Chapter 80 - Confusion of an Inexperienced

The words hung in the air, heavy with unspoken implications.

Hana listened, saying nothing, just letting the confession spill out. She’d learned this trick years ago—silence invited more honesty than any question could.

"My mom died when I was eight," Yuna continued, her voice shrinking, becoming smaller and younger with each word. "Car accident. So Gareth’s mom always looked after me when Dad was working late. Which was... most of the time. I’d stay at their place, help her with cooking and cleaning. She taught me how to make kimchi, how to fold laundry properly, all those domestic things."

’Groomed her,’ Hana thought with a flash of bitter recognition. ’Groomed her to be the perfect daughter-in-law. The obedient wife who knows her place.’

"She’s the one who said we were perfect together," Yuna went on, her fingers still worrying the price tag. "That we’d known each other so long, it was only natural. And everyone agreed—Dad, Gareth’s dad, all the neighbors. It felt... it would’ve been rude to say no. Ungrateful, after everything she’d done for me."

She forced a small laugh that didn’t reach her eyes, didn’t even reach her voice really. It was just a sound, hollow and practiced.

"I figured the feelings would catch up later, you know? Like in those K-dramas where the arranged couple falls in love eventually. That the romance would just... happen."

"And has it?" Hana asked gently, though she already knew the answer from the defeat in Yuna’s posture.

The silence stretched for several heartbeats, filled only by the distant murmur of the store and the faint—

Bzzzz bzzzz

—buzzing from Hana’s body.

Yuna bit her lip hard enough to leave marks, her eyes suddenly glistening with unshed tears.

"He’s kind. In his way," she said, the words automatic, rehearsed—the script she’d told herself a hundred times. "But he talks way more to his coach than he ever talks to me. Hours on the phone about plays and strategies and tournament schedules. And when we kiss..."

Her voice cracked.

"When we kiss, he just... pats my head afterward. Like I’m his dog. Like I did a good job sitting still." A single tear escaped, tracking down her cheek. "We’ve never gone further than that. Never even talked about it. I thought maybe I was weird for not wanting to push for more. For not being... ready."

"You’re not weird," Hana said immediately, the words coming out with more force than she’d intended. Her own heart clenched painfully in her chest.

That mix of obligation and loneliness, of playing a role you never auditioned for—it was too familiar. Too close to her own life before Raven had appeared and shattered everything.

"You’re just honest," Hana continued, her voice softening. "Your body doesn’t lie the way your mouth does. It knows when something’s wrong, even if your mind is trying to convince you everything’s fine."

Yuna swallowed hard, her throat working visibly. The tears were flowing freely now, quiet and almost ashamed.

"You’re really... using a toy... right now?" she asked, her voice wavering. "In public? While walking around?"

Bzzzz bzzzz bzzzz

Hana nodded slowly, her hand still pressed against her vibrating stomach. The admission felt strange—liberating and humiliating at the same time.

"It keeps me aware that I have a body," she said quietly, and this time the words were completely honest. "That I’m not just... cooking and cleaning and apologizing for existing until I disappear completely. When you’re my age and your man is younger, powerful, attractive... you panic. You feel like your shelf life’s already over. Like any day he’ll realize he can do better and walk away."

Her voice dropped to barely a whisper.

"So you look for shortcuts. Ways to stay useful. Stay desirable. Even if it means degrading yourself."

"But Auntie, you’re so..." Yuna searched desperately for the right word, settling on the least offensive one she could find. "Brave. I could never do something like that for Gareth. It’s so embarrassing. So... shameful."

"Brave?" Hana echoed with a faint, crooked smile that held no real humor. "No, sweetheart. Not brave. Cowardly, actually. It’s way easier to hide a vibrator under my clothes than to say what I actually want out loud. Easier to let my body do the talking than to risk being rejected with words."

That honesty—that raw, unfiltered admission—hit Yuna harder than any teasing or advice could have.

She looked down at the expensive bra in her hands, the lace suddenly feeling like a costume she’d never be brave enough to wear. Then back at Hana, seeing her with new eyes.

"Do you..." Yuna’s voice was barely audible. "Do you ever say what you want? To your boyfriend? Or do you just... let him decide everything?"

Hana almost laughed. The sound caught in her throat, coming out as something between a cough and a sob.

She thought of being thrown onto beds, of orders whispered into her ear with absolute authority. Of having "want" ripped out of her body instead of gently offered. Of screaming and crying and begging while her holes were destroyed.

"I’m still learning," she said instead, the careful diplomatic answer. "But he made something very clear early on: if I stay quiet and shrink into myself, if I’m passive and just go through the motions... he’ll get bored and leave. Find someone else who can match his intensity."

She met Yuna’s eyes directly.

"So I either become the kind of woman who can keep his attention, keep his eyes on me instead of wandering... or I lose him. Those are my options."

Bzzzz bzzzz bzzzz

Yuna hugged the lingerie to her chest, her knuckles white with pressure, her whole body trembling slightly.

"Gareth would never say something like that," she whispered. "He’s too... nice? Polite? He doesn’t even look at me that way. Like I’m a woman. Like he wants me."

Her voice broke completely.

"Sometimes I wonder if he even remembers we’re supposed to be dating."

"Do you want him to?" Hana asked, genuinely curious now, not judgmental. "Look at you that way? Want you?"

Yuna opened her mouth. Closed it. Her shoulders slumped forward, the posture of defeat.

"I don’t know," she whispered, so quietly Hana almost missed it. "Sometimes I think I just don’t want to be... alone. If he left, if the engagement broke off... it’d just be me and his mom, pretending everything’s fine while she’s disappointed I couldn’t keep her son interested. And Dad would just work later hours to avoid coming home to a failure of a daughter."

’There it is,’ Hana thought, recognizing the fear immediately. ’The same fear that’s kept her trapped. Not love. Just terror of abandonment.’

Hana stepped closer, close enough that Yuna could smell her scent—the faint clean smell of soap under cheap mall perfume, and underneath that, the musk of arousal that Hana couldn’t quite hide.

Older woman and younger girl, reflected together in the changing-room mirror. Soft, maternal curves against tentative youth. Two generations of women trained to shrink themselves.

"If you asked him," Hana said slowly, carefully choosing each word, "if you went to Gareth right now and said, ’I want you to notice me as a woman, not just as the girl next door you’re obligated to marry’... do you honestly think he’d know what to do?"

Silence stretched between them, heavy and suffocating.

Yuna’s throat worked, trying to swallow around the lump forming there.

"I... I don’t think so," she admitted finally, the confession clearly costing her something. "He thinks sex is just something that happens to guys on his football team. Like a trophy you win for being popular. Not something you learn or practice or put effort into."