episode_0021

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A soft, yielding texture presses against the lips.

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A deep kiss filled with tenderness.

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“…!”

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Startled by the sudden physical contact, I opened my eyes wide and instinctively pulled back.

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With a gentle sound, she parted her lips and whispered softly.

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“…First kiss….”

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She met my gaze with half-opened eyes.

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Unintentionally, I gulped at the subtly seductive scent wafting through the air.

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“Was she always this beautiful?”

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I knew she was pretty from the start, but feeling this captivating was new.

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“No, this isn’t right.”

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Momentarily shaken, I pushed aside the doubts flooding my mind and distanced myself from her.

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“…Stop now.”

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If we cross that line, we can’t remain friends.

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Well, it’s already an ambiguous relationship, not just simple friendship.

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But still, there’s a line.

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Above all, I didn’t want to do something I couldn’t take responsibility for in a relationship that wasn’t even romantic.

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“…Let’s pretend this never happened….”

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That’s when it happened.

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Hanryeon suddenly grabbed my top, swiftly pulling it off without giving me a chance to stop her.

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“Hey, hey!”

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Flustered, I quickly covered my eyes and scolded her.

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“Hurry up and put your clothes on?! You’ll regret this for real!”

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However, she didn’t stop there.

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Swoosh, swoosh. She continued to undress, then tossed her clothes onto my body.

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“…!”

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Beneath the hand I used to shield my eyes, I caught a glimpse of the freshly removed, warm bra.

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“Is this… is this for real?!”

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Is the human heart really this fickle? My heart raced madly in response to her successive provocations.

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Conflicting thoughts clashed fiercely within me, between feeling like we’ve crossed a line and wondering if it’s right to forcefully refuse her advances.

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In that moment of indecision, caught between mutual attraction and primal instincts.

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Thud. She once again threw something at me.

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This time….

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It was her panties.

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“!!!”

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Taken aback, I inadvertently looked at her.

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‘Wow.’

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Embarrassed yet unabashedly revealed, I was captivated by her entire figure, from her chest that seemed difficult to hold with one hand, smoothly defined abs, down to her tightly closed thighs.

It was so stimulating that I couldn’t take my eyes off it.

“How is it?”

As soon as she noticed my gaze, she seductively swayed her hips.

“Do you want to taste it?”

In the end, succumbing to instinct, I warned her in my excitement.

“…You clearly started it.”

That’s how I lost my reason.

Since then, Hanyerwon and I developed a more subtle relationship.

Not friends, not lovers.

Closer to what’s commonly called a “partner” yet closer to a romantic relationship.

Truly an odd relationship.

“It’s okay. Don’t worry.”

“…Really?”

“Yeah. I still like it now? Hehe.”

Yet Hanyerwon reassured me and relieved my worries.

Perhaps it was her consideration for my discomfort with a romantic relationship.

Feeling sorry for making me wait, I also felt grateful.

I thought I must definitely repay her waiting someday.

Goddess-like Hanyerwon: “Come pick me up at school.”

And the opportunity for that repayment came sooner than expected.

“Is this the place?”

The next day, I received Hanyerwon’s request and went to her school.

For the time being, without a job, I readily accepted the request.

“All my peers are here.”

There were many people of my age since it was a university, and seeing those who were attending university made me envious deep down.

“Yoochan!”

How long had I been standing there waiting? Hanyerwon came towards me from a distance, waving her hands.

“There’s someone next to him.”

She had some friends with her.

“This is my boyfriend!”

“Hello.”

Hanyerwon naturally introduced me as her boyfriend to her friends.

Unable to explain our relationship to her friends, I quietly played the role of her boyfriend.

“I’ve heard a lot about you from Ryewon!”

“Oh my. He’s really handsome. Nice to meet you.”

“Wow, he’s tall…?”

Had she often talked about me?

Her friends even looked at Hanyerwon with slightly envious glances.

“We’re going to have lunch, would you like to come with us?”

“If there are any friends you’d like to call…”

“What are you talking about! Ugh. So clueless… I’m sorry. Our friends are waiting for us.”

“No, it’s okay. Let’s grab a meal together when we have time.”

“I’ll wait! Definitely!”

“Don’t forget our friends too…!”

“I’ll definitely bring them.”

“Haha. Well then, we’ll head out first!”

In various ways, I felt somewhat uplifted, so I didn’t feel entirely bad.

…Of course, introducing him as my boyfriend was a separate issue.

“I’m your boyfriend?”

After parting ways with my friends, I squinted and subtly looked at her with folded arms.

She shamelessly responded as if she didn’t know what I was talking about.

“No? A male friend. Boyfriend. It’s the same, right?”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah. It is, isn’t it?”

I felt a subtle urge to ask more, but I didn’t bother.

“Anyway! Where are we going now? Have you eaten?”

“Where else? We should go home.”

I had come to pick her up, so naturally, I intended to go home.

She waved her ringed hand back and forth meaningfully and brought up a significant point.

“It’s hard to clean up at home, you know.”

“…Huh?”

“Hmm?”

Hanryu-won, who met my gaze with big eyes, tilted her head inquisitively.

‘This girl… Surely not….’

Realizing belatedly, I focused my gaze on her, trying to understand.

She chuckled and effortlessly led me towards the bustling downtown area.

“You didn’t realize I called you for a date?”

“I just asked you to come with me.”

“We’ve come this far, so of course, we should also have a date!”

“There are only bars around here.”

“But there are plenty of motels, aren’t there?”

I was so taken aback by her casual mention of motels that I lost my words.

She slyly whispered something in my ear, showing something she took out of her bag.

“I brought some pills today.”

“Pills?”

“Yeah! Pills that let you do whatever you want. Hehe.”

“No, when did you get those…?”

“Is that important? What matters is that you don’t have to worry about taking them, right?”

Hanryu-won provocatively pressed my arm against my chest with a wicked look in her eyes.

“If you don’t want to, just put it on and do it.”

Her actions had been so unsettling from the start that I felt I needed to scold her properly.

“…You need to be scolded.”

“Hehe. Please scold me a lot.”

In the end, I gave in to her again.

They say the late bloomer is the scariest.

Compared to others, Hanrye-won, who woke up relatively late, behaved like a rabbit in heat all year round.

Looking at how fast she was, she really seemed like a rabbit.

Anyway, she almost visited my house every day, demanding physical affection inside or outside, be it the restroom, a room café, or a comic book store.

Not to mention our house or a motel, we even enjoyed physical affection near her house in the park.

It felt like it had been a long time since I had regular feelings.

“Hey, how about this? Should I order one?”

As if that wasn’t enough, she started touching costumes.

“What should I have engraved on the collar?”

She steadily acquired various plays.

“Your progress is too fast.”

Her learning speed was truly monstrous.

“Well, still, at this rate…”

Even so, the reason I could accept all of her actions as cute was because she fully respected my life.

“Oh, you’re going to meet Juheon?”

“Yeah. It’s the first time since high school, right?”

“Oh, I see. Got it! Have fun and come back. Just don’t drink too much.”

“Yeah. I’ll go and contact you later.”

“Yeah yeah!”

Hanrye-won didn’t interfere with anything I did.

As long as there was sufficient explanation, she trusted me completely.

Some might say she didn’t seem interested, but from my perspective, that wasn’t the case at all.

On the contrary, I strongly felt that she deeply trusted me.

“Wouldn’t it be okay to just keep dating like this…?”

That’s why I also ended up being able to trust her.

“Oh, Juheon! Over here!”

“Hey. Kang Yoo-chan. It’s been a while since you graduated, right?”

It was a day when I met a high school friend after a long time and had a good time.

“Hoba? Crazy. I can’t work there even if I want to.”

“Should I give you the boss’s number? He’s still there.”

“Oh, forget it.”

While sharing our current situations over drinks, he suddenly asked about Hanrye-won.

“So, how are things with Leywon these days?”

Kim Ju-heon and I had become close through Hanyerwon’s introduction. He liked Hanyerwon’s friends, so he would occasionally give me relationship advice.

“Just, you know. We’re getting along well as friends.”

I absentmindedly answered his question and refilled the empty glass…

“Hey, you don’t have to hide it from me.”

Suddenly, he brought up something incomprehensible.

“What?”

“You and Hanyerwon dating. I know all about it.”

“What… What?”

“…What’s with that reaction? You are dating, right?”

Kim Ju-heon explained with a slightly flustered expression.

Rumors were spreading among high school classmates that Hanyerwon and Kang Yoo-chan were dating.

“Who said that?”

Asking about the origin of the rumor…

“He’s always posting pictures of you two on Instagram.”

It was Hanyerwon’s SNS.

“Really…?”

“You didn’t know?”

As it turned out, the story was that Hanyerwon consistently uploaded photos of us on her SNS, which led to such rumors.

“No way, her?”

Realizing the truth behind the rumors, I immediately called to confirm the facts as soon as the drinking session ended.

“Did you post our picture on Instagram?”

Upon asking…

“Oh. Didn’t you know?”

Almost as if asking if I didn’t know.

“I asked you before. If it was okay to post our picture. So you said it was okay.”

“You asked me…?”

“Yeah!”

I momentarily paused at her confident tone.

“Did I really say OK to that…?”

I questioned my own actions.

“Did you forget or something?”

“Is that so…?”

Ultimately, I concluded that I had forgotten…

Living as someone who wasn’t Hanyerwon’s boyfriend but also not not her boyfriend, one day…

“Today feels unusually free.”

It was when I was waiting for a shift change at the convenience store where I recently started working.

Ring… Ring…

Suddenly, a call came from Hanyerwon.

“What’s this?”

Unless it was urgent, we had an agreement not to call during work hours.

Taking advantage of a lull in customers, I quickly answered the phone.

“Hey, what’s up?”

But…

Hey, Yoo Chan! I’m sorry to bother you while you’re working, but… do you happen to have time for dinner tonight?

Somehow her tone in asking about my schedule seemed oddly stiff.

“I do have time. Why?”

I wondered what the reason was, and then…

“Well… our parents suggested that we have dinner together…”

“…Huh?”

It was none other than a proposal for a meal with our parents.