Chapter Text
On the outskirts of a bustling town in 1986, nineteen-year-old San lived with his family, their lives heavily shadowed by financial hardship. They occupied two cramped rooms at the very front of a narrow row block attached to five other houses, situated right next to the main gate. All six dwellings opened directly onto a single, long concrete porch where every family lived within earshot of the next.
Across the open courtyard, past an area dotted with a few trees, stood the detached facilities: a block of bathrooms and a separate row of restrooms tucked deep into the far back corner. Privacy was structurally impossible, dictated by a strict arrangement where exactly one bathroom and one restroom were assigned to be shared between every two families.
Because San's rooms were at the very entrance of the compound and his designated facilities were at the opposite end, every trip to the back forced him to walk the entire length of the shared porch, passing every neighbor's door under the looming shadow of the landlord's larger house next door. For San, the compound felt less like a home and more like a concrete grid—a place where every movement was a public journey, and where escape existed only beyond the front gate.
San attended the local school and had a younger brother. His father worked diligently at an exhausting job just to provide the bare necessities for the family, while his mother stayed home, managing the endless cycle of household chores in the cramped quarters.
At the completely opposite end of the compound, the leftmost house—the final dwelling in the row—was rented by a family of five. Among them was a nineteen-year-old boy named Vin, who shared the same classes with San at school. Vin lived there with his two older siblings: a twenty-year-old brother named Vam, and their elder sister, M, who was twenty-one.
San regularly attended school, but he didn't learn anything. He went only because his parents forced him to, dragging his feet against an education he had no interest in. Lessons drifted past him unnoticed, and he rarely made any effort to follow what the teachers were saying. His mind was usually elsewhere, wandering far beyond the classroom walls.
Most mornings began the same way: late. While other students hurried through the gates before the bell, San would arrive breathless and unbothered, wearing worn flip-flops instead of the black school shoes required by the rules. The private school tolerated little deviation from discipline.
The punishment was swift and public. For arriving late to the morning assembly, prayers, and pledge, he would be ordered forward and struck across the palms with a thin cane. Then came another round of blows for violating the uniform code by not wearing proper shoes. The sting in his hands had become such a familiar part of the school day that he barely reacted to it anymore.
Once the punishments were over, he would shuffle into the classroom and settle into his seat. There, he perfected the art of wasting time. He stared out the windows, scribbled meaningless shapes in his notebooks, daydreamed through lessons, and counted the hours until the final bell. School was not a place he hoped would open doors for his future; it was simply somewhere he was required to be until he could leave.
San's indifference followed him into every classroom. Homework assignments went unfinished, notebooks remained blank, and lessons passed without leaving an impression. His teachers had long since grown frustrated with him. Punishments became a daily routine—sharp reprimands, slaps across the palms, and the occasional order to kneel outside the classroom door for an entire period. None of it changed his behavior.
He wasn't alone. A small group of three or four boys drifted through school on the exact same wavelength. They sat together whenever they could, united by a shared defiance of academics and an endless appetite for the forbidden.
Whenever a teacher stepped out of the room or a study period was left unsupervised, the boys would instantly huddle at the back of the class, and the real highlight of their day began. Instead of opening their textbooks, they dove into the wild, taboo world of adult media they had watched late the night before. They didn't just mention it; they recounted the illicit videos step-by-step, scene-by-scene, with absolute, hyper-focused intensity. The descriptions were so vivid and explicit that the rest of the classroom completely dissolved around them. The boys would listen with rapt, breathless concentration, completely invested in every single graphic detail, their pulses racing and physical tension building right there under their school desks. It was a shared, heavy adrenaline rush—the thrill of trading forbidden fantasies.
The television in San's home worked only when it felt like cooperating, so he spent much of his free time at Vin's house. It had become a habit over the years. He would drop by after school, settle into a chair, and spend hours absorbed in whatever show happened to be on.
Vin's older brother was away most of the year studying in another city, and M, the eldest sibling, attended college elsewhere, returning only during holidays, festivals, and summer vacations. To San, they had always been family. He and Vin had grown up together since first grade, and everyone treated him like one of their own.
That was why the change caught him completely off guard.
One afternoon, he was sitting in the living room watching television when M entered and sat across from him. As she leaned forward to pick up her phone, her top shifted, revealing a deep cleavage and the soft curve of her breasts. San's eyes lingered for a moment before he quickly looked away. Yet the image remained.
His heart began to beat faster, and an unfamiliar nervousness settled over him. For the first time, he found himself seeing M not as the older-sister figure he had known for years, but as a young woman. The realization was sudden and unsettling. The television continued playing in the background, but he barely noticed it. Something had changed inside him, and he knew it would be difficult to return to seeing her the way he once had.
San no longer visited Vin's house for the television. His real reason now was M. He was completely obsessed with her. Every visit, his eyes followed the soft curves of her body, the way her clothes clung to her figure, and the intoxicating scent of her skin whenever she passed close by. At night, he lay in bed thinking about her, replaying the image of her breasts in his mind until it consumed his dreams.
He fantasized about being her boyfriend—about marrying her and building a life together. But most of his thoughts were far more intimate and intense. He imagined hugging her tightly from behind while she cooked in the kitchen, his hands sliding under her top to grope and squeeze her breasts. He pictured running his hands slowly down her body, from her chest all the way to her pussy.
Other fantasies were even more vivid: seeing her step out of the shower early in the morning with only a towel wrapped around her body, water still dripping down her skin. In his mind, the moment he heard the bathroom door open, he would wake up, lift her in his arms, carry her straight to the bed, and fuck her hard.
His feelings had shifted from innocent attraction to something much deeper, darker, and predatory.
Over time, San's behavior around M began to change noticeably. He could no longer hide his intense attraction and lust. His eyes lingered on her longer than usual, his voice softened whenever he spoke to her, and he found excuses to stay close. M quickly noticed the shift in his attention, but she chose to feign ignorance, acting as if nothing had changed. While he believed she remained completely unaware, his infatuation only grew deeper day by day.
Days passed. One afternoon, San walked down the long porch to the leftmost house as usual, but the familiar sounds of the household were gone. The compound was strangely hollow. Vin and his parents had left to visit relatives, and Vam was away in another city for school. Only M was home, completely alone in the quiet rooms.
Recognizing the rare, unsupervised silence, San felt his pulse hammer against his ribs. The restraint he had forced himself to maintain for weeks collapsed. Without warning, he turned to her and let the truth out. "M, I love you," he said, the words heavy and urgent. "I've been in love with you for so long."
M froze, her eyes widening as the easy familiarity of the neighborhood completely shattered. She immediately stepped back, her voice sharpening with defensive disbelief. "San, stop. This is completely inappropriate," she said, trying to re-establish the boundaries. "You're Vin's friend, and we're neighbors. We've known each other since we were kids. This is wrong."
But San was too far gone to listen. Ignoring her words, he stepped forward into her personal space, reaching out to cup her face firmly in both hands to cut off her escape. Before she could process the movement, he pressed his lips against hers. Shock locked her in place. Seizing the moment of her hesitation, he wrapped his arms tightly around her, trapping her body against his chest as he began desperately kissing her cheeks and forehead—anywhere his lips could reach.
Suddenly, they heard a voice from outside that sounded exactly like M's mother. Both of them immediately became alert and moved away from each other. San's heart nearly stopped; he thought they had been caught.
Without saying much, he quickly left the house and walked back toward his own room. A few moments later, he realized it wasn't M's mother at all. It was someone from one of the other houses in the compound. But that didn't calm him down. His mind was still stuck on what had happened a few minutes earlier.
For months, he had imagined being close to M, but he had never seriously thought about what would happen afterward. Now the reality was hitting him all at once. What if M told her mother? What if she told Vin? What if her family came to his house and confronted him in front of everyone? The compound was a place where news spread quickly. If one person found out, everyone would know by evening.
He imagined M's mother shouting at him. He imagined Vin hating him. He imagined the neighbors gathering outside their doors, watching the drama unfold. Only now did he start thinking about the consequences. When he had acted on impulse, he hadn't stopped to consider any of this. At that moment, all he cared about was his feelings and what he wanted. Now fear was replacing those feelings.
For the rest of the day, he couldn't relax. Every voice outside made him nervous. Every time someone called his name, he wondered if M had already told someone.
For a few days, San stayed away from her house. He avoided looking at M whenever they crossed paths on the shared porch or yard. Every time he saw her, his chest tightened and his mind went blank, waiting for the consequences to arrive.
But nothing happened. No one confronted him. Vin acted normal. M's parents acted normal. The compound remained the same. As the days passed, the fear slowly faded. Soon, he found himself going back to Vin's house again. Not for the television, and not for Vin. For M.
Every visit carried the same hope. Maybe she would be alone. Maybe they would get a chance to talk. Maybe something would happen.
But M had changed. She was careful now. Whenever she noticed that they were alone, she found a reason to leave the room. If he entered the kitchen, she stepped outside. If he sat too close, she created distance. If a conversation lasted too long, she ended it.
She wasn't angry. She wasn't exposing him. But she wasn't giving him opportunities either. That confused him. If she hated him, why didn't she tell anyone? If she wanted nothing to do with him, why was she still kind? The questions kept circling in his head.
What San didn't understand was that M saw the situation far more clearly than he did. She knew what would happen if things went further. Their families lived only a few steps apart. The entire compound would know within hours. Friendships would be destroyed. Families would fight. Her reputation would suffer. So she kept her distance, not because she was unaware of what was happening, but because she understood the consequences.
San saw the distance and became even more obsessed. Every night he lay awake thinking about her. Every morning, he searched for signs that she felt something too. Eventually, he started praying—not for wisdom, and not for patience, but for an opportunity. Just one moment alone with her. One chance. And that desire began to consume him more than ever before.
A couple of nights earlier, the power had gone out while he was sitting in M's house. Just like that. One second there was light; the next second there was nothing but darkness. M's mother spent a few minutes searching for a candle while everyone waited for the electricity to come back.
The outage was ordinary. Nobody else cared about it. But San did. Ever since then, he couldn't stop thinking about those few minutes. The next day, he sat beside M and waited for it to happen again. Nothing. Usually, the electricity in their area disappeared all the time. But now, when he actually wanted a blackout, the lights refused to go off. The fan kept spinning. The bulbs kept glowing. And San sat there growing more irritated by the second—his mind calculating exactly how to force the darkness.