An Offer He Can't Refuse 1
Kim Seojin reflected on his own foolishness.
I shouldn't have only been guarding against Mom's information getting spread online.
He could sense, almost instinctively, just how many times the man standing before him had pulled this exact kind of stunt.
Cunning methods designed solely to achieve his ends, and sweet words that carefully concealed his true intent.
He had done everything in his power not to lose the initiative, yet it had all proven futile, and a hollow emptiness washed over him.
"You think I'd cooperate with you in knocking my mom down? I can't even understand what kind of confidence made you crawl this far in the first place."
Even with the initiative stolen from him, this was a situation where he had no choice but to thrash about.
Like a child throwing a tantrum to keep hold of the candy clenched in his fist, Kim Seojin decided to push as hard as he possibly could.
"Threatening you into cooperating is simple enough, but if you press too hard, things have a way of bouncing right back."
Thinking about it, it was obvious.
Even someone driven mad by lust—unless they possessed that particular fetish—would never casually toss their own family, wife, or acquaintances to another man.
And even for those who did have such tastes, this kind of coercive approach would inevitably provoke resistance.
That was why Jung Taeyoung dangled a peculiar proposal before someone who had already tasted the forbidden honey—one that forced him to weigh the scales.
"You just cooperate with me once. After that, I'll handle the rest myself. And what I need from you won't be difficult."
"Do I even have a choice here? And why would you think I'd play along with you in the first place…"
"If you don't, I'll spill everything you've done to your mom so far."
Jung Taeyoung's predictable threat.
Even though Kim Seojin had expected it, he felt cold sweat soaking the back of his shirt.
He had been so careful precisely to prevent this situation—yet if Mom found out about this?
Beyond mere anger, she would turn on him with a venomous expression and scream sharp accusations.
Like last time, she might lose control of her temper, slap him across the face, beat him, and even declare she was cutting him off for good.
No… the opposite. Mom could never give up on me.
Mom could never let him go.
She had spent her entire life desperately trying to fill her own inferiority complex, so she would never let go.
She would hold onto her twisted, warped son and thrash about trying to climb higher somehow—and that was exactly why this situation terrified him all the more.
And even in this moment, Kim Seojin felt a twisted sexual desire mixed with relief at the fact that Mom would never abandon him.
How wonderful it would be if he could taste that sweet female body he had sampled that day just one more time.
The burning thirst continued to drive him mad.
But for this moment at least, he forcibly shoved down the lust that threatened to explode and refused firmly.
"Go ahead and tell her. It'd still be better than having Mom toyed with by your hands."
Even as a timid doll of a son who had never once thought of talking back to his mother his whole life, he could tell.
The man in front of him was that dangerous.
An intense, uneasy premonition that he must never let that man's black hands touch Mom even once.
As if seeing right through the anxiety Kim Seojin was feeling, Jung Taeyoung now offered a carrot instead of the stick.
"Don't be so cold—hear me out a bit more. Just one month. I'll only mess with your mom for one month. After that, I'll vanish from your mother-and-son lives like smoke. Not a bad offer, right?"
At Jung Taeyoung's sudden proposal, Kim Seojin couldn't understand his intentions.
Under his questioning gaze, the man proposed further negotiation as if he were being generous.
"Fine. I'll take a step back. Just cooperate once, and no matter how it turns out, I won't breathe a word to your mom about what you've done. After that, I'll go after her the proper way."
He spoke with exaggerated gestures like a shopping-channel host peddling something you could only get right now, snatching away any time for deep consideration.
"Your mom's attractive, sure, but the world's full of women—why fixate? And like I said, if you press too hard, it bursts, right?"
When Jung Taeyoung pressed down hard on Kim Seojin's shoulder, tension naturally seized his whole body.
"See? Press and press like this, and it rebounds. Even a rat will bite a cat when cornered—people are worse. One month is enough time for me to enjoy myself moderately, and for your mom to enjoy herself moderately too."
When he stopped pressing on his shoulder, the building pressure vanished as if washed away.
Then Jung Taeyoung whispered a seductive proposal that touched the very root of the conflict Seojin was harboring.
"And for that month, you'll get a front-row seat to watch your mom become a woman. Once I vanish into thin air, the woman left heated up will be alone, drowning in loneliness."
"…!"
Kim Seojin easily grasped the meaning hidden in Jung Taeyoung's words.
Mom had lived under long repression and self-restraint to raise him excellently.
A mother who had long since discarded being a woman would recall pleasure, reawaken to that forgotten sweet sweetness—and then the person who could satisfy it would suddenly disappear.
So what would happen to Mom then?
She'd go crazy, just like me.
Just as he had gone berserk this far, driven mad by lust, Mom would slowly crumble as well.
And the one remaining closest by her side would be none other than him.
Watching the conflicted Kim Seojin, Jung Taeyoung sneered inwardly.
Seeing him agonize over it, he definitely fucked her after doping her with sleeping pills.
An absurd proposal that no one with common sense would ever accept.
But a male who has tasted the forbidden fruit can never forget that flavor and loses his reason to the thirst.
Moreover, by dangling a one-month time limit, even without any guarantee it would be kept, he starts rationalizing it to himself.
A man consumed by desire is that foolish a creature.
On top of that, he had pushed a concrete number that wasn't hard to accept realistically—just cooperate once.
He's young, all right.
The very fact that he was even considering such a ridiculous offer proved how young Kim Seojin was.
Freshly adult, ignorant of the world's terrors, and even in school where one learns socialization, he had clearly only studied.
Intelligence and wisdom are different things.
There are smart people who still fall easily for scammers, and Kim Seojin was exactly that type.
Come on, bite. Bite.
Even knowing he absolutely shouldn't bite, his lust-soaked brain stopped working, and his lower body seized by carnal desire began snatching the initiative.
If he just thought calmly for a moment, he could easily realize it was a proposal full of nothing but nonsense and pure loss.
Just one cooperation and he could shut his mouth?
Even a child would know that wouldn't hold even with solid trust.
The guy who made his blood boil just thinking about him would vanish after a month?
Even if he really did disappear, a female who had learned pleasure for a month would never look at her son as a male.
I can't give him more time to think.
To snatch away any leisure or time to notice the holes in this all-loss proposal, Jung Taeyoung shook the fake bait again and again.
"One cooperation can shut my mouth, and no matter the result, after a month that annoying me will be gone. And if your mom's will is firm, it's a proposal with nothing to worry about, right?"
Under the repeated urging, Kim Seojin's tightly sealed lips finally opened.
"……I'll hear the details."
The foolish male had finally taken the bait.
"Son! You're late! Get up already!"
"Ugh, huh??"
With Mom's bellow, Kim Seojin greeted the morning.
"What are you doing?! You'll be late at this rate! Snap out of it!"
Because of his hazy mind, Kim Seojin moved sluggishly even under Mom's scolding, so her hand flew to his back.
Slap!
"Euk?!"
With a crisp sound, a stinging stimulus spread from his back, forcibly rousing his hazy consciousness.
"You have a meeting with the university professor today! Are you planning to blow off the appointment Mr. Jung Taeyoung went to such trouble to arrange?!"
"Ah… the meeting?"
"Yes! Mr. Jung Taeyoung who came to the house yesterday arranged the appointment, remember?! Did you forget?!"
At Mom's words, Kim Seojin snapped fully awake as if injected with adrenaline.
As he scrambled out of bed in a fluster, Mom clicked her tongue openly in dissatisfaction and began preparing for her own work as well.
The reason Kim Seojin was so flustered wasn't because of the meeting with the professor of the university he was applying to.
Haa… when did I fall asleep?
The reason he was so out of it was because he had stayed up almost the entire night.
Being young, pulling an all-nighter once wasn't a big deal, but what made it so grueling was that he had spent the whole night with his nerves on edge, continuing to agonize.
The one cooperation Jung Taeyoung had proposed.
That was precisely the incomprehensible demand that, under the pretext of a meeting with a current professor of the department he was applying to—arranged by Jung Taeyoung—he should ride the subway together with Mom.
Of course, he had thought it would be something like arranging an overt setup to devour Mom, or taking her by some coercive method like the sleeping pills he had given him before.
If it had been that kind of method, he would have reconsidered the proposal the man had offered, but as if anticipating that, Jung Taeyoung had proposed a vague yet by no means difficult method.
"Is riding the subway with Mom really all there is to it? I have absolutely no intention of cooperating after that."
At Kim Seojin's cold warning, Jung Taeyoung drew a firm line as if there was absolutely no chance of that.
"Yeah. Just board the subway with your mom at the specific time and specific platform I told you, using the excuse I gave you. Just do it my way this once, and no matter how it turns out, after that I'll go the proper route."
Kim Seojin found Jung Taeyoung's nonchalant attitude rather suspicious instead.
Why would a man who could easily get his hands on illegal equipment like hidden cameras or hard-to-obtain drugs like sleeping pills propose such a vague form of cooperation?
It means pull the trigger to throw Mom into the swamp, I suppose.
A conversation he had shared with him sometime before.
Had all the women who appeared on his channel really started from "requests"?
He now suspected that, just like now, the trigger might have been pulled half-forcibly—but he had already come too far to turn back.