Mother Is a Virgin (Part 2)
Why do you keep pretending not to know?
With those words, a suffocating silence settled between mother and son.
Anxiety, nausea, revulsion—negative emotions she should never feel toward her own flesh-and-blood son flooded Darin’s mind.
Why keep pretending not to know…?
Her son’s unexpected words left her at a complete loss for how to react.
Why, why, why? Why would a perfectly normal child… toward his own mother…?
For more than twenty years he had shown her nothing but a gentle, upright nature. That a boy of such proper character could harbor feelings for his own mother was utterly absurd. Darin blinked rapidly, desperate to escape this unbearable reality, praying it was nothing more than some madwoman’s twisted dream.
But her unfilial son, oblivious to his mother’s turmoil, simply continued saying whatever he pleased while watching the pitiful girl who had stopped breathing from sheer tension.
“Come to think of it, Mother is a virgin as well, isn’t she?”
The face of the woman listening grew pale, then blue. Her cherry-red lips began to tremble. Anyone could see how fragile and pitiful she looked.
“N-no, what on earth are you…”
She shook her head violently and pulled back. She looked exactly like a tiny herbivore cowering before a massive beast.
Why suddenly claim that his mother was a virgin when the conversation had been about welcoming a virgin bride for his son? The words made no sense in context, and besides, she was a married woman who had already given birth to two children.
“…W-what are you talking about? How do you think your mother gave birth to you?”
“You only gave your body to Father by force. There was no love in it, was there? Since no man in this world has yet received your heart’s permission, Mother, you are indeed a pure virgin.”
The Viscountess finally understood what her son meant. She tried to cover her ears, not wanting to hear another word, but—
Grip.
Her hands were seized in a snake-like grip, stopping even that. Kael slowly brought his face close to his mother’s, as if he truly had something he needed to say.
“Hiek!”
She recoiled in terror, jerking her head back. But only her small head moved; her hands were bound, so the gesture was meaningless.
The man’s rough lips slowly parted. Watching them, Darin thought they looked just like the maw of a great beast about to devour a small animal.
“Then, from Mother’s perspective as well, there shouldn’t be any problem, should there?”
Whether Darin’s heart leaped in cruel reality or not, the man simply drove despair into his mother’s ear with a clear, steady voice.
“Because the woman your son has chosen as his bride is indeed a virgin.”
It was a despair too clear to ignore any longer. Realizing that her son’s heart truly was directed at her, the mother could only stammer like an idiot, unable to form a single coherent word.
“Ah, ah…”
Far from answering, all she could do was flinch and pant with agitated breaths. Her brain, forced to accept this unbearable revulsion, felt as if it were shriveling. She wanted to fuss constantly with her vermilion hair to steady her breathing, but with both hands held, even that was impossible.
“Ah, is that not it?”
Did he still have more to say? Kael smiled like a wicked demon and opened his mouth again.
“The man who awakened the emotion called love in Mother was none other than me, wasn’t he? Looking at it now, the one who stole Mother’s purity wasn’t that damned tyrant, but your own son. Haha, how foolish of me. Not even realizing that and taking such a roundabout way to get here…”
Kael gazed at his mother with a gentle smile. Yet those blue eyes flashing ominously held a stronger desire than ever before.
“Therefore, the man who truly must take responsibility for Mother… is not Father, but me.”
Having finished his confession, Kael carefully, smoothly released his mother’s hands. Then he leaned back in his chair and even smiled with an unfitting calm.
Just now he had uttered words no different from a marriage proposal to his mother. She would surely need time to sort out her feelings. But he had to show a slightly bored attitude. He did not want that time to drag on. In a way, it was the silent pressure an unfilial son was applying to his mother.
Kael was an impious son, yet he did not try to appear arrogant. Because in the end he was a man who had confessed his love, there was a somewhat devout air about him—his straight back and the proper posture of his lower body showed as much.
Even if rejected, he no longer needed to be hurt. At home, in the carriage, and even in the private room—he had already indirectly faced his mother’s rejections multiple times. He was not a coward trapped by past wounds, unable to move forward.
This was merely the final chance he was giving his mother, knowing she would refuse. Even facing the same thing, the emotions when accepting versus when unable to accept would be quite different.
The café’s interior, with its rosemary-shaped green chandelier gleaming, was quite splendid and spacious. Having rented the whole place, the only customers were Kael and Darin. The staff seemed to have left after brewing their tea.
In this silence, there was no one to save the girl.
Today they hadn’t talked much, nor was the weather particularly hot. Yet strangely, cold sweat beaded all over Darin’s body. Her son merely inhaled the faint floral scent arising from it and spun his sinister fantasies.
“……”
But silence stretching longer than necessary was not welcome. Just as he was about to press for an answer, thinking he should court his mother another way—
“Th-that’s right. That can happen.”
His mother spoke first.
“It’s okay, it’s okay, Kael. You’re still young, so you might confuse your feelings…”
Darin pressed her forearms hard with both hands, holding back the tears that threatened to burst as she continued.
“You’re mistaken right now. Because the woman always nearby was me, so in that way… yes, th-that must be it.”
Her son’s face crumpled. Pushing away his feelings was something he could understand even if it hurt, as a parent. But denying the emotions he had harbored his entire life—even if it was his mother, the object of his courtship—was not something he liked.
“Mother, your son is already twenty-three years old. To those of advanced age it may seem young, but Mother, did you not give birth to me at fifteen? The period when one cannot even recognize one’s own emotions is long past.”
“No, no. In your mother’s eyes, you’re still young. I told you before, didn’t I? In Mother’s previous life, the early twenties was a time when one hadn’t even started working in society.”
Unnecessary talk. What did that have to do with now? In this other world, twenty-three was an age when one could become a proper head of household. And more than anything, Kael did not believe his mother’s stories of a previous life.
Most otherworlders, including him, would feel the same. Even the Hero’s claim of being from another dimension was dismissed as a joke by the heretical church. Otherworlders who were not reincarnators were thought to have been summoned by warps somewhere on the continent. There were at most two or three per era, so this attitude of otherworlders was only natural in a way.
Anyone makes mistakes multiple times in life. Kael is no different…
But no matter how her son looked at her, Darin only wracked her brains trying to persuade him. She would no longer deny that her son was infatuated with her. It was a reality that could no longer be denied. But even so…
“Kael, no matter how old a child gets, to a mother they are only flesh and blood, only a child. That kind of relationship can never happen.”
“Isn’t that something you won’t know until you try?”
“W-what!? What on earth are you saying!?”
The mother’s slender hand, steeped in persecution complex, slammed the table. Her heightened temperament took even short remarks as mockery—enough to raise her voice and scold him.
“…Are you curious?”
But unfortunately, it wasn’t a persecution complex.
“Then leave your door open when you go to bed tonight. That ‘little child’ you spoke of will teach you.”
“Uh, uhh…?”
Realizing her son’s sinister intent, Darin’s face went deathly pale. Kael watched his mother turn to ice, unable to hide her agitation, and smiled faintly. It meant try to escape if you can.
I wanted to treat her a bit more gently, but it can’t be helped.
To others, Kael’s attitude would seem truly sinister for a man practicing true love.
But to Kael, Darin was in a parent-child relationship. If he had no intention of giving up these feelings, it was impossible to understand her position as she was. If he did, continuing would be impossible.
The woman he loved was a “normal mother.” Such a person would never grant her heart to her son, whether he treated her gently or harshly. So what stance should Kael take?
If I create a situation like that, Mother will have no choice but to accept me someday. For example, making her go crazy for sex. Or having most people besides Mother and me regard us as lovers… There are many methods worth trying going forward.
One reason he had brought his mother to the triumphal parade with so many eyes was that. Since she had permitted it while pretending to dislike it on the surface, she clearly wouldn’t be able to blame him.
He had to be sinister in her eyes, but not become a villain. He would not commit forced rape like his damned father. When Mother accepted him, he wanted her to shed tears of joy from below.
“No, I-I, that kind of thing, I mean, I’m your mother and…”
An earthquake struck her orange irises. As a married woman, she couldn’t fail to understand what that statement meant.
Kael raised his lips as he watched the woman unable to hide her agitation. It meant he would do his best, so Mother just needed to accept. To Darin facing it, it must have felt like the smile of a terrible beast.
Screech.
Unable to endure the despair, the girl urgently pushed back her chair and burst out of the café door. This isn’t right, he’s crazy, dirty, disgusting! She poured out various kinds of condemnation, and finally, unable to hold back her rage, even burst into tears, but…
The white-haired man did not stop her.
Clink.
He calmly sipped his tea, merely looking forward to tonight.