I Came Because I Wanted to See You Smile
"Hngh......"
You have to wear underwear under dolphin pants. That is not optional.
Third year of middle school. My daughter had wanted a pair, so I bought them for her. She tried them on in her room, then walked back out in her old pajama pants without ever putting them on.
The slits were so wide, she said, that the inside of her thighs was completely on display. Back then my daughter had hated anything even remotely revealing. These days she was practically climbing the walls if she couldn't show some skin. A woman's instinct to want to be beautiful really is an overwhelming thing.
Anyway, dolphin pants are just about the best garment ever invented for making a woman's lower body look beautiful. The sides are slit and lifted just enough to throw the line of the legs — that long sweep down from the hips — into sharp relief. The problem is that the cut runs a little loose. One careless movement and the groin and the flesh of the buttocks come into view.
I ran toward the fallen Baek Ah-rin.
Through the gap in her dolphin pants, her groin was visible. Completely raw. A wild, uncovered thing, without so much as a scrap of underwear to hide it.
Thump.
Something lurched in a corner of my chest.
That's right. I'm a man too. Seeing a beautiful woman's most private place is the kind of thing that stirs a man's instincts down to the root. Even if that woman happens to be your daughter.
But I've trained myself for this. There had been a time, even after my daughter had gone through puberty, when she'd asked me to wash her. I'm a man. A very healthy one. If I'd followed my instincts, I would have swollen hard and shown my daughter something she should never have had to see. If I'd been an animal, I might have caused a far bigger problem than that.
But I am an intellectual who graduated from the best university in the country. With a highly developed mind, even sexual desire — an instinct — can be controlled.
...Well. That's half a joke.
The truth is simpler. I must not feel sexual desire for my own daughter. That is a crime. Something that ethically cannot be allowed to exist. A moral defilement of myself.
But my daughter grew up. She became an excellent, attractive woman. She came to possess a body optimally designed to provoke a man's instincts. So I put myself under hypnosis.
She's a chicken. I'm just rinsing a plump white chicken to make spicy stew.
The spicy chicken stew I'd made on a whim. I never expected it would hit my little girl's palate so perfectly. It had been a pouch meal the first time, actually. But a pouch meal is still instant food, and I wanted to feed a growing child only good things. So I learned how to butcher a chicken. I learned how to mix the stew seasoning. I even learned how to cook the bird perfectly in a pressure steamer.
A woman's body and a chicken have more in common than you'd think. Once I framed it that way, the arousal subsided. Of course, there were times I... failed. On those occasions I watched adult videos of women who resembled my ex-wife. Not because I missed her. It was nothing more and nothing less than getting turned on by the sight of a woman who looked like her being gang-raped by men, writhing in misery.
Anyway. I've let the preamble run long. I was almost to Baek Ah-rin.
The question of whether I should let Dr. Baek know I'd seen her secret place. The answer, in truth, was already decided.
Do not, under any circumstances, let it show.
There were two reasons. First, Baek Ah-rin would be mortified. The place I had seen is, for a woman, the most precious part of her body — a place she carefully reveals only to a man she's given herself permission to, and only when the relationship has reached its final stage. Most women, even after giving that permission, still turn out the lights so it can't be seen. If I, who was merely her senior and a workplace colleague, let on that I'd seen that place, she would panic.
Second, things would go sour between us. No matter how close we were, we were not dating. If we were dating, it wouldn't be a problem — we'd end up having sex and seeing each other anyway. School senior and junior. Workplace colleagues. Employer and employee. Among every label that applied to Baek Ah-rin and me, not one of them was man and woman. Not one of them was romantic. If I, her school senior, her colleague, and her employer, let it show that I'd seen her most beautiful and secret part? The relationship between us would fall apart. In the worst case, she might even report me to the police.
So the simplest method here was to pretend I hadn't seen it. As far as I could tell, Dr. Baek didn't think her private parts were visible at all. If she had, she would have covered herself first. Right now, with her body soaked in freezing seawater and the fabric plastered to her skin, she probably assumed the cloth was doing its job.
"Dr. Baek! You okay?"
Nice. Natural tone. Nothing in it but concern that she'd fallen.
"Ah— I'm sorry, sunbae. I was being clumsy..."
"Don't be. Those waves were pretty high. A swell like that out of nowhere — I would've gone down too."
Fortunately, Dr. Baek seemed to be thinking exactly what I'd hoped. She had no idea her most precious place had been on display.
"I-it's c-cold."
She was shaking. Even from where I stood I could see her whole body trembling. Fair enough. The February sea is freezing, and she had been dunked in it completely.
"Let's get you inside. You'll catch a cold."
"Yes... sunbae."
Holding my hand, Dr. Baek tried to stand.
"Ah—!"
The strength went out of her right leg and she started to go down again. I caught her before she could fall.
"S-sunbae."
Her body went suddenly hot against mine. After the cold water, it seemed, her system was burning heat to protect itself.
"Looks like something went wrong when you fell."
I pulled off my track jacket and tied it around her waist.
"S-sunbae... you'll be cold... you don't have to..."
"From where I'm standing, you can't walk."
In one motion, I hoisted her onto my back.
"Kyah!!"
She let out a short scream, as if she hadn't seen it coming at all.
"S-sunbae!! I'm not so badly hurt that you need to carry me—"
"Never mind that. We need to get you inside. What are you going to do if you catch a cold like this?"
"Th-that's..."
"Then this Jeju Island trip we went to so much trouble for would be ruined, obviously, and you wouldn't be able to work properly next week either, would you?"
"...No."
"Then what I have to do is get you into a room fast enough that you don't catch that cold."
I started walking, taking long, steady strides. Baek Ah-rin didn't grab at me to get down. Instead, as if she'd given up, she wrapped both arms around my shoulders and held on.
I could feel her chest against my back. She was in her thirties, but the white flesh of her thighs still felt as soft as a child's, filling my hands. Mentally reciting the national anthem comes in really handy at times like this.
"Sunbae... thank you."
"Don't mention it. This is the kind of thing a sunbae is supposed to do."
White clouds slid over the sun, and the warmth vanished. The cold came down all at once.
"I should've brought a thicker jacket. Sorry."
"No... if I... if I'd just been a little more careful, I wouldn't have caused you this kind of trouble..."
Her arms tightened around me. The cold of her. Those soft, almost artificial mounds of fat. If I let myself imagine any further, this was going to get even stranger, so I stopped.
"I've got a first-aid kit. Once we're there, if it looks bad, we'll treat it first."
"Yes... sunbae."
A small silence settled between us.
"Sunbae... this is going to sound..."
"Hm?"
"Ah... never mind."
"Don't leave me hanging."
Her body began to tremble again. Feeling that shiver run through her, I picked up the pace toward the lodging.
Fortunately the ocean sat right up against the resort, so we made it into the building quickly.
"The room key."
"Here..."
Beep. Click.
I carried her into Baek Ah-rin's room. It was spotless, exactly the way her personality would have it. This was a luxury resort — you didn't need to tidy a thing — but her nature still came through.
Hup—
I set her down gently on the sofa.
"Thank you, sunbae."
"Don't mention it. More importantly — how's the ankle? Does it hurt?"
Dr. Baek stood and tried a few steps. She walked well enough that it didn't look sprained.
"Nnh...!"
But she wobbled again, just slightly. The sudden movement in freezing water had probably shocked the muscle.
"Looks like you're going to need a medicated patch. You can move, though, right?"
"Yes..."
"First, take everything off and put it in this laundry bag. They do dry cleaning here. Leave it outside the door and I'll send it down."
"Okay."
"Soak yourself in a hot bath and the muscles should loosen up a bit. Message me when you're done and I'll bring the patches."
"Yes... sunbae... thank you."
She looked like she didn't know what to do with herself. I reached out and stroked her hair.
A faint flush rose in Dr. Baek's cheeks.
"...I'm... sorry. Sunbae. I'll wash up quickly and... message you."
"Alright. I'll be in my room resting."
I waited on the side opposite the way her door opened, so I could confirm she'd put the laundry out.
Click.
A white arm appeared, set the bag of laundry outside, and immediately shut the door.
"Okay."
I left her door closed behind me and went into my own room.
Patter.
The sand that had been stuck to her had dried and fallen across my floor. I was going to have to send mine out for dry cleaning too. I stripped, bagged my clothes, set them outside, and called the front desk to arrange it.
Cold weather, once the sun was gone. Having carried Dr. Baek all the way back after she'd been dunked in freezing water, my back should have been ice-cold — but maybe it was her body heat, because it wasn't that cold at all.
Anyway, today's schedule was going to need adjusting. Travel isn't only about activities and experiences. Rest is an important part of it too. Giving a proper rest to someone who hadn't been able to rest properly while working with me mattered just as much. Depending on her condition, if the muscle shock lingered, spending the day recovering in the room was a perfectly valid option.
I took off my underwear and headed into the shower.