Double update!

Go back one chapter~

        Yonghwa knocked tersely on the door to his mother’s home. He issued a clipped demand to see her when one of the maids answered the door. A moment later, as he paced the floor of the receiving room, his mother hurried in, her brow wrinkled in concern seeing her son in her house he’d been avoiding for so long. And she could see that he looked like he wanted to murder something. She knew she had to tread on this carefully.

          “Yonghwa? Is something wrong, dear? You didn’t even call to tell me you were coming,” she looked at him worriedly.

          He stared at her, wondering how he could be so blind about the woman who’d given birth to him. There was no doubt she’d always been self-centered, but he’d never considered her malicious enough to harm an innocent woman. Even now, after everything that had happened, he was at a loss for words.

          How could he possibly convey the depth of his hatred?

          It boiled in his veins like acid.

          His family.

          The people he should be able to count on. They were… heartless and evil.

          The irony struck him hard. Seohyun should have been able to count on him back then. But just as his family had betrayed him, he had betrayed her. Maybe he was more like his mother and brother than he wanted to admit. The thought sickened him.

          “Yonghwa?” she asked again. She stopped in front of him and put her hand on his arm, her eyes worried.

          He wiped her hand away and took a step back, choking on his disgust.

          “D-Don’t touch me,” he said in a low growl. “I know what you did Mother. I finally know what you and Jungshin did. And I’ll never forgive you for it.”

          Her face creased with consternation. She threw up her hand and turned away, her arms crossing over her chest. Instead of guilt, anger flashed in her eyes and Yonghwa cursed himself for not seeing what a cruel woman she was.

          “She’s not who you should be with, my son. If you weren’t so infatuated with her, so blinded by…lust, you’d see it too,” she huffed. She tried to reach out to him but he took a step back, as if her touch burned him. He was looking at her with so much disgust and hatred that she gulped in fear.

          “You’re not even going to deny it. My God. What did she ever do to deserve what you did to her? She’s lying in a hospital right now because we put her there! She carries my child, your grandchild. She was already pregnant when you sent Jungshin to attack her. Did you even know that? What kind of a psychopath does that kind of thing?”

          “I don’t regret protecting my sons,” she said stiffly. She rolled her eyes and sighed.

          “I’d do it again. You’ll understand when your son or daughter is born. You’ll understand why I did what I did back then. All I wanted was to protect you from a woman like her! With parenthood comes the knowledge that you’ll do anything at all just for your child. You’ll protect them with everything you have. You can’t just stand by and let your child make the worst mistake of their life and do nothing. Come talk to me in a few years Yonghwa! Then ask yourself if you still hate me so much,” she grit her teeth in frustration.

          He was dumbfounded by the lengths she went to justify her actions. They weren’t simply morally reprehensible. They were criminal! They were unacceptable!

          How could she do that and act like this? Was this really the same woman who bore him to this world and read him stories before going to bed? Why did it feel like he didn’t know who she was anymore?

          “I would hope that I never act as you have, that I’d never hurt an innocent woman just because I didn’t think she was good enough. Here’s what you don’t understand, Mother. She’s a better person than you’ll ever be. She’s not good enough? At this point, we aren’t even good enough for her! We will never be. I just have to hope to hell she’ll accept and forgive me despite the worthless excuse for a family I have to call my own!”

          His mother’s eyes burned with outrage.

          “YOU’RE A TYPICAL MAN. THINKING WITH THE LOWER PORTION OF YOUR ANATOMY,” she scoffed.

          “You’re completely blinded by lust, but in a few years you won’t even look at her with those same lovesick puppy eyes. Then you’ll thank me for trying to protect you from a woman like her! You can do better than her, Yonghwa. Why can’t I make you see that?”

          She looked at him with concern.

          Yonghwa shook his head, sadness and grief so thick in his chest he could barely breathe. “I’ll never thank you for this. You’re nothing to me anymore. I’ll never subject my wife or children to your poison.”

          Her face whitened with shock at the sudden turn of events. “Y-YOU DON’T MEAN THAT!”

          “I MEAN EVERY WORD I’VE SAID,” he growled.

          “Don’t you dare cross me on this one! You aren’t my mother any longer. I have no mother. I have no family save Seohyun and our child. I will never forgive you for this! So stay away from me. Stay away from the woman I love. If you ever come within a hundred yards of my family, I’ll forget that you even gave birth to me! I’ll have you hauled away in handcuffs. Do you understand?”

          She stared wordlessly at him, suddenly looking every one of her sixty years. If she hadn’t so callously tried to destroy the woman he loved, he would have felt sorry for her. But she showed no remorse. No regret.

          “I have nothing more to say to you,” he bit out. He turned and walked away, his mother’s cries for him to stop ringing in his ears. He walked out of her house, never looking back. He got into the waiting cab and directed the drive