A Conversation with Son Ga-eun
Dong-hyun closed the door behind him, quietly locking it as he did.
Click.
The faint metallic sound rang out unusually loud in the stillness of the room. Son Ga-eun swallowed hard without meaning to.
"What could I possibly have to say to the likes of you?"
Son Ga-eun was going to deny everything first and think later. Confessing what she had done to Dong-hyun would do her no good at all.
The fact that she had been secretly using bodyguards to assault him behind her father-in-law's back was already a problem in itself — but until now, she had kept Dong-hyun sufficiently under her thumb that none of it could ever come to light.
Yesterday's Dong-hyun, however, had shown a completely different face. He was no longer the cowed child who couldn't even speak in her presence. He had even overpowered the bodyguards she had summoned. That was why she had gone a step further and called in organized crime, intending to actually break something this time. And yet here he was, walking in looking perfectly fine. It was infuriating.
The phone call she had just been on was with the boss of that very gang. A successful job would normally have been reported as such, but there had been no word at all, so Ga-eun had called to demand answers. Instead, she had been treated to the gang boss's outrageous claim that the job had failed, that his own men had been injured, and that he wanted compensation. She had been in the middle of losing her temper when Dong-hyun walked right into her room, looking completely unharmed — just as the boss had said. She was thrown.
"Nothing to say to me? After what you pulled this morning?"
"That wasn't my doing. You just got into a scrape with some thugs, didn't you?"
"Thugs? I never told you I ran into any thugs, Mother."
"What?"
Son Ga-eun was so flustered she made a mistake she almost never made.
"How did you know I met with gangsters?"
"H-how should I know! I was just guessing!"
Son Ga-eun snapped, her voice rising. In that same instant, Dong-hyun's hand shot out and snatched her phone.
"What do you think you're doing?!"
She lunged to snatch it back, but Dong-hyun's hand clamped down on her shoulder and pinned her in place. She couldn't match him for strength. Not even close.
"Nngh— I'll scream!"
"Will you? Go ahead. Scream. What do you think will happen if Grandfather finds out about this? That you used underhanded tricks to try to eliminate the heir? And if he also learns that you've been using bodyguards to beat me for over ten years — what do you think becomes of you then?"
"You little—"
Son Ga-eun let out a furious, hissing breath, but she had no rebuttal. Dong-hyun kept her pinned and started going through her phone. The lock was already off, so reading through it was no trouble at all.
The call log showed a recent conversation with someone named Choi Young-soo. That had to be the person she had been talking to just before he walked in. Dong-hyun hit the call button and switched it to speakerphone.
"Hello? Look, madam, you can't just hang up on me like that. I'm not going to let this slide. I sent twenty of my boys in this morning and seven of them got completely wrecked. How are you going to make this right?"
Dong-hyun ended the call right there. Choi Young-soo's own mouth had already laid out every relevant fact. Son Ga-eun's phone had an automatic call-recording function, so Dong-hyun transferred the entire recorded conversation with Choi Young-soo over to his own phone. Then he let go of her.
Son Ga-eun finally collected herself enough to stand. The earlier bluster, however, was gone.
Dong-hyun picked up his own phone and played back one of the voice files. Son Ga-eun's voice came through clear as day, asking Choi Young-soo to have Dong-hyun beaten. Her face visibly darkened.
"Honestly. What kind of mother tells someone to assault her own son?"
"S-son? Don't be ridiculous…"
She muttered a half-hearted protest, but the fight had already drained out of her completely.
"What do you think happens if I play this recording for Grandfather? Su-jin's already written off as a delinquent, so it wouldn't matter much for him — but the hit Su-yeon would take would be considerable, wouldn't it? And besides—"
"S-stop! What do you want?"
She cut him off before he could finish, her voice tight with urgency.
"That's more like it. Direct. First of all, I'm not particularly happy working as a stand-in. I'll be asking Grandfather for a proper position, and I don't want you getting in the way."
"You're… saying you want to officially join the company?"
Even his first demand left Son Ga-eun visibly rattled.
"That's right. I'm family here, aren't I? Is there some reason I shouldn't?"
Dong-hyun said it with an easy, almost cheerful shamelessness, and Ga-eun's mouth pressed into a hard line. Her mind was racing. She was already calculating just how far the shockwaves would reach if Kang Dong-hyun became a real member of the Mugang Group.
"And that's all you want…?"
In the end, she accepted his terms. As the price of burying her secrets, this much didn't seem like a bad deal.
"And one more thing."
"What? There's another condition?"
Son Ga-eun stared at him, thrown all over again as he kept going.
"Of course there is. That first one is just my rightful due, isn't it?"
"What do you mean, 'rightful'? Who said you get to be formally recognized by this family?!"
Son Ga-eun exploded at him.
"Then you shouldn't have brought me into this house in the first place. Why drag me in just to make my life miserable?"
Dong-hyun's expression hardened as he said it. He had never asked to come here. And when he thought of the humiliation and misery he had endured after being brought in, he meant every word. The look on his face was enough to shut Son Ga-eun up. Whatever else was true, she was the one with no leverage here.
"Anyway. The second condition. As you well know, Mother, I haven't exactly received much of your love."
Even Son Ga-eun had to concede that point. He had been brought into the household around the age of seven, and she had made his life hell ever since.
"I'd like to feel a mother's love, even now. That wouldn't be too much to ask, would it?"
"What? You want me to dote on you? Don't be absurd."
Son Ga-eun let out a short, incredulous laugh. She had been bracing for some enormous demand, the way he had been building up to it — and then that came out of his mouth.
"I imagine it would be difficult for you to actually be fond of me. I'm the child your husband had with the woman he cheated with, after all. But I want a mother's love, so let's meet in the middle."
"How?"
"Show me your breasts. I want to suckle at my mother's teat."
"Y-y-you insane— don't you dare say that!!"
Son Ga-eun shrieked at the sheer insanity of it. A twenty-five-year-old man telling her he wanted to suck on her breasts — of course she reacted like that.
"Ah. I suppose not, then? Can't be helped. I'll just have to tell Grandfather everything and claim my proper place the official way."
Dong-hyun turned without a shred of hesitation. In this moment, Son Ga-eun was the one who couldn't afford to let him walk out.
He was reaching for the door handle when her voice caught him.
"W-wait!!"
He looked back over his shoulder, the question written plainly on his face. Well? What's it going to be?
"J-just the breasts… right? Nothing more than that. I absolutely will not—"
"Heh. Of course. You're my mother. What else would I do? I just want to suckle like a baby, that's all."
Dong-hyun approached her with a sly, unhurried smile. Son Ga-eun's fingers went to the buttons of her blouse and began undoing them, one by one.
She had a youthful face that made it hard to believe she was in her fifties, along with a full, generous bust and a slender waist. He had always wondered why his father had cheated when he had a woman like this at home. It was probably her personality that had driven him to it — but there was no denying she was a strikingly beautiful woman.
With every button that slipped free, the valley between her breasts came further into view, the taut fullness of them unmistakable. Undoing her own clothes in front of Dong-hyun filled Son Ga-eun with a deep, burning shame. Rage and humiliation sat naked on her face.
Watching it, Dong-hyun felt better than he had in years. Seeing Son Ga-eun — the woman who had tormented me all this time — reduced to this felt good.
He had taken revenge while moving through quests, but those had been indirect experiences, vengeance carried out while possessing other people in other worlds. This was his own emotion. His own score to settle. He had grown up walking on eggshells, and once he was a little older, the beatings had come almost daily. She had always been careful to hit him everywhere but the face, so that his grandfather and father would never find out.
And now that vicious woman was standing in front of him, baring her chest with a look of utter humiliation on her face. Nothing else could deliver a rush quite like this.
The last button came undone, and Son Ga-eun's breasts spilled free into the open air, filling Dong-hyun's vision. They had looked enormous even through her clothes. Seeing them with his own eyes, they were even more massive, even more lush and inviting.
"Suck them… or whatever… do as you like…"
Son Ga-eun muttered it in a small, defeated voice.
