(Chastity Reversed) The Legitimate Wife War: How I, a Harem-Hater, Ended Up Creating an Ultra-Eccentric Harem with a Villainess, a Sadistic Beauty Teacher, a Scheming Classmate... etc.

Mom blamed Dad while half-crying.

“And this brat is so damn noisy!”

Even after I stopped mentioning my older sister, the situation didn’t improve—it might have actually gotten worse.

The kind Dad started drinking alcohol all the time, and I often saw Mom tearfully trying to calm him down.

At such times, I was always made to stay quietly in the closet.

At first I would sob, but I was scolded and hit each time.

So young me would wait silently for the storm called Dad to pass.

“…If there isn’t any, then go work!”

“I am working! You’re the one who used it!”

“Hah? Even if I used it, this should work out, it should have gone well, just a little more and it would have…”

Dad’s voice gradually became mixed with tears.

The image of my parents I remember from elementary school was always the same scene.

There were no smiles, only Mom’s crying voice and Dad’s shouting and lamenting voice.

“Why, why won’t things go well… even when I let that child go…”

“You can’t talk about that!”

Mom’s scream-like voice trying to stop him, followed by a dry slapping sound.

At the same time, Mom’s body staggered.

“Hic.”

The me in the dream involuntarily cried from fear seeing that.

(I shouldn’t cry.)

The current me knew what would happen next.

“Hah?”

Blood-shot male eyes turned toward the closet where I was.

“What a noisy brat.”

“Stop it!”

Mom, who had been collapsed just before, embraced me and fell down.

“Why are you interfering!”

Mom crouched to hold me, and occasional impacts.

Each time, Mom’s pained voice and impacts that couldn’t be completely absorbed assaulted my body.

Such a storm that seemed to last a lifetime gradually passed… and Dad, regaining his sanity, would always say as if repenting.

“I’m sorry… I’m really sorry… I was out of my mind, I want to do something for you two, I want to help you, but only money keeps disappearing… it’s true that I love you, it’s really true!”

“I understand, I understand… you do it because you love us, right?”

Mom gently spoke to Dad, who was crying and collapsing.

“That’s right! I-I love you… I love you but I don’t know what to do, I end up being spoiled and doing things like this…”

“I understand… I understand, it’s okay, it’s love so I know, I know you’re working hard for us.”

The injured Mom embraced the tearful Dad.

There I learned.

[Love comes with pain.]

*****

The relationship continued even when I was about to graduate elementary school.

Father’s face became more sinister, and Mother grew haggard.

I had learned not to show emotions and to read my parents’ moods.

I learned to do it to survive. If I couldn’t, I would die—I really thought so, and I think it was actually true.

Even Mom, who had protected me at first, gradually began taking it out on me.

This started when Dad began staying away from home more often.

Mom started hurling abuse when I made mistakes or failed at something.

[Why can’t you even do something like this?]

[What a bad child you are.]

[Because I protected you, that person went to some other woman…]

Saying that, Mom would sometimes cry hysterically and scold me.

When Mom became like this, I would always say this:

[I’m sorry…]

Starting with my apology, Mom would begin crying again, and this time she’d embrace me.

Sorry, sorry.

You’re not bad.

Now she’d gently rub the places she’d hit.

[I say it because I love you.]

[I scold you because I love you]

[I hit you because I love you]

[I confine you because I love you.]

Mom said that. That she did it because she loved me.

The love I received was pain.

So I was a good child, amiable, reading Mom’s moods.

Expecting the kind of smiles other school children received from their parents, I was a good child. But I never received them at home in the end.

When I was in elementary school, I sometimes consulted people about being hit and yelled at by my parents.

But… I was ignored. No, maybe being ignored would have been better.

Somehow it reached my parents’ ears.

The day it reached their ears, I was hit by both Dad and Mom, locked in a dark place, and not let out for a whole day.

It was dark and scary and narrow and cold… but no matter how much I cried and screamed, they wouldn’t let me out.

Gradually my crying and screaming voice gave out, and I just crouched there.

After that, the two fought again.

I was let out of the dark place after a day had passed.

What I received from relying on people was only pain and betrayal.

[You must never do such things again.]

Dad and Mom told me, and I nodded.

[Yes.]

And the current me was born.

By late elementary school, Dad stopped coming home completely.

Mom at that time would say “he’ll come back someday” with a painful smile that looked ready to cry, like a delirious utterance.

She seemed like she’d break if she didn’t believe that.

Mom started drinking alcohol often after work, and like Dad used to, she’d get irritated at my actions and hit me.

And then cry again and talk about love.

This repeated.

An unchanging daily life.

But daily life I thought wouldn’t change unexpectedly changes at unexpected moments.

One day, there was a phone call from the police.

[…Yes, this is Tachibana.]

Mom was the first to answer the phone.

From the voice leaking from the receiver, it seemed to be the police.

But I couldn’t hear the details.

[Th-that person, what happened to him?!]

It was truly a desperate voice.

A voice showing that the missing Dad had been found.

[…Eh?]

He was found.

In the worst possible way for Mom.

[He… died?]

Mom’s dazed state.

Her eyes became vacant, with a voice that seemed unable to believe it.

From the dropped receiver, a police officer’s voice could be heard.

The call was asking for identification.

The two of us went to the police station’s morgue. Inside were two corpses.

They pulled back the cloth from one of them.

There was unmistakably Dad’s form.

[Is this the person in question?]

The police officer’s voice no longer entered Mom’s ears.

Mom’s figure with eyes wide round and hands trembling.

At that moment, I witnessed it.

The moment a person’s heart breaks.

[NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!?????]

Mom’s figure tearing at her hair and holding her head with a heart-wrenching scream.

At this moment, surely my mother, Tachibana Karen’s heart broke.

“Hah?!”

I woke up to my smartphone’s ringtone.

I’d been made to have a really unpleasant dream.

“Why do I have to be tired in reality and also get tired in my dreams… ah, I woke up from a notification.”

There were two messages and one missed call.

They were from Setsuna and Mom.

It was troublesome to look at them right after waking up, but one was from Mom, and since I’d noticed, I had to look.

I’d start with the less burdensome one from Setsuna.

The content was trivial talk about looking forward to next week’s pool classes.

“Is it really that fun? People don’t float in water though.”

I just sent back a stamp and finished dealing with Setsuna.

Then I moved to the main issue of the other message.

The content of Mom’s message was simple.

[The progress with Takeda-san seems different from what I heard. …Did you lie? Either way, we need to discuss this once. Come home tomorrow.]

I don’t want to go.

But I know not going would cause even more trouble, so I have to go.

“Hah.”

The sighs wouldn’t stop.

I’d long since abandoned the faint hope that someone would help me.

Tomorrow again, I’ll probably wait for Mom’s excessive love to pass.

If such pain was love’s conclusion, I really didn’t need love after all.

Because the love I received was only pain.

It had been until now and probably will be from now on.

I’m sure the conclusion for Takeda-san, Hosho-san, and Sensei will be the same. Happiness is only at the beginning. Eventually it breaks and turns to pain.

…That’s why I hate love.