I'm Awake Now!
I'm awake now too!
The next day,
“Mmm…”
Dohyun struggled to open his eyes.
But then—
“...?!”
He froze in shock.
“Hehe… hehe… You’re awake?”
Because Noah’s enormous eyes were filling his entire field of vision.
“Do… do my eyes look weird? Should I stop making eye contact from now on?”
Noah looked utterly crushed. Her eyes were already huge to match her massive frame, so it genuinely felt like being stared down by a giant predator from a scene in Jurassic Park. Still, he couldn’t say that out loud.
“No, your eyes are pretty. They are pretty, but…”
Dohyun hesitated, then continued.
“Just… maybe don’t get so close first thing in the morning. It’s not you, Noah. I’m barely conscious when I wake up, and anyone would jump if someone was right in their face.”
“Oh… okay. I understand.”
“It’s normal. Doesn’t matter who it is. Even I… back when I lived at home, I’d get startled if Mom was staring at me right after I woke up.”
He chose his words carefully, trying to explain it in the gentlest way possible so Noah wouldn’t feel hurt.
“Okay, got it!”
She accepted it far more cleanly than he’d expected.
“…”
Dohyun smiled bitterly as he suddenly remembered why he had moved out the moment he graduated high school.
Our mom threw an absolute fit, crying and screaming.
After his father passed away, his mother had begun obsessing over him in a disturbing way. He’d had no choice but to leave.
She still called every single day.
“…”
Even on his smartphone screen—
Because he’d been too distracted to answer yesterday, several missed calls from her were logged.
After he replied a few more times, he’d had no choice but to switch his phone to airplane mode.
As if she could read his thoughts, Noah began,
“Your mom yesterday…”
“Huh? Don’t worry about it. She’s always been overprotective.”
“Uh… yeah…”
At his words, Noah suddenly looked away, pretending to be distracted by something in the distance.
Is it because Dad passed away…?
Dohyun had lost his father in middle school. Noah had lost her mother in high school. Because both of them carried those scars, they avoided talking about parents as much as possible.
“Um, anyway…”
Noah, sensing the awkward atmosphere, changed the subject.
“What do you want for breakfast?”
“I…”
The moment Dohyun opened his mouth,
“I want it American style!”
Noah cut in with a wide, silly grin.
As expected, she still couldn’t break that old habit.
Oddly comforted by the familiarity, Dohyun teased,
“Did you even check what’s in the fridge?”
“You’re the one who always keeps it stocked anyway, aren’t you?”
Noah answered shamelessly.
A short while later,
“Let’s see… bacon… bread… Yeah, we’ve got everything.”
After confirming the ingredients, Dohyun began preparing the meal.
But then—
“Noah.”
“What is it, Dohyun?”
“If you stand that close, I can’t cook.”
At his protest,
“Sorry! S-sorry! Do I smell bad? Is it weird? Too hot? Ah, should I move? Should I back up?”
Noah spiraled into a full panic, flailing.
“No, that’s not it! That’s not what I meant… It’s dangerous! It’s dangerous, okay!”
Dohyun flailed right along with her, trying to calm her down.
“Ah… good. Okay.”
Noah gave a small nod, then took a tiny step back.
A very tiny step. Probably measurable in millimeters.
“A little more.”
“This… much?”
“A little more.”
“This much?”
“A little more.”
“Can’t I get any closer?”
After several rounds of negotiation and fine-tuning,
“…”
The distance between them was finally adjusted to roughly two steps apart.
By Dohyun’s standards.
With that settled, the two of them prepared breakfast together. Though “together” mostly meant Dohyun doing all the actual work while Noah simply dropped bread into the toaster.
“We look exactly like a married couple right now, don’t we~?”
Noah beamed.
“Weren’t you the one who used to say two guys living together was totally gay?”
She was a girl now, but Dohyun threw one of her old jokes right back at her.
“Dohyun, I didn’t expect you to be so un-PC. Diversity and LGBT rights mean—”
In response to his jab, Noah launched into a ridiculous philosophical rant laced with internet memes.
“Didn’t you used to hate all that PC stuff?”
“I’m awake now too!”
“…”
Noah had apparently forgotten how she once nearly got sued for defamation and mass defamation after flying into a solo rage and stirring up chaos across every related community the moment a game character was officially revealed as a gay feminist in an unprecedented lore drop.
“Before I knew about feminism, every day was a dream—”
When she tried to continue her shameless bit,
“Please don’t. I’m begging you. Not that one. That one’s off-limits.”
Dohyun waved his hands desperately to stop her.
That one really couldn’t be allowed.
Once the food was plated,
“Let’s eat.”
“Yeah.”
They were just unfolding the folding table in the living room when—
Ding-dong.
The doorbell rang.
Who would be visiting at this hour?
Dohyun quickly pressed a finger to his lips.
“Shh.”
Ever since a church opened nearby, missionaries occasionally stopped by. He assumed it was them.
But the bell kept ringing.
Ding-dong. Ding-dong. Ding-dong.
Then came the violent banging.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
The door rattled in its frame as a familiar voice screamed,
“Our son!! Are you in there?! Are you inside?!”
“You are in there, right?! You didn’t collapse, did you?! Are you okay?! You’re not sick, are you?!?!”
She was shouting at the top of her lungs.
“I’m not hurt! I didn’t collapse! I’m fine!!”
“You’re not being threatened by strange people, are you?! Should Mom call the police?!”
More violent knocking. More screaming.
“No, it’s fine—damn it… I’m coming out! I’m coming right now, just wait!!”
At this rate his mother’s behavior would either end in a false police report and a fine, or noise complaints from the neighbors. Dohyun sprang to his feet in a hurry.
“I told you it’s fine…”
The moment the flustered Dohyun opened the door,
“Our son…!”
A stunningly beautiful woman stood there, her face twisted with sorrow and worry.
Tears glistened in her eyes.
She was a full head taller than Dohyun. Her youthful appearance made it hard to believe she had a college-aged son. Her chest was so full it easily looked like it approached H-cup territory.
It was Kim Suji—Dohyun’s mother.
“You kept ignoring my calls, so I got so worried—!!”
Suji shouted at full volume and yanked Dohyun’s head into her embrace with all her strength.
A soft, smothering sensation engulfed him, blotting out his vision.
“Why do you keep making your mother worry like this? Hm?”
She hugged him so tightly he started to feel light-headed from lack of air.
“M-Mom, the neighbors can hear everything… floor noise these days is—”
Dohyun flailed his arms and legs in panic.
Then—
“Oh my.”
Suji’s hysteria suddenly stopped cold.
“M… Mom?”
Still trapped in her suffocating hug and waving his hands, Dohyun heard her icy voice from above.
“And who might this young lady be?”
“I-I’m… Yoon…”
Noah hesitated, then,
“I’m Yoon Jia. Um… I’m Dohyun’s friend from university…”
For some reason she gave an oddly hesitant, completely made-up name.
“Jia?”
“Yes. Yoon Jia.”
“Hmm…”
Mother let out a thoughtful hum, then said,
“I’m Dohyun’s mother, Kim Suji. Please take good care of our son.”
The sentence was polite. The tone was anything but. She gave a half-hearted nod.
As though protecting him, she pulled his already-trapped head even deeper into her chest.
“Mmph… mmph!!”
Breathing was becoming genuinely difficult.
“Nice to… meet you.”
Noah bowed deeply once more. Her own large breasts jiggled in front of Suji’s eyes.
Suji looked her up and down with clear displeasure, then glanced down at the son she still held crushed against her.
“So our son has a girlfriend now?”
Her voice was frigid.
“Mmph… mmph!! (She’s not my girlfriend!!)”
Dohyun’s desperate, oxygen-deprived protest was helplessly overridden by Noah’s quick thinking.
“Yes, she’s his girlfriend. That’s right.”
“She’s his girlfriend, yes.”
A short while later, the three of them sat around the table like it was some formal family meeting.
“…”
Noah kept her head down, fidgeting restlessly.
“…”
Suji wore a rigid expression, clinging to Dohyun’s arm with all her might.
“…”
And Dohyun, with no idea how he had become the criminal in this situation, remained trapped in his mother’s iron grip.
“Young lady.”
Suji broke the silence with a solemn tone.
“Y-yes, Mother-in-law.”
“I’m not your mother-in-law.”
The conversation began like a scene from a morning drama.
“Mom, you haven’t eaten yet, right? I’ll prepare some more—”
Dohyun tried to stand, hoping to defuse the situation even a little, but—
“Our son. Freeze.”
“Yes…”
He froze at her command.
…Not that he could have moved anyway with her arm locked around his.
I can’t feel my arm anymore…
She was squeezing so hard he had lost all sensation.
“I’m leaving soon anyway, so it’s fine. I only came to make sure our son was alive and well.”
Suji scanned Noah up and down once more.
Then,
“Young lady.”
“Y-yes?”
“You’re an Ah-in as well, aren’t you?”
Her voice was ice cold.