The Daughter Knows Nothing of Her Mother's Sacrifice
Choi Ara lay huddled under the covers, drowning in self-loathing. She despised herself for betraying her boyfriend, and the humiliation of reaching a sordid climax at the hands of her childhood friend—the one she'd briefly dated and then broken up with—burned like fire.
"Why am I like this…?"
It felt as if she'd been imprinted, brainwashed, hypnotized—like a chick hatching from its egg and instinctively recognizing the first thing it saw as its mother. She was inexplicably drawn to Kim Il-woo. His kindness seeped into her, the way he always seemed to know her hidden desires, offering the words she yearned to hear, the desperate pleas that stirred her heart, exactly when she needed them most. Even the brutish, base fragments of lust she'd witnessed that morning—she could now accept them as part of him. That was her now.
"What should I do?"
Park Jun-hyun, her boyfriend since high school days, several years strong. Even after her body had been defiled, he still saw her as his girlfriend, wracked with guilt for failing to protect her. He was overly protective at times, almost aggressive, but flawless in every way—an embarrassment of riches she didn't deserve. Lately, though, his increasingly violent behavior had started pushing her away, especially when compared to her childhood friend. She'd lived her life without shame toward others, diligently and responsibly. So being drawn to another man while ignoring her boyfriend felt unbearably humiliating, a sin she couldn't endure.
Stab.
"Hngh…"
Something was definitely wrong with her since the rape. She'd lost her precious virginity to some faceless thug, been violated, and men had terrified her afterward—yet now she craved her childhood friend's lips and fingers. The growing wetness between her legs soaked through her pajama pants, making her skin crawl.
"Haah… haa, ahh…! Hnngh?!"
Sweet, feminine moans she could scarcely believe were her own rang in her ears, accompanied by lewd, squelching sounds from beneath the blankets. Her slender fingers scraped desperately inside her drenched pussy, but they couldn't summon the dizzying pleasure her childhood friend's touch had ignited that morning.
Not enough. Not enough. Not enough.
Her clouded eyes, darkened like a stormy sky, gleamed with a lascivious hunger for a man. A raging thirst and longing swept through her—if she could just feel that dizzying climax once more, she'd do anything.
As the heat rising from under the covers thickened the room's air with erotic tension, the front door creaked open.
Mom must be home…
Ara started to rise from bed to greet her exhausted mother but froze, feeling the sticky mess between her thighs. Self-disgust crashed over her.
"I'm insane…"
Her mind must have broken somewhere after the rape. She glanced at the full-length mirror in her room. Unkempt from staying inside all day, her skin flushed from masturbation like blooming red roses. Saliva glistened around her lips—had she drooled?—and the musky scent of her arousal from between her legs was driving her mad. If her mom saw her like this, she'd faint. She looked utterly debauched.
"…"
A twisted impulse surged: she wanted to show this sloppy state to her loving mother. The fact that such a horrific thought crossed her mind confirmed a vital screw in her head had come loose. She knew she shouldn't, but Ara couldn't stop her feet from carrying her toward the door.
Click.
The door opened. On the floor, her mother—still slipping off her shoes—flinched visibly, but Ara, half out of her mind, didn't notice.
"Ara. You're still up."
It wasn't late enough to sleep, and her mother's voice carried a hint of anxiety, but Ara was too lost in her own turmoil to care. Like a pubescent girl tasting her first kiss and orgasm, she couldn't contain her surging lust.
"Mom."
"Yes, Ara."
Lee Seo-yoon, terrified her hidden secret would be exposed, turned cautiously to face her only daughter.
"Ah, ah…?! Ara?!"
Seo-yoon's eyes widened in horror. Her daughter's pajamas hung half-off, hair disheveled, an air of decadent eroticism clinging to her. Heat blooms dotted her skin like obscene roses, and the drops falling from her pajama crotch were unmistakably love juices.
Forgetting her own disheveled state, Seo-yoon rushed to her daughter, frantic, pawing at her in confusion.
"What happened?! Why… why are you like this?! Did someone do something to you?!"
Her mind, warped by entanglement with Kim Il-woo into seeing everything sexually, still recognized her daughter's wretched, utterly disheveled state as resembling a rape victim.
"No…"
"Th-then what the hell is this…?!"
Ara, eyes glazed and unfocused, vaguely wondered why her mom wore a mask as she spoke.
"Mom… I think I'm in big trouble."
"Tell me what happened, quick."
Seo-yoon growled like a wounded beast, radiating hostility. She'd pegged a single culprit—if Kim Il-woo were there, she'd tear him apart on the spot.
"I… I think I like Il-woo."
"……What?"
The confession from her daughter's lips was utterly unexpected, absurd.
"I must be crazy… I masturbated thinking of him… I have a boyfriend… I know I shouldn't… but I couldn't stop…"
Ara confessed as if atoning for a sin, her words grinding like knives against bone. Seo-yoon's face filled with emptiness and despair at the sudden revelation.
"Why… why him…?"
Her voice cracked with tears—anyone but him.
"I… don't know…"
Ara sobbed back, equally sincere in her confusion. Seeing her diligent, upright daughter crumbling after that horrific event broke Seo-yoon's heart. That her support, the one healing her wounds, was that trash— the beast who ravaged her body and trampled her dignity as a woman… It tore her chest to shreds.
"You're not like that, right? You have Jun-hyun…"
Seo-yoon pleaded desperately, her inner scream of anyone but him pouring out. Ara's face twisted in rebellion.
"Why?! He couldn't protect me from rape, and now he's acting like a beast—why should I like him?!"
"You don't understand!!! Il-woo is absolutely no good!"
The mother doesn't know the bitter poison her daughter drinks for her sake, the sacrifices she makes. The daughter doesn't know the path of torment her mother walks for her.
"Why! It feels like it has to be him! Look! Look at what a mess I am! Even now, thinking of him makes me soak down here—what am I supposed to do?!"
Ara screamed, rationality shattered. Shameless before her mother, she pressed her hand hard against her pussy over the pajama pants; love juices gushed out, soaking the floor.
"Ah, Ara… you…?!"
Seo-yoon reeled at this rebellious, lewd side of her daughter she'd never seen.
"I feel crazy. I know I'm crazy! I know I'm not in my right mind… I know, but…"
Like a dam cracking, emotions flooded out; Ara collapsed in tears. Seo-yoon stared down at her daughter, overwhelmed on the floor, shock rooting her in place.
"…"
The mother and daughter's crossed hearts wounded each other; the path they'd walked together began to creak and split.
"Go to your room."
"M-Mom…"
Some sanity returning after venting her tears, Ara trembled like an abandoned child at her mother's cold tone.
"Go on!"
"…"
Ara, sniffling, rose unsteadily at her mother's unfamiliar, sorrowful chill. Through her teary blur, she glimpsed something red on her mom's instep and under her blouse—but lost in chaos, she lacked the wits to notice the incongruity.
"S-Sorry. Mom, I must've gone a bit crazy just now."
The fishy scent wafting from her mother—familiar from somewhere—seared into Ara's brain alongside terror. Trembling like a forsaken child, she fled to her room.
The house plunged into an eerie silence. Exhausted, Seo-yoon collapsed where she stood.
In mere hours, events beyond her tolerance had shredded her reason; bone-deep fatigue threatened to make her pass out.
"…"
Her eyes fell on the puddle of her daughter's juices where she'd sat. Was it her genes making her so wet, or did she truly crave that trash this much? The unknown measure of her love scarred the mother's heart deeply.
"I…"
What the hell should she do…?
"Honey…"
She ached for her husband, gone first today of all days. She yearned to lean on someone, share this loneliness and pain. Lost in despair, facing a hopeless reality alone, Lee Seo-yoon sat there motionless for a long while.