Su Ah's POV:
Su Ah had a strange dream that night.
Dreams were so absurd sometimes. They always brought her so many images and ideas that she never would have considered had she not seen them at night. And since Su Ah tended to always be pensive and in deep thought, her subconscious could come up with things that, if they ever happened, could break the reality Su Ah had known since childhood and put a whole new twist in her life, in a very unfavorable way.
Tonight, her dream was about her mother.
In the dream, Su Ah walked into the laundry room for no reason at all, and saw Eun Ha, her mother, on her knees with a pair of Jae-il's underwear in her hands. Her face buried deep into it, smelling and licking it, an expression of absolute shame and delight.
It was so vivid and so real, as if Su Ah were there, witnessing the whole thing happen live and up close.
After she woke, she lay on her side in bed for a while, unable to fall asleep again. The dream itself wasn't a mere figment of imagination or a ridiculous dream sequence that had nothing to do with reality, instead, it was reality itself; she hadn't been sleepwalking last night.
As far as she knew, her eyes had never closed completely until much later, she could've sworn on that.
What was she even supposed to think?
That she'd sleepwalked, crossed the hallway like some shameless little ghost? She knew that wasn't the truth, and fooling herself into the convenient assumption that this event had been imagined wasn't either.
'Mom... Mom was... sniffing Jae's underwear? Why...' The image came again, over and over, repeated, like a skipping cassette tape, or an unfinished scene of the same movie, or a never-ending, clipped NewTube video clip that got corrupted and stuck in a loop.
She didn't even want to think about what might've happened after Su Ah silently bolted from the scene, but then, wasn't more information not necessary? Didn't ignorance and sheer disbelief bring peace to minds much easier?
What could she make of it, had she stayed and watched everything else unfold?
Su Ah lay in bed long after she woke up—not that she got much sleep to begin with.
But it was important to internalize the visual stimulus. Once her mind accepted the undeniable veracity of the matter, it would move onto its next stage. Acceptance. Then her mind would, or so the hope was, eventually guide her into calmness.
Except that it didn't. If anything, Su Ah was in panic mode even after an entire morning passed, and her stomach dropped deeper and deeper the further she sat on that vision and the more she associated it with her mother and brother, rather than two actors whose faces were being projected over an empty screen.
'What right do I even have to judge her?'
If Su Ah were to be sat in front of a mirror now, her own reflection would scoff at her scathingly, judgmentally. "Oh, who are you calling crazy?" She'd taunt. "If anyone is crazy here, it's you."
Retracing the path of her mistakes led to a road that ended on a cliff, yet both Su Ah and Mia, despite all the warning signs throughout the way, built a rickety bridge there, one that could crumble underneath their feet at any moment, because they were just that delusional, running back and forth, up and down, at the edge of the precipice, always one false step away from tumbling into a bottomless abyss.
She couldn't judge when she had also made the same, unforgivable mistakes. She was no different, no less wrong, no less crazy.
Su Ah wasn't the most moralistic person. She couldn't even pretend to be the least bit righteous. She liked her brother, her brother liked her back, and together, they had shared many moments. They'd done things that were... quite inappropriate.
Her threshold for moral judgement had been skewed for a long time now, but the act her mother was guilty of felt a different level of immoral to Su Ah. There was no moral high ground here, but wasn't a mother supposed to show unconditional love, support, and guidance, to a degree?
Wasn't it normal to hold their children at a respectable distance?
It'd feel normal and comforting, certainly, to feel their love for her, but what would she do, for instance, should Eun Ha ever got down on her knees and crawled like that towards him, as if trying to taste his lips or reach him with that crazed, distant, glazed-eyed look she herself had worn during a couple of unfortunate episodes involving Jae-il in her vicinity.
The morning slowly passed as Su Ah's eyes stared in a blank stupor through the bedroom window, contemplative, solemn, but it felt like she'd just woken up from a restless nap rather than actual restful sleep.
She'd go nowhere locking herself up in her tower like a Disney princess. She could skip breakfast, but lunchtime would inevitably follow after that, then dinner, then a new morning. A lot could happen before and between those events, and there was no such thing as rest, and not enough time for her to process or overthink or bury those memories until a fresh slate was presented to her.
Su Ah slapped her cheeks, hoping the sharp sound could redirect the tide of her thoughts. It didn't work, however. She'd need a lobotomy for that, apparently. She quickly washed herself up and dressed before descending the staircase.
The dinner table was already set up for lunch, the white tablecloth looking clean and spotless and pristine. Eun Ha, with her back turned, was humming a tune as she moved between all the pans and pots with a mastery that would rival a professional chef.
As if nothing happened.
As if she wasn't touching and playing with her brother's underwear less than twelve hours ago.
Just how could she even fake a smile this brilliantly?
"Mom."
Eun Ha tilted her head around, hair moving smoothly off one shoulder as her lips stretched into a smile.
"Oh, dear. You woke up quite late today, you know? I thought the food might have to go cold while we wait, haha. Hope you're hungry."
The lightness in her voice was such a comical sight in contrast to Su Ah's disbelieving mood.
Su Ah's head turned, taking in Mia's languid figure practically sensually wrapping around Jae-il like a very pervy snake. And doing so only when, naturally, their mother wasn't looking. A tilt of the head. Droopy, love-stricken eyes. A hand that frequently caressed his chin, and not so subtly, flirted with his thigh.
Jae-il, for his part, looked mostly aloof and without a single rebuttal. He tried to calm her down, with very little success.
Though, to Mia's merit, she seemed to have eyes on the back of her head, because every time Eun Ha was even remotely about to turn back or even glance in Mia's direction, Mia always moved with the deftness and agility of a lemur, putting distance between herself and her prey.
"Noona, good morning." Jae-il, seeing the approaching Su Ah, gently slapped Mia's wandering fingers away. "You've been waking up early these days, don't tell me you're falling back to your lazy self."
Eun Ha chuckled, too focused on cooking to care too much.
Su Ah snorted as she took a set right next to Jae-il, perfectly sandwiching him between herself and Mia. Eun Ha would sit across the table, presumably. And Dad was on one of his extended business trips again.
"If only you'd sleep next to me, I feel like I wouldn't wake up tired at all. You would make such a wonderful body pillow. I would never feel alone or cold, or bored, or tired." Su Ah leaned in to hiss at his ear, her left hand massaging his right bicep. "Wouldn't that be wonderful? My sweetie would take such good care of me and look at how cute my face would be every time I opened my eyes in the morning."
She kept her voice low enough that, over the cackling noise coming from the kitchen, Eun Ha couldn't possibly hear.
But it wasn't too low for Mia to overhear. That stupid Unnie of hers made a disgusted face and gagged, her hand flying to cover her mouth and prevent whatever poison in Su Ah's words would dare touch the sanctity of Mia Unnie's flawless porcelain complexion.
Jae-il merely chortled and returned with an equally whispery-toned remark. "Yeah, because your snoring is super cute." And lightly patted her thigh, much to Su Ah’s growing embarrassment. "And, I can sleep alone quite alright, thank you."
“I do not snore!”
Jae-il and Mia covered their mouths to laugh quietly, eyes crinkled and shoulders hunching in mirth.
Before Su Ah could defend her sexy sleeping techniques, their mother sauntered over and started laying dishes on the table.
Su Ah’s mind was immediately distracted by what she believed was an unbelievable addition to this family competition.
The older woman herself, having finished the preparations, sat across from them, and the first person her eyes fell on, was quite predictably, Jae-il
She smiled, urging him to try the food she had been likely cooking for hours. “So, how is it honey?”
A/N: To be rev