Keep it in the Family (217) - Addict (Patreon)

Eun Ha's POV

"That would be most helpful." Jae-il smiled brightly. "I'll leave it all to you, then."

Then, her fingers tentatively slid up, up his wrist, along his arm. "Really? Oh... it's no problem at all. It's what all mothers do." She tried smiling casually, but she failed. Meanwhile, she belatedly realized where her hand had gone. His shoulder, yes, that's not terrible, and then his arm, no, not too bad, not inappropriate, but she was now tracing the nook of his neck and that was definitely moving into very questionable territory. "A-Anyways, it's getting quite late... and you should sleep now, you've had such a long day and need your rest."

Why had she touched his shoulder in the first place? He had had a stressful day, hadn't he, and his shoulders were a safe spot where she could offer some comfort, wasn't it?

What a lie. There was no innocence in it. There was no legitimacy to her actions.

She wanted to keep touching him, see how far he'd let her go.

Her hand hovered over his throat, unable to decide whether to flee to his shoulder or recoil from his flesh altogether.

What an irredeemable mother she was.

'Darling son...' Her mind drifted.

"But there is actually another matter that has been bothering me all day."

Eun Ha flinched, blinking rapidly. "And that is...?"

He turned to face her properly. "What if, through all of your efforts, I'm the one who chooses a girl you dislike?" He tilted his head. "Would you let your feelings overpower the choices I'd made, or would you respect them and be supportive regardless?"

"......"

Eun Ha's mouth opened and closed. What kind of a question was that? Of course she'd never do anything to sabotage her son's relationship with someone he genuinely loved. Of course she would love and support anyone who made her son happy.

But, if that day ever came, where Jae-il brought home a girl and declared he wanted to marry her...

Eun Ha's face fell.

Her heart would ache, and her head would spin, and she'd want to smash all the mirrors and every reflective surface, just so she wouldn't have to look at herself.

Because she had fallen so low as to resent her own child for having a different opinion from hers and because that opinion could potentially take her son away from her.

She didn't know if she could be that mature.

She'd try, she'd do her best, but...

She'd be dying inside.

"Of course I will." Eun Ha, eventually, replied. It took an insurmountable effort to make the smile reach her lips. "Whoever my daughter in-law will be, no matter who she is and what family she comes from, I'll welcome her with open arms." She looked down, her fake smile disappearing. "I don't know much about happiness anymore, but, when I look at you, it reminds me of what real happiness feels like." She couldn't help the slight shiver in her hands. She clenched them tightly. "If she makes you as happy as that... then, of course... I'd be happy too. That's all I want, to see my children grow up and become the people they should always have been... and to not get in their way when it is time to leave the nest."

She smiled again, ruffling his hair.

It didn't feel real. The things she was saying didn't feel real, the emotions didn't feel real, his smile, his mere presence, the fact that he was a young man, mature beyond his age.

It was real and unreal.

As were her feelings, but there was no universe where Jae-il would understand. Or even return her affections, even in the slightest.

Even in a world where their physical intimacies did occur—that same world, that same timeline, would be filled with excruciating angst and pain.

"Thank you, mother. I'm glad." He smiled and nodded, a glint in his eyes. It was an almost playful look. "Good night then."

Eun Ha gathered her skirt with a gracious flourish as she stood up, swallowing down her desire and tucking it neatly, painfully, deep within the recesses of her heart. It was hard, it was a bitter pill to swallow, to face reality and realize she could never hold him, but it was better that way. 

In that sense, perhaps she wished for him to leave the nest as fast as possible, and as far as his legs could take him.

For both their sakes, he must grow into a man, away from her, far away where her brokenness couldn't touch him.

It was just how a good mother was supposed to do things.

"Goodnight, sweetheart."

She smiled again, then, giving one final nod, exited the room without looking back once.

xXx

Eun Ha didn't head straight back to her bedroom. It was empty anyway, with no one inside. Yeong Gu had yet to come back; she could only imagine what her unfaithful husband was up to—not that she really cared anymore. 

In fact, his absence had worked to her advantage on so many occasions, and she had learned that her sanity required to be free of him to survive.

There was no one at her bedroom door, watching her retreat to the laundry room.

On autopilot, she lifted the basket full of dirty clothes she had forgotten to take out last night, and dumped the items in a washing machine. She was in such a daze that, in the midst of pouring the clothes into the washer, one pair of underwear suddenly flew out of the bundle and scattered down right next to Eun Ha's feet.

She frowned slightly, staring blankly down.

There, on the tiled floor of the laundry room, lay the dark briefs.

A simple cotton garment that had somehow escaped the laundry basket mid-transfer.

Eun Ha stared down at the piece of fabric, her hands still poised over the open washing machine drum. Her movements faltered. She knew these briefs. They were Jae-il's.

She bent down slowly, her knees creaking in protest. The fabric was warm and smooth in her palm. For a second, she just kneeled there, squeezing the undergarment between her fingertips. She could feel every thread and fiber sliding between her finger pads.

How ridiculous...

It was just laundry. A dirty piece of clothing. That's all it was. That's what she told herself.

She could just toss it in. Wash it with the rest of the clothes. Disappear the evidence of its existence, scrub it clean until it was sterile and impersonal again.

'Put. The. Underwear. Back. Inside. The. Washing. Machine.' She mouthed soundlessly, her hand about to sacrifice the cursed relic under the centrifugal force of the water, and hoped that it'd never show its face to the light of day, or to her eyes again.

But that wasn't what she did.

Her heartbeat rose exponentially, her breathing quickened.

Then it stopped hovering.

Reality thinned around her. She glanced back. The door was closed. Then her eyes immediately snapped back to her hands.

This was Jae-il's. His. This intimate piece of fabric had clung to him, hugged his skin throughout the day.

For a fleeting, insane second, her thumb brushed against the inside gusset. The thought was a lightning flash in her mind. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Don't do it.

Don't do what...?

Her breaths turned audible. She squeezed her hand into a fist, shaking uncontrollably. She pressed her eyes shut tightly, feeling her mind fritzing in and out. Would it be so bad, if no one saw or knew? If Eun Ha couldn't have the real thing, this was her last consolation, wasn't it?

"......"

With the impropriety of her thoughts and her mind full of the same son whose briefs were now cradled in her palms, Eun Ha basically slammed the damn briefs against her face, almost as if she wished to knock herself out with chloroform.

Eun Ha shuddered violently, inhaling it deeply, wishing to imprint every detail of it into her nose, just so she could smell it again come tomorrow morning, and every day after. She easily envisioned what these briefs had held today.

She almost moaned out loud, and her hips shook. The scent was so... enticing. So heady and peculiar. A hint of soap and cleanliness, with the barest trace of musky scent.

Her body collapsed slowly, her back sliding down against the cool metal side of the washing machine until she was sitting on the cool floor.

Her knees pulled up to her chest.

She pressed the fabric to her nose, swallowing every ounce of scent her lungs could contain, then sighed, shivering.

A flash of heat crept through her cheeks, and Eun Ha blinked rapidly.

Her free hand smoothed the fabric over the edge of the washing machine beside her.

That's what she'd tell everyone. If anyone saw her crouched there, panting quietly, cradling a boy's briefs in her hands...

"I just... had a piece of lint in my nose and... and... and I was... trying to get it out. That's it! All I was doing was get it out. Really. I'm not doing anything... obscene... or... or... disturbing...."

Her voice was muffled by the cloth against her face. Her tongue reached out and licked it tentatively, unable to control herself anymore.

She’d regret it later, when the horny left her and a modicum of sobriety would drown her in overwhelming shame, and have her immediately scurry back to Dr. Han.

The totally not accidental kiss, and now she was unabashedly sniffing every atom off of Jae-il’s underwear.

Eun Ha was losing control of herself. 

How long until she did worse?

‘God help me…’

She wished she could suffocate herself with those briefs, clawing the very fiber into her face, fusing it with her skin. 

Her eyes, in that moment, weren’t the cheerful, vibrant shade of purple everyone was accustomed to. 

They were like still water, murky, and dark. 

...

Outside the laundry room, unbeknownst to Eun Ha—too lost in her mind to be aware of the slight gap in the door—Su Ah silently gasped, then muzzled herself.

She quickly, quietly walked away. She kept her footsteps as noiseless as possible.

As fast as her legs allowed her, she nearly dashed back to her room. Her wide-eyed expression reflected off the mirror hanging by the top of her dressing table, her figure looking both shaken and terrified at once.