“My father was a considerate and affectionate person. He never yelled or got angry at me.”
Even now, when I think of my father, I remember him initiating the jokes first.
‘Gyo Hwan, let’s play with dad.’
“But I never played with my father.”
‘Dad, I have to study now.’
“I liked getting recognition from my grandfather by studying more than playing with my dad.”
My grandfather was very cold and strict to his son, my father, but was more affectionate and kind to his only grandson than anyone else.
“My father was a completely different person from me.”
He was naturally intelligent and could pass the judicial examination without much effort, but he was a freespirited person who disliked being tied down by an organization and had no interest in office politics.
“Originally, my father’s dream was to become a film director.”
However, due to my grandfather’s opposition, he couldn’t follow the path he wanted and had to settle for watching movies made by others.
“Since I was a child, I could not understand why my father would not accept the path given to him, causing anxiety to his family, while hearing my grandfather scold my father.”
My grandfather declared that he would raise Kang Jae Ik, my father’s best friend and a lawyer, as his adoptive son and successor, but this did not stimulate my father’s competitive spirit either.
“I wanted to be a strong father. I didn’t want to become an incompetent head of the family who made his loving wife and children anxious, even though he was a good person to everyone.”
Fortunately, my grandfather loved Gyo Hwan, his biological grandson, so much that it hurt his eyes, and he openly said that having you was the biggest filial piety your father did for his grandfather.
After my father and grandfather passed away early due to an accident, that thought became even stronger.
Despite being born as the successor to a prestigious legal family, he harbored resentment against his father who ultimately failed to protect his grandfather’s business.
“When I got married, I thought I would be a really good father. I thought if I did well, no more unfortunate things would happen to my family.”
But I never thought that Yul’s mom would leave us first due to an accident.
“Yul’s mom died giving birth to Yul.”
“Ah……”
Hyo Jin, who had been curious about how Seung Yul’s mom had passed away, felt like her feelings that had been piled up like a stone were collapsing.
I thought I lived a life without any shortage from a young age. But there was such pain. It felt so heavy that it seemed to press down on me.
“At the hospital, they said it didn’t matter if the child was wrong, just save the mother. Rather, the child was born, and my wife died.”
What kind of cruel twist of fate was this?
The funeral hall was filled with the scent of chrysanthemums, my wife’s favorite flower.
My mother and grandmother, dressed in black, wept sadly as they greeted the mourners, but he, the chief mourner, didn’t even shed a tear.
At the ceremony before the funeral, Gyo Hwan, saying his last goodbyes to his wife, touched her hand for the last time, surrounded by white chrysanthemum flowers while kneeling.
Her hand, melted in the fire to protect the child in her belly, was wrinkled like a grandmother’s.
The hand that I couldn’t hold during her painful and torturous final moments in the operating room. Compared to my wife’s hand, which walked that lonely road alone, my unscathed hand was immensely shameful.
“Farewell, Se In.”
Gyo Hwan made a promise while holding his wife’s wrinkled hand.
“When our child grows up a lot, I will surely tell him.”
That his mother sacrificed her life to protect him.
The sunlight coming in through the stained glass window brightly illuminated Gyo Hwan, but he felt no warmth.
“Yul left for Singapore after turning two.”
“……”
“Now he’s at an age where he can understand what people are saying pretty well, but I didn’t want him to feel guilty hearing that something went wrong with his mother because of him.”
On the other hand, while living in the house where my wife’s room was, I didn’t have the confidence to lie looking into my child’s eyes.
“So, I sent Yul away.”
With a laugh mixed with selfdeprecation, Gyo Hwan swept his hair covering his forehead back.
“Then he got expelled from Singapore, so I brought him to Korea to live together.”
“……”
“I thought that once I inherited the company and stabilized my footing, I could devote my attention to my child, but my child wouldn’t wait.”
Only when facing his child, who had suddenly grown up to be nine years old, did he realize.
That he had been missing the truly important things due to the sorrow of losing his wife…!
“If I hadn’t met you, I would still be unaware.”
How much I had been living forgetting something so important.
“After you left, there was a time when Yul peed and slept in my room. It was his first time at the age of nine.”
The child, unaccustomed to sleeping with his dad, fell asleep from a distance.
Worried that the child might fall off the bed, he only brought him over and laid him down next to him when he was asleep. He buried his nose in the child’s head and stomach and took a whiff of the child’s scent.
Even though he thought the child had grown up, there was still a baby smell from the child’s body.
“……It was warm and comforting.”
It was the first time he had slept so deeply since his wife passed away. Even though he only slept for three hours before dawn, because he had to go out for a breakfast meeting.
“But when I woke up and looked down at the sleeping child’s face, I suddenly thought.”
“……?”
“Does our Yul know the smell of his mom and dad? He lost his mother right after he was born, and he separated from his dad when he turned two.”
“……!”
“While children of his age are falling asleep smelling their mom and dad, how many nights must our Yul have fallen asleep alone and lonely?”
Thinking about this, Gyo Hwan’s heart ached so much that he couldn’t speak for a while, his mouth tightly shut.
Hyo Jin also couldn’t face his face anymore, feeling the pain he was experiencing so vividly.
If my heart hurts this much, how much must he, the parent, have been hurting?
His heart must have felt as if it was being torn and ripped apart.
“……So, that’s why you asked me to come back.”
For Seung Yul.
That was the only thing she could say.
While regretting the resentment she had blindly had towards him.
“Just as Ms. Bong said, I am indeed a zeropoint father.”
“……”
“While blaming myself for leaving my wife alone and lonely, I’m also making the precious child by my side feel lonely without realizing it.”
As she said, it wasn’t Seung Yul who needed a teacher, it was him.
“I want to be a good father. Even if I can’t be a perfect father like Ms. Bong’s father.”
Later on, when our Yul grows up, he can cherish the memory that his father loved him this much.
“Would you give me one chance to be a good father?”
lu lu lo la ▪️ net (lululola.net)
The Villainous Demon Lord Laid an Egg for Her (Female-Dominated)
Several months after transmigrating into a book, Yu Wu found herself facing the demon lord Li You, who could no longer conceal his dragon horns. With one hand on her aching waist and the other gripping a sharp sword, she stared at him.
The demon lord’s eyes were red with fury:
“This is all your doing! Today, I won’t rest until I kill you!”
Yu Wu rubbed her temples. Putting aside the taboo against bloodshed during pregnancy, wasn’t it this very man who willingly walked into her trap that day?!
Warnings:
- Male pregnancy.
- Height ratios are set to mirror typical male-female height proportions.
- Characters include a foot-loving demon lord and an eldest daughter from an immortal family’s concubine lineage.
