༺ Friendship (4) ༻
1.
Siwoo could only see Sharon’s face. It was as if time had stopped.
Her cheeks were slightly flushed, dyed in peach color, just like when she got out of the shower, and her eyes were wandering, unsure on where to look.
This made him understand.
That she felt just as awkward and as embarrassed as him.
“Can I ask another thing? It’s nothing big…”
“What is it?”
[Happy Halloween! I prepared a witch costume for you!]
[Oh, fuck!]
While they were doing that, the actors in the movie already fucked for five minutes.
Currently, the screen showed various special and comical events that the two had been through over the past year.
Seeing it at such a timing worried Siwoo.
Sharon gulped and opened her mouth.
“You know, in movies… Kisses usually move into… Sex… Like this one…”
“Yes…”
Such a scene, where a couple got all hot after a kiss before mixing their bodies together was almost a regular occurrence.
But Sharon didn’t continue her words.
Prompting Siwoo to repeat his answer, as he suspected that she didn’t hear his answer properly.
“Yes?”
After a brief period of hesitation, she finally opened her mouth.
“I think… It’s a rude question to ask…”
“We’re close enough. I don’t think it is.”
“…Are you sure?”
“…Maybe…”
Siwoo could roughly guess what she would ask, and concluded that it wouldn’t be a difficult question to answer.
“Um… So… Have you… Done that…?”
Sharon’s slender finger was pointing at the screen. There, a scene where the man ejaculated into his girlfriend’s pussy was being played.
“Yes.”
“I see. All of a sudden, you became more mature now…”
She let out an awkward laugh.
In response, Siwoo did the same.
“So, does the timing of moving on… To the next step… Come naturally? Just like kissing?”
Her question made Siwoo feel a strong sense of deja vu.
It felt exactly like something the twins would ask during their sex education nonsense.
As soon as he was aware of that, his eyes wandered to her cleavage, as if it was being sucked into a black hole.
Her upper chest, which seemed to be large enough to cover his member, reflected the evening light and shone with a subtle luster.
“Uh… Yeah…”
At that moment, Sharon’s eyes followed his gaze and went down to her chest for a moment before going back up again.
Though it was only for a moment, she caught him staring intensely at her chest.
Siwoo wondered whether he should apologize or not, but Sharon didn’t even show any signs of concern toward his action. Instead, she quietly shifted the position of her upper body, which had been tilted towards his direction, back to its original position.
“I see…”
After that, for the rest of the movie, no more words were exchanged between the two of them.
2.
“Mm…”
It was the time when a proper member of society who possessed a normal everyday life would have fallen asleep.
Sharon was sitting on her bed, deep in though, swaying her body back and forth.
At first, she didn’t wake up to think about random things.
She wanted to replenish the mana within her brand, which had become empty due to the treatment she gave Siwoo after today’s battle with Della.
Normally, the mana stored inside a witch’s brand was dense.
This dense mana had the property of attracting mana from the surroundings.
The ‘magnetization’ process used this property to bring external mana into the brand, refined it and made it easier to use.
Currently, her brand was completely empty, so its power to attract mana had weakened greatly.
She surmised that it would probably take about two weeks to fill it back up.
Her biggest source of money, the hunting for Homunculi, required mana. Since there were no means for her to supplement her mana, she was currently in quite a predicament.
This meant she had to spend two weeks idly, while trying to recover.
“Sigh… What should I do…?”
Having her thoughts wandered up to that point, Sharon let out a deep sigh.
‘This all happened because of that bitch Della…’
Even if she recovered some of her mana and went back to hunt, her hunting ground had been taken over by Della.
It was obvious that nasty bitch would claim possession over that area, even though she practically had no use for it. And every time Sharon would cross into the area, she’d definitely threaten her.
Not to mention that she also had made Siwoo suffer.
Just thinking about it made Sharon’s fists tremble.
And the worst part about this was that even though she was angry, she couldn’t just go find and complain to her.
“Do I really have to leave…?’
Seoul was the place where she was luckily able to settle down after moving about aimlessly when she first came to the modern world.
She wasn’t sure if she had become attached to it, but she definitely felt more accustomed to living in this city.
Then there was also the time and effort needed of finding a new place, a new hunting ground and a new place to live to consider.
While all that happened, she had to hold on from repaying her debt, which meant her interest rate would continue to grow. But, the thing was, if that were to happen, there was a chance that it’d grow so large to the point that it exceeded the amount she had paid in the first place.
She considered keeping her distance away from Siwoo.
After all, she didn’t have the face to ask him, who was already well settled in this place, to leave with her because of her debt.
However, she was reluctant to tell the whole truth to him either as she was afraid that he’d take it as if she was asking him for money.
Thinking as such made her feel a bit lonely.
“There’s nothing I can do…”
‘Maybe I should somehow get away from him and hunt secretly…’
‘If I get caught by that bitch…’
‘I’ll hate it, but…’
‘I guess I have no choice but to beg for her mercy, or accept the suspicious jobs she offers…’
“Sigh…”
She let out another heavy sigh.
Though the room was spacious, for some reason, she felt so stuffy inside, so she opened her door and left.
For some reason, she snuck into Siwoo’s room, which was located right across from her’s.
Strangely, whenever she did something with him, she was able to forget all of her problems, even if it was only for a moment.
It was as if he had a special aura that was able to put her at ease.
And it seemed like that aura was so strong that she ended up forgetting to prepare for this quarter’s payment.
“Zzz…”
The man in question was sleeping with a comfortable expression.
There was a chair beside his bed, the same one she used to nurse him, so she quietly sat down there, trying not to wake him up.
She listened to the sound of his breathing as his chest moved slowly up and down.
“It feels a little better…”
What happened today made her think about a lot of things.
Her guilt when seeing Siwoo sprawled on the ground after getting hurt by Della.
Even with such an appearance, he still lied to comfort her, and that was enough to make her cry out of gratitude.
When she thought of him while in the shower, she could feel her heart pounding.
The sensation she felt was uplifting, and she couldn’t describe it properly with words.
And it didn’t disappear even after she got back from work.
Even when she said her thank you as they ate together, her heartbeat was still slightly quicker than usual.
Like someone who had changed their camera filter, everything she was familiar with felt different to her.
For example…
She was aware that Siwoo would take a look at her chest from time to time, but she never paid much attention to it.
After all, his gaze wouldn’t make her chest fall off, and it wasn’t like he was staring at it with a perverted gaze.
But that same action made her feel embarrassed today.
That was the reason why she wore a bra, something she normally hated to wear due to how uncomfortable it was, today.
“Come to think of it…”
She recalled Siwoo’s words when she asked him about kissing back when they were watching a movie today.
‘My heart beat faster…’
She silently placed her hand on her chest.
Her pounding heart.
It was a little faster than usual.
This had been going on ever since she had entered his room.
“It’s racing….”
She looked down at Siwoo’s sleeping face.
Then, she recalled other words that he said.
.
‘It felt like everything around us disappeared… I could only focus on both of our lips… I felt an urge to do it, then I just did it…’
Sharon’s eyes drifted to Siwoo’s lips.
He had a handsome face to begin with, but his slightly parted lips seemed to particularly stand out today.
Gradually.
Her heart beat faster.
And with it, brought her the question, ‘Do I want to kiss him?’
“…How would it feel anyway?”
From all the movies she watched, it wasn’t an unfamiliar act to her.
The way all those female protagonists tiptoed as the male held their waists, with a calm music in the background, such a scene was way too familiar for her.
What came after was the lighting around them became stronger, illuminating their faces as the camera moved around them.
Then their lips would overlap, followed by their tongues, twisting around, going back and forth in each other’s mouths.
At times, they’d start sucking each other’s lower lip.
“…”
Without realizing it, her hand had found its way to her own lips.
Her soft and bouncy lips.
Then, she moved her hand, placing her fingertips on Siwoo’s slightly opened lips.
Compared to hers, his lips were a little thicker, but the sensation felt similar.
So much that it was hard for her to believe that it was part of his body and not hers.
‘…Once…’
‘…Just a slight touch…?’
At that moment, she slowly lowered her upper body.
As her lips slowly got closer, her heart beat even faster.
Holding her trembling heart, she pressed on, until their lips were only one centimeter apart from each other.
Her whole body froze like that, as she could feel his breath coming out of that parted lips.
Meanwhile her ears were filled with the loud beating of her heart, followed by the increase of the intensity of her breaths.
She quickly got up and left the room.
“Ugh… Somehow, I feel even more confused…”
The reason why she came to his room was because she wanted to forget about her problems, but somehow, she came out with a whole new problem due to the appearance of a strange impulse.
Said impulse was her desire to kiss him secretly.
She knew that kissing was an important act between a man and a woman.
That was why she believed that the act of kissing him secretly was something cowardly, if anything.
‘Maybe I’ve gone crazy after all those romance movies…’
“Think of a nice thought… A nice thought…”
She roughly sat down on the sofa, the same one where she was watching the movie earlier.
Trying to calm herself down, she deliberately diverted her line of thought.
‘Yes… Just like this…’
“Anyway… What should I do?”
Speaking about Siwoo, he had done a lot of things for her.
But, she couldn’t even give her something decent in return.
So far, she had only given him some crabs and treatment for his wounds.
The former, he could order hundreds of them if he wanted.
As for the latter, in the end, her magic could only heal the wounds on his body.
After all, even magic couldn’t heal a wounded heart.
So, she wanted to help him, who had pushed himself so far for her sake.
To do this, she decided to access the Modern World’s Akashic Records, the very thing that contained the secrets of the universe.
“How to… Comfort… A friend…”
She clumsily typed those words out, and not long after, a long list appeared in front of her eyes.
‘Modern World’s science is great, indeed!’
‘Everything could be solved by just doing this!’
“Rather than trying to find unique words, just give him your sincere support… Consider his feelings first… Acknowledge him and give your support with a justification…”
Though, Sharon knew at least this much. She wasn’t stupid, after all.
The reason why she found it difficult to comfort him so openly was because she didn’t want to make it obvious.
After all, this was a delicate matter. If she messed up, she could hurt his pride even more than this.
“How to comfort your boyfriend…?”
As she looked through the unhelpful Akashic Records, she belatedly found a related search term.
In Korea, a boyfriend refers to a male lover, not a male friend.
Sharon and Siwoo were definitely not lovers.
But, fundamentally, Siwoo was still a man, so Sharon had hopes that whatever came up from the search result might help her in one way or another.
“I’ll take a quick look…”
Stroke his head.
Hug him.
Kiss him.
Act cute in front of him.
All of them were things that were pretty difficult to do unless they were in a relationship.
Though, she figured that it might be useful someday.
Besides, they had already hugged each other earlier today.
“Huh…?”
At that moment, she found an article written on a counseling community.
The title was ‘My Boyfriend is Feeling Down.’
To summarize its content, the boyfriend of the writer seemed to be upset after failing his recruitment exam several times, but he didn’t show it and instead acted exaggeratedly happy, making it hard for the writer to comfort him due to fear of hurting his pride.
A similar situation as the one that Sharon and Siwoo were in.
“This is it!”
Sharon shouted ‘Eureka!’ in her mind and hurriedly looked at the reply.
[Let him touch your breasts. It works like a charm.]
And as she did so, her hopes and dreams were crushed promptly.
‘Breasts? What breasts?’
“That’s just dumb. If that could solve everything, no men in this world would be left with any worries.”
Though she referred to it as the Akashic Record, as there was a lot of information one could find there, there was a lot of useless trash in it as well.
She carelessly scrolled down the replies, her eyes widened in the process.
[Breasts are the best. When my boyfriend screwed up on his college entrance exam, I just asked him, ‘Do you want to touch my breasts?’ And that boosted his mood a lot.]
As she scrolled down, she found more similar advice.
She read through the various replies with shocked eyes.
[Just looking at breasts made him feel good.]
[I tried it after I saw it on the internet, but it surprisingly worked well.]
[It also works when they’re angry. Just show it to them, or let them touch it.]
[Women’s breasts soothe men both psychologically and biologically.]
And so on. Countless stories about breasts were being told.
Then, she got on the last message of the threat; The author’s response.
[Thank you^^ I followed all of your advice and my boyfriend really liked it! He seems to have regained his energy! I plan to support him by his side for another year.]
“Really? That’s all it takes?”
Sharon turned off her phone screen, feeling completely dumbfounded.
‘Come to think of it, he’d secretly glance at my breasts at times…’
‘Would it really comfort him if I let him freely see or touch it…?’
‘Men are so difficult to understand…’
