Childhood Friend Edification Theory - CHAPTER 3.1 - Slight R19

03.Sticky – Part 1

On that day, Jaeha was like a dog in heat for the first time. There was no other way to describe him – a dog in heat… Well, something like that.

After she had barely escaped his sticky arms and fled to the bathroom, he followed her and insisted on washing her. Even in the bath, Haea had to give in. When she cried and begged that she was hungry, he shamefully called to order food for her during s*x.

It was infuriating how he tormented her by ordering while she covered her mouth and desperately held back her moans. She felt a destructive impulse to pull out his beautiful hair. The food was abandoned on the doorstep. To recount all his misdeeds would take more than a day, but the greatest was this:

?Let’s sleep here together tonight.?

?Are you out of your mind? We’re adults! What will Auntie and Uncle think if we sleep here together??

?I think I’ll feel better if I keep checking to see if you’re okay and sleeping well.?

Oh my goodness. Jaeha is relentless when it comes to Haea’s health. He insisted that they sleep together, and Haea argued that if they did, she’d be too embarra$sed to come back to this house. In the end, the two left a warm house and had to go to a hotel and stay overnight. Still, it was better than sleeping at home, so he had no choice. She was afraid of what their parents would think if they stayed out all night after being in Jaeha’s room.

Just thinking about it still gave her a headache, but Jaeha’s face was glowing the next morning. Haea, exhausted from the night’s ordeal, felt the sting of their physical disparity when she saw how radiant he looked.

But the problem didn’t end there.

He declared his independence. Today was moving day, as he was so quick to get things done. Jaeha’s house was buzzing with preparations for the move.

“Haea!”

Jaeha’s mother, Se-hui, who had her head wrapped, noticed Haea and rushed over.

“Did you try to stop Jaeha?”

At her whisper, Haea’s head began to hurt. Of course, she tried to dissuade him from moving. She argued that he already had warm meals on a regular basis, a basketball hoop that he liked, and that the distance to the school wasn’t that far, so why did he insist on moving so close by?

But Jaeha’s response was,

?I can do all those things after I move out. Besides, I can do things there that I can’t do here. There’s no reason why I shouldn’t do it when the range of possibilities expands.?

There was nothing more to be said on that subject.

“Yes. I tried to dissuade him, but…”

“What are you doing, holding on to the child, mother?”

Just as Haea was about to say something to Se-hui, Jaeha came downstairs.

“Oh? Ah, nothing. Are the preparations for the move going well? I should go and check.”

Surprisingly, Jaeha’s father supported his declaration of independence. As expected, his mother, Se-hui, was against it. But Jaeha didn’t ask his parents for money to move. He bought the house with money he earned from stock trading, one of his hobbies. When their adult son declared his independence with his own money, even his parents couldn’t stop him.

Se-hui paced back and forth by the sofa before retreating upstairs to avoid Jaeha.

“What did she say?”

“Just that she’s worried because you’ve never lived alone before.”

“Because you always stand by mother, mother is clinging to you. Why do you let her cling to you? What the h*ll.”

“I haven’t said a word yet.”

She didn’t understand why she had to hear such words after his mother had barely stopped her. In fact, this kind of conversation was a bit challenging for Haea. She grew up with ordinary parents who had a good relationship, so even if she understood the situation, it was difficult to fully understand Jaeha’s sharp reactions.

However, the mother-son relationship between Jaeha and Se-hui was different from Haea’s case.

Se-hui was ambitious. She openly hoped that Jaeha would help her run the hospital. After the incident with Jaeha’s mutism, she watched him closely, afraid that her brilliant son might falter again, but the underlying problem remained.

Se-hui’s feelings towards Jaeha were driven by greed rather than maternal love. To her, Jaeha was an accessory. The more he shone and stood out, the more she paraded him around, eager to introduce and show him off.

Jaeha resented how Se-hui used him to compensate for her own inferiority complex. Proper discipline was something that he did not like, and Haea understood this. But it wasn’t true to say that Se-hui had no motherly love at all. You could see it in the fact that she had built a basketball hoop in a corner of the garden in the hope that it would make her son happy. Without a mother’s love, she wouldn’t have supported basketball, which he once seriously considered as a future career.

Both Se-hui and Jaeha cared for each other in their own way, but the rift between them was too deep for outsiders to intervene. Haea hesitated and chose to remain silent today as well.

“Let’s go.”

He took her hand and walked to the front door.

“Where to? You haven’t finished moving yet.”

“There are people who move and organize things. Why does it matter?”

“Isn’t there anything you need to move yourself?”

“I’ve taken care of everything, so stop worrying and come on. Why have you made a worry pouch in your already small head? I even bought you a worry doll.”

The worry doll that Jaeha had made for her with clumsy st*tching when he was young was about her twelfth treasure. Haea was the type to worry and prepare in advance so that such precious things wouldn’t get lost during the move, but Jaeha was different.

“The order is off, but we should go on a date.”

Se-hui was in the house and she was afraid that someone might come in and disturb the peace, but she still felt a slight thrill at his deep voice. Even on the scorching summer ground, where the geothermal energy was intense, the two of them held hands tightly, neither wanting to be the first to let go.

* * *

“Today is a soft date. Since it’s our first date, we’re doing it by the book.”

“Soft?”

“Why? Are you curious about the hard one?”

Hard. Intense, vigorous, strenuous.

The idea of Jaeha’s hard type did not fascinate her.  It was to the point where she never wanted to know.

“No, no. Let’s go soft. Preferably, let’s stay with that.”

“Don’t worry. This isn’t just soft, it’s b*by level. Perfect for Yun Haea.”

He stole a kiss on her ear and smiled wickedly. The sensuality that only came after s*xual intimacy made her feel that way about someone she had known for a long time. His firm fingertips went beyond reliable support to make her heart race, and his deep, post-pubescent voice felt sultry.

The movie theater, a nice café with a pleasant atmosphere, and a meal in a restaurant with a view of the city at night. As he had promised, it was by the book. Even before they started dating, it wasn’t unusual for them to share moments like this as friends. But now, even the gesture of him cutting a piece of steak and handing it to her was significant. The fragrant wine that he poured out and the neatly cut, appetizing cubes of steak made it seem as if they were going to be a long-lasting memory.

“Yes, this is Ha Jaeha.”

As they finished their meal, he answered an incoming call.

“No, just leave it. I’ll be back soon, so you can leave after work.”

After ending the call, he looked at Haea. The cheesecake she was nibbling at felt like it was stuck in her throat.

“Let’s go home.”

“Home…where?”

“Our new home.”