136 — A Semblance of Normality II

Eun Ha's POV:

She'd seen such marks before, on her own body. On the bodies of her friends back in college. They were love bites. Hickeys. Suck-marks. Or at least, what else could it be? The shape and coloration were a dead giveaway.

Her mind went blank.

"Umh... Su Ah, dear... you have a—"

"Oh, it's nothing, mom." Su Ah's hand flew to her collar, pulling the fabric up to hide it.

The movement was too fast, too defensive.

The silence that followed was heavy enough to crack the table. Mia had stopped chewing entirely, her gaze fixed on Su Ah with an unreadable expression. By the way the oldest's nose curled up and her lips tightened, Eun Ha could tell there was something going on. Something Mia knew about. Something that involved her sister, and maybe...

Something about Jae-il?

Eun Ha sighed. No, her thoughts were too wild. Too far-fetched. Jumping to conclusions was a path that she was too familiar with already, one she forced herself not to tread. Not again. So she tried to push the thought away and focused on the most plausible scenario; Su Ah was of age. She could be seeing someone. There was no reason for Eun Ha to assume the worst.

Yet, the thought still lingered like a stubborn fog in the back of her mind.

"Ah. Okay." Eun Ha said, briefly resting her eyes on Mia, whose eating speed—at the cusp of being frantic—had decreased significantly after seeing the mark. The problem with the oldest was that Eun Ha still vividly recalled that salacious phone call Mia was having with a mysterious interlocutor, one that Eun Ha now had some suspicions about. The dots connected in a terrifying, ugly image that Eun Ha immediately tried to erase.

It couldn't be.

Both of them? With him?

It was too much. Too insane.

Eun Ha was a sick person. She knew that. But her daughters... they were normal. They were good girls. They wouldn't...

Su Ah's face was a blank slate, save for a faint blush she tried to hide by focusing intently on her bowl. The girl seemed to be forcing herself to look as calm and as unbothered as possible.

What's with this sudden tension? And why did both of her daughters look as if they've seen a ghost?

And the looks the two exchanged were not those of siblings merely disagreeing over something trivial. Eun Ha didn't even know why she'd connect a hickey on Su Ah's neck to Jae-il, but perhaps that was the part of her that Dr. Han had described as 'illness.' Her own perverted mind projecting itself onto those closest to her. Yes. That had to be it.

Maybe that's what her mind had been doing for a while now. Twisting reality to suit its own sick fantasies.

She pushed her food around her plate, suddenly nauseous.

"You don't look so good, mom." Mia noted, her eyes scanning her mother's face with unnerving intensity. "Something wrong?"

Eun Ha's head snapped up. "No, I'm fine." She forced a bite of kimchi into her mouth.

Su Ah's perceptive gaze was also on her. "Are you sure?"

Maybe her own attempts at normalcy were as transparent as her daughters' attempts at secrecy.

"Y-Yeah, why would you think otherwise?"

As if to emphasize that point, Eun Ha made a show of eating more food. A big, hearty spoonful of rice and stew. Everything tasted good; she had even made Jae-il's favorite, except that he wasn't here to eat any of it.

Su Ah parted a bang that fell over her eye and took a sip of water. "It's something we've noticed for a while now, Unnie and I. The way you're always holed up in your room. You look... sick."

Eun Ha's breath hitched at the mention of that cursed word.

Mia was also looking at her, arms crossed.

What was this? An intervention?

"I was feeling a bit under the weather, but I'm better now." Eun Ha insisted.

"Are you?" Su Ah asked, her tone cool. "Because you don't look like it."

Eun Ha's blood turned to ice.

'Is it that obvious...?'

"It's nothing a good meal can't fix." Eun Ha said, her smile brittle. "Now, eat. Don't worry about me."

Mia didn't drop her gaze. Neither did Su Ah.

Then, the youngest of the two sighed, and turned back to her food.

"Alright."

And as soon as Su Ah said that, Mia too seemed to deflate a little. Her shoulders relaxed.

For a few minutes, the only sounds were the clinking of chopsticks and the occasional swallow. The tension had not vanished, but it had been shoved back under the rug, where it could fester in the dark. Eun Ha's eyes fell again on Su Ah's neck, now completely covered by her collar.

"So, Su Ah, you... have a boyfriend now? When will we meet him?"

Su Ah nearly choked on her rice.

Mia dropped her chopsticks.

They clattered against the table.

The sound echoed in the sudden, oppressive silence. Su Ah was coughing, fanning her face, her eyes watering. Mia stared at her mother, a strange, unreadable expression on her face. She looked angry. And scared.

It was an odd combination.

"She does not have a boyfriend, mom." Mia gritted out, her voice tight.

Eun Ha blinked, taken aback by the hostility in Mia's tone. "I was just asking. There's nothing wrong with that."

"There is." Mia insisted, her knuckles white as she gripped her chopsticks. "She's not seeing anyone. She's just been fooling around with someone she shouldn't, but that's about it. Nothing serious. Right, Su Ah?"

The last part was a warning. A clear, unmistakable warning.

Su Ah, having recovered from her coughing fit, glared at Mia. "It's none of your business."

"It is when it affects our family, you little—"

"Girls." Eun Ha's voice was sharp, cutting through the rising tension. She hated it when they fought. And this was something else entirely. The venom in Mia's tone, the defiance in Su Ah's...

This wasn't a normal sibling squabble. Eun Ha held a hand to her forehead, sighing exasperatedly. "Please, don't fight. Not at the dinner table."

Mia and Su Ah glared at each other over the food.

Then, Mia looked away, her jaw set.

Su Ah picked at her food, her appetite gone.

Eun Ha's appetite was gone too.

The food she had so carefully prepared now looked like a collection of meaningless, colorful objects on a plate. It was so ridiculous how Jae-il's absence had changed everything. Eun Ha felt partly at blame too, because despite being the mother and the one supposed to bring the family together, she had instead been the one who had withdrawn the most.

That's not how she was supposed to behave.

"This trip will do us a lot of good, I believe." Eun Ha said, swerving the conversation back to something safer. "I'm afraid your father won't be able to make it."

Mia raised her eyebrows. "Really? Have you asked him?"

"Yes." No. She hadn't. Wouldn't even bother. "I've brought the idea up to him a few times, and he mentioned something about a very important project he's working on. He said he would try, but it's highly unlikely."

Both Mia and Su Ah made a noncommittal noise.

"But..." Eun Ha's tone visibly lightened; Yeong Gu could go to hell for all she cared. "At least, it'd be us four. Umh, the only issue is coordinating with Jae-il's schedule."

Mia seemed interested in the topic as she turned her full attention to her, eyes slightly narrowed. "What do you have in mind, mom?"

"I was thinking about a camping trip somewhere nice, but I'm open to ideas. As long as we're together." It couldn't be a week long vacation either, so something that'd take up a couple of days, at most.

Mia seemed to be mulling it over. Su Ah stayed silent.

Eun Ha tried again. "Su Ah, honey, what do you think?"

The girl looked up, her gaze distant. A shrug. "I'm okay with whatever." She responded, disinterestedly, before pushing her chair back and standing up. "I'm done. Thanks for the food, mom."

And before Eun Ha could even respond, Su Ah had already left the dining room and disappeared up the stairs.

Mia watched her go, arms crossed, her gaze definitely not friendly. Then she turned towards Eun Ha, and a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes materialized. "Don't mind her." Mia said, sweetly. "She's just... hormonal, probably." The oldest continued to eat, albeit more slowly now. Her expression thoughtful. "A trip sounds good, though."

"You think so?"

"Hmhm." Mia nodded, mouth full. She swallowed. Licked her lips. And gave her another big smile. "We should go somewhere remote, though."

"Somewhere... remote?" Eun Ha felt a shiver run down her spine, for reasons she couldn't explain.

Mia nodded rapidly. "Think about it, mom. Jae-il's a public figure, isn't he? At least, he's famous enough that some people might recognize him. We don't want that. Especially after he wins the finals. It's better if we go somewhere off the grid. Somewhere where it's just us. And no one else."

Eun Ha swallowed. The logic was sound. "You're not... wrong." Even though she'd feel considerably safer if there were more people around, after all she was still doing therapy.

"Yeah, wouldn't want a bunch of desperate, sex-crazed fangirls to follow him around, would you? It would totally ruin the whole vibe." Mia paused, mid-chew, then said with a frown. "Or worse, a bunch of desperate, sex-crazed fangirls who are not really fans of his football skills, but... well, you get it."

Eun Ha's eyes widened at the thought of her Jae-il surrounded by a hoard of females, probably older than him too, in some random, unknown location. Girls who didn't know the meaning of personal space, whose hands wouldn't stay still. And there it was, again. Eun Ha's imagination running wild and unhinged, thinking about her naked son wrestling around in bed, losing his first time to some brazen whore who merely wanted to collect a trophy.

Her hands clenched into fists underneath the table, her head spinning at the mere possibility. Yes, remote sounded good.

Mia seemed to sense her mother's distress. She put her chopsticks down.

"Don't worry, mom." She said, a curtain of freshly-dyed yellow hair covering one eye. The uncovered one was as sharp as the knife in Eun Ha's hand. "I'll protect him."