Chapter 6
Hunting
Strictly speaking, my goal was not a date. But I was choosing perfume to increase my value in the dating market.
How did this man know that? Was he some kind of fortune teller or something?
Could he be a psychometrist who could read minds, a mind reader? The face of the medium-height one came to mind. Were things like that common in Britain? Could this be a hidden secret of the Cambridge Institute?!
“I’m Theodore Ashford. And you?”
The man introduced himself shamelessly and held out his hand. I ended up taking it without thinking. He gently shook my hand.
His hand was incredibly thick. With the hard calluses firmly built into it, it felt less like skin and more like sandpaper, or even a scrubber. His hand was so large that it felt like my own hand was being swallowed.
“Your hands are really soft.”
It was the first time in my life I had received feedback about how my hands felt to someone else. I flinched and quickly pulled my hand away, and the man smiled again, showing his teeth.
“Aren’t you going to tell me your name?”
“……Sarang Jeong.”
“Sarang Jeong. Korean?”
I nodded while looking up at the man. He was so tall that my neck hurt. His body was also huge, making him look like a muscular brown bear.
I wonder who was bigger if I compared him to Elias? Probably this man.
“Are you a Cambridge student?”
The man asked again. I couldn’t answer again and only nodded. For some reason, I felt pressured by him.
He added a thoughtful “Hmm,” then smiled brightly.
“I’m glad I talked to you. I almost passed you by because I thought you were a tourist.”
“Why did you talk to me?”
“Because you’re cute.”
“Huh?”
“Who are you choosing the perfume to seduce? Your boyfriend?”
There was no point in doubting him anymore. If he wasn’t a mind reader, there was no way he could have such mind-reading abilities. I took a deep breath and looked straight into the man’s eyes.
“Are you, by any chance…… a mind reader?”
Ahahaha.
The man suddenly grabbed his stomach and burst out laughing. What? Why was he doing that?
“A mind reader?”
Was this a defense mechanism? Had I hit the nail on the head?
“Why do you think that?”
“You knew I was choosing perfume to seduce a man. Of course, you might have seen through my actions because you have deep knowledge of cognitive psychology, but I think clearly figuring out that the perfume was meant to impress a ‘man’ falls into the realm of mind reading. You knew that I was heterosexual in a place where diversity is guaranteed.”
It was a perfectly reasonable deduction. The man opened his mouth wide.
“I’m glad you’re straight.”
Why was that the answer I got? I was momentarily flustered and breathed heavily.
“What kind of man are you trying to seduce?”
If he really was a mind reader, then it was a supernatural ability.
Was it common for people with supernatural powers to react like this when someone noticed their ability? In movies and dramas, they usually became aggressive or obsessive.
Ah, could this be the information-gathering stage before becoming obsessed with me? Thinking that made me interested. I honestly shook my head.
“He’s going to be my muse.”
“Your muse?”
“Yeah. I’m looking for a muse for the advancement of human knowledge. I found someone suitable to become that muse. According to Bourdieu’s theory, I came shopping to increase my symbolic capital in the dating market.”
“What? What year are you in? An undergraduate?”
“Yeah, Philosophy.”
“Oh.”
Finally, the smile disappeared from the man’s face. After wiping away the tears that had gathered from laughing, he continued.
“If he’s your muse, then the man you’re going on a date with isn’t your boyfriend?”
The man held out his phone toward me.
“Why?”
“You’re single, right?”
“Single? Everyone is single from the moment their umbilical cord is cut……”
“No, you’re seriously killing me.”
The man grabbed his stomach and started wheezing with laughter. What was so funny? I couldn’t understand the mindset of popular people.
“Not that. I mean, are you dating anyone right now?”
“No. I’m not.”
The man bit his lower lip hard. Then he shook his phone impatiently. I looked back and forth between his phone and his face.
“Why your phone? Are you being wiretapped?”
“Wow. No, I mean, give me your number. So we can have coffee together sometime.”
“Why would I drink coffee with you?”
“I might be a mind reader. Doesn’t that sound fun?”
“Oh.”
I immediately took his phone and entered my number. After getting my number, the man called me.
“That’s my number. Call me when you’re bored.”
“Huh? Okay.”
When I was bored, I read books, watched anime, or played games. I couldn’t understand why he wanted me to contact him for no reason.
“Sarang Jeong. Philosophy. Korean.”
The man narrowed his eyes and tapped his lips with his phone.
Then, as if deliberately showing me, he held out his phone and showed me that he was saving my number. I was horrified when I saw the name he was saving me under.
“Cute Korean from Philosophy?”
“I’ll text you.”
The man tapped my shoulder with his palm and ran out of the drugstore. A mixed group of men and women who seemed to be his friends was waiting for him at the entrance.
What was his purpose in approaching me? Another unsolved mystery had been added. I stared for a long time at the man’s back as he disappeared in the direction of the escalator.
Come to think of it, what was his name? I was sure I had heard it.
Even though I had washed my hair, my head suddenly felt itchy. Scratching the back of my head roughly, I saved the man’s name as Testosterone Mind Reader.
After finishing my shopping and returning to the dormitory, I headed not to my own room, but to the little one’s room. All three girls from the kitchen last night were gathered there.
They looked excited, as if they had found some interesting entertainment.
The little one checked the things I had bought and nodded.
“You picked well.”
“But what’s this perfume?”
The medium-height girl frowned when she saw the perfume I had chosen.
Why was she asking what perfume it was after looking at it and even smelling it?
“What do you mean? It’s a very classic perfume emphasizing feminine charm, with vanilla, rose as the middle note, and neroli as the top note.”
“No, that’s not what I mean. I told you to buy something chic. This smells like soap or something. Who even wears this these days?”
“I adjusted it according to the requirements of the perfume. The perfumes you recommended gave off enough of a comfortable feeling, but in terms of sexual indicators, their spectrum was misaligned with the paper I’m currently writing about physical sensations and forms of decadence.”
“No, that’s not it. Ha……”
The medium-height girl rubbed her face with both hands. Why was she the one getting frustrated?
I was the one who was frustrated. I was talking logically for the sake of my paper, but wasn’t she only responding with emotional language?
It was hard to believe that she was a Cambridge student just like me, considering her intellectual level. I clicked my tongue in disapproval, and she glared at me.
“It’s cold these days, so I think this would be okay if you only sprayed a little. And you have a striking face, so I think it would suit you.”
The little one spoke soothingly. There was no malice at all in her innocent, drooping eyes.
Ah, she was a nice girl. My sharp thoughts softened.
Soon, the girls gathered around me and started doing my makeup. It wasn’t simply them doing it for me. They even gave me an advanced lecture on the functions and proper use of each cosmetic.
Thanks to them, even I, who knew nothing about makeup, was able to imitate it to some degree. However, eyeliner and eyebrows were the two difficult parts.
I had underestimated all these activities of putting on makeup and dressing up. I never realized they were such precise tasks.
After wiping off my eyeliner dozens of times with a cotton swab covered in foundation, the skin around my eyes was almost raw. At that point, the tall girl came up with another method.
“You seem good at using eyeshadow, so let’s just add the color.”
Following the tall girl’s instructions, I drew the line around my eyes with dark eyeshadow. It was definitely cleaner than when I used an eyeliner pencil.
I was finishing my makeup and changing clothes when the little one asked,
“But how are you going to seduce him? That Elias guy…… He’s a little strange, you know?”
The little one was probably talking about the rumor they had started telling me about last night.
“Strange? What exactly was that rumor you mentioned yesterday?”
“Ah, well……”
The little one glanced at the medium-height girl before continuing.
“They say he’s a misogynist.”
“What? Really?”
My eyes widened at the completely unexpected information. I sat down properly and began listening. At first, the little one hesitated, but soon she became more enthusiastic and continued.
“Yeah. He’s really handsome, you know. So I guess quite a few girls have approached him.”
“Girls like me?”
“Something like that, I guess? Anyway, apparently, whenever girls approached him, he humiliated them.”
The tall girl, who was sitting on the bed hugging a cushion, continued.
“You know Emily, right? She bumped into him, and apparently he sprayed disinfectant on the part where she touched him.”
“Wow, that’s harsh.”
Come to think of it, when I grabbed his arm, he even took off his robe and shook it out. Honestly, it didn’t feel good, but that behavior seemed less like he hated me and more like……
“He seemed like he had a cleanliness obsession.”
“A cleanliness obsession? I guess that could be it. Anyway, he seems hard to seduce. Is there any particular reason you have to choose him?”
At the little one’s question, I nodded vigorously.
“Yeah. I felt sexual desire.”
“Sexual desire? What?”
The girls’ mouths fell open. Realizing that it was somewhat socially inappropriate wording, I waved my hands.
“That’s the subject of my paper. Turning sexual desire into a social discourse.”
“Ah……”
The little one frowned and patted my arm encouragingly.
“Anyway, do your best. It won’t be easy, though.”
“Thanks.”
“If it’s sexual desire……”
At that moment, the medium-height girl spoke as if she had realized something. Everyone’s eyes turned toward her.
“How about seducing him with your body? Men are weak to that kind of thing.”
It was an ingenious idea. I nodded vigorously.
“With my body? How? Tell me.”
“Well, for example, show some cleavage? Or lift your skirt like this. When you go to a bar, you know how people lightly bump their thighs against each other? You can do that too.”
“So that’s why they hire experienced people.”
“Experienced people, my ass……”
The medium-height girl even demonstrated as she explained. Perhaps caught up in the excitement, the tall girl joined in and even played the role of the man.
I wrote down everything the girls taught me in my memo app. After they finished explaining, I summarized my notes and came up with a convincing answer.
“When seducing a man, throw your body at him?”
“If the goal isn’t love but sexual desire…… that’s probably the easiest way, right?”
With that, my preparations were complete.
“Thanks. I’ll buy you a meal next time.”
I jumped to my feet and immediately headed for King’s College.
Elias Montague would soon fall into my hands.
