The Landlady (1)
A knock sounded at the front door.
Knock, knock, knock.
"Minwoo?"
It was the landlady.
"Oh. Yes!"
I yanked the pants I'd taken off roughly back up around my waist and headed for the door. When I opened it, the landlady was standing right there in the entryway.
"I saw you come in earlier. So I brought you this."
In the large dish she was holding sat a steaming portion of braised short ribs, still giving off thick curls of fragrant vapor.
Apparently our conversation that morning had put her in such a good mood that she'd gone straight to cooking the moment I left.
"Ah. Thank you. This looks incredible."
I accepted the dish with both hands.
And then—
The waistband I'd only loosely hitched around my hips came undone and slid straight down.
Shhhrrk.
My cock, already stiff from thinking about the professor, was put on full display.
"Oh my, oh my, oh my—oh my."
The landlady startled—and yet she couldn't tear her eyes away from my cock. Her trembling pupils seemed to have forgotten how to blink, growing wider and wider.
I wanted to yank my pants up immediately, but with both hands occupied by the enormous dish, there was nothing I could do.
I tried to shuffle backward into the entryway in tiny steps, only to nearly trip over the pants tangled around my ankles.
"Ah. I'm so sorry. I just got out of the shower and didn't—put my clothes on properly... I'm really sorry."
Watching me flail, with nowhere to put my body and nowhere to look, the landlady spoke with an awkward little smile.
"I... I'll pull them up for you. Just a second. It's fine."
She crouched in front of me and took hold of the waistband that had dropped all the way to my ankles.
Which left my rigid cock pointed squarely at her face.
I came a hair's breadth from brushing the head of it against her cheek.
"Okay, I'll pull them up now."
She gripped the waistband and tried to tug it upward.
But my thick cock was in the way, and she couldn't get the pants up properly. The only way would be to take hold of my cock, tuck it inside, and then pull—except my hands were full with the dish, so that was impossible.
Still holding the pants open on either side of the obstruction, the landlady looked up at my face.
It was almost as if she were asking permission—and yet a quiet, firm resolve to touch it flickered plainly across her expression.
"Just for a second. Let me... hold this..."
"..."
I nodded without a word.
The landlady took hold of my cock.
The precum beading at the tip smeared across her thumb.
Maybe it was because I'd been holding the warm dish, but her hand felt warm.
Once she'd gripped my cock and guided it inside the pants, she was finally able to pull them up properly.
"W-well. Our Minwoo's healthy, isn't he."
"Ah... yes. Haha."
I had nothing else to say, so I just laughed awkwardly.
"It's fine. What's a mom looking at her son's thing? We decided this morning we'd be mom and son, right?"
As she said it, I could see a faint flush color her cheeks.
The landlady rubbed the slick precum on her thumb against her index finger.
Living alone without a husband, spending night after lonely night by herself—seeing a big, hard cock for the first time in ages, she could say whatever she wanted out loud, but inside her, a rush of excitement beyond words must have been surging up.
"Yes, Mom. I... I'll enjoy this. Thank you."
"Good, son. You need anything else?"
"No."
"Then will you bring the dish back up this evening?"
"Yes."
"Alright. Then, to celebrate becoming mom and son, I'd like to cook you a proper meal. Want to have dinner together?"
"I'd love to. Thank you."
"Then come up this evening."
"Yes. Got it."
I went back into my room.
She climbed the stairs back up to her place.
Somehow, without quite knowing how, I'd been invited to dinner. The thudding of my heart was loud enough to ring in my ears.
Exposing my rock-hard cock right in front of the landlady—who had always treated me so kindly, almost like a real mother—had hit me harder than I expected.
How am I supposed to look her in the face after this?
My face burned hot all at once.
But I couldn't forget the expression she'd worn while staring at my cock.
She'd looked startled, yes—but her eyes had never left it, as if she were gazing at something wondrous, committing every detail to memory.
"Ah, whatever."
I lay down to catch up on the sleep I'd missed.
I closed my eyes and tried to think of the professor. But I couldn't summon the image of her from that morning. The only thing filling my head was the thought of having exposed myself to the landlady.
Just like that, I drifted off.
On a chilly day, under a warm blanket, you can sleep forever.
Of course, getting up at dawn hadn't helped—but even so, waking up was no easy task. I finally forced myself upright and sat on the edge of the bed in a daze for a long while, staring at the clock.
Three in the afternoon.
How long did I sleep? I didn't even drink. This is why morning workouts are bad for you.
On the table, the dish of braised short ribs from that morning still sat exactly where I'd left it. I'd been so rattled I hadn't even thought to put it in the fridge.
I scraped the leftovers into an empty container and washed her big dish clean.
Around six?
I'd head up around then.
How was I supposed to face her?
Well. She'd said it was fine.
A thousand tangled thoughts cluttered my head.
To clear my mind, I turned on the computer and put on a Netflix variety show.
I watched right up until just before six, then showered and pulled a set of sweats from the closet.
I ought to at least look presentable.
I gave them a sniff to make sure they didn't smell, then put them on.
Naturally, in all the time I'd lived here, I'd never once gone upstairs to the landlady's place.
Today would be my first visit.
I climbed the stairs to the upper floor.
The landlord's unit.
Even the front door was nothing like the studio downstairs.
A big steel door fitted with a modern intercom.
Ding-dong.
Click.
The moment I pressed the buzzer, the door opened and the landlady greeted me with a bright, beaming smile.
"Son, you're here? Right on time. Come on in."
Huh?
Had the landlady always been this pretty?
She'd done her short hair in a soft, slightly hippie-style perm that paired perfectly with her red lips.
The sleeveless house dress she was wearing clung like a slip; every time she moved, the soft fabric revealed the full lines of her body underneath.
"Minwoo, just go sit on the sofa over there."
"Yes, thank you."
It wasn't what I'd expected.
I'd pictured a living room full of houseplants, old-fashioned wallpaper, dark wood floors—but her place had clean white walls, marble flooring, a trendy recliner sofa, and an eighty-inch wall-mounted TV hanging on the wall.
Large curtains in a calm gray tone only underlined how stylish the whole apartment was.
"Your place is really beautiful."
"You think so? Thanks, son."
She said it brightly as she set the table. But a moment later her energy seemed to sag, and she spoke again.
"Not that it matters. No friends, just me here alone. Sweeping and wiping every day is about the only fun I get."
"I'll come up and hang out more often. Like a son visiting his mom's place. And I'll freeload a few meals while I'm at it, haha."
Her face lit up again.
She smiled at me with round, bright eyes—like a rabbit who'd finally gotten a friend to visit its lonely burrow.
"Come often. We can have dinner together, share a beer. Even if you get drunk, home is right downstairs—how perfect is that, right?"
"You're right. Haha. Then I'll be imposing on you a lot."
"Good. Speaking of which—dinner and a beer tonight? Deal?"
She made a little drinking gesture with her hand.
"Deal!"
The mood was good.
It looked like the whole morning cock-exposure incident was going to get quietly buried.
What a relief.
The second I sat down at the finished table, my jaw dropped. The spread was so lavish it put a high-end Korean banquet to shame, every dish looking mouthwatering.
"Wow. Did you make all of this yourself?"
"Of course. My son was coming over—this much is nothing. Hoho."
"This looks amazing. Wow."
"Thanks to you, I finally got to show off my skills for the first time in ages."
Her face was flushed with color.
Setting a full table for someone else after so long seemed to have given her more than just a warm feeling—it looked like genuine happiness.
"Eat plenty. But don't force yourself till your stomach bursts, okay?"
"I'm going to finish all of this. Everything I haven't eaten as home cooking until now—I'm eating it all today."
"Really? Hoho. Alright then, eat up."
She gave my arm a playful little swat and laughed, delighted.
Even while I ate, she kept picking meat and fish off the bone and setting pieces on my spoon.
"You should eat too, Mom. It feels like I'm the only one eating."
"Just watching my son eat fills me up. I can't even remember the last time I shared a meal with someone in this house."
"Here. Open up. Try this."
I picked up a piece of meat with my chopsticks and held it out in front of her mouth.
The landlady parted her lips in a tiny, shy opening and slipped it in.
"Mm, that's good. I'm in such a good mood today. Hoho."
She and I sat side by side and ate a delicious dinner. If anything, I was the one who felt like I was being treated.
After the meal, we loaded the sofa table with beer and side dishes and sat down next to each other on the couch.
Soft music played, lifting the atmosphere even higher.
"Here, son—have a drink."
She poured beer into my glass. Then she filled her own to the brim as well.
We clinked glasses and drained them in one go.
"The alcohol's hitting pretty well tonight."
"Is it? Drinking with you like this, Mom—it tastes really good."
"Then have another, son."
"Gladly."
The landlady filled the glasses again.
We downed them in one shot once more.
We kept drinking like that for a good while, and before long the mood had fully ripened.
Quiet jazz drifted from the speakers beside the TV.
Truthfully, something had been bothering me from the start.
What did she actually think about what had happened that morning...
Pretending it never happened wasn't going to cut it.
More than anything, I felt like we needed to clear the air properly—so that looking at each other afterward wouldn't feel awkward.
"Mom, about this morning..."
The second the words left my mouth, her face went stiff with tension. No—it was more like she'd known this was coming and had been waiting for it.
"Yeah. Honestly, I wanted to talk about it a little too."
"Right. Stuff like this is better said out loud and put cleanly behind us. Feels better that way."
She nodded.
I kept going.
"What happened this morning—we can just forget it like it was nothing, right?"
"Of course. We're mom and son now anyway. Something like that? It's fine. A mom catching a look at her son's dick isn't that weird, is it?"
"Yeah. Talking about it this honestly already makes me feel better."
Hearing that, she poured herself another beer and downed it in one shot.
She worked her mouth open and shut like she had something more to say, then filled her glass again. And then, as if she'd made up her mind, she spoke.
"Since you said... honest..."
"Go ahead. It's okay."
I deliberately put on a soft smile, showing her an easy, open face.
"Actually... son..."