Cafe Dalteulak
I stripped away the layers of packaging from the newly arrived delivery.
Although it had been ordered as a work uniform, it was hardly something you would call standard workwear.
Or is it? Maybe it’s weird enough.
A crisp black dress shirt paired with matching black slacks, an oddly styled black necktie, and a tailored black vest. Tucked inside the parcel was an extravagantly decorated product insert.
COSPLAY SPECIALTY SHOP — COSROOM
Butler Outfit Set
Scanning the pamphlet, I noticed a variety of optional add-ons available for the ensemble—various accompanying accessories, a formal jacket, even a long coat. The Boss had opted for an all-black palette without tacking on any extra flair, keeping the order down to just the essentials.
If she wanted something this plain, wouldn't it have been easier to just tell me to wear black clothes from home?
Harboring that small doubt, I changed into the outfit. The free-size garments hung loosely over my slight frame. Just as I had realized when Yeo-eun bought me that mountain of clothes, finding garments that actually fit me was an uphill battle.
“Boss!”
“Huh? What is it?”
“Could you give me a hand for a second?”
In truth, the poor fit worked entirely in my favor. It offered the perfect pretext to set my plan into motion.
The door creaked open.
“Wait, did you change without even shutting the door?”
“I thought I closed it all the way. Please, come on in.”
She spoke from just outside the cracked doorway. At my invitation, she stepped slowly inside the break room and took in my appearance.
“Pfft.”
“Ah... do I look that ridiculous?”
“*Giggle*... No, no! It’s just because you look adorable. Really, so cute.”
The moment she laid eyes on me, she burst into quiet laughter. Without a full-length mirror, I couldn't assess my reflection accurately, but evidently, it left much to be desired.
“It doesn't fit at all, does it?”
“It’s swimming on you. And here the seller claimed it ran small. What should we do?”
I took a step toward where she stood at a cautious distance, holding up my hands to show sleeves that completely swallowed my knuckles.
“What if I roll them up?”
“The cut is so baggy I don't think rolling the cuffs will fix it, but... shall we see how it looks anyway?”
“Yes. Please roll them up for me.”
I was far younger than the Boss. She was the employer, and I was merely a part-time worker. Yet here I was, summoning her into the room and ordering her around. It was a breach of the unspoken social contract I had resolved to uphold—and the very decorum the Monk had urged me to keep.
Under ordinary circumstances, I never would have acted so brazenly, but I forced down the instinctive hesitation. If an impulse was a coiled spring, my obsessive rigidity acted as the counterweight keeping that spring pinned down. Adhering strictly to social boundaries served the same function. It was only because I had been slowly venting my impulses through Yeo-eun that I could manage to push the envelope here.
“Like this? Hmm... *giggle*. Yeah, we definitely need to return this.”
She rolled up one sleeve, giggling again as she did. It was a relief to see she felt no resentment. When I offered my other arm, she dutifully cuffed that side as well.
Doesn't she think I’m being insolent?
Was it because I was a man and she was a woman? Or perhaps simply because she doted on me? Whatever the underlying reason, I carefully gauged her reactions, adjusting the baseline of acceptable words and actions. Just as I had done with Yeo-eun, I was calibrating a tailored boundary for her against the backdrop of societal expectations.
“How does it look? Is it completely unwearable?”
“It’s hard to say. Personally, I think you look terribly cute like this. But that’s just my subjective taste. The garment itself was designed to be worn form-fitting.”
She folded her arms, looking genuinely conflicted. The time had come to reap the fruits of my calculated insolence. Right on cue, she posed the perfect opening question.
“By the way, what have you been clutching with your hands this whole time?”
“Ah, there’s a good reason for that.”
“Huh?”
“This was the real reason I asked for your help.”
Gathering the hem of the shirt along with the thin undershirt underneath, I swept them upward in one swift motion.
“The waistband is way too loose. If I let go, the pants feel like they’ll slide right off. Look at this.”
With one hand, I hitched my shirt up near my solar plexus, putting my stomach on full display. My other hand gripped the slack waistband, which had enough excess room to fit two clenched fists.
“Wait... your... your belly button?”
Her eyes went wide as saucers. She froze on the spot, her gaze locked dead onto my bare midriff. The plan had succeeded flawlessly.
“I am wearing an undershirt, though...”
It wasn't a lie. I had put an undershirt on—I had simply bunched it up along with the outer layer. Muttering the excuse, I tilted my head down. A pale, slender midsection remained exposed for all to see.
However, the effect seemed far more potent than anticipated.
“Boss!”
“Uh... what?”
Letting the fabric fall, I rushed toward her. My intention had been to stun her into speechlessness with a flash of skin, but an entirely different reaction greeted me.
“You’re bleeding! Your nose!”
I pushed up onto my tiptoes, reaching up as high as I could to pinch the bridge of her nose. Only then did she snap out of her petrified stupor, scrambling backward in a panic.
Or rather, she turned tail and fled.
Jin Seohui sprinted up the stairs toward her apartment, pinching her nose for dear life. Never in her existence had she been so profoundly grateful that her home sat directly above the cafe.
“*Pant*... *gasp*...”
Her chest heaved, air refusing to reach her lungs. Inside the quiet, empty apartment, she dashed straight into the bathroom, hastily stuffed a wad of tissue into her nostrils, and tore off her clothes.
Squish, squelch.
Collapsing onto the toilet seat, her hand plunged down between her legs, rubbing vigorously. Because she had plugged her nose, warm coppery blood began to trickle down the back of her throat. Her breath came ragged, and the world spun in dizzying circles.
“*Ahhn*! I held back so well until now... *aaahng*!”
She knew this was neither the time nor the place, yet her body refused to obey. She couldn't let this searing sensation slip away. The moment she closed her eyes, the sight of Jeongseo’s exposed stomach flashed behind her eyelids with razor-sharp clarity, etched indelibly into her mind.
“*Haaah*! *Ughhh*. No, don't.”
The bright, pure smile on his face consumed her thoughts. His pale skin, looking even more porcelain against the oversized black cloth. The way he had extended his hands, asking her to roll up his sleeves—looking for all the world like a dream boyfriend offering his hands to be held.
“I can't... *ha-aah*. I really shouldn't. Don't put it in.”
She barely caught herself before slipping a finger inside. Denying herself penetration, she channeled all her frenzy into grinding against her clitoris with renewed fury.
“*Haa-aaah*! *Pant*...”
Fueling her fantasy with Jeongseo’s angelic face and that soft, pale belly, she reached an explosive peak in record time. Yet her hand wouldn't stop. A single orgasm did nothing to douse the inferno raging in her veins. Appalled by her own shameless craving, she kept stroking regardless.
I’ve completely lost my mind.
The memory of the day she first met him resurfaced. Back when she had been brooding over stagnant cafe revenue, she had entertained a wistful thought: wouldn't hiring a handsome male barista give business a boost? She had calculated that once new patrons trickled in, the quality of her coffee would turn them into regulars. But handsome young men willing to work in service were practically mythical creatures. She had posted the opening with zero expectations, only for Jeongseo to walk through the door. The moment she saw him, she knew: I can never let this boy go.
“*Hah*... *ha-ah*... Jeongseo. My sweet Jeongseo.”
The results had been miraculous. From the day they began working together, every waking hour had been pure bliss. She found herself humming cheerfully while wiping down tables, eagerly counting down the minutes until his shift began. She had lied to herself, claiming she couldn't tell whether her joy stemmed from rising sales or from sharing the same air with him.
Deep down, she knew it was a lie, because he was far too young for her. In his eyes, just as her older sister had bluntly warned, she was practically an aunt.
“Don't get ahead of yourself. Jeongseo is just naturally polite.”
Whenever he unknowingly lowered his guard, she had forced herself to act with measured composure, striving to remain the responsible adult, the proper boss. Every day, she fought tooth and nail against the delusion that he might harbor feelings for her.
It’s because he lives with an older sister. He’s just comfortable around women because of his sister...
She used that rationalization to smother the greed that reared its head. Even now, the news ran stories about women ruining their lives and fortunes over men. Moreover, given her sister’s profession, she couldn't afford to be careless. She had endured so diligently, yet today the dam had ruptured entirely—all over a fleeting glimpse of bare skin he had shown her by mistake.
Slap, slap, squish, squish.
“*Mmmph*!”
The wet, sticky friction echoed through the tiles. Lost in a feverish trance, Jin Seohui saw only him. Jeongseo lifting his shirt in the cramped storage room. The sight of his slender, milky-white waist zooming in before her eyes.
“*Aaa-aaang*!”
Her juices burst forth like a broken levee. At the exact same instant, she expelled a violent breath, dislodging the soaked tissues as a fresh torrent of blood erupted from her nose.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Only after two soul-draining climaxes did she finally pry her eyes open. She hauled herself off the porcelain seat.
“*Sigh*... Look at the pathetic mess I’ve made at my age.”
Dark clots sat pooled in the toilet bowl. Glancing in the mirror, she saw smeared crimson coating her upper lip, chin, and trickling down onto her chest. A faint tint of pink streaked her inner thighs and groin as well. The intense friction had coaxed out her menstrual flow early. In short, she was bleeding from both ends at once. A wave of lightheadedness washed over her.
I can’t let this slide. I have to set firm boundaries with him.
Turning on the shower spray, she sorted through the chaotic clutter in her head. Once the haze of post-orgasmic clarity set in, her analytical mind booted back up.
Her bust was considerably larger than Jeongseo likely guessed, measuring at a 75E in specific brand sizings. Thanks to her slender frame, she had managed to conceal the bulk under loose tailoring. Her face, however, had always been a liability. During her school days, people had whispered that she had the face of a man-eater. Boys had shied away from her, intimidated by both her voluptuous curves and her seductive visage. In terms of teenage alienation, she had endured a struggle not entirely different from Noh Yeo-eun’s.
There’s no way he could ever see me as a romantic prospect.
Yet Seohui’s coping mechanism had diverged from Yeo-eun’s. Where Yeo-eun pushed everyone away with hostility, Seohui had chosen to wear a mask. She pretended to be indifferent, feigning complete disinterest in men. Thanks to that facade, she had navigated school without major incident, carrying the same defense mechanism into the professional world.
Over time, slipping on that mask became second nature. She learned to greet others with an unhurried, languid demeanor, maintaining strict boundaries. Combined with her naturally striking features, that aloofness coalesced into a sultry, dangerous aura. It served admirably to keep other women at an arm’s length, though it pushed men even further out of reach.
I just have to treat Jeongseo the exact same way.
The persona she had worn for years had essentially become part of her character: an obsessive tendency to drown herself completely in whatever captured her fancy, contrasted against a cool detachment from the rest of the world. She typically poured that obsessive passion into hobbies or material collections while keeping people safely quarantined. Lately, the problem was that her obsessive nature kept trying to fixate on Jeongseo.
To protect both the boy and herself, she resolved to fasten that mask securely back in place.
“Pull yourself together.”
More than an hour had slipped by since she bolted upstairs. Steeling her resolve, she prepared to return to the cafe below.
Descending to the ground floor, she peered through the wide glass facade. Inside, Jeongseo was handing a cup of freshly brewed coffee to a customer, flashing that radiant, disarming smile. The moment she saw him, her brain automatically cued the memory of his shirt riding up to reveal his smooth, pale midriff.
Instinctively, she knew.
Keeping her distance from him was going to be an utter impossibility.