199 — A Living Flame

Eun Ha's POV:

Shortly after breakfast, Yeong Gu excused himself and left for some meeting.

"Business downtown." He'd explained briefly, grabbing his coat and briefcase. "I've got an early afternoon appointment, investors to meet and all that stuff. I'll be back tonight to for dinner. Have a nice day, everyone."

When the front door closed behind him, Eun Ha watched her husband disappear into his car and drive off, wondering if he really did have such a meeting or if the whole thing was just an excuse to get away. He had received a text, he'd said. From his secretary.

Eun Ha couldn't help but suspect some ulterior motives on his part.

Not that it mattered particularly to Eun Ha; she had long realized she preferred when he wasn't home.

Phantom Jae-il appeared almost instantaneously beside her, staring out the living room's large windows.

'You reckon he's going to rail some prostitute while talking shit behind your back?' He offered an insight. 'Because I could definitely see him do that.'

Eun Ha fought to suppress an irritated groan.

'It doesn't really matter...'

She could not even conjure up any resentment.

'He's a habitual adulterer and philanderer...?' Phantom Jae-il offered her a slow smile, eyes narrowed like a lazy cat.

She could not respond.

His visage wavered in and out of existence like a defective television, and despite everything, despite having suspected and perhaps even witnessed sexual relationship of her girls with a demon in his likeness, a wretched demon that took her fears and embodied it in the cruelest, most heinous of manners... his presence here was strangely soothing.

Had she unwittingly learned to enjoy his mocking barbs and crass behavior...? Was it normal for a human to subconsciously seek out negative feedback?

'Why don't you get rid of him?'

Eun Ha's eyes snapped wide open. 'W-What do you mean? I can't possibly kill—'

Her son's cursed apparition rolled his eyes. 'I didn't mean physically, mommy. Geez. Have a little more faith in my judgment, will you? It'll do your sanity some good. Also, you're quick to jump to violent solutions.'

Eun Ha gulped a hard lump in her throat.

'......'

'I meant, why don't you just leave? Walk out on that jerk and never look back? Make a fresh start. Take the kids with you~ go to a remote mountain top, where no one has ever heard of our family, where you have absolutely no living, breathing connection to anything or anyone—where there are absolutely no traumatising or horrible or upsetting things to associate with your life...'

She felt her bottom lip quiver. 'Y-You know I can't do that! Jae-il needs to stay here, he needs to go to school! He needs to continue with his career! And—and the girls—'

'As if they wouldn't follow their sweet brother anywhere~ what life do they even have here? Mia and Su Ah barely interact with anyone else aside from me. They have no friends. They don't go out. They have no jobs. Their social life is nearly non-existent. What could they possibly lose by leaving this dump?' His smile turned a little wicked, but no less truthful. 'All they do is wait for me to return from football practice, from training... from the matches... from the trips abroad... and find an excuse to be alone with me, when you're not watching, or listening. You and I both know it.'

She wanted to scream at him. To shut that wicked mouth, tear out that tongue that spoke such filth.

'Besides, it'd be your only chance at having a piece of me, yourself. I won't stay around for too long. Before I make a name for myself out there, before paparazzis and reporters begin to dig into my past, my childhood, my family... maybe it'll be better for them if they find some remote cottage with an eccentric, reclusive mother with her three children, away from the bustling city and all its nosy little inhabitants. At least I'd be able to visit and get away from it all, and you'd still get to see me. And well, you'd get to understand what is it that keeps both Mia and Su Ah coming back for more~'

The prospect sounded terrifying yet desirable, almost. The escape. The isolation. The chance to grow old somewhere in a secluded place, to finally make peace and allow all this misery and anxiety to vanish from her shoulders. She was tired.

Tired from feeling wronged, tired of waiting and hoping for a miracle, of struggling every night just so she could avoid facing reality head on, but most of all—

She didn't even deny the inescapable plausibility of her daughters' ongoing relationship with Jae-il. Connecting the dots was easy once you took a step back. Her reluctance to acknowledge the truth was growing weaker and weaker.

'I'm tired, Jae-il...' She found herself admitting to the ghost of her son.

She turned her head to look at him, but he was gone again. Fading back into the ethereal mist of whichever corner of her mind he came from.

Eun Ha turned around. The kids had helped cleaning up after breakfast and were now in the living room.

Mia sat on the sofa, legs tucked under her, staring at the blank television screen. Su Ah was at the far end of the living room, by the large bookshelf, her fingers tracing the spines of books.

There was a particular stillness to them.

Eun Ha sat down in the armchair opposite the sofa, watching them. She wanted to say something, to break the silence, but the words wouldn't come. What could she say? That she knew? That she was terrified? That she was, in some twisted, unforgivable way, also complicit?

Instead, she just sat there, her hands folded in her lap, and watched.

How much longer could this bubble hold? Eun Ha wondered. The morning's brief discussion over potential matchmaking had ended in apparent truce, but in reality, she knew Yeong Gu had stumbled away with tail between his legs defeated not by wisdom but by force.

While it might've been amusing and thrilling to watch at first, after her internal conversation with that phantom Jae-il... she had some mixed feelings.

On the flip side, a part of her selfishly and viciously cheered inside knowing this meant no wedding, no other woman, no more possible pregnancies or risks that could potentially compromise their idyllic life together.

Even that made her feel like shit, because no loving, reasonable mother would ever rejoice and expect her son to remain single forever. At this point, she might as well visit Dr. Han soon enough.

Movement from Jae-il in the armchair caught her eye. She'd assumed he was on his phone, but when she glanced over, she found it lowered to his lap, his gaze directly on her.

Eun Ha gulped, commanding herself to look away, toward her daughters, the window, anywhere but at the young man sitting a short distance from her.

But she couldn't turn away any more than she could stop the blood flowing under her skin. Her own foolishly disobedient gaze fluttered back for the barest instant, peeking at his eyes before snapping away.

She chastised her own discomfort. There was no reason to be this apprehensive around her boy. None. She should've been perfectly calm and still in her own seat, comfortable in her own skin and surroundings, nothing out of the norm, a steady hand, an unwavering heart.

Except her heart wasn't unwavering or stable.

Neither was her hand, which shook so hard in her lap that she balled it into a fist.

Heat flooded her face, and she must've felt the equivalent of a hundred degrees. Or a thousand. Her forehead beaded sweat. The living room felt unnervingly hot and dry and loud and silent and stifling and empty and full, but for the heavy footfall of her heartbeat.

'Away... away, away... I need to get away...'

Just a bit.

Gosh, she hadn't felt this way in... years? That fluttery nervousness... and anticipation, it was the strangest yet most powerful aphrodisiac to the most base instincts in her human heart and being, despite knowing fully how wrong it was, to even want this.

She stood up abruptly and loud enough for Mia and Su Ah to notice.

"Just need to... lie down. My head's suddenly so fuzzy." Eun Ha gestured vaguely and started walking blindly toward the hallway and refuge behind her own bedroom door.

The stairs never felt longer beneath her stumbling ascent. Step by step away from the tension of the first floor living area, she broke into a fast jog up the carpeted stairs, then a hasty trot down the hallway.

Then behind her, the floorboards responded with their patient huff to other footsteps too. He'd followed her.

She'd barely reached her bedroom door when Jae-il caught up to her. "Mom?"

"Y-yes!" Eun Ha attempted to look composed as she turned around to look at his handsome, inquisitive face. "I-is there something... wrong? What can I do... do for you?"

If she wasn't an insane old pervert she'd definitely slap herself.

"Are... you alright?" Jae-il tilted his head to the side a bit.

"A-Alright?" Eun Ha stuttered out, pressing her hands onto her hot cheeks. She could tell, she was flushing so red. 'Ah, damn it!' Her hand fumbled with the doorknob, rattling it like a madwoman. Her eyes did the same rattling, finding no point of focus. "Of course. I'm completely, absolutely alright!"

Jae-il put his hand on hers, to steady her.

"......!!"

He was merely preventing her from fidgeting any further with her door's locks, but Eun Ha had become a living flame.