Summer Getaway (28)
Iseul came back from dinner looking faintly dejected. Between the shaved ice and the scolding she'd taken under that parasol, the scolding had clearly won out — she seemed thoroughly cowed.
"Hey, Baek Iseul, you okay...?"
Jia called out to her, feeling a twinge of guilt she couldn't quite place. But—
"..."
Iseul said nothing. The shock still had her in its grip.
This isn't how this was supposed to go...
Jia racked her brain for a way to cheer her friend up, and then their little secret surfaced in her mind once more.
"Hey."
She gave Iseul a few taps on the arm and gestured for her to lean in. Then she whispered something into her ear — another secret, shared just between the two of them...
"Huh..?!"
Iseul's face lit up in an instant, as though nothing at all had happened.
"Okay, but what is this? You give me the disease and then the cure?!"
Feeling her own reaction just now had been far too childish, Iseul stuck out her lips in a pout and planted her hands on her hips. But—
"So you don't like it?"
"Nooo...♡"
That ironclad composure of hers melted away without a trace.
"Pfft, oh my god, seriously."
The sunken mood lifted all at once. Watching his daughters laugh their embarrassment away, Hanbyul thought they were still just innocent kids.
Cute...
He could only hope that judgment of his wasn't wrong.
He was just settling his eyes back on his food, ready to eat now that the mood had lifted, when someone else caught his attention.
Poking listlessly away at her rice, looking thoroughly wilted — Iseul's mother. Noona Baek Jiwoo.
"Noona."
"Mm."
"Something going on?"
"No, nothing at all. Why?"
That was neither the face nor the atmosphere of someone with nothing going on.
Call it a sixth sense — an instinct he'd picked up from his wife, Jiwoo. The words full of complaints might as well have been stamped across Baek Jiwoo's face as she picked halfheartedly at her food with her chopsticks.
What do I do about this..
Even if he let it slide, nothing would happen right this second. But not knowing why noona was acting like this meant it would keep eating at him. And if he turned out to be the cause, the aftermath later would come roaring back as a massive storm. That much was certain. He turned it over in his mind, but—
What am I supposed to do...?
He couldn't begin to guess what had put her in such a sulk.
Which was fair enough, because even the person in question didn't really understand what she was feeling. And Jiwoo herself was, deep down, unwilling to admit she was feeling this way at all.
Why am I like this.
Watching Jia and Hanbyul share that little family exchange of saliva just now, a flicker of anger had risen in her — along with a pang of envy.
Kh...
The way Jia had flicked her tongue around like she'd won, then slid her eyes sideways. Just thinking about it made Jiwoo's fists tremble.
Of course, Jia had only been trying to mess with Iseul. It wasn't as though Jiwoo hadn't blown it out of proportion and gotten the wrong idea.
"Noona..."
"Mmh.. what is it, Hanbyul?"
"If something's wrong, tell me."
The way he looked so sorry, even though none of it was his fault — it was far too cute. Far too lovable.
She wanted to snap back to her usual bright self right then and there. But watching him read her face, all worked up over her — she wanted to see more of that. So she forced her expression to smooth out and told a lie.
"It's nothing. I'm fine."
"Ahhh~ that's a lie."
"I'm fine. Look."
She put on a stiff smile and shoveled a spoonful of rice into her mouth.
"Don't even try that..."
Instead, Hanbyul answered looking thoroughly dejected himself.
It was so cute, so precious, that before she could stop herself—
"Heheh~♡"
A laugh of pure, dying-of-happiness delight slipped out between her lips.
Hanbyul caught the meaning packed into that laugh with uncanny precision.
"Huh? What the—were you doing that on purpose?"
She'd been sitting there all droopy just seconds ago, and a few words from him had her lighting right back up. The man had only just figured out she'd been doing it on purpose — to get his attention.
"I can't believe you~!"
He shook her by the shoulders, narrowing both eyes at her.
"Hanbyul-ah~ I'm sorryyy.. heheh..♡"
"That's it, I'm done!"
"Awwngh~"
On one side, a woman well past the age for it was laying on the aegyo, cooing and clinging. And on the other—
"Heheheheh♡"
"Hihihihihih♡"
The two girls were cackling away, wearing the kind of dirty, villainous smirks you'd expect from a pair of cartoon evildoers.
Well, all's well that ends well. It seemed fine enough...
Swept up in the mood, the daughters casually ordered more off the menu.
"Mom! I want more spicy pork~"
"Unni! Me too!!!"
"Alright~ eat as much as you want, as much as you want~"
Grinning like a pair of painted comedy masks, they put in the order without the slightest thought for what would come after.
"Excuse me! Over here, we'd like to order~! Hohoh"
"Wh..why is there so much on here!!!"
Leaving behind the tear-stained receipt and the sorrowful lament of the man who paid the bills, of course.
"Hihihihih♡"
"Kkkkkkk♡"
Whatever had them in such a fine mood, they were still wearing those shonen-manga villain laughs even after getting out of the car, and they headed straight for the second floor.
Hanbyul couldn't help a flicker of concern that wasn't quite concern — wondering if both parents had simply gone off the deep end from sheer exhaustion. But—
"The kids really do seem happy..."
"R..right..? I'm sure that's it."
They chose to put the most positive spin on it they possibly could.
Of course, they hadn't the faintest idea that what the girls were so interested in was photographs of Hanbyul.
Leaving the bustling second floor behind him, Hanbyul dragged his worn-out body over and collapsed face-down on the sofa.
Baek Jiwoo, apparently not tired in the slightest, tidied up and kept up a stream of chatter.
"Aigoo~ I guess all the good times are over."
"Tell me about it..."
Jiwoo wiped down the sink, still speckled with whatever had splattered when they'd made the shaved ice. She'd been keeping house on her own for so long that her hands moved with an easy, practiced grace — and behind that competence, a hint of loneliness seemed to show through.
"You worked so hard making all of that♡"
"Nnghhh..!!! I tried sooo hard.. I worked so hard on it.."
Hanbyul twisted and stretched as though wringing himself out like a rag — and Jiwoo, the married woman, quite literally wrung out her rag and beamed at him.
Her white hair swayed as she moved, painting a picture of such quiet, refined beauty that for a moment, he couldn't understand the ex-husband who had divorced Noona Jiwoo.
"Wow..."
A gentle personality, stunningly pretty, a wonderful scent, wide hips, a huge chest.... Her chest... her chest....
"Hanbyul? Where are you looking...?"
"Your chest... uh?!"
"Eheheheh♡"
"Do you like noona's chest that much?"
She tossed off the layer she'd been wearing over everything, revealing a figure built to seduce. Even having changed into a rash guard, a married woman's areolae and nipples showed through in plain, shameless detail — a lewd, wanton silhouette that made him want to lunge forward and suck on them then and there.
"Oh my. You. Pervert."
Baek Jiwoo covered her mouth and smiled with her eyes. If she'd had a beauty mark to go with that face, it would have made any number of men weep.
"Eheheh♡ Hanbyul, noona's going to wash up first, okay?"
"Mmh... you wash firs'..."
Still burning with the shame and embarrassment of what he'd just said out loud, he answered with his face buried in the sofa.
"Heheh♡"
She let out a girlish little laugh, darted into the bedroom, snatched up a swimsuit, and fled into the bathroom as though making an escape.
SLAM!!!
"Y-you can close it gently, you know.."
The water play was already over, so he couldn't quite understand why she was taking a swimsuit in with her. But... well. She could wear whatever she wanted. He decided to let it go.
"I'm gonna rest now too..."
"Wait!!!"
Baek Jiwoo burst back out of the bathroom. Her flesh rippled as she moved, radiating a raw, lewd energy — and yet—
"Cute♡"
Relative to the body she was working with, what she did next was almost wholesome.
"Huh...?"
Hanbyul could only stare, dumbfounded, as Baek Jiwoo groped his ass like she was kneading a rice cake, then bolted straight back into the bathroom.
A soft tap of the door, and his brain came back online. He stood up and rubbed his rear.
It was so absurd he couldn't even be angry. He didn't have the energy for it anyway. He decided to just sit there and let it be.
The tide of sleep rolling in left him with no other choice.
"I..I'm so sleepy.."
And just like that, he was out.
"Hanbyul-ah~ Hanbyul-ah~"
A voice calling for him in a husky, nasal lilt — the way a gumiho might lure a man in — pulled him up out of sleep.
"Mmh?"
"Hanbyul, can you come here for a second?"
Noona was peeking her head out of the bathroom. Her ample chest wasn't covered at all; a towel clung to her so precariously that her nipples showed over the edge.
Sleep vanished in an instant. He swept the room in a panic, checking whether Jia might be watching — but thankfully, she seemed to have gone into her room and not taken a single step back out.
"Mmh? What is it..? Noona?"
"I didn't bring a towel."
"Isn't that a towel you're covering yourself with right now?"
He had to ask.
"I said I didn't bring a towel."
"Huh? Th.."
He was about to question her again when he saw her expression, and thought better of it.
"A towel."
"Ahahaha.. look at me, spacing out."
Noona really was getting on in years — the kind of thing she'd start forgetting, he supposed.
He grabbed a towel and headed for the bathroom. The door swung open again as though it had been waiting for exactly this.
"Noona, here.. mmph!!"
Two hands shot out like tentacles and seized not the towel, but the married man's hands that were holding it, and yanked him in.
Like a scene from a horror movie, he was dragged into that cramped little space before he could put up anything resembling a fight.
"Mmh? What was that sound?"
Up on the second floor, Jia opened her door and stepped out. But Jia, too, was promptly hauled back inside by the one person who seemed determined to follow in her father's footsteps.
"Hey! Why'd you stop showing me! Hurry up and show me!!!"
"H-hey! Just wait a second!"
"Hurry up, you brat!!!"
And while Hanbyul and Jiwoo were occupied with their little secret downstairs...
Jia consumed photograph after photograph of Hanbyul, feeding her own sense of transgression — and the thrill that came with it.