Phase 3. Mother Gyeong-ae (12)
In the room she called her newlywed chamber with Gyeong-hun, she sat alone, leaning against the wall.
Hee-kyung had been staring blankly at the sticker photos she had taken with Gyeong-hun when the tears came surging up again.
“Uuuuuh…”
Did she even have the right to wipe the tears streaming down her face? Closing her burning eyes was all she could manage.
She wished that when she opened them, Gyeong-hun would be right there in front of her. She wished he would hold her while she cried. She wanted him to pat her back as she nestled into his arms and whimpered like a child.
But if that was what she truly wanted, she should have done whatever it took earlier to snatch Gyeong-hun back from Mom’s grasp.
Exhausted from crying, her ears still ringing and numb, she heard Gyeong-ae’s words echo through them.
See? You’re not desperate at all.
That wasn’t true. Hee-kyung loved Gyeong-hun more than anyone. She wanted to treat him more tenderly than anyone. She wanted dates by day and to be loved by night. After being thoroughly wrecked, she wanted to lie on top of her oppa, drenched in sweat, and act spoiled.
Yet she had clung to her petty pride and lost Gyeong-hun right before her eyes. Still unable to release that pride, Hee-kyung clutched her tightening, aching chest and kept crying.
Infuriatingly, she had a pretty good idea of how things had come to this. She could feel that the problem lay with her—with the nasty attitude that sprang from her stubbornness, with the way she deliberately acted tough and threw tantrums at Gyeong-hun.
Gyeong-hun was the first man who had ever treated her gently, unlike every other man she had known. Hee-kyung had been convinced it was because she hadn’t looked like an easy woman to him. Because she made him pine, because she stayed strong, he had come crawling to her, hadn’t he?
Of course she had done her own crude kind of learning. After she clumsily tried to provoke his jealousy and he turned cold and serious, she never did that again. But that was not all she had learned. Without realizing it, Hee-kyung was unconsciously treating Gyeong-hun the way she herself had once been treated. Catching fleeting glimpses of the way she had once clung even while being treated that way, she had deluded herself into thinking it was working.
Hadn’t Gyeong-ae said it too? Easy come, easy go. Conversely, in Hee-kyung’s mind that meant that because she hadn’t made herself look easy, it was effective.
But Gyeong-ae had spat those words like a dagger at her after she had already gotten together with Gyeong-hun.
What was easy about it!
She had been humiliated by some thug she had never seen before, right in front of her oppa, and only then had she finally sealed the deal. Only then had she truly understood how her oppa saw her. So she had allowed it. After mixing bodies with him and getting drunk on the words that they loved each other, she had thought only happiness lay ahead.
Yet Hee-kyung had treated Gyeong-hun carelessly. She had done it even while knowing she was treating him carelessly. She rationalized again: she had no choice. If she looked weak, he would think of her as easy, grow tired of her, and leave.
So meeting him easily was a good thing?
And after that, pouring wound after wound into the person who likes you and shows it—was that a good thing?
Hee-kyung, you don’t know, do you? No—even Gyeong-hun probably doesn’t know. When you try to nestle into his arms or come close to act cute, do you realize he freezes for just a brief moment right there?
The more she tried to rationalize, the more Gyeong-ae’s words rose up and seized her, making excuses and force impossible. Tears burst out again. The tracks they left burned hot on her skin.
“I know too…”
She knew that everything was just an excuse. She knew where the anxiety and fear that he could leave at any moment came from. But she did not want to dig that cause up with her own mouth. She did not want to speak again the words she had let slip that day they got together and put a crack in the relationship—because she was afraid her oppa’s gaze toward her would change.
She opened her eyes. Of course he wasn’t there. Through the dizzy blur of tears, Hee-kyung’s wandering vision found Gyeong-hun’s school bag, the one she had carefully brought in with her. As if entranced, she went to it and opened it. If there was anything inside that could let her feel her oppa, she wanted to hug it and sleep.
After rummaging a while she found two couple Q&A notebooks.
“Ah…”
The questions about each other’s love packed into those small notebooks. They began with who I am and ended with why, how much, and how I love you.
“Hic…!”
Clutching the notebooks carefully to her chest, Hee-kyung held back her sobs. She was moved by the two notebooks her oppa had fretted over and carefully chosen in the hope of somehow mending their relationship, and at the same time she was ashamed of herself. The more she felt that way, the more her memory forced her mistakes to replay in her head.
It’s true Oppa’s a good man, but that doesn’t mean he’s the best, you know?
“Aaaaaah…!”
What garbage those words had been. Hee-kyung herself knew perfectly well there was no other man who would love her the way Gyeong-hun did. Those words she had spat in a fit of temper, determined not to lose to Gyeong-ae. Those words that had wounded her oppa. And beyond that she must have given him countless other wounds. Especially kicking him while he lay there—she had crossed the line by a long way. Even when she wanted to look away from it, Gyeong-ae’s cold pointed remarks blocked the path.
Wiping her tears, Hee-kyung opened the first page of the notebook in her arms. She took a pencil case from Gyeong-hun’s bag, picked up a pen, and began carefully filling out the Q&A sheet that started by asking who she herself was. The more she wrote, the more regret and self-loathing poured tears from her eyes, but she did not stop.
Push it all the way to the end.
It was also the first moment Gyeong-ae’s advice finally began to take effect on Hee-kyung.
Around the time Mom’s tears finally stopped, our embrace ended too.
After wiping the tear tracks, Mom stepped out for a moment and came back carrying a basket with two wet towels inside. Steam was rising from them; they looked like hot wet towels.
“Mmm~. Will this do?”
Mom rummaged through the wardrobe and pulled out an old blanket. In this house there was almost nothing that wasn’t old, except maybe Hee-kyung’s phone. When I moved to help her spread the blanket on the floor, she raised a hand and stopped me. Normally I would have helped anyway, but after seeing Mom’s tears earlier I had no choice but to stay still as ordered.
“Hoo.”
Mom finished laying the blanket and sat demurely on top of it. Without meaning to, my eyes went to the quiet rise and fall of her chest. Through the stretched neck of her tee I could see the pattern of her bra. Embarrassed, I lowered my head, and Mom spoke to me calmly.
“Our Gyeong-hun needs to wash up, right? Take off your clothes and lie down.”
“Huh…? T-take them off?”
“Yes, take them off~?”
“I’ll go wash myself.”
“No. How do I know you won’t go to Hee-kyung if you leave? Or she might come chasing out after you.”
“No, I’ll just go and come right back.”
“Right now Mom doesn’t trust Gyeong-hun or Hee-kyung at all, okay~?”
Still that firm tone; I hesitated, unable to leave. Mom raised one eyebrow and urged me on.
“Hurry~. The towels will get cold.”
Truth was, I had been sweating from running around earlier chasing down the part-timers who had ghosted, so just going to sleep like this felt gross. I wanted a shower badly, and Mom was pressing me, so I had no choice. I pulled off the short-sleeved T-shirt I was wearing. Because I almost never showed even a little bare skin at home, Mom looked startled at the muscles of my upper body. She cleared her throat with a little cough and demanded the rest.
“Pants too.”
“Uh… C-can’t I just wipe myself?”
I thought it would be less awkward if I did it myself, even undressed. I might even focus on washing and not feel her gaze. But Mom shook her head again.
“Take off your pants and lie down~!”
There was a soft but irresistible force in her voice. Still hesitating, I squeezed my eyes shut and shoved the pants down as well. Of course I still had my underwear on, and it wasn’t as if I was hard or anything. Even if I had mixed bodies with Hee-kyung, getting erect in front of Mom? Was I insane?
“Here, lie down with your face this way~.”
I obediently laid my face where Mom was patting.
“Close your eyes~.”
The moment I closed them, a hot wet towel settled over my eyelids. The heat was just right, bearable, and a sigh slipped out of me on its own. Feeling a gentle pressure as Mom carefully pressed around my eye sockets, my breathing slowed and the tension in my body eased. Just as I was starting to grow drowsy, Mom began wiping my face thoroughly in earnest. From forehead down to under the chin—the towel was rough even wet—so I could hear her careful breathing as she worked.
“…Mom’s good at this.”
“Hehe, I did it every day when Grandma was unwell, you know?”
The praise seemed to please her; Mom laughed. Only after hearing that laugh could I finally let go of my tension and wariness and accept her towel. The cloth against my skin cooled quickly and turned cold. After she finished my face, Mom had me turn over, took out a fresh towel, spread it across my back and shoulders, and began massaging my nape.
“Mmm.”
“Ah, here it is~.”
“Ugh…!”
Her fingers found the knotted spots with uncanny accuracy and I let out an involuntary moan. Excited, Mom put more force into the massage, but giving me the right pressure cost her a great deal of effort. Soon her breathing grew rough.
“Hoo… mmm…”
With my eyes closed, all my attention went to sound. Now that she had completely straddled my waist and was pressing down with her full weight, Mom’s not-quite-moans sounded far too seductive. On top of that… from the place where she sat astride my waist I could feel some kind of heat. Because I was lying face-down, my cock was pressed against the floor and getting stimulated, swelling a little from pure physiology. It absolutely was not reacting to Mom’s moans.
“I’ll go get more towels~.”
Mom gathered the cooled towels into the basket and stood. She was about to leave the room when she paused, then smiled at me.
“I’ll be right back, so take your underwear off too and wait, okay?”
“Huh?”
“What do you mean ‘huh’? Of course you have to wash every nook and cranny.”
“No no, not that far…”
“I know it’s embarrassing, but hygiene is especially important for those kinds of areas!”
I tried to bolt upright in surprise; Mom gently pressed her hand against the small of my back and held me down. She wasn’t wrong, but it was still sophistry. I had no clear idea exactly which “embarrassing areas” she meant, yet since Mom insisted so strongly, as her son I couldn’t just brush it off. Besides, she had gotten truly angry today; I needed to humor her at least a little.
“Got it?”
“…Got it.”
Click—the door opened and shut in a hurry. Hearing Mom’s quick footsteps recede, I carefully peeled my underwear down. Looking at the cock that sprang free with a soft thud, I sternly told myself not to delude myself that it was only because it had been pressed against the floor.