Campus Log - Chapter 89

A reaction below his waist was only natural.

The first time he got an e******n in front of Sang-hee, he had been mortified, and even now it was embarrassing. At the same time, however, part of him thought it might have been for the best. It proved that their relationship was not confined to simple friendship. Sang-hee was smart—she must have realized it immediately.

Besides, she hadn’t run away in disgust. She had stayed beside him and waited for him to calm down.

In that cramped space, even opening a comic book for him.

That alone was enough for Eunseok to glimpse a ray of hope.

Eunseok’s hand moved below his navel. It slipped easily past the waistband of his training pants and underwear. Warm heat enveloped his fingertips. Soon, he found himself gripping solid flesh.

At first, he only intended to calm himself down. Lately, just as Sang-hee had said, he seemed to get aroused at the slightest thing. He couldn’t very well relieve himself every single time. He ought to force thoughts of pandas into his head and settle down.

But what filled his mind was not the innocent face of a panda.

It was the small figure wrapped in his oversized clothes.

As he recalled one detail after another—the flushed cheeks after a warm shower, the dampness lingering at the ends of long hair, the eyes shining brightly behind the lenses of those glasses—the reaction below only grew more intense.

And there was one scene that had remained vividly lodged in his memory.

A bright smile he had seen through the curtain of pouring rain.

He had been too busy running home, but then he heard a clear laugh behind him. When he turned around, the very smile he had secretly watched in front of the bus terminal was right before his eyes. His heart seemed to drop for a moment, and before he knew it, he had found himself smiling foolishly in return.

He had expected it would take a very long time before Sang-hee’s smiling face would ever be directed at him.

Yet after that unexpected encounter, he had been so startled that his heart spent the entire day swelling tight before shrinking again like a deflated balloon. Because of that, he couldn’t clearly remember what nonsense he had babbled to Sang-hee during the half day they spent together.

After that day, whenever a sudden shower came, he would stare blankly out the window.

I want to get caught in the rain again.

Next time, instead of running straight home, I’ll take shelter beneath a nearby tree. Then I’ll use the cold as an excuse to hold onto her.

He found himself making pointless plans like that.

“Hah…”

The arousal that had escaped the confines of his underwear twitched noticeably in the cool air from the air conditioner. His hand movements grew more hurried.

Beneath the cushion came the faint sound of damp friction.

“Hoo…”

Eunseok tilted his head back and let out a ragged breath. The familiar ceiling blurred before his eyes. The sensation refused to subside, only continuing to build.

Next time, he needed to clear his mind with something other than pandas.

Anything connected to Sang-hee was dangerous.

His thoughts burned with excitement. The bedroom was cool enough, yet Eunseok could only recall the warmth he had felt in the cave-like room of the jjimjilbang.

The feeling intensified further. As the tension climbed to its peak, his breathing momentarily stopped.

It didn’t take long before the sensation reached its conclusion.

“…Ah.”

The emptiness that always came after taking care of himself alone washed over Eunseok once again. Perhaps because the frequency had increased sharply over the summer, the fluid that dripped from his fingers seemed thinner than before. He knew his current appearance was embarrassing, but he didn’t feel like moving.

Just then, the phone buried somewhere in the sofa vibrated briefly.

Eunseok sprang upright. In a fluster, he wiped his hands with a tissue. Without even thinking to pull up his underwear properly, he looked around frantically for his phone.

The moment he saw the name on the screen, a broad grin spread across his face.

The name itself was made up of the gentlest sounds imaginable, yet the message beneath it was as blunt and curt as could be.

[Sang-hee: Just finished eating.]

But he liked it.

He liked the effort she made to share the small details of her daily life instead of treating him as a nuisance.

It made him feel as though the name Ryu Eunseok was firmly planted somewhere in Sang-hee’s time, and the thought alone filled him with exhilaration.

Growing impatient, Eunseok pressed the call button before he even had a chance to pull up his pants.

The soap bubbles still clinging to the floor tickled the soles of his feet.