Army

“Really?”

I asked in a small voice, unable to believe it.

My girlfriend-nim, as if she had a steel plate on her face, nonchalantly popped a marinated quail egg into her mouth and nodded.

“Liar.”

I could tell right away it was a lie.

Because Ji-young-i, who doesn’t have many friends like me, would have tempted me to sleep with her first if she actually had a pretty friend.

Eun-jung-i was an example.

So, Ji-young-i’s friend, who gets hit on so often because she’s pretty, is a fictional character.

She’s just lying for my military life.

“You don’t have any friends, do you?”

She wasn’t even that close to Da-hye, so other than Eun-jung-i, there wasn’t anyone she could really call a friend.

“Heung. Do you think I’m like Hoon-i?”

“Aren’t you worse than me?”

“……”

I couldn’t deny it.

Because I’m the type who doesn’t make friends easily thanks to Ji-young-i, so I had given up from the start. If she wasn’t around, I would have made enough friends to last a lifetime.

Probably……

But Ji-young-i doesn’t even think she needs to make friends, not even exaggerating 1%, so she can’t make anyone she can call a friend.

“But it worked out well, right?”

If she had a real friend instead of a lie, I naturally assumed she would be at least as pretty as Eun-jung-i, or even better than that, even if she wasn’t as good as Ji-young-i.

Because of that, the soldiers here were looking at me with sparkling eyes, rather than Ji-young-i, because of her saying, ‘I’ll ask Hoon-i to find you a good person.’

It was burdensome, as if their eyes were already treating me like an old friend, like a savior.

“What are you going to do later?”

“Why? I said I’d look for one, but I didn’t say I’d definitely find one and bring her, did I? If I drag it out, half a year should be enough, right? Well, if it doesn’t work out, I’ll just bring Eun-jung-i again and do that again.”

“No way.”

“Heung. Is it because Eun-jung-i is your girl?”

“Yeah.”

I answered firmly.

“Then……”

She took out her phone and rummaged through her contacts.

“We can just use a girl who isn’t Hoon-i’s girlfriend.”

Thinking that I might want to see her get railed again sometimes, she found out their phone numbers, the phone numbers of the girls I had slept with and dumped.

How do I know? Even though the only people saved on her phone are family and our family, there were over 50 people on the list.

As expected, they were all below her standards, girls I had slept with once and never contacted again.

Their faces were disappointing, their breasts were small, their butts were small, their height, their weight, etc. They couldn’t meet her picky standards, so their phone numbers were full of pitiful girls who might still be desperately waiting for Ji-young-i’s call.

“Anyway, there are many ways. So, go comfortably. Private First Class-nim?”

At this rate, it won’t end with Private First Class. Well, what’s done is done. I hurriedly stuffed the lunch box Yerin Nuna had packed for me into my mouth.

*

“Ah-nit! Hoon-ah! I’ll do it for you!”

A Sergeant I didn’t even know the name or face of must have heard the news, because he came up to me while I was diligently shoveling and snatched the shovel, starting to shovel himself.

“Hoon-ah. You’ve worked hard. Why don’t you take a break?”

Another Sergeant wiped the beads of sweat from my forehead with a towel and said kindly.

It would have been the best if it was one of my girlfriends. A man with a prickly head gave me a benevolent smile, making me want to throw up.

But, I couldn’t tell him to get out of the way, that I didn’t need it, so I smiled awkwardly and opened my mouth.

“No… I’ve only been doing it for 5 minutes?”

Only 5 minutes. I don’t even know why I have to dig in the first place, but I’ve only been digging for 5 minutes since they told me to dig.

“5 minutes?! 5 minutes?! You’ve been doing it that long? You can rest! You deserve to rest enough!”

“……”

My senior officers, regardless of rank other than Sergeant, were diligently digging, but they were overreacting only to me, trying to make me rest quickly.

“Okay, okay. Rest. You can rest. Ah, are you worried someone will give you shit?”

As a Sergeant who had gone through the Jjamji life, he immediately realized what would happen to me later.

“It’s okay. It’s okay, you punk. Hyung will block it all for you.”

He thumped his chest with his fist, telling me to trust him, but since he didn’t have much time left before his discharge, I didn’t have much faith.

“B-before that, do soldiers… do you really like soldiers?”

“Yes…..?”

“T-that, your girlfriend-nim’s friend.”

“Ah, well… w-wouldn’t she?”

“H-hehe.”

I was afraid that if I said it was a lie now, even the Sergeants who had no interest in me at all would turn on me, so I unknowingly affirmed it.

Then the Sergeant swept back his short hair.

“I’m thinking of becoming a non-commissioned officer?”

“A non-commissioned officer?”

“Ah, of course, I’m not doing it because your girlfriend-nim’s friend likes soldiers, it’s just that my childhood dream was to become a cool soldier and protect the country.”

Unlike a Sergeant, he straightened his uniform and looked at me with a burdensome gaze.

“Well, that’s that. And I’m close to the officers here, so you don’t have to worry!”

He patted me lightly on the back and burst into laughter.

This seems to be quite a big ripple, and cold sweat was pouring down.

I was thinking that I had trapped a Sergeant’s life in the military, a Sergeant who, far from being interested in me, wanted to get out as soon as possible, all because of me.

“Ha, hahaha.”

*

“Aigo.”

I was dragging my tired body home, feeling even more exhausted than when I was being bullied for some reason.

“I’m going crazy. Even the officers are like that.”

Before I knew it, the news about my girlfriend-nim’s appearance and my girlfriend-nim’s friend liking soldiers, and me being asked to find a good man in this military unit, had spread among the officers, creating an even more difficult situation.

They begged me to see the photos of my girlfriend-nim saved on my phone, and of course, the beauty of her fictional friend, who doesn’t even exist, is no different from a goddess, as good as Ji-young-i, and she’s 170cm tall, weighs less than 50kg, but has breasts that are D-cup or bigger. Settings that didn’t exist in the first place were slowly starting to appear.

So it’s not strange that the officers are clinging to me.

In other words, in a way, I’ve become a weeb trying to get connected to a fictional character.

“Haa……”

I lowered my head in the subway and let out a deep sigh.

“Ah……”

Then, at that moment.

A slender voice, presumed to be a woman’s, sighed as she looked at me.

“Uh… Park… Baak… Ji-eun?”

She was Ji-eun, who had a pretty face but was also cute, so she still looked like a girl.

That whatchamacallit. The girl who came to save Ji-young-i while we were doing perverted things on the subway, but instead suffered the humiliation of having her virginity taken by me.

“So… how have you been?”

“……”

It was so awkward without Ji-young-i.

But she didn’t seem to want to take her eyes off me, so I gave her an awkward smile and asked how she was doing, but there was no answer.

It went on like that for dozens of seconds.

“Where’s Ji-young-i……?”

“Ji-young-i? Ah.”

“Did you break up?”

A voice with a slight expectation.

“No?”

“……”

She pouted her lips in disappointment at my answer without a moment’s hesitation.

“Please give me your number.”

“Why suddenly my number?”

“Not yours, Ji, Ji-young-i’s number……”

She must have fallen hard for my girlfriend-nim, because she held out her phone with a bright red face.

It’s always amazing to me.

In a way, she gave me her virginity and even had sex because of Ji-young-i, but she still desperately wanted her.

“You give it to me.”

No matter what, I can’t just give my girlfriend-nim’s number to anyone.

Ji-eun’s expression soured.

“Okay. But if I don’t hear from you by tonight, I’m going to report you.”

“What?”

“The world is turning around women these days, so even if I make a false report, you’re the one who’s going to suffer.”

What kind of threat is that?! I really didn’t do anything!”

“Okay. Okay, so call me.”

I was just going to get the number and ignore it, but now I had to call her and ask her to block it.

“Please call me. And I’m sorry.”

Knowing that she had been rude, she belatedly bowed her head and got off as soon as the door opened.

“Haa, really.”

I feel like something keeps getting twisted. This.

I got off the subway with heavy steps and walked home.

“You’re here?”

“Ah… Nuna. You’re home early?”

“Yeah. Eun-jung-i told me to go home early from now on. She said something might happen to Pureum-i.”

“Good thinking.”

As soon as I got home, Yerin Nuna greeted me. Seeing her belly slowly starting to swell, a smile automatically appeared on my face.

I immediately took off my military boots and buried my face in Nuna’s belly.

“Pureum-ah, how have you been?”

My child, who could be a daughter or a son. Prenatal name Pureum-i.

Even though I can’t touch her directly, I feel connected to Pureum-i just by rubbing my face against Nuna’s belly like this.

For reference, if it’s a son, I’ll name him Kang Ye-hoon. If it’s a daughter, I’ll name her Kang Ha-rin.

I made it by mixing my name and Nuna’s name appropriately.

“And Hoon-ah. Nuna doesn’t think she can stand it anymore. Wanna do it?”

Nuna grabbed the end of her skirt with a seductive expression and lifted it up.

“No way.”

But I had no intention of doing it, so I immediately refused.