Of Course You're Going to Orientation
What is this?
What on earth was happening all of a sudden?
I had barely managed to pull myself together. But the thought of looking at those racy pajamas my daughter was wearing — of getting hard all over again — filled me with a terror so sharp I had to force my mind back under control.
Absolutely not. I cannot get an erection looking at my own daughter.
She had matured far beyond the last time I had seen her naked. I had thought she was grown enough even then. That had been a misjudgment.
Her breasts, swollen so much fuller now, rounding out in a lush curve. Her ass, taut and plump as a white peach. The unbearably sensual line of her legs sweeping down from the underside of those cheeks.
Out there past the kitchen, my daughter would still be just as beautiful. Could I possibly hold out?
There was a way. Masturbation. I could just jerk off.
No... I absolutely cannot......!
That was the one thing I could not do. She was my daughter. Even if we did not share blood, she was my daughter. A child I had raised with my own hands from the day she was born until this very moment. To harbor lust for that child and masturbate to her? That was insane, plain and simple. That was giving up on being human. That was becoming a beast. I could never do that.
I pinched my thigh. Hard. When the thigh hurt, the blood pooled in the groin dispersed, at least to some degree, somewhere else.
I rummaged through the bathroom cabinet.
"There... found it."
A small clip. The kind you use to wring the last of the toothpaste from the tube. I spread it open and clamped it onto the flesh of my inner thigh.
"Hngh...!"
A groan escaped on its own. The double clip pinched harder than I had expected. But the effect was unmistakable. My swollen cock began shrinking fast.
Good. Thank god. With this, I would not have to show my daughter anything unsightly.
I straightened my pajamas, turned on the sink, and washed my face. Cold water. It was spring by the calendar, but the water was still ice-cold. I cupped both palms full of it and splashed it over my face as if I were dousing a fire.
"Hoo......"
The water was cold enough to numb my skull, and it rapidly cooled my flushed face. My thigh hurt. My head was cold. The countermeasures were perfect.
I could demand that my daughter put on different clothes. That was a father's natural right. But she had sacrificed so much for me until now. There were so many things she had wanted to do, and she had held them all back — for me, her father. That was why I had to accept this.
We did not share a drop of blood, but I had raised her believing she was my own. Unless I consciously thought about it, I could not even believe Min-ah was someone else's child. That itself was proof of how well she had treated me.
My good daughter. My love. Until now, she had endured so much for my sake. Now she was an adult. She needed to try the things she wanted to do. I would give my daughter anything she wanted. I could give her everything. Whatever it was she desired.
Click.
I opened the locked bathroom door.
"Wow — you made this, Min-ah?"
His face looked thoroughly at ease as he scooped up a generous chopstickful of the spicy pork stir-fry. Watching that expression, Min-ah felt a weight lift from her chest.
"Remember this one thing. The moment the word beast comes out of your father's mouth — it's over."
Do not force it. Do not overreach. That was what the shaman had told her. Min-ah trembled with fear. Would Eun-hyeok scold her? Would that word the shaman had spoken — beast — come out of his mouth? She had been sick with worry.
She had done everything she could to keep that word from leaving her father's lips. That was why she had changed back into modest clothes. But Eun-hyeok had come to the table looking as if nothing had happened. He had not even commented on what she was wearing.
The house felt cold today, so I changed.
That had come from her own guilty conscience. A strangely unnatural thing to say — enough to raise suspicion — and the moment it left her mouth she thought, ah, I shouldn't have said that.
Yeah. Now that you mention it, the house is unusually cold.
Fortunately, Eun-hyeok had shot it back without a thought, as if it meant nothing. Min-ah breathed a secret sigh of relief.
And so we began the meal.
She set freshly cooked rice — warm, clinging, glossy — and a bowl of bean sprout soup in front of Eun-hyeok, along with the jeyuk-bokkeum, sesame seeds already sprinkled over the top. In truth, she had touched it up a little more while he was in the bathroom.
...It's not quite nutty enough.
The toasted richness had fallen a little short, so Min-ah had drizzled a bit more sesame oil over the stir-fry, here and there, just enough.
Cooking had always been Eun-hyeok's job. Every few days he would ask her to pick up ingredients — If you could just get these for me today — and once she had them in the house, he would turn them into dinner. That was the rhythm of it.
Min-ah loved dinnertime. There was never an hour she did not wait for it, because it meant eating the food Eun-hyeok had made. Compared to his cooking, the school cafeteria was garbage. His skill in the kitchen was extraordinary, and it hit her palate exactly. His meals were healthy, too — and of course they were. He had poured enormous effort into raising his daughter well. He even held a Korean culinary certificate. He had worked to put the most nutritionally complete, healthiest food possible on her table. Healthy and delicious. That was what Eun-hyeok had always pursued.
Of all of it, the dish Min-ah had loved most was jeyuk-bokkeum — spicy stir-fried pork.
"Dad, your jeyuk-bokkeum is the yummiest!!"
A sauce that was gently spicy without turning thick or muddy. The nutty perfume of sesame oil meeting the fat of pork belly. Vegetable oil and animal fat coming together in the mouth in a variation so perfect it felt like a trick. It was the best thing she had ever eaten.
"Thank you for eating it so well."
That fatherly smile he showed her every time she ate with gusto — that smile, too, had been a side dish as delicious as anything on the table.
That was why Min-ah had chosen jeyuk-bokkeum for the dinner she would serve him. Delicious stir-fried pork. Delicious Min-ah. The fat of the pork belly. The fat of the sesame oil. And the fat of Min-ah's breasts. She had wanted them all mixed together and fed into Eun-hyeok's mouth.
But she had failed. The cost of failure had been far too high. Now it was time to manage the risk. The situation she had wanted had already sailed away. What she had to do instead was get through the crisis in front of her — and at that, she had succeeded, at least to some degree.
The word beast had not come out of Eun-hyeok's mouth. There had been no criticism of her clothes. He was the usual dad. Had her cleanup work paid off? It had. Eun-hyeok, for his part, was relieved by the modest outfit she always wore. He even took off the clip that had been biting into his thigh.
Eun-hyeok in his way. Min-ah in hers. Relief at the present situation — and then the performance began. Each of them suppressing their own desire.
I packed my mouth full of the jeyuk-bokkeum my daughter had made. The toasted richness of sesame oil. Then the fat of the pork belly coming in behind it, and the sweet-spicy depth of the gochujang sauce. On top of that, pork cooked just long enough to turn tender. It was perfect.
I had never taught Min-ah how to cook. I had wanted her to grow up doing nothing but her studies. So where had she learned this?
"Min-ah... your cooking is... haha... hahahaha."
I could not stop laughing. Laughing in the middle of a meal made her look at me with a flicker of anxiety.
"Is it not to your taste, Dad?"
"No, no... it's so good I started wondering how you even did this. That's why I laughed."
"Ah......"
Only then did her face bloom open.
"How did you... this isn't a meal kit, is it?"
I said it and knew at once that it was not. This was unmistakably the taste of my own jeyuk-bokkeum. The ginger, especially. Cutting the greasiness of the pork with grated ginger — that recipe would never be in a meal kit.
"Come on, Dad... what do you take me for? I made it myself!"
"But Min-ah... you've never cooked before."
"They say even a dog at a village school recites poetry after three years. I ate your jeyuk-bokkeum so many times I started mixing the ingredients myself."
They say people with good heads are good at cooking. To think she had gotten it this close just by tasting the food and guessing which ingredients went in. That was my daughter, all right.
"Haha...! Hahaha!!"
Tears welled up in my eyes for no reason I could name.
"Huh?? Dad, why are you crying? ...What? Is it spicy? No, wait... I didn't put anything that spicy in......"
"No... it's just... this is... aigoo, look at me, getting all sentimental."
I wiped my eyes on my sleeve. That was it. A daughter I could boast about to anyone without shame. I was so proud of her that it had moved me to tears.
"It's because it's good... it's just so good......."
I piled more stir-fried pork onto my chopsticks and pushed it into my mouth, then packed in hot rice right after it.
"It's delicious... it really is......"
"Honestly... Dad......."
My daughter watched me with a look of quiet satisfaction as I chewed, both cheeks bulging with food. She would be wanting this too. I wanted it. She wanted it. It was a truly happy moment.
The meal was over. We sat with green tea, talking about this and that.
"Oh, right, Dad — I have to go to orientation?"
Min-ah asked it with a face that already hated the idea.
"They say it's three nights and four days... I don't really have to go, do I? I don't want to. I don't want to not see you either......"
"When is it?"
"Next week, apparently. Right away."
The reluctance on her face could not have been clearer.
"I mean... I even argued with them about why they contacted me so late, and they said they had no choice because I got in off the waitlist... aigoo, I couldn't even say anything. I just hung up. Honestly."
But this was an opportunity. Baek Ah-rin — my junior from school, and the pay doctor at my clinic — had asked me for something. A three-night, four-day trip to Jeju Island. To actually go through with it, I needed Min-ah's permission. If I timed the trip with her orientation... I would not even have to ask her.
"Min-ah."
"Yeah?"
"Even if you don't want to, you have to go. If you don't, college life could get difficult."
And so began the work of talking my daughter into going to orientation.