Chapter 7 - Chapter 5: Episode 4 - Time
The evening after Min-ah's family left, Yu-ra gave her daughter a stern lecture about her behavior toward her friends at the daycare center.
"Yu-rin, the way you treat people is exactly how they'll end up treating you."
Yu-rin had almost never been scolded by her mother before.
Yu-ra was always buried in work and was rarely ever home.
"If you're kind to others, they'll be kind to you. If someone treats you well, you have to return the favor—that's how the world works.
If you want to be praised, do something worthy of praise. If you want to demand something, you have to offer something of equal value in return."
It was the same lecture the teachers at the daycare center were always giving.
Seizing the opportunity, Yu-ra began dedicating every weekend evening to her daughter's education.
Ever since that incident, Yu-rin felt her mother had become much more forceful.
She had no choice but to start listening.
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From that day on, my weekend evenings became exhausting.
Every weekend, my mother would have a few drinks and start repeating the same mantra: "What goes around comes around."
Hearing the same thing over and over, like a broken record looping from the beginning, was incredibly annoying—yet it ended up etched into my brain.
Then one day, Seon-ah joined my daycare.
Since we were the same age, he was placed in my class.
When I saw him again for the first time since that day at my house, he didn't say a word about what I'd done.
I was grateful that he'd helped me avoid a massive scolding from my mother, so I really wanted to get close to him.
'He's really handsome, too.'
Honestly, I had no interest in kissing the other kids. None of them were as pretty as Seon-ah.
But the biggest reason I wanted to be his friend was that I didn't have any.
I had a habit of playing rough with people I liked—pushing or hitting them—so the other kids stayed away from me.
In that lonely state, I just wanted to play with Seon-ah and try kissing him again.
Seon-ah was the one who approached me first. He shook my hand and asked to be friends. But even after we started hanging out, I couldn't help myself. Whenever I got into a petty argument or felt mischievous, my violent side would flare up.
I was terrified that Seon-ah would leave me just like the other kids did because of how I acted, but he didn't. No matter how much I lashed out, he kept coming back to me.
Seeing that made me realize a few things.
Seon-ah actually liked me. He was different from everyone else.
He became someone special to me.
I thought of him as a real friend—someone who understood me and stayed by my side.
One day, while looking at his pretty face as he listened to me ramble, the thought I'd been holding back just slipped out.
"I want to kiss you again."
'Wait, did I really just say that?'
I startled myself and clamped a hand over my mouth, but Seon-ah just gave me a cute smile.
"If you do what I say, I'll let you kiss me. Deal?"
I'd just blurted it out without thinking, but he was actually giving me permission.
"Really?"
"Of course."
I remembered how good it felt to kiss him before.
He was so soft and warm, and he always smelled so nice. I wanted to do whatever he asked immediately so I could get my reward.
"What do you want me to do?"
"Go apologize to Si-u. You two fought yesterday, right? If you do that, I'll let you."
For a second, I felt a sting of betrayal. I thought he understood me.
I wondered if he was just tolerating me this whole time instead of actually being on my side.
"Why should I apologize? Besides, that has nothing to do with you."
"I don't think you were necessarily wrong, Yu-rin. I just don't want you to be at odds with everyone else.
I'm on your side, okay?"
Thinking about all the time we'd spent together, I didn't want to believe he was lying.
And besides, I had to listen if I wanted that kiss.
As I stood there weighing my options with a pained look on my face, Seon-ah spoke up again.
"Actually, you were the one who kissed me last time. This time, I'll be the one to kiss you."
'He's going to kiss me himself?'
The scales tipped instantly.
When a cute boy makes an offer like that, it wasn't in my nature to refuse.
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After I apologized to Si-u, Seon-ah took me somewhere private.
"But you can't tell anyone. It's a secret. If you tell, I'm never doing it again."
"Okay."
From that moment on, Seon-ah and I shared a special secret.
He continued to use kisses as a reward for fixing my 'bad habits.' He already knew I didn't get along with the other kids, and he was trying to help.
The fact that he was different from the other kids evolved into a new kind of specialness.
He let me do the things I liked, and even though he claimed it was for my sake, these were things he did for me that had no benefit for him at all.
To me, Seon-ah's gentle guidance felt much better than the lectures my mother gave me every weekend.
Thanks to his efforts, my social life at the daycare—which had been on the verge of total isolation—improved significantly.
In exchange for a 'kiss,' I stopped my pranks. Whenever I was about to get into a fight, Seon-ah would pull me away, whispering that it was time for a 'kiss,' and I would follow him like a gentle lamb.
Because of him, my memories of daycare and the transition to elementary school were actually happy ones.
Even after we started elementary school, things didn't change much.
However, after one specific incident, Seon-ah's reactions started to shift.
It started when my mother's weekend lectures began to include advice about relationships between men and women.
"You're about to be an elementary schooler, stop calling it 'pecking'! It's a kiss."
"Yu-ra, stop it! That's way too much for a child!"
Whenever Mom drank and started crossing the line with her advice, Dad would step in to stop her.
'Does Seon-ah know the word "kiss" instead of just "pecking"? I'll ask him for a kiss tomorrow instead.'
The next day.
When I asked Seon-ah for a kiss, he looked genuinely surprised.
Seeing his big eyes get even wider made him look so cute I almost wanted to bite him.
"What's a 'kiss'? What do you do when you kiss?"
Seon-ah was smart. He was good at studying and could answer almost anything I asked him.
He always got perfect scores on his tests, so I couldn't believe he didn't know what a kiss was.
"A kiss is just another word for pecking. Since I taught you something new, don't you want to try it?"
This time, I was the teacher and he was the student.
Our relationship was built on this kind of give-and-take. I'd ask a question, and he'd give me the answer I wanted—or he'd ask for a 'kiss.'
That was our way.
It had been a while since I'd been the one to initiate... or give a kiss, since our daycare days.
Reversing the roles felt fresh.
When I leaned in to kiss him, Seon-ah closed his eyes, unlike before.
When I pulled away, his expression was... strange.
It looked like he'd been expecting something more.
But as his face returned to normal, I figured I must have misread him.
Yeah, it had to be a misunderstanding.
As we got older, quite a few girls started confessing their feelings to Seon-ah.
When he rejected them, he didn't beat around the bush like most boys his age.
"I'm sorry, but I already like someone, so I can't."
The person he liked had to be me.
Hearing those words come out of his mouth made me so happy.
I thought our secret relationship would just keep going on like this forever.
Whenever Seon-ah visited my house, he would try to get rid of anything in my room he thought was 'inappropriate.'
He'd even turn on my computer and check it thoroughly to see if I had any porn.
Seeing him do that reminded me of something I'd heard.
They say men get jealous when women use erotic magazines or toys, and Seon-ah seemed to be acting exactly like that.
Watching him, I felt a surge of anxiety. I was worried he might get so obsessed with those things that he wouldn't want to do our 'secret things' anymore.
By the time I reached high school, Seon-ah's baby fat had vanished, leaving behind a mature, strikingly handsome face.
I'd also expanded my sexual knowledge. My cousin, who was in college, had given me an erotic USB and some books.
Knowing Seon-ah's jealousy, I knew I had to keep them hidden at all costs.
The acts in those books and videos were on a completely different level than anything I'd seen in movies or dramas.
The books showed men and women in all sorts of positions. On the USB, I saw a man lying down while a woman sat on top of him, taking him inside her and moving up and down.
Watching it made my lower abdomen burn, and a throbbing sensation started between my legs.
As the moans of the people in the video filled the room, that heat only intensified.
Every time I heard the man moan, Seon-ah's voice would overlap with it in my mind.
'If Seon-ah were to pant like that, with that sweet voice of his...'
I swallowed hard.
Just thinking about it made me feel a sudden, warm dampness between my legs.
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My cousin eventually told me that men like it when a woman takes their erection into her 'lower mouth' and swallows it. She told me that was called sex.
What would happen if I asked Seon-ah—the boy who didn't even know what a kiss was—to try this thing called sex with me?
He seemed to like erotic things too, so wouldn't he be interested?
Wouldn't he want us to feel good together?
But what if he hated it? What if he looked at me like I was something disgusting and never wanted to kiss me again?
After agonizing over it, I finally just asked him.
"Yu-rin... I'm sorry, but I can't. How about we wait until we're in college?"
"No, I'm the one who's sorry. I think I was being too sudden."
Waiting until college wasn't a bad deal.
But what really struck me was that he knew what sex was.
Back in elementary school, he didn't even know the word 'kiss.'
Was he kissing other people too?
Even though he said it was our secret, was he actually doing more than just kissing with someone else?
Suddenly, I felt a desperate sense of urgency.
"Seon-ah, how did you even find out what sex is?"
"It's a secret. It's too embarrassing to talk about."
Seon-ah usually never hid things from me. He never called things a 'secret' when I asked.
I was certain something was going on.
"Can't you just tell me? It's just us. Why are you keeping secrets?"
"I'm sorry. Is there something else I can do for you instead?"
Hearing that, my curiosity about his secret was momentarily eclipsed by my desire for something more.
I didn't have any proof anyway, and this was a chance to try something far more erotic than the simple pecks we'd been sharing.
"Then let's try a real kiss. With tongues."
We leaned in like usual, but this time, everything was different.
I slid my tongue into his mouth, exploring tentatively.
It was soft and tasted sweet, but it didn't feel as intense as I'd expected. Just as I was about to pull away, disappointed...
Seon-ah grabbed my face and forced his tongue into my mouth.
He moved with a practiced rhythm, his tongue swirling around mine and tracing my sensitive gums until my mind went completely blank.
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When I finally broke away because I couldn't breathe, Seon-ah just looked at me, his expression questioning.
"I'm sorry... I just couldn't breathe."
He let out a soft chuckle.
"You know, you can just breathe through your nose."
'Is this really the same Seon-ah who didn't know how to kiss? Why is he so good at this? Something is wrong.'
It was impossible to believe he was a novice.
Realizing how skilled he was at French kissing made my skin crawl with unease.
The suspicion in my heart continued to grow.
The faint traces of another woman I sensed behind him tore at my heart.