Chapter 34

“If I went into the hallway like that, what kind of embarrassment would that be—”

“I showed you mine, so it’s only fair that you show me yours too. Do it in front of me.”

“What?”

Morae’s answer left Pado stunned.

He thought she was going to agree with the part about him walking into the hallway like that, but he never expected her to accept the “or do it right next to your face” part.

Her cheeks were impossibly red, but Morae’s expression was serious.

With a face filled with anger and resentment, she grabbed the hem of Pado’s clothes.

“I… I was recorded on video… I showed you everything… But you didn’t show me anything and only dirtied someone else’s bathroom? That’s unfair. Take responsibility.”

“Why are you getting angry? It’s not like I watched because I wanted to.”

“But you still saw it.”

“Does it make sense for me to be embarrassed when I didn’t do anything wrong?”

“But you still saw it―!”

Unable to contain her frustration, Morae crouched down and curled her body into a ball.

Her curled-up body resembled a hamster, and soon soft sniffles began leaking out.

Morae knew that she was picking a fight over nothing.

She didn’t remember because she had blacked out, but the video showed the situation from that moment clearly.

Pado had only taken her away from the drinking gathering without permission.

He had politely changed her clothes and left without doing anything else.

She was the one who couldn’t let go of him and ended up embarrassing herself.

It was definitely the aftermath of dreaming about him for several days.

After repeatedly receiving kisses from him in her dreams that had no sensation, she must have become frustrated.

Then alcohol had mixed with those feelings and caused everything to happen.

But regardless of the reason, she couldn’t stand how embarrassed she was.

She had shown him everything about herself, every part of her body, even places she would never normally reveal.

And yet she felt like she was going to die from embarrassment over what happened last night.

She was so ashamed she couldn’t face him, so she ended up getting angry at him for no reason.

A part of her desperately wanted him to compensate her somehow.

After all, hadn’t he seen her touching herself?

Even if he hadn’t deliberately watched, shouldn’t he at least pay some kind of price after seeing something like that?

Otherwise, it was unbearably humiliating and unfair.

Morae sniffled while complaining like a child.

She had cried because the person who saw such an embarrassing side of her was Pado.

While she muttered, “That’s so mean,” Pado placed a hand on her head.

His warm hand gently stroked her hair, and she felt her emotions calm down slightly.

“It was something you couldn’t even pay money to see.”

The comment was absolutely infuriating.

“If you didn’t have CCTV, I wouldn’t have known. Honestly, I feel bad for you. I can’t even imagine what it feels like to watch yourself doing something like that.”

“You could… make me do the same thing too… if you wanted…”

“Putting CCTV in my room would be the day you die. I’ll make a two-hour recording so explicit that you’ll never want to watch it again.”

Morae’s dangerous threat received an equally vicious warning.

At the thought of Pado making a two-hour explicit recording, Morae’s spine trembled.

Pado was a relatively moral person, but he wasn’t so weak that morality alone could hold him back.

As long as he had a justification, he would return the favor without hesitation.

If she cried and blamed him afterward, he might back down.

But if that happened, their relationship would be over forever.

Pado could be cruel when necessary.

Would she cut ties with him and become enemies, or would she let him make a two-hour recording…

Since the answer seemed obvious right now, Morae’s mouth went dry and a strange sensation ran through her lower body.

When Morae shifted restlessly, Pado pressed down on her head.

“That means you shouldn’t even think about trying it. Understand?”

“……”

“You’re not saying you understand. Is your embarrassment just an excuse, and the truth is you’re desperate to make a video with me? If that’s the case, right now—”

“I won’t! I won’t!”

Morae buried her face into his arm and shook her head.

Her trembling voice carried traces of tears.

She had lost out because she had taken things too seriously.

When her breathing mixed with more sniffles, Pado’s touch became gentler.

“I’ll do it once.”

“Uh…”

It was unbelievable.

Morae didn’t react immediately and only made a quiet humming sound while holding her breath.

Pado, who had been speaking so softly that it was barely audible, raised his voice.

“I did get something out of it, so I’ll do it once in front of you.”

“Really?”

Morae cautiously lifted her head like a mole poking out of the ground.

Seeing her happily raise her face as if she had been waiting for that answer, Pado made a betrayed expression.

But it was already too late.

He didn’t seem particularly upset either. He only shrugged with an exhausted expression.

“Yeah. I’ll do it.”

It was obvious that he was intentionally letting her win, but Morae’s pride wasn’t hurt.

She thought he was only doing it because he pitied her for being so dejected, and that alone made her happy.

Morae slowly stood up from her crouched position and stared at Pado.

It wasn’t entirely an act, so her eyes were still slightly wet.

Avoiding Pado’s gaze on her face, Morae looked down between his legs.

After sniffing softly, she sat beside him.

Morae neatly pressed her knees together, but her eyes never left Pado’s crotch.

Even when Pado subtly moved his body a handspan away, Morae’s gaze followed his pants.

Her face looked innocent, but her eyes were anything but reserved.

Pado’s pants were fairly flat without much of a noticeable bulge.

They weren’t completely flat to the point where nothing could be inside, but knowing what they looked like when he was aroused, they seemed plain.

After staring there for a while, Morae asked,

“When are you doing it?”

Pado made a baffled sound.

“There’s nothing there right now. How am I supposed to do it? I’ll do it when I actually want to.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? Do it right now!”

“Did you reserve it or something?”

Pado let out a hollow laugh.

He couldn’t believe how quickly Morae had changed her attitude.

Just moments ago, she had been stomping her feet and suffering from embarrassment.

Now that she had received a promise that he would do it once in front of her, she acted like it was her right.

At this rate, she looked ready to pressure him like a debt collector.

“If you don’t do it now, when will you? If you put it off, you’ll just come up with excuses and never do it. Show me now.”

“I said I would. Do you really think I wouldn’t keep my promise?”

“I don’t believe those words.”

Morae placed her hand on Pado’s thigh.

She leaned closer and met his eyes.

“How many promises become meaningless once circumstances change? You have to receive what you’re owed right away. Do you know how many gifts I trusted people to give me and never received?”

“I feel sorry for you, but that’s not something you say while touching someone else’s crotch! Someone call the cops, Eun Morae is trying to take off my pants!”

“Why?!”

Morae complained while Pado grabbed both of her wrists.

It wasn’t her arrogant or sharp attitude.

There was a hint of childish dependence in her voice.

Pado was slowly becoming able to tell the difference between her genuine anger and her spoiled whining.

Morae wasn’t cruel toward him.

Even when she was the angriest at him, she was still three times kinder than she was toward people she had no connection with.

Once Pado realized that, even his tone became softer.

His words sounded cold, but his voice carried a playful edge.

“There’s not even a reason for it to happen. What do you want me to do? It’s not like I can just get hard whenever I want.”

“Those kinds of things are easy to find.”

Morae got up from the bed and looked around the room.

There were plenty of things around that could make him aroused.

If it was something semi-nude, she could easily find it on social media.

If it was fully nude, she only had to go to an adult site.

“Anything would work…”

Morae searched for something that could stimulate him, but she quickly lost interest.

The thought of showing Pado some kind of erotic picture suddenly felt uncomfortable.

It was natural for a healthy young man to react to seeing a naked body, but for some reason, she didn’t like the idea.

She didn’t like showing Pado the body of someone he didn’t know.

And she disliked showing him the body of someone he did know even more.

Morae wandered around helplessly, unable to decide what to do.

“There’s plenty…”

“Plenty? Then why aren’t you showing me?”

Pado had climbed onto the bed at some point and teased her.

His eyes followed Morae as she wandered around the room.

His relaxed voice showed that he had already guessed she was struggling with her decision.

“You don’t have to think that hard. There’s already something you can show me.”

There was something.

But if she showed him that, she would just return to the same situation as before.

It would only mean embarrassing herself one more time.

“Forget it.”

Looking around the room wasn’t going to produce some brilliant idea, but her eyes continued darting around.

As Morae desperately searched the small room for an idea, she spotted something familiar.

It looked familiar, but it didn’t match Pado’s room.

More accurately, it wasn’t something that should have been in this room.

“Isn’t that mine?”

Ignoring the blanket she had covered herself with yesterday afternoon, the underwear neatly placed on top of it was hers.

A pretty design, but a mismatched pair of panties and a bra.

The underwear she had left behind on the day she had fallen asleep in Pado’s room.

“No!”

When Pado saw Morae pointing at the underwear, he reacted like someone who had been caught doing something wrong.

He half rose from the bed, moved his finger slightly, then clenched his hand into a fist.

“It is yours. It is, but… uh, you left it here.”

“Why are you surprised? Why did you still have this?”

“You said I didn’t have to return it.”

The water inside the bottle on the table suddenly rose.

It wrapped around Morae’s underwear and placed it on the highest shelf of the bookshelf.

Pado’s ability was convenient for moving objects.

But it was still water.

He usually avoided touching things that would get completely soaked.

Yet he had hurriedly moved the fabric underwear with water.

It was strange.

“It’s not like it belongs to another woman, so what’s the big deal—ah.”

If it had been another woman’s belongings, he would have been shocked and tried to hide them.

But this was underwear Morae had left behind.

Since he knew exactly when and how it had been left there, there was no reason for him to feel uncomfortable.

But Pado was unnaturally trying to remove the underwear from sight.

‘Why?’

The moment she wondered that, a realization flashed through Morae’s mind.

There was no reason for him to have become nervous for no reason.

He had done something wrong.

Something he didn’t want Morae to find out about.

“Ha, if I just have that, it should be enough—waaah!”

Just as Morae realized what it was and was about to tease him, a massive amount of water burst out from the bathroom and pushed her outside the door.

The stream of water chased Morae out and coldly slammed the door shut.

Morae, who had been blasted out of the room by a water cannon, stood there half-soaked with her mouth opening and closing in disbelief.

She couldn’t believe Pado had actually refused her at the doorstep.

She was so dumbfounded that she wanted to immediately bang on the door.

“What was that?! You’re the one who did something wrong!”

Still, she couldn’t say she hated it.

It wasn’t something she could call pleasant, but after seeing him become that flustered, she could generously forgive this kind of behavior.

Especially since she had done something far more embarrassing herself.

It was at least somewhat understandable.

Besides, Morae had already gotten what she wanted anyway.

“You promised! You said you’d do it! I won’t forgive you if you break your promise!”

Morae knocked hard on the door with her tightly clenched fist before stepping away.

With people at the end of the hallway starting to peek over curiously, she couldn’t keep arguing through the door.

If anyone found out, she would be embarrassed enough to die.

Unlike when she arrived, Morae left the hallway with light footsteps.