Shin Yujeong, who had been intrigued by the secret story Jo Yunkyung offered, suddenly snapped back to reality.
“Hey… I told you that’s not my story, right?”
“Oh, right. You said it was your friend’s story.”
Jo Yunkyung smiled awkwardly, leaning her upper body, which had been tilted forward, back into place.
She pretended otherwise, but it was clearly intentional.
To give Shin Yujeong a greater sense of immersion.
And this ploy seemed to have worked quite well.
“Haa.”
Her expression might have darkened even more now that she’d heard the story, but she’d realize soon enough.
‘No matter who you are, you won’t be able to escape it.’
That she, too, couldn’t escape Kim Dojin’s grasp.
Burdened with even deeper worries, she continuously gulped down soju, then abruptly rose from her seat.
“Hey, I’m leaving.”
As she took her first steps, her body swayed slightly.
She hadn’t touched any food and had gulped down the soju too quickly, so the alcohol seemed to have gone to her head fast.
“Are you sure you don’t need me to walk you home?”
“Walk me home? What for… It’s fine.”
Hearing her clear pronunciation, Jo Yunkyung felt a little relieved.
She was quite drunk, but it didn’t seem like she’d completely lost her senses.
‘Ah.’
As she watched Shin Yujeong trudge away, a good idea came to mind.
‘I could earn a lot of points this way, couldn’t I?’
Smiling, she pulled out her smartphone and sent a message to Kim Dojin.
《Jojjip: Yujeong is drunk and heading home now.》
Even with just that, the quick-witted Kim Dojin would easily grasp her intention.
“Hehe…”
As she smiled alluringly, anticipating the reward that would soon come.
“Excuse me… if you don’t mind, could I get your number?”
A confident man walked up to her and held out his smartphone, asking for her number.
He had decent looks, and his clothes and shoes were quite expensive.
She smiled sweetly and replied.
“No, I’m not interested.”
Nothing about him appealed to her.
Getting off at the bus stop near her house, she walked home.
She walked along an endlessly dark and dangerous alley, the streetlights unlit.
Her stomach felt bloated from the alcohol she’d gulped down without food, and her head was a mess.
“Haa…”
With every step she took, her sighs drifted into the deep darkness.
Then she suddenly stopped and shook her head.
Even amidst all this, she felt like an idiot for wondering what Kim Dojin was doing.
“I really am an idiot, aren’t I?”
A sudden surge of self-loathing engulfed her entire body.
The object of her loathing was none other than herself.
The loathing that had taken over a corner of her heart stripped away her self-love, allowing her to make a cold, rational judgment.
“…Do I even have the right to tell him what to do?”
When she thought about it, there was nothing proper about her relationship with Kim Dojin.
Friends or lovers.
Or, if not that, just sex partners.
A worn-out relationship, broken and shattered at one corner, unable to fit anywhere.
And the starting point of that relationship had been herself.
‘So that’s how it was, I shouldn’t have done that.’
Now that she truly liked him, she understood.
That her entire approach towards him had been completely wrong.
Was the beginning perhaps in high school?
Or… when she first saw him working out at the gym?
Perhaps it was all of it.
And each time, there must have been an opportunity to correct that twisted relationship.
Thinking that way, her perspective flipped.
‘Should I actually be grateful…?’
Jo Yunkyung’s words from a moment ago came to mind.
That if Kim Dojin really wanted to, he could easily attempt a threesome with her without saying a word.
Those words, which had been harder to accept precisely because they made sense, now began to make a little more sense.
Because if he really wanted to, she couldn’t be anything to him.
Thinking that way, she suddenly felt ashamed.
Remembering the time she’d made pathetic threats about leaving behind a will written to her own liking and dying.
“Ah… I really do all sorts of stupid things.”
In another sense, her heart felt a little lighter.
Though her worries were still abundant, thinking that her concerns might not have much influence on his choices made everything feel futile.
‘It would be nice if he didn’t tell me not to…’
Kim Dojin didn’t seem to have any intention of doing that.
Honestly, something else became more urgent than that right now.
She wanted to properly establish the relationship she had deliberately closed her eyes to and ignored until now.
She headed towards Kim Dojin’s rooftop room, which was still far away.
“…I wonder if he’s sleeping.”
It was a night too ambiguous for either sleeping or being awake.
‘I don’t want to disturb his sleep…’
Just as she was about to resume her trudging, stopped steps.
“Yujeong-ah.”
At the familiar voice coming from beyond the darkness, she was startled and looked up, seeing Kim Dojin walking towards her from the opposite direction.
After eating dinner downstairs and coming back up, he was relaxing leisurely.
A message from Jo Yunkyung made his head spin.
《Jojjip: Yujeong is drunk and heading home now.》
“……”
She’d left right after school and hadn’t come home yet, and he’d wondered what she was doing. It seemed she’d met Jo Yunkyung.
He could roughly guess what they’d talked about.
Perhaps she went to get some advice because of what he said about wanting a threesome.
“It could only be that.”
Among the women Shin Yujeong knew, Jo Yunkyung would be the friend who knew the most about men.
But even if she chose the wrong person for advice, she seemed to have chosen very, very wrongly.
She was already his jojjip, so she’d only give biased advice.
Curious about what they talked about, he was about to ask.
《Jojjip: I talked to her just like you wanted. So, I’ll be expecting my reward♥♥》
The other party had already scratched his itch, so to speak.
“So that’s how it is…”
Jo Yunkyung was a woman whose way of thinking was fundamentally different from Shin Yujeong’s.
They were already very different, and she’d changed even more after meeting him.
So it was obvious that Shin Yujeong wouldn’t easily accept Jo Yunkyung’s words and would only be experiencing greater confusion.
“This is the perfect opportunity.”
A harem isn’t something that can be pushed through with normal thinking.
Especially when the woman is a successful one.
Lightly throwing on a windbreaker, he immediately left the room.
As he walked out into the dark alley, a familiar silhouette soon came into view.
“Yujeong-ah.”
As he called her, she immediately reacted.
Stumbling out of the darkness with unsteady steps, she looked up at him with wide eyes.
“Why are you here…?”
“Hmm, just because.”
“You’re not waiting for me, are you?”
Her expression as she asked that was quite interesting.
While self-deprecatingly saying it couldn’t be, a hint of hope that it was, was visible.
As he expected, her mind seemed very complicated.
If so…
“Not waiting… but you weren’t there when I ate dinner.”
“…So?”
“I just thought it was about time you came home, so I came out for a bit.”
At his answer, which wasn’t a complete affirmation nor a denial, she smiled faintly.
Then, as if she had something to say, she struggled to part her lips.
“Hey, that…”
And then closed them tightly again, shaking her head lightly as she changed her words.
“No. First… let’s go home. I have something to say, but it doesn’t seem like something to say here.”
“Alright.”
What on earth is she trying to say, making that kind of face?
As they slowly walked back home, Shin Yujeong’s gait next to him was quite unsteady.
Having no choice, he grabbed her arm, helping her not to stumble, and asked, as if scolding her.
“How much did you drink, anyway?”
“I don’t think I drank that much… maybe it’s because I drank it too fast.”
It was obvious.
Feeling frustrated again, she must have gulped down soju like water as soon as she sat down.
Even someone with a strong tolerance for alcohol gets drunk quickly if they drink fast and a lot, so how much more so for her?
“Hehe…”
Shin Yujeong, liking it just because he held her arm, rubbed her head against it.
With a face that should have been cold, she was acting like that, and the contrast was quite refreshing.
They finally reached the rooftop.
She plopped down on the wooden bench, raised her head towards the sky, and took a deep breath.
“Haa… still, maybe because it’s a bit high up, don’t you think the air is a bit better here?”
“I wonder…?”
Isn’t it just a placebo effect?
Unless it was the top of a magic tower, maybe.
No matter how high a building’s rooftop was, how much better could the air get?
“So, what do you want to say?”
He asked her directly, as she was wasting time with useless words.
If she sobered up more like this, she might become completely sane again.
Then she glanced at him and subtly asked.
“Hey, that… about the threesome… you won’t be able to resist doing it, will you?”
A powerless question.
He answered her sincerely.
“What I truly want is… to live doing whatever I want. No longer suppressed or bound by others’ gazes, I want to live doing everything I think I can do.”
At his quite sincere words, her expression clouded as she asked back.
“…And a threesome is included in that?”
“That’s right.”
At his utterly resolute answer, Shin Yujeong swept a hand over her face.
Then, with a slightly worried expression, she looked at him and threw another question.
“On that list… am I there too?”
A question that seemed to be missing something significant.
However, understanding the meaning itself wasn’t difficult.
So now, she was asking if she was included in his list of desires, right?
“Of course.”
At the answer he hastily blurted out without even thinking, her face looked a little relieved.
“Really…?”
She got up from the wooden bench and approached him with tense steps.
Standing at a distance where they could reach out and caress each other’s faces, she parted her lips.
“Let’s do it, the threesome.”
“…Really?”
She’s accepting it this easily?
He thought it would take a few more days.
Just then.
“However, there are two conditions.”
She held up two fingers, proposing a negotiation.
Conditions, huh…
“…What are they?”
He could probably grant most of them.
“The first is… I’ll find the woman.”
“……”
The first condition was quite strong.
And very unexpected.
“Yujeong, you’re going to bring her yourself?”
He suddenly felt uneasy.
Would she bring some woman who would completely kill his mood and try to do a threesome?
Did she read his unease from his face?
“…I’ll bring her, and if you say okay, then we’ll do it.”
He was dumbfounded by the compromise she instantly offered.
Why is she like this today?
She wasn’t usually one to easily back down from her own assertions.
Had she realized something on her own, or had Jo Yunkyung used some magic with her mouth?
“If it’s like that… then I’m fine with it.”
He was rather curious.
Who Shin Yujeong would try to bring as a threesome partner.
It wouldn’t be easy to find someone like that.
Even if he were told to find someone right now, he couldn’t think of anyone other than Jo Yunkyung or Im Na-eun, who already had experience.
Or did his cute jojjip subtly make her own appeal?
Well, it didn’t matter anyway.
“Then what’s the second condition?”
The important thing was this second one.
Conditions, by nature, tend to get stronger as they progress.
He was staring intently at her mouth with a slightly tense face when another unexpected condition flowed out.
“Our relationship… make it more definite than it is now.”
“…Relationship?”
“Yes, relationship.”
This was also just as unexpected.
She wanted to end the ambiguous relationship that had started with her and later continued under his initiative, right?
He didn’t know when everything was still unclear, but now, it didn’t really matter.
“How do you want it to be?”
When he asked out of curiosity, she answered with an even darker expression.
“…Starting with tying the knot.”
“Tying the knot?”
Tying the knot… isn’t that usually said when ending something?
As he was wondering, unable to understand the exact meaning, she displayed another bizarre act.
Thud!
She suddenly knelt before him.
Why is she really like this?
He suddenly got scared.
“Hey… why are you suddenly like that?”
She’s not going to throw an uppercut, saying it’s to gain momentum, is she…?
As he tensed up, thinking all sorts of things.
As if she had heated up a piece of iron, she looked up at him with reddened eyes and spoke.
“I’m sorry.”
“……”
What is this?
Is this a hidden camera…?