marriage. If that wasn’t the case, would he have rejected the president?”
Affirmation piled on affirmation.
“The instructor is a romantic type and emotional. Maybe he’s even more thorough in that area.”
“So what does that mean…?”
Eventually the collective intelligence of the group shouted at one person.
“Marriage will solve everything. Well, we were going to get married anyway, right?”
“……Eh?”
Completely unexpected proposal.
Hye-won was so stunned she couldn’t say a word, but the collective intelligence that had already started rolling didn’t stop.
“To get married you have to confess first, right?”
“Y-yesterday’s trend is called reverse proposal, you know!”
“Hm. True. The instructor’s personality is the kind that would say ‘whoever you like will get hurt,’ so maybe it’s better if the president confesses.”
“Ueh? Eh? Eeeeeeeee?”
It kept rolling, getting thicker.
“So first we should make a date!”
“Cherry blossoms are already over… so movie date!”
“Ah, sorry. I don’t know anything about dates except dungeon dates.”
“What’s a dungeon date?”
“It exists. People say it’s more thrilling to go into a dungeon and do it there.”
“???”
At some point a date schedule was set.
The course and everything needed for it were all locked in.
“Eh… eh…”
While Hye-won was like a broken doll, babbling and panicking.
“This Sunday of this week would be perfect.”
“I’ll reserve the movie tickets right now!”
“It’s wireless headphones with in-ear, right? I’ll send the order through that, so just follow the instructions. Okay?”
“……Yes…”
Operation name: Reverse Proposal Grand Operation was launched.
And so
[Eh? I have plans that day?]
“Yes…? Who with?”
[A-yeong. About ten minutes ago. I made plans then.]
“……”
The reverse proposal operation was already dead before it even started.
***************
[See you this Sunday? Nothing will happen to it──ah, yes. Could you get it? Ah, so we’ll see you that day?]
“Yes… as we promised before…”
[Um, are the others okay?]
“I didn’t want to call everyone else because it would be rude… and I also wanted to talk to you privately.”
“……I see. Then it’s this Sunday?”
“Yes…!”
[Good. Then… yes. Looking forward to it.]
The call cut off.
At the same time A-yeong stood like a doll with its string cut, slowly sinking backward.
“Haaah…!”
She leaned against the wall and slid down to sit.
It was too late. She could have gone one step ahead.
“…I’m glad I found out early.”
The relationship between Nature and Hye-won had been weird lately.
They kept seeming to meet each other often, and there were even suspicious movements like her deliberately avoiding me.
On top of that, the thing that had happened recently──I wanted to believe it was a lie, but I couldn’t deny it.
“Yeah… really, I’m glad I found out…”
I trailed her out of some vague worry
And just like I thought, I found out.
Now the only thing left was…
“….Sun-woo-nim.”
I had to ask.
And if that really was the truth from Sun-woo-nim…
“…………”
I wouldn’t say it out loud anymore, and I wouldn’t even think about it.
It was already blasphemous just to have thought about it.
A-yeong turned around and prepared for the date on Sunday.
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