Betrayal
“Just finished training?”
Darin continued the conversation as if nothing were wrong. Or rather, it would be more accurate to say she was pretending nothing was wrong.
“I was inspecting the newly built training grounds with the servants. I came to verify whether they were usable, so I’ve worked up quite a sweat.”
Kael answered his mother’s question while glancing left and right. It was a warning from the young master: he meant to spend precious time alone with his one and only mother, so they were to withdraw.
Every servant retreated swiftly without objection, yet Emma hesitated a little, worried for the Viscountess.
The Viscountess, who always insisted one must never play tricks with food, had attacked with her power—that meant she was truly furious.
Even so, she could not overcome the mistress’s gentle urging and had to leave as well.
It was not that Darin wished to spend time alone with her son.
But she did not want to worry the household, nor did she want to show them her pathetic state. She wanted to lean on them, yet she was their mother and mistress. She could not simply turn her back on the role she had to fulfill. And above all…
Swoosh…
She did not want anyone to witness her son’s disgraceful behavior as he groped her waist and thighs while approaching, nor the sight of herself being molested by her own son.
Darin retreated step by step, her hips twitching. Kael watched his mother and asked,
“Is it because you dislike the smell of sweat?”
Disliking the smell of sweat—ordinarily that might be true. But between her and Kael, that could never be the case.
Darin was a woman who had personally raised Kael from infancy, attending to every need. Moreover, he took after his mother and gave off a fruit fragrance that did not match his appearance, so there was little reason for aversion. If anything, it leaned toward fondness. And yet…
“It’s not that. You’re trying to press your body against me far too unnecessarily, aren’t you?”
“How can I help it when I like it so much?”
“……”
A faint sweetness rose from her son’s whisper. Darin shook her head. No matter how fine he was, he was ultimately her own flesh and blood. To feel sweetness from that—she was going thoroughly mad following her son.
“I toured the Bayorn territory after a long time, and many new shops have opened. Restaurants, the theater has been renovated, and I hear a botanical garden you like has been established…”
Her son rattled off topics his mother had no interest in. Darin wore a blank expression for a moment, wondering what the boy was talking about, then soon realized his intent.
Her son, having claimed his mother’s body, now intended to claim her heart as well by asking her on a date. All to win her favor.
Leaving aside that their relationship was that of mother and son, it felt strange that the order of courtship was reversed. Normally, among nobles, one began with modest dates, spent a long period of courtship, and only then engaged in sexual relations.
“…Kael, there’s no point in saying such things to your mother.”
But from Darin’s position, she had no desire for that. She no longer wished to develop this relationship further, and if she went out with a son who tried to have sex even inside the mansion, who knew what might happen?
“I’m not finished speaking yet.”
“I can already tell. You’re about to suggest we go on a date alone, aren’t you?”
“That’s right. As expected, you’re quick to notice.”
“…I’m sorry, but Mother has no intention of going out with you.”
“Why?”
“Do you really not know why you’re asking…?”
Darin puffed out both cheeks and glared at her son. Kael looked at his mother and then burst out laughing. How could a woman suffering so much be this cute? She looked just like a vermilion squirrel.
“Why are you laughing!”
The Viscountess shouted and slapped her son’s back. Then, the moment she faced the sweat beads on his rough forehead, she reflexively pulled out a handkerchief.
Wipe, wipe.
It was an abrupt action, but a habit formed because Kael had often gotten heat rash as a child, so she did it without thinking. Even while maintaining an expression full of resentment, Darin slowly wiped her son’s face. This gentle side was one of the things that drove Kael mad.
“With such thoughtfulness, what man could fail to like you?”
The man’s voice, entrusting his face to his mother’s touch, was earnest. Darin’s face crumpled at hearing it.
“Don’t say such nonsense. Your mother would never show this kind of care to a man in the first place.”
“Is it because I’m your son?”
“Yes. From the moment you were born, Mother has regarded you solely as her own flesh and blood. Not for a single moment have I ever seen you as a man.”
“It’s a bit awkward to say this myself, but I’m quite popular at the social gatherings.”
“Who doesn’t know you’re popular? But how could Mother regard you as a man over something as trivial as that?”
“The process of me falling for Mother wasn’t that difficult.”
“You’re the strange one, Kael. How on earth can you look at your own mother with those eyes…”
“Then shouldn’t you be moderately lovable?”
“Is that even something you can say…?”
The woman’s face flushed at the ridiculous joke. She continued explaining gently in various ways to persuade her son, but Kael showed no intention of changing his mind. Darin truly felt as if she would explode inside.
“Wipe it yourself!”
The angry mother threw the handkerchief at her son. Thud—the handkerchief caught in her son’s hand had embroidery stitched by Darin herself. The design showed a woman tightly embracing a small child.
“…This is Mother and me.”
“……”
The man gazed at the embroidery with clear eyes, his blue eyes gleaming. Unlike his mother, who constantly suffered from self-loathing and guilt after being taken by her son, his demeanor was utterly peaceful.
“Don’t you feel anything looking at that?”
This was what Darin meant. Looking at the embroidery of the mother embracing you, don’t you feel even a little guilt? She hoped he would reflect and return to being the good son he once was.
“It reminds me. How precious Mother is to me.”
Unfortunately, Kael’s position was the complete opposite of his mother’s.
“I wish the baby that woman in the embroidery is holding would become my baby.”
He acknowledged that the woman named Darin was his parent, but the proportion of seeing her as a woman was far greater.
“That’s why I’m trying to spoil you, isn’t it? To repay that grace.”
“Wait, what grace…? Mmph!?”
After the woman’s question with a thoughtful expression, a deep kiss immediately followed.
Smack, smack… suck, suck.
Darin knew that once her son set his mind to it, she could no longer escape. All she could do was glance left and right, fretting that one of the servants might see.
Puhah—the intense kiss entered a brief truce with the rough breathing of the girl whose breath had reached its limit.
“Hoo, haa…”
Having steadied her breathing, Darin felt resentment at her reality of being unable even to resist and tried to scold her son. Yet facing those blue eyes blazing with excessive affection, the words she wanted to say vanished. Were those truly the eyes looking at his own mother? Perhaps she had given birth not to a son, but to something that would love only her?
That can’t be.
Her mind was wearing down, so she was having such nauseating ideas. Darin shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts.
Whether his mother was reeling from plummeting emotions in real time or not, Kael only expressed his heart. The kiss just now had also been something he could not hold back out of affection for her.
— I will give you the vast territory Father could not give you.
— If there are jewels you desire, I will cross the sea to find them.
— If you wish to become the true master of the North, I will seat you there.
— I will also let you bear many children. Ones who resemble you, at that…
Absurd proposals. Devoted confessions that any ordinary noble young lady would welcome, but from the position of mother Darin, they were utterly useless.
Above all, she did not even desire selfish gains. Especially the last one was beyond absurd—it was disgusting. He would let her bear many children? Whose children? Her son’s children? Why should she, the mother, have to bear them!?
“You crazy bastard.”
Vulgar language that the refined Viscountess would never utter in ordinary times. And if the target were her son, the probability would approach zero. But it also proved how disgusting Kael’s remarks had been.
If Kael set his mind to it, impregnating her would not be difficult. But that was only biologically possible; it was neither ethically nor morally right.
In short, it was an act deserving of being treated as a beast and receiving divine punishment. Darin never wanted to face such despair, even if it killed her.
When his mother scolded him fiercely, the man raised his eyebrows at a right angle. Kael, taking after his mother, was quick-witted. Or rather, even if he weren’t, anyone would notice. She had spat out curses the moment she heard the last proposal.
“Mother cursing…”
“Th-that’s…”
Darin flinched and covered her mouth. But her fluster lasted only a moment. Who was the one who had made her this way?
“Because you said something disgusting!”
“What do you mean? The child we would have between us?”
“Shut that mouth! I don’t even want to hear it!”
She truly meant it. Just imagining talk of that was horrific and agonizing. Darin covered both ears and stamped her feet. Even now it was this hard; if such a catastrophe arrived, she had no confidence she could endure.
“I do not consider that absurd.”
Kael’s blue eyes turned to his mother’s private place. Then he forcibly spread her pure white thighs and dug into the crack with his hand. Ah—! The woman let out a sharp scream and punched in resistance, but it was useless.
Squelch.
Something sticky was felt at the man’s fingertips. It was not hard to realize it was the semen he had poured out yesterday.
“You kept it in your mouth because it tasted good until now, yet you say bearing my child is disgusting—does that make sense?”
“Ugh, what, what on earth…”
“Mother’s body is this honest, so why do you keep trying to reject it?”
“……Ah.”
At her son’s grotesque action, Darin’s mind went blank. Answering or anything—wasn’t this too much? After spending twenty-three years of harmonious time together, he only looked at her as a woman and tried to molest her.
“Was I never a mother to you…?”
The woman sniffled and barely opened her mouth. I have loved you as a son for decades, yet have you only looked at me as a bitch?
Kael faced his mother without a word. A smile as if drawn on his lips was on that face. In this expression, neither anger nor sorrow could be felt. Only affection for his female overflowing.
Seeing this, Darin realized.
Just as her son saw her as a woman,
for a full twenty-three years, she too had been unrequitedly in love with her son.
This relationship had been crossed from the beginning—a mother-son relationship where something was wrong.
“Hic, sob…”
The moment she realized that despairing fact, Darin sniffled and wiped her tears. And she regretted. She should have just stayed locked in her room today and done nothing; she had gone out for no reason…
Her son looked at such a mother and groped the crotch of his lovely bitch from which his semen was flowing,
and at the same time kissed her while fondling her firm breasts with the other hand.
The girl who felt deep betrayal frantically rapped her son’s head with knuckle-knocks, but…
“Haha…!”
To the man, this was nothing more than a cute girl’s lovable tantrum.