Lackey's Seducing Survival Odyssey

Chapter 1889: Welcome home… Aether

“I left my child alone… I watched him abandon himself. I watched him change for his mother… for the world… but never for himself. I shouldn’t be forgiven, dear…”

As she spoke, she gently wiped the tears from both Adult Aether and Child Aether.

Aether’s throat tightened as his eyes filled with tears. He tried to stop her, his voice trembling.

“Mom, he did it… You never hurt me. You… You didn’t have a choice…”

The woman gently shook her head.

“We are… one. Whatever he did… I own it as well. That is the truth, and I am not saying this simply to make myself feel better or to make myself look innocent. That would be wrong. I…”

Her lips trembled as she struggled to speak.

“I hurt my child… and that is an undeniable truth. I will continue to live with that pain.”

She touched her broken chest, where the cracks continued to spread across her body, filled with despair and sorrow.

Aether looked at her with a confused, pained expression.

Why was she accepting this as her own?

Why was she doing this?

She did not need to suffer.

It was not her fault.

“It’s not you, Mom,” Aether said, trying to soften her pain, but she simply smiled, as though she had already accepted every bit of the suffering inflicted upon her son.

She owned those pains.

“…”

Aether fell silent while Child Aether cried even harder, violently shaking his head as he hugged his mother tighter and tighter.

Aether lowered his head, unable to bear looking into her eyes any longer, but she gently caught his chin and lifted his face toward hers.

“It’s alright… dear. It’s alright…”

She gently patted his cheek, even as the cracks across her face continued to spread.

She then looked toward Child Aether, and more blood-like tears flowed from her eyes.

“It’s all because of me… that you abandoned him. I am sorry, dear… Please… don’t ever forgive this mother.”

She cried as she pulled the child closer and hugged him tightly.

Aether’s eyes trembled.

Then the woman gently looked at him.

“Aether… can you listen to your mommy… one last time?”

Aether’s eyes trembled as he slowly nodded.

“O-Of course… What is it?”

The woman smiled beautifully before softly saying,

“Love yourself.”

“…”

Aether fell completely silent, his lips slightly parted.

He had no words.

Love himself?

The woman gently cupped his cheeks in both hands, her fragile fingers trembling against his skin.

“Don’t change yourself for others… Don’t abandon yourself for others. I wanted to say those words to you… but I failed to say them when you needed them the most.”

Her smile remained gentle, despite the pain reflected in her eyes.

“I don’t know if saying this now can ever change what happened… but I hope, my lovely son… I hope you learn to love yourself and accept who you are, instead of always looking toward others for the love you should have given yourself.”

Those words…

Aether understood what they meant. He had always known that he was supposed to love himself, to accept himself, and to stop measuring his worth through the love of others.

But knowing something and truly accepting it were two different things.

He had understood those words for years.

He had simply never allowed them to reach his heart.

“Will you promise me?”

Until now, Aether had remained silent. He looked at Child Aether, his eyes turning dull for a moment before slowly returning to his mother.

“I… I don’t know. Will I ever be forgiven for what I’ve done?”

The woman gently wiped the tears from his face, her fingers trembling against his skin as she looked at him with nothing but tenderness.

“If you don’t forgive yourself… then who will?”

Those words suddenly shook his heart.

Not only his…

But also No. 25.

Those simple words reached somewhere far deeper than either of them had expected.

Aether blankly stared at his mother. His lips parted slightly, but no words came out.

The woman continued, “And even if you don’t… I know I will.”

Her voice trembled, yet her smile remained gentle.

“Because… I was, and w-w-will always love you, dear.

Nothing you have done can make me stop loving you.

You may hate yourself for what happened, but that does not mean you have to believe you are unworthy of being loved.”

Aether’s eyes trembled.

“And of course, I know my son will keep doing his best. After all, who do you think my son is?”

There was a quiet pride in her voice, the kind only a mother could carry even while looking at a child who had been broken by the world.

It was as though she already knew that no matter how many times life crushed him, he would somehow find a way to stand again.

That was what made him so special to her.

Aether’s eyes trembled as he slowly lowered his head, unable to meet her gaze.

Then she spoke gently.

“I… wish I had more time to love you.”

The cracks across her body spread further and further, crawling across her skin like fractures through a glass vase on the verge of shattering forever.

“M-Mom…”

“It’s alright… Mommy is not going anywhere.”

She gently placed her hand against his chest.

“Mommy will always live here…”

Aether’s body trembled violently as tears poured down his face.

“I… I don’t want you to leave me… Please, Mom… not after all this. I just found you. I can’t lose you again.”

The woman looked at him quietly, her eyes filled with a tenderness that seemed to hold every year they had lost.

“You didn’t lose me, darling. You carried me all this time without even knowing it.”

She gently touched his chest, where the small gap remained from the cosmic-black katana.

The moment her fingers touched it, the wound slowly closed, sealing itself beneath her gentle touch.

“Mommy… always loves you, dear.”

She leaned forward and gently kissed his lips.

It was a gentle kiss, just like the ones she used to give her son when he was a child.

A familiar warmth.

A familiar tenderness.

One last time.

Crack!

“Please don’t be sad… It hurts Mommy.”

A tear slipped from her eye.

And then…

SHATTER!!!

She shattered into countless particles right before his eyes, her body breaking apart into fragments of light before slowly dispersing into the reddish-hued space.

Not only her, but the man as well. His head and body began to disperse alongside hers, breaking apart into countless particles before vanishing completely.

Aether sat there, completely motionless, staring blankly at the place where she had been.

Tears slowly slipped down his cheeks.

“M-Mom?”

His voice was barely above a whisper.

But Child Aether screamed and cried even louder for his mother, his tiny body trembling violently as he reached toward the empty space where she had vanished.

It was a cry filled with the pain of a child who had finally found his mother, only to lose her again before he could hold onto her.

Just like that, she had come into his life, touched the wound he had carried for so long, and healed it with nothing more than her love.

Then she left behind another wound, one that somehow hurt even more because this time, he knew exactly what he had lost.

Aether simply sat there in silence, staring into the empty space with an utterly shattered expression.

For a long moment, he did not move.

He did not speak.

He simply let the tears fall.

But eventually, he released a quiet, trembling sigh.

“She… just left like this…”

He wiped the tears from his eyes with the back of his hand, but another tear immediately replaced the one he had removed.

“Always thinking about me…”

A faint smile appeared on his face.

“Does she even care about herself?”

He lowered his head slightly, remembering her final words.

“‘Don’t be sad’… huh?”

A quiet, almost disbelieving laugh escaped him.

“Even at the very end, you were still worried about me.”

His expression softened as he slowly nodded a few times, as though accepting the final gift she had left behind.

“Love myself?”

He looked toward the place where she had disappeared.

“Then what about you, Mom?”

His voice became quieter.

“If I finally learn to love myself… who is going to love you?”

The question lingered within the reddish-hued space.

Aether stared forward, his eyes still wet but no longer empty.

Suddenly, Aether’s eyes caught sight of the child who was quietly looking at him.

“…”

Aether fell silent as he stared at the child.

“What answer… am I supposed to give you?”

He slowly stood up and looked at the child, his expression filled with exhaustion and regret.

“Other than… I am sorry.”

The child remained silent, his small body barely moving as he continued to look at Aether.

Aether’s eyes grew dull as he lowered his head.

“When I thought she didn’t love me anymore… when I thought nobody would ever love me anymore… I convinced myself that there was nothing left for me to hold on to.”

He paused, his fingers slowly tightening.

“I abandoned you.”

The child’s body trembled.

“I abandoned you as if you meant nothing to me. As if the part of me that needed love could simply be thrown away and forgotten!” Aether shouted, his eyes blurring with tears.

“I kept chasing… a love that could never be found.” His voice weakened as he stared at the place where his birth had once been.

“I chased everything… everyone… except myself,” Aether muttered, lowering his head in disgust.

“I destroyed the one… that Mother loved.”

His voice trembled. The child’s eyes slowly filled with tears, as though he was desperately trying to keep himself from crying.

Aether hesitated before continuing, his voice quieter than before.

“Even after I knew the truth… I avoided it. I kept avoiding facing you, because looking at you meant looking at the part of myself I hated the most. Facing you felt like being forced to see just how disgusting I had become.”

He pointed toward himself, his hand trembling.

“You were the ugly part of me that I hid because I thought nobody would love me if they saw who I really was. I hid you… No, I did something worse. I forgot you.

Then I abandoned you.”

The child trembled.

Aether looked away from him, unable to endure the sight.

“I know better than anyone how it feels to be forgotten by others… and yet, somehow, I did the same thing to myself.

I abandoned the person who had been waiting for me all along.”

He swallowed hard before whispering,

“Do I even have the right to ask you for forgiveness… after I was the one who taught you that you weren’t worth loving?”

“…”

The child slowly closed his eyes.

“I don’t know…” Aether muttered.

He walked toward the child and slowly kneeled before him, lowering himself until they were almost at the same height.

Not as a king.

Not as a man who had conquered countless things.

But simply as a person who had spent years running from the truth inside himself.

“You’re still scared…” Aether whispered as he gently touched the child’s cheek.

The child flinched slightly beneath his touch.

Aether could feel the fear trembling beneath that small body, and for the first time, he understood that this child had been carrying that fear alone for all these years.

He had never been loved by the person who should have loved him most.

He had simply been left behind until even he began believing that he was nothing.

Aether’s eyes trembled as a faint, broken smile appeared through his tears.

“I am sorry… Aether.”

Tears slipped from the child’s closed eyes as he shook his head, refusing to accept those words.

After all this time, those two words were not enough to erase the loneliness he had endured.

“I don’t know who I am anymore… Aether, Ether, Husband, Father, King, Child… or Monster,” Aether muttered, a tear sliding down the corner of his eye as he gently ruffled the child’s hair.

The child’s hand clenched tighter.

Aether parted his lips, his eyes trembling as he looked at the child.

“Maybe… I never truly understood who I was. Maybe I spent so much of my life becoming what everyone else needed that I forgot to ask myself what I wanted to be.”

He smiled faintly through his tears.

“Maybe… we were never meant to understand ourselves”

Aether lowered his gaze. Then Aether looked directly into the child’s eyes and asked with an earnest expression,

“Can you… give this boy one more chance?”

The child’s body trembled violently as he shook his head.

“YOU LEFT ME!!” he shouted at Aether, his voice breaking apart beneath the weight of years of pain.

“You left me alone… in the darkness! I was so scared… I was so scared, and you never came back!”

The child finally broke down, crying with all the fear and loneliness he had kept buried inside him with his childish voice.

Aether’s body trembled as tears flowed freely from his eyes.

Those words pierced deeper than any weapon could have.

For the first time, Aether did not merely remember abandoning the child.

He felt it.

He felt the loneliness of Child Aether, the terror of being left behind, and the unbearable silence of waiting for someone who would never come.

And the person that child had been waiting for…

Had always been him.

Aether nodded as he bit his lips, holding himself together as tears gathered at the corners of his eyes.

The child then opened his dead, ice-blue eyes and glared at him with coldness,

“You threw me away… You threw us away… as if we were never supposed to be there, as if we were never meant to be loved or accepted by anyone. You looked at yourself like you were something disgusting… and because you hated yourself, you made me carry that hatred for you.”

His voice trembled, but his glare never softened.

“You pushed all your pain into me… while you kept the happiness for yourself. You let me suffer for the things you were too afraid to face.

Every time you smiled, I was the one who remembered why you were crying.”

The child clenched his tiny fists.

“You don’t deserve forgiveness… You shouldn’t deserve it after everything you did to me.”

His voice cracked.

“You never would…!”

Suddenly, Aether pulled the child into his arms and hugged him tightly, tears finally streaming down his face.

“I know…”

Those two words hurt Child Aether more deeply than any excuse ever could.

There was no argument.

No justification.

No attempt to defend himself.

Only acceptance.

Tears flowed down the child’s cheeks as he struggled against Aether’s embrace.

“Let me go!”

Child Aether pushed against his chest, but Aether did not move.

“Let me go! You abandoned me before, so why are you holding me now?”

Aether tightened his arms around him.

“Because I won’t abandon you again.”

The child froze for a moment.

Aether lowered his head, pressing his cheek gently against the child’s hair as his tears soaked into it.

“I should have held you when you were afraid. I should have told you that you were worth loving when you thought you were worthless. I should have stayed beside you when you had nobody.”

His voice trembled.

“But I didn’t.”

Aether closed his eyes.

“I cannot change what I did to you… and I will never pretend that an apology can erase it.”

He held the child even tighter.

“I shouldn’t deserve to be forgiven… especially not by you.”

Those words made the child stop struggling.

His small hands remained pressed against Aether’s chest as he mumbled through his pain,

“B… But… you are me. Didn’t Mommy say that if I didn’t forgive you… then who will?”

Aether smiled gently as he kissed the child’s cheek.

“Nobody…”

The child looked at him in confusion.

Aether wiped a tear from the child’s face with his thumb.

“Just be yourself… Isn’t that who you are? Aether? You don’t need to change yourself just to make others love you. You don’t have to become someone else just to be accepted.”

The child’s lips parted slightly.

His eyes trembled as more tears followed down his cheeks.

“I… I can be myself?”

“Yes.”

Aether nodded through his tears.

“You can.”

The child looked down at his own trembling hands.

“But… what if nobody loves me?”

Aether smiled softly.

“I will…”

He paused, his voice almost breaking.

“I will love you.”

“…”

The child stared at him, as though those words were something he had never imagined hearing.

“You will? Why would you do that?”

Aether smiled and gently kissed the child’s forehead.

“If I don’t love you… then who will?”

The child blinked.

A small smile slowly appeared through his tears.

“Even though I never forgive you… you will still love me?”

Aether nodded without hesitation.

“Of course, I will.”

“You don’t have to forgive me for me to love you. My love for you isn’t a reward for forgiveness.

It is something you should have had from the beginning.”

The child stared at him silently.

Aether smiled faintly.

“That is my promise… a promise to myself that this part of me will never be abandoned again.”

The child’s lips trembled as fresh tears spilled from his eyes.

“Then… I won’t be alone again…”

His voice became smaller.

“I won’t be scared anymore…”

His expression slowly changed, and for the first time, the fear in his eyes began to disappear.

The child smiled more brightly than any smile Aether had ever seen from him.

“Because… you are here.”

Aether’s tears fell faster.

“Yes.”

The child wrapped his arms around Aether and held him tightly for the final time.

“I won’t be scared… I am not alone anymore…”

His tiny fingers tightened around Aether’s clothes.

“I am not…”

His voice gradually faded.

The child’s body began to disperse into countless particles of light.

Aether’s eyes widened as he watched the small fragments drift around them like pieces of a forgotten memory finally returning home.

For a brief moment, the child smiled at him.

Then, the particles suddenly shot toward Aether’s chest.

A warmth spread through his body.

Aether slowly placed his hand over his chest as tears continued to fall.

“Welcome home… Aether.”

Finally…

The part of himself he had abandoned was no longer alone.

They became one.