(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. - Chapter 144.1 - The Kind Mother and the Tachibana Couple's Past

“I… won’t go.”

Mizuri-san looked Karen-san straight in the eyes and declared this clearly.

“…Huh?”

Karen-san stood there dumbfounded, unable to believe the words from Tachibana-san who had never asserted herself before.

That’s how shocking it must have been.

Even so, Tachibana-san’s words didn’t stop.

“I hate… pain. So I don’t want to be locked up anymore.”

She didn’t have her usual crisp manner, and her words were halting. Frankly speaking, she was weak… but she had shown her will.

She was surely spinning her emotions toward her mother.

“Eh… huh? …Wh-what are you saying? M-Mizuri?”

For perhaps the first time, her mother was so surprised by her daughter’s expression of will that her words weren’t forming properly.

She even looked at Mizuri-san with an expression as if seeing a stranger.

“I… I don’t want to go home.”

“…?”

“My… current home is… that house where I live with Takeda-kun and the others. That became my home, not that house where I lived with Father and Mother, not that house with the small closet where I was locked up…”

“Home is different? …Living with… other people?”

“Yeah. Living in my current home… becoming Kyou-kun’s fiancée, I learned something. Father said, no, Mother also said [Pain is love]… but I learned there’s a different kind of love too.”

“…”

“…I know… it might be selfish, but… I-I don’t want to go back to a place where I’ll be hurt anymore. Of course I know I do things wrong sometimes, but if you tell me with words, I’ll understand. To tell the truth, being disciplined and hurt so many times, I almost came to hate Mother like I hated Father. …I was afraid of Father. He hurt me and betrayed Mother.”

“Mizuri…?”

“…I don’t want to hate Mother like I hated Father, so please. Go back to being the kind mother you used to be… the Mother from when I was little wasn’t like this!”

I could feel Mizuri-san’s compassion in every part of her words.

Even though her mother had done so many awful things to her, even though she’d been abused, she still continued speaking on the premise of maintaining their relationship.

She was putting out emotions, trying to have a discussion, wanting her mother to do this so they could continue their relationship.

While trembling, yet with a smile on her face.

“Mother… I—”

But her mother wasn’t looking at Mizuri-san’s face, keeping her head down.

She just kept looking down silently.

What was she thinking right now?

Was she regretting making her endure this much? Or was it joy that her daughter had expressed emotions?

I didn’t know, but since she had finally expressed her will, whatever it was, I wanted it to be something positive for their future relationship.

But my wish… wouldn’t reach.

“…Hirotaka-san.”

Karen-san muttered quietly.

The words that came out weren’t about Mizuri-san, but her father’s name.

“M-Mizuri, you asked me for work to make your father, to make Hirotaka-san able to come back home, right? I understand you don’t want to come home now, but… what are you going to do about that… y-you’re not saying you’ll stop, are you?”

She sounded anxious, her voice trembling as those words came out.

Why? Why not your daughter but your father? Why are you fixated on someone who’s already gone instead of noticing the cries of the daughter right in front of you?

With a slightly sad smile, Tachibana-san continued speaking.

“…Like I said before… I won’t cooperate. I don’t want to.”

“Won’t… cooperate? Don’t want to… why? We can finally, we can become a family again, all together, you know?”

Karen-san raised her face and looked at her daughter with eyes that saw something unbelievable.

“I… don’t want Father to come back… at all.”

“Wha…”

Karen-san looked stunned.

“I only cooperated until now to avoid being scolded by Mother. Because I thought Mother might return to how she was if Father came back. But thinking normally, that’s not going to happen, because I clearly saw that Father wasn’t moving that day.”

“That can’t be—”

“—I would have been fine with just Mother and me as we are, actually I would have preferred that. Even when Father was around, I felt safer during the times alone with just Mother. I… want Mother to return to the person who protected me more than I want Father to come home! The Mother with that kind smile who protected me with her own body from Father’s violence!”

“…Mizuri.”

“The truth is, I was scared of Father. I hated Father who would hit me and then cry afterward saying [I hit you because I love you]. I didn’t understand when he said [We have to share pain, that’s what family means], I hated being locked in the closet just for making a mistake on a test when he said [You have to be perfect].”

Share pain?

What pain was Tachibana-san’s father trying to share?

Or was it just an excuse…? Just justifying the DV?

“Mother changed after Father died. …Hey, why?”

“Mizuri.”

“Why did you change after Father died? Hey, why, why?!”

While speaking, her emotions must have become incomprehensible to herself.

Mizuri-san’s breathing became ragged as she closed the distance with her mother.

“Why, why did you want Father to come back? He only used violence at home, he left with another woman, and yet why. Why? Why do you still care about Father?!”

“…That’s because your father had his circumstances.”

“What circumstances, no, I don’t care about that! No matter what circumstances there were, I… my feelings are… I don’t want Father to come back! It’s better without Father! He’s already dead! He’s in the past!!”

Mizuri-san’s emotional outburst.

Conversely, seeing this, Karen-san had become calm. She had been agitated until just now, but now she was eerily quiet.

No sign of confusion at all.

“Mizuri.”

“Wh-what?”

I had a bad feeling.

“…Come here. I’m going to punish you.”

She grabbed Tachibana-san’s arm and pulled.

“I-it hurts…”

Karen-san’s eyes as she gripped Mizuri-san were endlessly murky.

Until just now when she was listening to the conversation, she still had the rationality to hold a discussion.

“Karen-san, let go!”

I rushed to intervene, but Karen-san’s strength was stronger than I expected and her hand wouldn’t let go.

“You don’t want Father to come back? Better without him? …You hate him? Oh really? Mizuri, you say such things, even though you know nothing of your father’s hardships!”

Karen-san’s eyes showed no sign that I was in her field of vision.

“Y-yeah, that’s right, just the two of us as family is enough, right?”

“Of course it’s not enough!!”

She was enraged.

Karen-san hadn’t been silent, she was just angry—you could even say furious.

Something in Mizuri-san’s statement had stepped on a landmine.

Karen-san’s breathing grew rough, her pupils dilated.

“The whole family has to be together!! …You children don’t understand how much your father, how much Hirotaka-san was suffering!”

Suffering? From what?

And the whole family has to be together…?

Or was there… something?

“Don’t ever say again that it’s fine if Father doesn’t come back! Father will come back! If you don’t understand, I’ll make you understand!!”

Saying this, Karen-san raised her hand opposite from the one holding Tachibana-san.

This woman!!

Just from that motion, I understood what she was trying to do. So my actions from there were almost reflexive.

I rushed to intervene.

Immediately, a dry SMACK echoed around us.

“…Kyou-kun?”

Mizuri-san, now protected by me, looked at me with a surprised face.

I’d been slapped across the cheek.

…That hurt.

This was the pain Mizuri-san usually felt, huh.

No, it was different… it must have hurt more than this. Violence received from your real parent must hurt the heart even more than the body.

“Why are you interfering? I need to discipline, to teach this child.”

Karen-san seemed to remember my existence then, looking at me with irritation for getting in the way.

“Karen-san… didn’t you just say that? Your daughter, Mizuri-san said [I hate pain], that you’d listen, so what are you doing?”

“…?! If she doesn’t know pain, can’t share it, she’s not family, right? I said that, didn’t I?”

My teeth ground together. Was she prioritizing her own ideas over her daughter’s feelings?

“That can’t be right! Sure, in the sense of sharing emotions, family are the closest people to be there for you, right? I understand that. You scold because you love them? Yes, I get that too. But then you should say it with words, wasn’t it about your father’s pain? I don’t know what pain, but then you should support him with that. …Such a broken form of love can’t make anyone happy.”

“…Ha, a high school student talks like he understands everything.”

Karen-san mocked me with heavy sarcasm.

“I think it’s simple enough that even a high school student can understand. …Surely there’s some background I don’t know about that led to this, no, I’d be troubled if there wasn’t. …But no matter what circumstances there are, I understand they don’t justify abusing Mizuri-san.”