Mia's POV:
The way she looked at her mother changed. It wasn't dramatic, not by a long shot, but it had morphed from that loving and doting gaze a child would usually have towards their parent, to a more guarded, weary one. The kind of look you'd give a stranger whose intentions were unknown and suspicious.
Now that Su Ah had mentioned it, and now that Mia herself had given it a second thought, she noticed that Eun Ha's gaze on their brother, especially during the dinner table, had been... much too intimate for a mother.
It was just as intense as the one Mia herself had, though, perhaps, a bit more subtle and composed.
'What the fuck...?' Mia mumbled inwardly.
Her mother had been acting weird lately, or perhaps Mia had just failed to notice until now.
"Unnie...?"
"What."
They were in Mia's room, the lights dim, lying on her bed. After lunch, they decided to lay low and wait for nightfall. The plan was to stay awake until late, and stake out the laundry room.
Su Ah was reading a book. Some non-fiction crap. She was wearing a pair of flannel pajamas Mia had gifted her on her last birthday. The girl had the worst fashion taste ever.
"I think we should call it off."
"We can't call it off." Mia replied firmly, eyes closed. "We need to make sure."
"It's already too much. We're both going crazy, stalking our mom like this. What if she catches us, huh?" Su Ah whispered, her eyes fixed on the page.
"She won't." Mia said with certainty.
They were both sneaky, and very practiced at this point, having done it for Jae-il's sake for a long time.
"Still, wouldn't it be better to confront her? Tell her top stop it, or that she's behaving weirdly. I dunno." Su Ah mumbled idly, flipping a page. "She's likely to realize how improper she's being and fix it."
"Yeah, because you definitely are a shining example of what not to do when confronting someone about their immoral behavior." Mia scoffed, then snorted at her own joke. "Please. Don't even suggest that. I'd rather be caught spying on her than have that conversation."
Su Ah turned another page. "Because you don't think she'll stop."
"I know she won't stop." It was weird to have that kind of twisted conviction, but Mia knew it down to her gut. "You know how it is, once you've been bitten by the bug, you don't just go back to normal."
There was no cure, after all.
Su Ah didn't reply, but Mia could see the conflict in her profile, her eyes going over the same line on the page over and over.
The plan was simple, if a bit stupid. Mia had to see it with her own two eyes. She didn't fully trust Su Ah's version of events, not because she thought her sister was lying, but because there was a chance she might have misinterpreted. Mia knew she herself could be as biased as anyone else, but she was also more... realistic.
She wanted to see Eun Ha's face when she did it, to really gauge whether it was an innocent mistake, or a genuine symptom of a much deeper issue.
Mia had seen a lot of things in her short life, but her own mother indulged in such behavior... that was new.
And deeply unsettling. That was obvious.
They waited until the house was quiet. They saw very little of Jae-il that day, but both Mia and Su Ah weren't in the right headspace to act naturally around him anymore. Su Ah, perhaps, in a bit of self-righteous condemnation and internal conflict, whereas Mia herself found it difficult to imagine anything sexual with her brother for the time-being, without thinking about his underwear and their mother sniffing them.
Both sisters' footsteps were soft, like furry pads of a stealthy feline, sneaking past their brother's room and climbing down the stairs.
Just as they rounded the corner, Su Ah halted abruptly, jerking on her sister's arm.
Mia raised an impatient brow at Su Ah, lips twisting in a wry twist.
Then she saw why.
Their mother was not asleep in her room, she was walking down the hall, a basket in hand, heading straight towards the laundry room. Her steps were unhurried, though they were light and muted. There was an eager look of shameless delight behind her eyes as the matron picked up her pace and strided through the door.
Mia and Su Ah exchanged a glance, then silently backed away, waiting until Eun Ha disappeared inside the room. The door didn't close fully, leaving a small gap; it always had this problem where the latch couldn't stick in place completely, and opened up a crack on its own when jolted or even just breathed on.
Su Ah and Mia tiptoed towards it, their hearts beating a mile a minute.
Mia peeked through the gap first, Su Ah following suit.
The basket lay discarded on the table beside the pile of sheets.
Eun Ha bent at her waist as she pulled a particular black cotton T-shirt from the basket, that same innocent yet slightly glazed-over look crossing over her usually elegant features.
She gently straightened, with the T-shirt held loosely between her fingers.
There was a momentary pause before she buried her nose into its fabric. She slowly inhaled the scent, eyes shut tight in what looked almost like rapture.
Mia's face distorted with a slight twitch of her lip as she witnessed the display, trying not to roll her eyes in exasperation.
Su Ah let out an uncomfortable sound as Eun Ha repeated the cycle several times. Her shoulders visibly relaxed with each whiff.
Each breath seemed more labored than the last.
Then Eun Ha took it a step further by unfolding the shirt in her grip, the fabric splaying open across her hands as she leaned forward to take another heavy, deep breath. She lay there, on the cold floor, knees curling, desperately fusing her nose into her son's clothes.
She'd moaned quietly into it, her arms sliding around his T-shirt like a koala. It was at this moment that the image of a sane woman vanished.
The scent appeared to satisfy her more than anything else. She inhaled so deep her ears blotched an angry, violent red.
She released her pent-up moan a bit louder this time.
Both Mia and Su Ah slammed a hand over each other's mouth.
Eun Ha neatly folded Jae-il's shirt and put it aside. Then her fingers turned, in a swift movement, to one of the garments at the bottom of the basket, carefully pulling it out and taking a greedy sniff.
Her lips pressed against it. Her hips bucked off the ground, grinding into thin air, body arching and twisting with the mounting waves of excitement.
"Is that...?" Mia trailed off in disbelief.
It was not Jae-il's T-shirt, it was...
"Yes, his underwear." Su Ah finished with a defeated tone, a hollow note that perfectly captured her dismay and outrage.
Eun Ha was a little more bold than the other night. More impatient, less conscious of the surroundings. She'd made no effort to contain any sounds at this point, breathing into the dirty underwear.
Mia gulped audibly—thankfully not audibly enough for her mother to hear. She clicked her jaw shut, frowning deeply, and wrenching her head away from that tiny gap. She looked at her sister, whose expression was one of shock and indignation.
"I can't... I can't fucking believe this." She let out in a low hiss, still frowning. "This is... so... messed up. Ugh."
How was she supposed to feel about this?
Su Ah, still staring at the gap, blinked at her. Then she peeled away from the sight as well. "What now?"
"Fuck, I don't know." Mia raked a hand through her hair, exasperated. "What do you want to do?"
They moved away from the door, standing in the hallway now. They were still safe, as long as they didn't make a lot of noise.
Su Ah shook her head, looking lost. "I don't know either. This wasn't how I expected it to go..."
They could hear their mother moving around in the laundry room, no doubt trying to pull the scent out of every piece of clothing that belonged to Jae-il. She was taking her time, probably savoring it all.
"We could..." Su Ah began, then stopped herself, biting her lip.
Mia raised a brow. "What? Say it. If you're going to suggest confronting her again, I swear to God, I'm going to kick you."
"No, no. But... we could... give her some privacy, for now." Su Ah said in a tone that was way too understanding for Mia's taste. "Maybe we should just... let her get it out of her system. She's... she's probably been repressing it. I mean..." A sigh. "Honestly, it's not like we haven't done that ourselves, have we?"
Mia grunted. "Yeah, I get it, but... she's Mom!"
She was not them. Mia wasn't trying to play the moral card here. They weren't exactly exemplar characters, that was clear. But there was something seriously wrong with a parent doing this.
Should they really just let her do it?
Su Ah shrugged, helplessly. "It's just... a phase?"
"Su Ah..." Mia leaned against the wall. "Do you think she'll really stop at this?"
"Likely. I mean, if she hasn't already done worse, then maybe she just really likes... smells. It's not hurting anything or anyone, so..."
Su Ah was trying really hard to justify it—either to protect Mom or to protect themselves from the fallout. Monkey sees no evil.
"So far! So far it hasn't! But... but that can quickly change." She still could not believe that her own mother had a serious case of motherfucking sniffsies. "Can you really stand watching her rub herself all over his laundry?"
Su Ah frowned a little. "Can you really stop her?"
"What if she ends up going further down the path and takes things a step or five too far?"
Su Ah's gaze fell to the floor, lost.
Mia wasn't entirely certain if she was just speaking in theoreticals at this point or if she actually meant to act, and was just unable to articulate it.
This whole situation was making both Mia and Su Ah a little out of their element.
‘Mom has the hots for… Jae-il?’
Could it really be a phase?
Mia, without another word, turned and trudged back towards her room, leaving a sympathetic Su Ah standing in the hallway.