#069
“Um… well… I wonder how far we can go…?”
I mumbled hesitantly. Even to me, my voice sounded timid, but I couldn’t help it. Shin Haejun kept coming to mind, making my face burn hot. While I thought survival should be the priority, I wasn’t sure if I could understand if Shin Haejun were to engage in skinship with Kim Sehyun in the same situation.
‘But this happened because Haejun let me go, right?’
Ugh, I don’t know what to do…!
I looked at Hyun Dowoon with a tearful expression. As I gazed at him helplessly, Hyun Dowoon tilted his head forward slightly and stared at me intently.
“Is this okay?”
His thumb gently rubbed my wrist. I slowly nodded.
“How about this?”
Soon after, one finger trailed up my forearm. His finger slid under my thin clothing, causing it to ride up my arm.
I blinked and nodded. My cheeks felt like they were on fire.
The finger that seemed about to go all the way up suddenly disappeared outside the clothing. Feeling a subtle emotion of disappointment, I looked down, only to find the finger that had been touching my arm now resting on my cheek. He cupped my cheek with his whole hand and gently caressed it.
As I remained still, his hand soon moved up to my earlobe and started tickling it. Then he softly stroked behind my ear and around my neck. His touch was as plain as a massage, and my body, which had been stiff with tension, gradually became languid.
‘Ugh….’
I wasn’t used to being touched by someone. Except for my early childhood before my parents passed away, no one had ever caressed me this gently.
I had recently started skinship with Shin Haejun, but he was a bit more urgent than this touch. Often, when I came to my senses, I would find him trying to touch my back or somewhere below.
So I rarely experienced being touched with such focus on my body itself. I alternated between becoming languid and tensing up again, not knowing how to react.
“Is this far okay?”
Hyun Dowoon asked as he removed his hand. When I came to my senses, I found myself letting out a long sigh and completely leaning into his embrace. When did I lean on him so completely? I hadn’t even noticed.
“Well, um….”
“You won’t get hurt. I won’t do anything you dislike.”
So… the problem was that I didn’t dislike it.
I had always evaluated myself as a person so plain as to be boring, but was I actually the type to easily succumb to sexual desire? Was I actually the type without self-control?
“This is a matter of survival, and you’ve done nothing wrong. It’s better to live and regret than to die.”
As if reading my thoughts, Hyun Dowoon whispered softly and touched my ear again. I shuddered and nodded slowly.
‘Right, for survival….’
I feel like I’ll regret this tremendously when we get out, but for now, there’s no choice. As if swept away, I mulled over Hyun Dowoon’s words and felt where his hands touched.
“Would it be okay if our lips touched?”
Reflecting the awkwardness that had grown between us, Hyun Dowoon kept asking for my consent. If he had touched my body too easily and quickly, that would have been upsetting in its own way, but his current extreme politeness was also awkward and embarrassing.
I suddenly realized that I was the type of person who wanted to be swept away. I wanted to follow someone else’s lead, but Hyun Dowoon’s words kept reminding me that I was making the choices directly, which made me unbearably embarrassed.
“It’s… it’s okay….”
We had even done Guiding with a kiss before, so it seemed ridiculous to say no now. Above all, just touching with hands wasn’t enough to properly gain Love Coins.
When I nodded, Hyun Dowoon immediately supported my back and neck and very politely brought his lips to mine. As the soft sensation touched my lips, I felt my entire body heating up.
‘It’s hot….’
I fidgeted with my hands before settling them on my chest as I received his polite kiss. My conscience wouldn’t allow me to put my hands on Hyun Dowoon’s shoulders. From Shin Haejun’s perspective, this was already no different from cheating, and this action would appear as a meaningless resistance.
Unable to speak with our lips pressed together, Hyun Dowoon extended his tongue and tapped it gently against my lips. It was a movement as if asking me to open them directly.
‘It’s hard when it’s as desperate as Haejun, making it difficult to keep up, and it’s also hard when it’s this extremely polite….’
I don’t think it was like this when we were Guiding before. Maybe because we weren’t Guiding now, or because we weren’t paired, he was extremely calm and polite, asking for permission to open my body.
Unfamiliar with sexual sensations, I kept alternating between precarious shame and a melting feeling. I thought I had gotten somewhat used to skinship with Shin Haejun, but encountering a completely different type of skinship made me feel strange. It felt like my mind had been completely reset.
“Mmm, mmhmm….”
At some point, forgetting my resolve to passively accept the sensations, I pulled on Hyun Dowoon’s neck and kissed him deeply. When I came to my senses, I could feel his third leg below.
‘Ah….’
I instantly blushed fiercely and removed my hands from Hyun Dowoon’s shoulders. Realizing that I had come to my senses, he slowly separated his lips from mine.
Then, bringing his face close to my neck, he asked.
“…Would this be okay too?”
“Can’t you just do it without asking!”
I shouted with my eyes tightly shut. I couldn’t bear the embarrassment.
If there was one consolation, it was that Hyun Dowoon’s breathing had also become a bit rough. I was worried that I was the only one losing my mind and getting completely absorbed, but it seemed that wasn’t the case, which was a relief.
‘Why am I thinking of this as a relief?’
Then, suddenly struck by an absurd realization, I opened my eyes wide. Why was I so absorbed in the skinship in the first place, and why was I worried about whether I was the only one feeling these sensations! I was just trying to accumulate Love Coins!
‘This is really driving me crazy.’
The guilt towards Shin Haejun further stimulated my sense of shame. The problem was, the more shame I felt, the more my body melted.
‘I’m really going to go crazy.’
My head was filled with thoughts of going crazy. I squeezed my eyes shut so tightly that I felt like my eyeballs might split as I felt Hyun Dowoon press his lips to my neck like a stamp and gently rub with the tip of his tongue.
‘This is hitting. He’s hitting me with his lips.’
It’s not skinship, it’s lip assault. Let’s try to brainwash myself like that… as if that would work!
“Hey, wait a moment!”
When I shouted, Hyun Dowoon’s movements stopped. Soon after, he sat me up straight and immediately removed his hands from my body.
“Was it unpleasant?”
“No, that’s not it…. I just wanted to check if we could start enhancing skills now.”
I whispered, looking down as if the ground might swallow me up.
“Please, go ahead.”
Hearing Hyun Dowoon’s seemingly nonchalant response, I slightly raised my head to look at him. Perhaps because he was older, he seemed overflowing with composure. I felt somewhat frustrated, but feeling frustrated in this situation seemed strange, so I tried my best to suppress my emotions.
“Give me your hand.”
I asked him to extend his hand so I could check. Hyun Dowoon obediently offered his hand. As I was about to take his hand to check how many Love Coins had accumulated, I hesitated for a moment, realizing something unexpected.
‘There are nail marks on his palm….’
There were clear nail marks on his palm as if he had clenched his fist with great force. Only then did I realize that Hyun Dowoon wasn’t actually nonchalant, but had been trying his best to hold back.
“Jaeha?”
When I hesitated, Hyun Dowoon called out to me. I cleared my throat and checked the Love Coin window.
‘Wow.’
I had barely felt the passage of time, but who knows how long we had been biting and licking, because quite a few Love Coins had accumulated. Once again, I tightly closed my eyes and then opened them in the face of the overwhelming embarrassment, and decided to attempt skill enhancement.
Although it seemed like the coins were still a bit short, I didn’t have the courage to suggest more skinship right away.
You have successfully enhanced the mercenary.
Active skill ‘Wound Healing’ skill level increased by 1!
All status abnormalities are removed.
‘Ah, really! The summoning skill should have increased!’
However, the more I attempted skill enhancement, the more I felt like I was sinking into a quagmire. Is this the gacha desire sensor? As if following the gamer’s truth that the more desperately you want something, the more it avoids you, I kept getting enhancement failures or enhancements of other skills.
“Um, you know…”
“Yes?”
“It seems like… we might need a bit more skinship.”
I finally pushed down my embarrassment and requested additional skinship from Hyun Dowoon. Since we’ve come this far, we can’t give up now.
“Alright.”
It was just a simple agreement, but I don’t know why it sounded like he was saying ‘that’s what I was hoping for.’ I looked at Hyun Dowoon’s grinning face and once again lowered my head deeply.
***
After accumulating Love Coins again, feeling like I was doing mental training, and attempting skill enhancement for a while, the summoning skill finally reached level 30.
“I think it’s done now. Do you feel any changes?”
“Hmm… I do feel like something has changed.”
I checked Hyun Dowoon’s status again. Then I saw a newly changed skill.
[Active Skills]
– Psychic Summoning | Can summon alien enemies killed at least once. Maximum summons: 5
– Random Summoning | Summons an object that is absolutely necessary right now. (Cooldown: 1 month)
– Teleportation | Can teleport within a 10km radius
– Wound Healing | Heals wounds of targets within a 100m radius
– Healing Barrier | Creates a barrier that heals all living beings within a 50m radius
A new summoning skill with a one-month cooldown had appeared.
I briefly explained the new skill to Hyun Dowoon and then instructed:
“Could you try using the skill with the thought of summoning anything that’s urgently needed right now?”
“Hmm….”
And when we saw what Hyun Dowoon had summoned, we were both surprised.