1.
The humidity of February was so dry it itched.
It might be called a spring breeze, but it wasn't even warm.
The worst day to return to school.
Only a week since I’d taken off my military uniform.
The air of society was far murkier and heavier than the dust of the training center.
I sat on the plastic chair in front of the convenience store, gazing at the water droplets that had formed on the surface of my canned beer.
Sliding down slowly, it formed a small puddle on the table.
Porter the Obins.
A beer with a bitter taste that lingered long at the root of the tongue.
There were still two months left until I returned to school, and my bank account balance was scraping bottom, having been squandered recklessly during my pre-discharge leave.
A vague anxiety about the future and a lethargy of not knowing what to do tomorrow mixed in a bizarre ratio, pressing down on me.
‘Is this Sage Time?’
Apparently, it wasn't something that only came after getting off.
That was when.
A vibration was felt from inside my pocket.
It was a short, sharp vibration.
A sensation as if someone were poking the inside of my thigh with a sharp needle.
“It’s not like there’s anyone who’d contact me…”
It was because I had always been so quiet at school.
I was definitely not a social misfit or anything like that.
Probably.
I took out my smartphone.
On the screen, an unfamiliar icon had appeared.
A crude-looking yet strangely captivating design—a purple spiral on a black background.
The app's name was [Hypnosis App].
‘Hypnosis app…?’
I had no memory of installing it.
Was it a hack, or one of those trendy spam malware programs?
The moment my finger tried to press the delete button, a strange curiosity overtook reason.
As if entranced, I touched that icon.
The screen went dark for a moment, then text appeared alongside a noise like shattering pixels.
[User Verification Complete: Han Seonu]
[Current Hypnosis Rank: Tutorial Trainee]
[Held Points: 0]
[Rank increases based on intimacy with the target and relationship progress.]
[Please experience the rest for yourself.]
The interface was extremely simple.
It was reminiscent of the crude, early internet UI windows from the 90s.
At the bottom of the screen, a single button labeled 'Target Scan' sat awkwardly.
I raised my head and looked inside the convenience store.
At the counter, a part-timer was looking at her smartphone, chin in hand.
Her name tag had 'Yu Jimin' written on it, if I recalled.
Her dark brown-dyed hair was tied up roughly, and beads of sweat dotted the nape of her neck.
Not my type, but a fairly ordinary woman in her twenties.
A college student, maybe?
Well… I didn’t think too deeply about it since I wasn’t that interested.
When I bought the beer earlier, she hadn’t even made eye contact, just scanned the barcode.
A typical specimen of modern humanity—so exhausted by life that she didn’t even have the energy to spare attention for others.
A few more guides appeared on the LCD screen.
Half-doubting, half-believing, I raised my smartphone camera and aimed it at her through the glass window.
The moment her figure was captured on the screen, a red targeting box floated above her head.
[Target Confirmed: Yu Jimin (Age 21)]
[Mental Defense: Low (Fatigue, Lethargy)]
[Hypnosis Success Rate: 35%]
[Will you attempt it? (Point Cost: None / First time free)]
[Hypnosis progress with this target will increase rapidly.]
35 percent.
A solid batting average for a baseball hitter, but a laughably low number for an act that manipulates someone’s mind.
For a spam app, it was well-made.
“Like this would work.”
But my finger was already pressing 'Yes.'
A whining tinnitus rang in my ears.
It felt like the high-frequency mechanical noise was scratching my prefrontal cortex.
At the same time, an illusory effect occurred, as if faint purple waves were spreading from the smartphone screen.
“Welcome.”
When I opened the convenience store door and went back inside, she spoke.
It was different from before.
“…”
Her gaze was still fixed on her smartphone, but the tone of her voice had risen by about a semitone.
I approached the counter and set down a pack of gum.
I’d picked a moderately minty flavor.
Hoping that chewing it might clear my head a bit.
“Do you need a bag?”
She raised her head.
In that moment, I witnessed a bizarre phenomenon.
Her pupils were very slightly unfocused.
Like a camera lens that couldn't find its focus,
her gaze rested on my face, yet seemed to pierce through me to look at the beer display case behind me.
The app vibrated.
[Basic Suggestion Activated: 'Induce Interest']
[Duration: Unlimited]
[Duration may vary by target.]
[Duration and probability increase due to Tutorial progress.]
I gulped.
‘This is…’
The sound of my Adam’s apple moving was unusually loud.
This app is real.
It’s not a simple prank.
My heartbeat began to quicken.
Sweat seeped into my palms.
I decided to speak as naturally as possible, yet say things I would never have uttered normally.
Just like protagonists in novels usually do—in a slightly dry, absurd manner.
But confidently.
And with even more stupid-ass lines.
“The weather is really strange today. It feels like it’s going to rain but it doesn’t—like a sneeze that’s about to come out but stops.”
Yu Jimin blinked.
Her eyelashes moved slowly.
These were lines that an ordinary part-timer would have ignored with a “Yeah, I guess so.”
Or she would have scrunched up her face, calling it “old-fashioned” if she’d taken it as flirting.
But she leaned her body slightly over the counter and gazed at me.
“A sneeze… you’re right. It really does feel exactly like that. It’s been stifling all day.”
Her lips parted slightly.
“…”
It was a strange nuance.
Not simply agreeing about the weather, but an attitude of sharing her inner feelings, her sensations, with a strange man.
I worked up my courage and took another step forward.
According to the app’s explanation, the hypnosis grows stronger as the relationship progresses.
And at the end of that path lies what I want.
No, everything that the majority of men want.
Harem. Chaebol.
Words that had seemed like the delusions of a 24-year-old returning student were now approaching with the weight of reality.
“By any chance, do you have time after you get off work? I know a beer cool enough to blow away this muggy feeling.”
It was an offer that made no logical sense.
A customer asking a convenience store part-timer out on a date after buying nothing but a pack of gum.
And the pickup lines were getting cringier and cringier.
‘By common sense.’
She should have rejected me.
But I had intentionally chosen these stupid lines from the start.
A small trick to find out whether it was the hypnosis or just everyday kindness.
But the ‘logical error’ had already begun.
A purple light flashed very briefly in her pupils.
She nodded like someone being pulled along by something regardless of her own will.
“Yes… sounds good. I get off at 11.”
“Then I’ll wait.”
“Okay…”
I clenched the smartphone in my pocket.
It was hot.
The heat of the overheated battery traveled up my thigh.
I opened the door and went outside.
“Hoo…”
The breath I’d been holding burst out.
‘It was real.’
I exited the convenience store and looked up at the night sky.
The moon was hidden behind clouds and couldn’t be seen, and a faint siren sound could be heard from somewhere.
The world remained the same, but I intuitively felt that a very small part of the physical laws surrounding me was beginning to twist.
Two hours remained until 11 o’clock.
I sat back down in the chair in front of the convenience store.
I chewed one of the pieces of gum I had just bought.
The mint scent spread throughout my mouth, coolly soothing the wrinkles of my brain.
A tingling sensation could be felt.
This wasn’t a dream.
My tongue insisted as much.
I turned on the smartphone again.
I could see that the EXP bar had risen ever so slightly, by an amount so minute it was hard to confirm with the naked eye.
[Next Stage: Deep Suggestion via Physical Contact]
The phrase blinked red.
Physical contact. Holding hands, shoulders brushing.
Or perhaps more.
I raised my hand and looked at my fingers.
Under the streetlight, my hand looked unfamiliar.
A sense of alienation, as if I had borrowed someone else’s hand rather than it being my own.
The wind blew.
The cold wind of early spring brushed past my shirt collar.
Suddenly, I wondered if all of this might be a huge joke.
Just like protagonists in genre novels, no matter how wildly they rampage, are ultimately within the palm of a playful god…
And just like things they could never reach, perhaps I too was walking toward some invisible wall.
But Yu Jimin’s unfocused pupils had been undeniably real.
So was the way she had naturally responded to my strange lines.
‘If not…’
That would only mean Yu Jimin was a crazy bitch.
I inwardly prayed that she was normal.
—
10:55.
The lights inside the convenience store seemed to have dimmed slightly.
It seemed the shift change had come.
Yu Jimin took off her uniform apron and came outside.
In her casual clothes, she looked much more petite than when she had been in uniform.
A white short-sleeved t-shirt and baggy jeans.
She walked falteringly and approached me.
A faint fabric softener scent and the convenience store’s characteristic fried food smell mingled from her.
“You really waited.”
“Because I promised.”
I stood up.
We started walking side by side.
We hadn’t decided where to go, but our footsteps were naturally heading toward my studio apartment.
Did she know this too?
Or was this hypnosis forcefully moving her?
Silence flowed.
An awkward but not unpleasant silence.
I ran the app in my pocket and turned on 'Deep Suggestion' mode.
It was a function I had discovered in the [Skill] menu while waiting for Yu Jimin.
[Distance to Target: 0.5m]
[Waiting for contact…]
When we turned into an alley, a motorcycle roared past us.
“Kyah!”
Startled, she dodged toward me.
In that instant, her shoulder touched my chest, and I reflexively grabbed her arm.
Through her thin skin, I felt her warm body heat and a faintly trembling pulse.
[Conditions Met. Deep Suggestion Initiated.]
The smartphone vibrated like crazy.
Time seemed to flow slowly.
Yu Jimin raised her head and looked at me.
The streetlight shimmered, reflected in her pupils.
That gaze was no longer the wariness of looking at a stranger.
It was changing into the eyes of someone who had known me for a long time,
or who had desperately wanted me.
Hypnosis manipulates memories and distorts emotions.
Right now, in her head, I was being rewritten as something fated rather than a man she had met by chance.
I had wanted it, and the directionality activated as a suggestion.
“Um… where are we going?”
she asked.
Her voice was moist.
It was a tone more like asking for permission than asking a question.
“Does it matter where? What’s important is that we’re together right now.”
I answered ambiguously and put a little more strength into the arm I held.
She didn’t resist.
Rather, she slowly leaned into my touch as if entrusting her body to me.
The alley’s shadows stretched us long.
Within the shadows, we appeared blurred into one.
The sound of pressing the studio apartment door lock rang unusually loud.
Beep, beep, beep, beep—
The old iron door creaked open.
The room was dark, and the air trapped inside for a day rushed out with a whoosh.
I watched her back as she took off her shoes and went inside.
She stood at the entryway, hesitating briefly, then neatly arranged her shoes and stepped inside.
Only the fridge’s hum filled the silence of the room.
I didn’t turn on the lights.
The faint city lights coming through the window were enough.
She cautiously sat on the edge of the bed.
“Aren’t you thirsty?”
I asked.
“A little.”
I took a water bottle from the fridge and poured it into a cup.
Trickle.
I handed her the glass of water.
While she accepted and drank the water, I checked the app’s next step.
[Current Status: Defenseless]
[Command Input Available]
[Functions can be used via text and thought.]
I gulped.
From now on, it was the real thing.
The threshold crossing from simple fondness to absolute submission and pleasure.
I sat beside her.
With the feeling of the mattress sinking deeply, her body tilted toward me.
“Seonu…”
She called my name.
“…!”
My name, which I had never told her.
Had the Hypnosis App planted my information in her subconscious?
Or was it the tutorial’s rapid progression?
Goosebumps rose, and at the same time, a thrilling shiver ran down my spine.
A blatant supernatural ability.
And a protagonist-favoring premise.
But from the moment I decided to use this app, there was no turning back.
“What is it, Jimin.”
I took the empty glass from her hand and set it down on the floor.
And I took her hand.
I interlaced our fingers.
Our knuckles intertwined.
Her hand was slender, just like her slight frame.
“I feel… strange. Like my body is floating… like I could do anything you tell me to.”
Her pupils were hazily unfocused.
It was the perfect signal of surrender.
I brought my lips to her ear.
The scent of shampoo drilled into my nose.
Not bad.
Even putting it nicely, she wasn’t someone I could call pretty, but…
this situation drove me crazy with excitement.
“Then, will you try doing what I tell you from now on?”
The whisper became a spell, driving into her mind.
Slowly, very slowly, she nodded.
Her hand rose onto my thigh.
Her fingertips were trembling faintly.
That trembling wasn’t from fear—
but rather violent vibrations from suppressed desire being liberated by the key of hypnosis.
I turned off the app screen.
There was no need to look at the screen anymore.
Because the reality before my eyes was clearer than any app.
She turned her body toward me.
Even in the darkness, I could feel her breathing growing rough.
The air in the old studio apartment seemed to rise to its boiling point in an instant.
Then, the ticking sound of the wall clock’s second hand suddenly stopped dead.