Chapter 27: A Series of Unfortunate Touches

Through the mirror, his eyes met Seo Jun-jae’s as he approached from behind.

It was Seo Jun-jae of all people, so Jae-seo felt oddly unsettled and couldn’t answer.

Before he could, his elbow was suddenly grabbed.

“Forcing it with strength won’t solve anything.”

Seo Jun-jae’s hand traveled down along his arm, wrapped around his wrist, and gently pulled it backward.

With his captured arm stretched behind his back, Seo Jun-jae’s other hand firmly gripped his shoulder.

“Bear with it for a moment.”

“Bear what?

Ugh!”

With his shoulder fixed in place, his captured arm was twisted outward from the wrist up to the forearm.

“Wai—!

Ah, it hurts!”

He tried to put strength into his arm and pull it free, but both his wrist and shoulder were held tight and wouldn’t budge.

“Relax your body.

If you tense up wrong, you could get hurt.”

Tell me what you’re doing before twisting someone’s arm!

Or better yet, I never even asked for help, so why are you doing this nonsense?!

Just as he was about to finally lose his temper and let out a curse, the hands gripping his wrist and shoulder suddenly let go.

His arm returned to its normal state, but it still tingled all over.

“What the hell are you—”

“Try it again now.”

“What?”

“That move from earlier.

Try it.”

Twists someone’s arm mercilessly and doesn’t even apologize?

The situation was utterly absurd, but telling himself Seo Jun-jae must have had a reason, he made an effort to understand and roughly attempted the move as instructed.

“…Huh?”

The arm reflected in the mirror was bent in a much more natural and aesthetically pleasing shape than before, and the stiffness he felt in his arm was also less than before.

“See?

Much better, right?”

I almost became a trash person who curses at someone genuinely trying to help.

He nodded with an awkward smile.

“When you do it alone, press your arm against a wall and use your back to stretch it out first, then try.

It’ll be better.

Don’t do it for too long, though—you might get hurt.”

“Uh, thanks for telling me.”

“If there are other moves you struggle with, feel free to ask.”

After a moment’s thought, he asked Seo Jun-jae about other moves as well.

Whatever questions he might have about Seo Jun-jae’s personality, wasn his dance skill the most reliable thing in this place?

Moves that hadn’t shown any improvement even after dozens of attempts were instantly fixed with just one of Seo Jun-jae’s arm twists, skyrocketing his trust in Seo Jun-jae.

Besides, no matter what his true intentions were, on the surface he had the world’s most gentle personality.

With multiple cameras rolling here, there seemed no better teacher than Seo Jun-jae.

Sure enough, Seo Jun-jae, wearing the kindest smile in the world, precisely pointed out problematic spots and corrected his movements.

After successfully fixing three moves, he was learning the last remaining one when his body just wouldn’t move the way he wanted.

Was it supposed to be this hard?

As he twisted his waist, creaking like a piece of rusty scrap metal, Seo Jun-jae tilted his head with an expression that said he couldn’t understand it either.

“Hold on.”

Seo Jun-jae, who had been standing beside him explaining for a while, seemed to decide words wouldn’t solve it and pressed close behind him.

He swept his arm around in front of Jae-seo’s body, pressed down on his shoulder to fix it in place, and pushed firmly against the center of his back with his palm.

“Try to think of bending here without moving your shoulder.”

As Seo Jun-jae pressed with his arm, Jae-seo fixed his shoulder and moved as if bending his back, and his chest pushed forward just as desired.

Why wouldn’t this move that’s so easy now work earlier?

Confirming Jae-seo was moving his body correctly, Seo Jun-jae released the arm that had been pulling his shoulder and stepped back.

When Jae-seo tried to push his chest out alone without Seo Jun-jae’s help, it creaked again just like at first.

“Think of nothing else but bending your back.”

Bending his back.

“Don’t pull your shoulder back.”

Fix his shoulder, bend his back.

“Oh, it worked!”

After repeating the same move one more time, he let out a sigh of relief.

Though a hint of awkwardness remained, it was much better than the bizarre, creaky movement from before.

Thinking he should thank Seo Jun-jae for turning him from scrap metal into a human, he shifted his foot—

And stepped on his shoelace, which must have come undone at some point, sending his body into a major slip.

Oh, f*ck…

His body toppled right onto Seo Jun-jae, and with a crashing sound, the two of them fell to the floor simultaneously.

Startled by the sudden loud noise, team members and staff began gathering toward them with surprised faces.

More than the pain, the embarrassment kept him from opening his eyes, but a suppressed voice came from beneath him.

“…Jae-seo.”

Wait, beneath him?

With a sinking feeling, he slowly lifted his eyelids to find, sure enough, Seo Jun-jae was pinned under his body.

Gasping, he hurriedly pushed up on his arms and lifted his upper body away from Seo Jun-jae’s, but Seo Jun-jae grimaced and let out a low groan.

“Ugh…”

…Is he hurt because of me?

Panicking, he urgently scanned Seo Jun-jae’s face and body, asking if he was okay.

Seo Jun-jae muttered quietly, “Knee.”

Did I hurt his knee?

Feeling this was more serious than he thought, he felt the blood drain from his face.

“Um… Could you move your knee?”

What?

His knee wasn’t hurt—he wanted my knee moved?

Wondering what that meant, he looked down and involuntarily swore.

His right knee was pressing firmly against Seo Jun-jae’s crotch.

He quickly pulled his knee away and moved back.

His gaze instinctively went to Seo Jun-jae’s lower body.

First the towel knot yesterday, today the shoelace, and not just exposing things but actual physical contact….

His vision went white.

Now that this had happened, he even suspected that his body moving weirdly on that last move earlier might have been the game’s doing.

Thinking coldly, there was no way a move that wasn’t working would suddenly work just from someone holding his shoulder and pressing his back.

Seeing Seo Jun-jae sit up and force a smile utterly devoid of any naturalness, Jae-seo felt like a criminal and could only hang his head.

***

As of today, he decided to add one more descriptor to this crazy perverted game.

Crazy perverted psycho game….

This psychotic game, not content with the Seo Jun-jae incident, began pushing him around everywhere.

“Jae-seo, you didn’t sprain your ankle or anything earlier, did you?”

Yoon Ji-heon, who had caught him just as he was about to tumble down the stairs, asked with a worried voice.

It wouldn’t be strange to hear such questions, given that since falling with Seo Jun-jae, about every 30 minutes he had been staggering, collapsing, tripping—it was an unprecedented mess.

In fact, this was already the third time Yoon Ji-heon had caught him from falling.

If he claimed his body was fine now, he might be the one considered the crazy perverted psycho, not the game.

“Actually, my ankle is a bit… but it’s not sprained or anything.”

“I see.

I thought something seemed off since earlier.

Sorry, I should have noticed sooner.”

With his acting stat already low, Yoon Ji-heon’s apology pricked his conscience, making it harder to keep lying.

When he fell silent, Yoon Ji-heon, apparently thinking Jae-seo was speechless from pain or embarrassment about being in pain, sighed quietly with a dark expression.

“How about resting for today?

If you push yourself while hurt, you might get more seriously injured.”

He nodded obediently, saying he would.

If he kept participating in practice like this, who knew what kind of trouble he’d cause for whom?

He was starting to feel actual fear.

…What if this keeps up tomorrow?

Or the day after?

What if I have to go through this until the game ends?

Terrifying thoughts flooded his mind, and he stood frozen, face pale.

Yoon Ji-heon looked at him with worried eyes, then suddenly turned his back and crouched down in front of him.

“Get on.”

“…What?”

“If it hurts that much, you should have said something.”

“No, really, I’m fine.”

“Fine, my foot.

You’re already pale, and now you’re even whiter.”

When Jae-seo showed no sign of getting on, Yoon Ji-heon grabbed his thighs with both arms and stood up straight.

Caught off guard by the force, one of Jae-seo’s legs lifted, and his body wobbled, losing balance.

Eventually giving up, he leaned against Yoon Ji-heon’s back and let himself be carried.

“You don’t want to underestimate a hurt ankle.”

Yoon Ji-heon carried him all the way from the building with the practice room to the dorm building, and even up to the second floor to their room, right to the front of Jae-seo’s bed.

Jae-seo’s conscience pricked even more, feeling he’d made Yoon Ji-heon go through too much trouble for a faked injury.

“…Thank you for bringing me.”

“Forget it.

Just get better soon.”

Telling him to rest well, Yoon Ji-heon even turned off the light and closed the door.

Jae-seo let out a heavy sigh.

He’d always prided himself on living without causing trouble for others, but thanks to the game’s antics, he was gradually becoming a weird person.

And not just one person—he was touching all sorts of people, causing trouble all wround.

“Ah, this is exhausting….”

At this point, worrying about favorability or ‘release’ functions felt futile and tiresome.

What did it matter if he tried to avoid it?

The game forcibly attached him to people and made him do weird things.

He reached out, grabbed the edge of the white blanket, and flapped it around.

“Hey, you see this?

I surrender.

I’m done.”

Whatever happens after ‘release’…

Well, what could it be besides s*x?

My d*ck’s already been forcibly exposed, and I’ve fallen on top of someone else’s d*ck—what’s the big deal about that now?

At this point, getting it over with cleanly once seemed better than continuously suffering through these crude antics.

The fact that the target was male bothered him a little, but since it was forced anyway, what did it matter if the partner was male or female?

…So please, tomorrow, just don’t push me around like today.

I’m begging you.