Mother's Anguish
Kim Soeun had been spacing out a lot lately.
"Excuse me."
"Huh?! Ah—yes. What can I help you find?"
She hadn't even noticed a customer had entered the store. Reacting a beat too late, she scrambled to put on her professional smile and start the pitch.
Her coworkers had noticed something was off. The woman who used to handle every task without a single crack was suddenly distracted, distant. No one asked why. Part of it was the wall she kept around herself; the rest was the way she sharpened like a blade the moment anyone got too close to her private life. People simply learned to keep their distance.
"This item is…"
Even as she walked the customer through the product details, her mind stayed locked on the problem that had been eating her alive.
I have to put that bastard in prison.
The rape. The calculated, devastating rape from only a short while ago.
The kind, well-spoken man who had approached her under the pretext of her son's education had deliberately lured her into a trap, then violated her until her mind broke. Every time the memory of his cock buried deep in her belly surfaced, she flinched hard and clamped her thighs together.
Why the hell did I get aroused for a piece of shit like him?
Was it simply because she had gone so long without a man?
She felt the hollow ache of loneliness from time to time, but every scrap of her attention had been twisted around her son. The idea of dating had never even crossed her mind.
Then that animal had kicked the door in with muddy boots, forced open a body that had been sealed shut for years, and dragged out another version of herself she had long since buried. The heat that stole her breath, the pleasure that clawed through her skull—she had gone feral. She had moaned and screamed until even the constant presence of her son vanished from her mind, until she blacked out. When she came to…
It felt… a little good.
Waking up on that motel bed soaked in spit and filth, she had felt revulsion—and, at the same time, a strange, shameful sense of release. Like she had set down a heavy stone she had been carrying for too long. The relief lasted only a moment before a crushing wave of dread swallowed it whole.
Under normal circumstances she would have reported the man who raped her without a second thought. But he had anticipated that. He had left her with leverage that made going to the police almost impossible.
"Tch."
Kim Soeun ground her teeth at the memory of the photographs scattered across the motel floor when she woke.
The shots of her own body—spread out, used, utterly degraded—were horrifying enough. But the single photo of her son lying next to them was what truly terrified her.
A picture of Seojin smiling that slightly vacant, happy smile he only wore when he got to go out with his mother. A candid shot of the two of them boarding the subway, completely unaware they were walking into a trap. The moment she saw it, she understood exactly what it meant.
How am I supposed to clean this up without him ever finding out?
Her son was in the middle of the most critical stretch of his university entrance exams. She could never let him learn about something this monstrous—something that could scar him for life. She had kept physical evidence of the rape, but every day that passed made it less credible. She knew she had to move fast. She just couldn't see a clear way out, and the frustration was choking her.
"I'll head out first."
"Good work today. Get home safe."
After the unauthorized absences and the vacant, half-present greetings, her coworkers mixed genuine worry with deliberate indifference as they answered her.
Her head throbbed. Her feet felt just as heavy on the walk home.
"…"
Her usual path toward the subway station faltered for a moment. It wasn't quite rush hour, so the train wasn't packed solid, but the sight of so many bodies still made her legs lock with fear.
Her trembling gaze dropped to her own lower half. Ever since that night she had been too afraid to wear skirts; she stuck to pants now. Even so, the carefully maintained lines of her legs looked dangerously inviting.
"Haa…"
She let out a small breath and forced herself onto the train.
The rattling of the car, the screech of the rails—her body instinctively curled in on itself, and the sensations from that night came flooding back uninvited.
A faint heat bloomed deep in her lower belly. Her waist trembled.
She could almost feel someone grabbing her ass from behind, hands sliding under her clothes to claim the soft flesh. Cold sweat ran down her spine.
How many desperate, imaginary battles with faceless men did she fight before her stop finally arrived? She fled the train like she was escaping a crime scene.
"Hah… hah…"
Kim Soeun exhaled scorching breaths, legs shaking so hard she nearly collapsed. She forced strength into them and staggered out of the station. The cold night air cooled her overheated skin and eased the sticky, restless feeling just a little.
Get a grip, Kim Soeun. If you keep this up, Seojin is going to notice.
The night she came home after the rape, her son had looked at her with open worry. In the days since, she had barely been able to pay him any attention at all. Even someone as dense as him would eventually sense that something was wrong—that his mother had become distant and strange. She could not let the one person who must never know find out about this nightmare.
She steeled her shaking heart, vowed to treat him like normal tonight, and stepped into the apartment.
"I'm home."
The familiar greeting cut through the quiet house. Any second now her son would answer awkwardly and come out of his room.
Except…
"Seojin…???"
Silence.
The lights were on. Kim Soeun looked toward her son's room. The door that was always shut tight while he studied stood wide open.
Did he step out for a minute?
Unease prickled through her as she approached. Then she heard movement inside. He must have been so focused that he simply hadn't registered her return yet. The tiny spike of anxiety was enough to make anger surge—she was ready to take it out on him for no good reason—when something impossible filled her vision.
"Y-you…?!"
The person who stepped out of her son's room was not her precious family. It was the beast she would have torn apart with her bare hands if she could—the man who had thoroughly violated and humiliated her only days ago. Jung Taeyoung.
"Hello, Seojin's mother."
His mild greeting snapped something clean through in her head. Her face twisted past mere fury into something demonic. The fear and dread she had felt on the subway vanished as if they had never existed. Heat flooded all the way to the roots of her hair; strength poured into every limb. Her trembling legs suddenly felt solid. She strode straight at him, ready to slap him with everything she had—
His hand closed around her wrist like a vise.
"Ugh?!"
The crushing pressure, the raw male strength she couldn't break free from, drained every ounce of power from her body as if it had never been there. Fear rose from the soles of her feet, but she bit down hard on her lip and crushed the taste of terror between her teeth.
"Have you lost your mind?! How dare you crawl into this house?!"
The protest exploded out of her, thick with rage.
Jung Taeyoung simply raised a finger to his lips, gesturing for silence.
"Shh. Seojin's mother. Are you planning to announce to the entire neighborhood that we have… a problem?"
"W-we—?! You crazy bastard, you and I—!"
"So you don't mind if your son finds out?"
The threat sealed her mouth shut. Only then did Kim Soeun remember she was standing right outside her son's bedroom door. The color drained from her face. Her panicked eyes darted into the room.
"Huh?"
Her son wasn't there.
It was late evening. He should have been home. The realization that he was gone turned her mind completely blank.
"S-Seojin… Seojin… Seo… Seojin… wh-where…?"
She kept calling his name like a broken machine, searching the apartment with frantic eyes. She had started to shake as if she were having a panic attack. Jung Taeyoung looked down at her and casually answered the question she couldn't form.
"I sent him on a quick errand."
"…An errand?"
"You haven't forgotten that your son still thinks I'm his academy tutor, have you?"
Only then did Kim Soeun understand how this man had gotten into her home.
Seojin still believed this monster—this man she would gladly grind between her teeth—was a private tutor. Some excuse about reviewing studies, or needing to talk to her, or following up on a meeting with a university professor… whatever story he had spun, her clueless son had invited the beast inside. And this cunning bastard had timed it perfectly, sending the boy out just before she returned.
What enraged her more than her son's naivety was the fact that this man had dared to order her precious child around like a servant.
"You made my son run errands for you?!"
He was her only family. The last treasure she had left, the living vessel of every sacrifice she had ever made. The idea that this man had casually used him made something raw and violent explode inside her.
Jung Taeyoung looked down at the proud, elegant married woman trembling with fury and let a filthy smile curl across his lips.
Kim Soeun flinched. The naked, sticky lust in his eyes triggered pure instinctive alarm. The terror and pleasure branded into her body that night made her shrink in on herself; a damp heat began to gather between her thighs. Jung Taeyoung clearly sensed the fragile woman surfacing beneath the iron mother. He pressed even closer and whispered against the ear of the married woman who reeked of fear.
"You sure you want to keep that high-and-mighty attitude? If you'd rather get fucked like a dog right in front of your son when he walks back in, I won't stop you."
"…"
The brutal warning made every fine hair on her body stand on end. She swallowed dryly several times, forcing the fear that had risen to her throat back down.
Satisfied that she was finally ready to talk, Jung Taeyoung released her wrist with lazy ease.
"Ah…"
The moment the crushing grip vanished, a strained little sound escaped her. She scrambled backward, putting distance between them. Her heartbeat thundered with pure terror, but she forced her face into something resembling composure and faced the devil standing in her home.