My Friend's Mom, Jeong-a
"Ahh... my head..."
The alarm went off, same as it did every morning. Cold air packed the room so thick it made my skull throb.
Why is this damn house so freezing even with the heat on?
I pressed my palm to the floor. Warm patches and ice-cold ones, split right down the middle.
Pathetic.
Something about that freezing floor made tears want to come up for no reason I could name. Going to school at my age. School was an ordeal, and I forced my body up off the floor anyway.
A year ago, an accident I never saw coming left me completely alone.
Young. Head. Of. Household.
I was still twenty — the bloom of my life — but everyone called me a sonyeon gajahng, a boy forced to run a household by himself. The sudden funeral delayed my graduation a full year, so while everyone else was heading off to college, I still had to show up at school. I never once dreamed that the kind of tragedy you only see in dramas and novels would land on me. Just like that movie line: the things you never see coming always hit you from behind.
The truth was, I had grown up never knowing want. Love? Family affection? I had never given those things a second thought, because I had been drowning in them. Looking back, my parents' love had been so complete I never had a chance to feel the gaps. I would wake to Mom's nagging, drag myself to school, half-ass my classes, come home, and either game or hole up in my room with a book. That was the only joy I needed.
Dad ran a business and had been frantically busy for as long as I could remember. Out early, home late. He operated a small construction company, and the phone never stopped — calls and work hounding him every single day. The image of him I carried was always the same: one hand on his phone, the other on the wheel.
That day was no different. One hand on the phone. One hand on the wheel.
Cheep!! Cheep!! Cheep!!
The chick-shaped alarm clock on my desk went off. Last warning. Any later and I would be late. I bolted for the bathroom and splashed water on my face.
Show up late today and Jugeok would have my head — that much was guaranteed. I would be scrubbing toilets until after school let out. Jugeok was our homeroom teacher's nickname. He had a jaw like a rice paddle, the kind some celebrities get famous for, and he carried a wooden stick shaped exactly like one. Get caught by that paddle and he would rap your skull hard enough to raise lumps like beans.
I toweled my hair half-dry and threw on my uniform. A glance in the mirror. I raked my overgrown hair back from my face.
Guess I haven't been eating enough. I look thinner.
My face was bloodless and pale, the slightly hollowed jawline standing out sharper than it used to. Anyone looking at me might have taken me for some overworked new hire, already ground down by the job.
I was just about to step out the front door when someone called my name.
"Dongho!"
"Ah—! You scared me!"
I turned around. The woman from the first floor was standing there — the woman who lived on the ground floor of our villa, and also my friend Seongdae's mom.
"Dongho, have you eaten?"
Seongdae's mom swept her softly waved hair aside and smiled. There was not a single crease in that smile. Maybe that was why she looked so much younger than her age. Pale skin, a face built for beauty. She was not skinny — she had just enough flesh on her to give her a full, shapely slimness. Nobody seeing her out on the street would ever guess she had a son in high school.
More than anything, she put real care into how she dressed. Whenever I went over to Seongdae's place, she would be wearing a thin house dress, a slip-style thing that clung to every line of her waist and molded itself to her body. Online, people called clothes like that a Missy Look. And when she went out, I would sometimes catch her in black knee-high boots and a short leather skirt. She was not a young girl, no — but she looked nothing like a woman with a kid in high school. "She's got style" — that phrase fit her perfectly.
I was a teenage boy with blood running hot. Of course my eyes went to her. Every time I visited, I would steal glances, drinking in the shape of Seongdae's mother. Especially from behind, when she was cooking or cleaning. That rear view pulled my eyes and would not let go. I would feel it tightening between my legs and have to sit there for minutes in an awkward, cramped position.
"Good morning, Mother!"
I was in a rush, but I bowed my greeting anyway. Her loose short-sleeved shirt had fallen open, and through the gap I caught a glimpse of the cleft between her breasts. I locked my eyes on hers, fighting not to let my gaze drop.
"Heading to school, Dongho?"
"Yes — has Seongdae already left?"
"He has. He's been heading out early lately, for some reason. But did you eat breakfast?"
Seongdae's mother had been looking after me a lot ever since my parents died and I was left on my own. Probably because she felt sorry for me.
"No — I'll just eat lunch at school."
"Aigoo, that won't do."
She told me to wait just a second and ducked back inside. She came out with a warm carton of soy milk and pressed it into my hand. Lavender drifted off her as she handed it over. I liked that flower scent on her. It was close to the smell that used to live in Mom's room, in Mom's clothes — a scent that tugged at the memory of my mother's perfume. Something caught in my chest.
"Make sure you eat breakfast before you leave. All right?"
"Yes! I will. Thank you."
"Good, good. And can you stop by this evening? I wanted to ask you something about Seongdae."
What could she want to ask me?
I turned it over in my head, but I could not begin to guess.
"Yes... I'll stop by this evening."
"All right. Have a good day at school~ See you later!"
I threw a hurried goodbye and headed out. The clock said 8:45. If I sprinted the whole way, I might just make the school gate. It was going to be close.
And what was with Seongdae leaving so early, anyway? He and I had something in common. He was a repeater too — held back a year, same as me. Though in his case, it was because he had gone to school overseas as a kid and had no choice when he came back. The truth was, Seongdae did not give a damn about studying. He was outgoing, loved sports, and lived to hang out with his friends. People flocked to him. He was what you would call a school insider — one of the popular kids. Compared to him, I was on the introverted side. I did not mind being around people. I just did not go out of my way to enjoy it.
Seongdae's family had moved in three years ago. It was a three-story villa — we had the second floor, they had the first. Living in the same building, our families had gone back and forth now and then. The memory that stuck with me most was the summer we all went to the valley together.
Our family of three and theirs — six people piled into one car. Seongdae's dad ran the local Seongdae Supermarket, and closing up was never easy for him, but that day he swallowed it and pulled the shutters down for Seongdae's sake. The mood was warm, easy.
What I remembered most from that afternoon in the water was Seongdae's mom. She had been wearing a sky-blue spaghetti-strap top and dolphin shorts. First time in years, she had said, splashing around like a girl — and I could not stop looking. Through the straps, the plump swell of her breasts seemed to roll and bounce with every movement. Her thighs filled those short shorts to bursting, tight and gleaming in the sun. When she climbed out of the water, the weight of it dragged her shorts down just enough to flash the pale, lush cleft of her ass. I remember thinking a woman's ass could actually be that white, that big.
I kept getting hard, and I had to sink deeper into the water to hide what was happening to me. It shocked me — that my cock would react to my friend's mother.
After the accident, after I was left alone, Seongdae's mother started looking after me more than anyone. She stood beside me at Mom and Dad's funeral and talked me through it. I was grateful to her. She was the only adult left in this world I could lean on, even a little.
Who's texting me at this hour?
I opened the chat and checked the profile. It was a photo of a beautiful young woman in jeans and a white tee, grinning wide.
Ah. It was Seongdae's mom. Dressed like that, I had not recognized her. Her profile picture showed her in a white tee and skin-tight skinny jeans.
Who the hell would look at this and see a middle-aged mom?
I started swiping through her photos, one by one. There were about ten of them. Half were family shots — pictures with Seongdae and his dad, potbelly and thinning hair. The ones of her alone made her look like what people would call a young unmarried woman. She looked like she had a pretty big age gap with Seongdae's dad, too. There were photos from that valley trip with our family. In those, the sky-blue spaghetti straps and the bursting outline of her chest were captured in full.
I fired off a reply and started running for school. The winter morning air was fresher than I had expected. And somewhere in the wind brushing my face, I thought I caught a good scent.
Lavender?
After everything that had happened, a feeling like this — this flutter — was something I had not felt in a very long time. Someone had shoved the gloom of the morning right out of me.
The second I got to school I scanned Seongdae's desk. He was already asleep in his seat. Only his deskmate, Suyeon, was looking at the blackboard.
If he was just going to sleep, why the hell did he come early?
I tapped back into the KakaoTalk profile I had not finished looking through. There was a photo of her in a bikini, somewhere that looked like overseas. She had sunglasses on, both hands shyly covering her chest. It was taken from a fair distance, so I pinched the screen and zoomed in, slow. The photo laid her bare — the plump curve of her breasts in that black bikini, the tight, toned line of her lower body.
How does a mom have a body like this...
Before I knew it, the blood was rushing to my crotch. I yanked my chair in tight and hid myself under the desk.
I swiped to the next one. A photo with Seongdae's dad — just their upper bodies. She was in a loose black short-sleeved shirt, a hint of cleavage showing, smiling wide. Next to her, a guy with a thinning, patchy scalp — the kind of man anyone would clock as a neighborhood nobody — was grinning. The mismatched two-shot put a weird feeling in my gut for no good reason.
For a second I pictured that balding middle-aged man climbing on top of Seongdae's mom's white, naked body. I saw her gripping his ass, taking his angry cock, that lewd look spreading across her face. I closed my eyes and let myself savor the image a little longer. Down below, my cock was already veined and straining, ready to punch through my uniform slacks.
Ah... ma'am...
Seongdae's dad's ass was pumping hard. Underneath him she had a hand clapped over her mouth, spilling sounds that might have been moans or cries, her tits shaking with every thrust.
That was when.
"The hell are you doing?"
Right beside my face, Seongdae was standing there with a look like he could not figure out what the fuck he was seeing.
I'm fucked.
I was still thinking about Seongdae's mom's shaking breasts, and pre-cum was leaking from my rock-hard cock.