I Became the Male Lead's wicked Step-brother

Chapter 25

The embers of anger that had not yet been extinguished were burning hot around my mother as she approached. She gritted her teeth and answered in a low voice.

"Your father has done this more than once or twice. He's been like this since before he even got married."

This kind of situation seemed so familiar that it was scary. But I saw the shattered pieces of pride in her eyes. It was already abnormal to try to accept this situation so casually. The wounds received from people never become dull. We only think that they become dull. My voice trembled at my mother's overly calm appearance.

"... Still."

"You can't fix your father's behavior. But at least you should respect me, right?"

For a moment, my mother's breathing stopped. She took another deep breath and said.

"... I can't tolerate bringing what happened outside into the house."

At the same time, her sharp gaze coldly swept over Do-yoon standing in the distance. Only then did I turn around to look at Do-yoon, like a broken robot, following my mother. Do-yoon, standing awkwardly behind the wall, had a pale, pale complexion. My mother's silent gaze was mercilessly whipping him like a whip. I squeezed my eyes shut and opened them.

"Go in and rest. I'll clean up here."

Then my mother suddenly grabbed my hand tightly. As she looked up at me, blood was seeping from her lower lip.

"Seunghyun, Mom has no one but you. You know that, right?"

I froze for a moment at those words. If she had been in her normal state, I would have slapped her hand away. But now that I saw this sight, I couldn't do that. My mother's face, looking at me, looked terribly lonely. I looked away.

"... My sister would be upset if she heard that."

"Seunghee, you can't! Does Grandpa think about Seunghee even a little bit? If you do well, your sister will do well too."

Her eyes sparkled. In her sparkling eyes, the pain and anger she had endured for a long time were mixed and melted into a sticky substance. Only then did I feel a little scared. What I had just seen was only a small part of the pain she had felt throughout her life.

I couldn't even imagine what she was thinking and how she had endured it, with her husband having affairs as easily as eating before marriage and her father-in-law who only wanted grandchildren. So even if I knew her secret, I couldn't say to her, "You were both wrong." My eyes were dizzy.

This wasn't in the original.

In <Romantic Cinderella>, where Bae Ji-an is the main character, Shin Mi-seon is just a one-dimensional mother-in-law character who is mean and inhumane. For a moment, I felt like Park Seung-hyun's self as a reader and Choi Seung-hyun's self as a son of this family were mixed together. I shook off the dizziness and barely answered.

"... Take a rest. I'll take you to your room."

I helped my mother into the room, laid her down, brought her ice water, and made sure she drank it all. When I went out with the empty cup again, there was no one on the first floor except for the servants moving around busily.

Suddenly, I stared at the wall of the living room where Do-yoon had been hiding. My heart felt heavy as if a stone had been placed on my chest.

I went back up to the second floor and loitered around in front of Do-yoon's room for a while. I couldn't decide whether I should go in now or not. Maybe he was a proud kid, so it might be right to just leave him alone. However, when our eyes met briefly earlier, Do-yoon's expression was unforgettable. It was clearly a face of fear.