The Sleepwalker’s Mansion Chapter 48

“Doeon?”

“Hng… Dad….”

At that moment, Doeon’s knees buckled forward, and his blacked-out vision plummeted endlessly downward before collapsing to the floor. Thud, as his body hit the floor, his consciousness cut off as well.

“Mom, why doesn’t Dad come to see us?”

Doeon had always wondered. Why his father didn’t come to see them. Whether he wasn’t curious about how they were living. Why he didn’t visit even once when Mom was sick. Why there wasn’t even any contact.

Whether he… didn’t even want to see me.

When he asked this question, unlike usual, Mom would stiffen her lips and make a quite troubled expression. Doeon would always brush Mom’s disheveled hair, which she wore under a knit cap, along its strands with a flat back brush, looking at Mom’s face reflected in the vanity mirror. Her eyes, lost in thought, would briefly look downward before gazing at Doeon standing behind her. Her eyelids, heavy with illness, slowly closed and then opened.

“We both did a big wrong thing.”

That day, her answer was different. When Doeon asked why Dad didn’t look for them, she had only said that he had cut ties because he was afraid the Seo family would find out that Doeon had manifested as a recessive omega. That his family wouldn’t leave a biological son who had manifested as a recessive omega alone.

“…A wrong?”

But at the changed answer, Doeon was puzzled. A wrong? What wrong? If it was a wrong, wasn’t it that the two of them had met too young and divorced? If they had met as adults, they might have formed a complete family with mature encounters and adult judgments, but because they met in impulsive youth, it creaked imperfectly and ended up breaking.

“Yes. We should never meet again.”

She murmured suddenly. Was it because they had fought so much that she was exhausted? So she didn’t want to see him ever again? At the tone that seemed to firmly resolve it, Doeon vaguely thought she was recalling the arduous divorce process that had resulted in them splitting custody with his younger sibling. She, who had been quietly lost in thought, grabbed Doeon’s hand that had been brushing her hair.

“You must be tired.”

“I’ll help you lie down.”

Doeon supported her and led her to the bed. He lifted the warm wool blanket that still faintly held the scent of dried roses and carefully laid her down. Mom buried her thin body in the wool blanket like a silkworm in a cocoon.

“Doeon.”

“Yes?”

“Do you miss Dad?”

Doeon blinked his thick eyelashes. It was because it was the first time Mom had asked like that. Doeon lowered his brown pupils and pondered deeply. Rather than missing Dad, he was curious about the existence of Dad. Since he had never seen Dad even once, Dad had always remained as an unknown longing in a corner of his heart.

“Rather than missing, I’m curious. About what kind of person he is.”

Mom stared at Doeon for a while before burying her head in the pillow. Her dry face was half-covered by the white pillow fluff. Unable to see Mom’s expression, Doeon could only wait for her next words.

“Sometimes, not knowing is medicine.”

Leaving only that ambiguous remark, Mom gently closed her eyes. As the languid afternoon sunlight filtering through the terrace cast on her side profile, she slightly furrowed her face.

Doeon drew the blackout curtains so she could sleep comfortably. In the darkness, only the sound of her even breathing came colorfully. Doeon couldn’t easily leave his spot. He wanted to ask Mom. What is it that I don’t know.

“…Shock.”

“…Is it?”

Mumbling voices gathered and scattered at his ears. What are they saying? He couldn’t hear a thing. They seemed like words about him, but the buzzing voices came faintly as if submerged deep in water.

By the way, where… is this.

Under his closed eyelids, his eyeballs moved this way and that. Blink, blink. A faint beam of light seeped through his narrowly opened eyes. Soon, like diving deep and then surging to the surface, the mumbling voices suddenly became clearly audible all at once.

“It’s also called pheromone shock. When exposed to an alpha’s pheromones for a long period and then the pheromones are cut off, symptoms appear in the mind and body like withdrawal. Your son also briefly experienced withdrawal symptoms from pheromone shock.”

“Do betas also get affected by alpha pheromones?”

“Um… Upon examination, your son is an omega. And close to the recessive side. If he rests well and you supply good nutrition, he will recover without issue.”

“Young Master Doeon… was a recessive omega?”

A startled voice pierced sharply into his ears. He could instinctively feel that everything was over. It was fortunate that he had learned the cause of his collapse, but he hadn’t expected that it would lead to his recessive omega nature being discovered. He hadn’t known it would be exposed without any chance to do anything.

Doeon painfully opened his eyes that he didn’t want to open. The familiar ceiling was clearly his room. When he lowered his gaze, an IV pole with fluid stood there, and beside it, the doctor who had come for a house call, his father, and Yubin were lined up looking down at him like paramedics trying to handle a severe car accident patient. Yubin noticed first that he had opened his eyes and hurriedly spoke to him.

“Young Master Doeon, are you conscious?”

His head was still blank. When he pressed his left palm against the mattress to get up, his wrist stung sharply. The IV needle stuck in it was connected by a long tube to the pole. Yubin stopped him from trying to raise his upper body.

“Lie down, Young Master Doeon.”

“I, I’m fine….”

He had to get up. He absolutely had to. Since he had met those obsidian-like pupils staring at him fixedly, it was only right to get up and confess his sin. He raised his upper body and leaned his back against the bed headboard.

Haa, just raising his body like this exhausted him completely. A cold gaze stabbed into his face. Now that his lie had been exposed, he couldn’t brazenly lift his head. Doeon hung his head down guiltily.

“Everyone, get out.”

At the stern voice, Yubin and the doctor left without objection, leaving the two alone, and exited the room. Click, the door closed, and the room filled with suffocating silence.

“Lift your head. Seo Doeon.”

Startled by the chilling command, he raised his head. His father, with his brow hardened, was staring at him with eyes sharp as if frost was falling in the darkness. Was the destination of lies his father’s judgment? Doeon swallowed dryly, holding even his breath.

“How long did you plan to hide it.”

His throat tightened so much under the oppressive low tone that he couldn’t even breathe. His emotionless gaze felt like a rope binding his limbs and dropping him into the abyss.

“I, I….”

The suffocating air blocked his words as well. His pale pupils, shaking mercilessly, dropped their focus downward to avoid the gaze that dissected him like contempt. In his blurred vision, the straight fingertips tapping, tap, on the watch on his left wrist flickered.

“I’ll give you 10 minutes from now. If you have excuses, make them now.”

The dry voice chillingly pierced his ears. Even when his relationship with Doha had been discovered, his father had used the same tone. An unfathomable deep abyss. It felt like he was trapped inside it. He anxiously chewed the inside of his mouth until it bled. It felt like his neck would be severed the moment the 10 minutes his father had set expired. His cheeks, on the verge of tears, trembled mercilessly.

“I, I did wrong….”

Grabbing the edge of the blanket with his hand, he could barely manage to say he had done wrong. Since right after manifestation, he had lived as a beta following Mom’s words, so acting as a beta was natural, and a recessive omega had to be hidden anyway. He was like Mom’s reverse scale. He had lived as a beta following Mom’s words, and he had to live as a beta to protect what Mom had left behind.

If he said the decisive reason he had to hide his original traits was his father, you, what expression would he make.

Would he get angry? Or, if by any chance, would he say he was sorry.

The latter was no different from a vain hope. The cold atmosphere made Doeon’s mouth freeze even more.

“You did wrong? Is that all you have to say? Seo Doeon. I gave you 10 minutes.”

“D-Dad….”

He wanted to kneel if told to kneel. If that could calm his father’s anger, if it could protect the mansion, he wanted to bang his head on the floor and beg for forgiveness. But his mouth was as if sewn with a needle, and his body was as if turned to stone, unable to twitch. Like a wild animal caught in his father’s glare. He felt hunted by his gaze.

“You have to deceive to a certain extent. How much did you laugh at me for falling for your act? You detestable thing.”

“N-No, Dad…!”

Like a fish hooked on a fishing line, his waist sprang up, and he waved his hands in denial. Even the breath pulled from his lips trembled. Laugh? He had never once laughed at his father. On the contrary, he wanted to be acknowledged by him as a proper eldest son. Beyond the goal of inheriting the mansion, he just wanted to be a son he could be proud of. That wish had broken powerlessly like waves pushed to the shore.

Taeoh, who had been looking at Doeon chewing his lips with disdain, lifted his left wrist to check his watch. Having confirmed the time, he opened his mouth impassively.

“10 minutes are up.”

“Dad….”

Taking out his cell phone from the inner pocket of his jacket, Taeoh contacted someone and said shortly in a curt manner, ‘Come up.’ He could infer who the other party was. It was probably Jeong Taeseok. When Jeong Taeseok came, he would probably be dragged out like Doha. Dragged out of the room and expelled from the mansion.

No.

With a body like sunk in mud, he crawled awkwardly and rolled off the bed to the floor. Creak, the pole shook and nearly toppled far away, and the needle stuck straight into his wrist vein twisted along with it.

In an instant, red blood refluxed along the IV tube. Doeon furrowed his brows and gritted his teeth to yank out the needle and the attached gauze. Blood splattered to his eyelashes, but without caring, he crawled on his forearms and finally grabbed his father’s ankle.

“D-Dad, forgive me, I did wrong…. It wasn’t that I intentionally meant to lie…. M-Mom said it was better to live as a beta than to live discriminated against as a recessive omega, so we falsified the documents and lived like that until now. I knew it was wrong, but it was too late to change, and I had to protect the mansion…. I, I did wrong, I, I did it all wrong…!”

Hanging onto his feet and crying, he felt trampled under the gaze that looked down at him as if he were a mere insignificant creature. The brow he had barely maintained composure on slowly narrowed.

“Stop.”

As if his patience had reached its limit, his father stiffened his lips rigidly and looked down at him with contempt. The smoothly woven fabric he gripped tightly with his hand grew damp in his grasp.

Doeon lifted his head like a sunflower facing the sun and captured the aloof father in his trembling pupils. The single wrinkle on his otherwise flawless features was surely because of him.

“You called for me?”

Click, the door opened, and Jeong Taeseok entered briskly. Seeing Doeon clinging to Taeoh’s feet, he seemed to grasp the situation and relaxed his properly clasped hands into a formal posture.

“Get him up.”

At his father’s glance, Jeong Taeseok quickly approached Doeon and reached out a hand to his shoulder. The moment the hard hand touched his shoulder, Doeon shook his body as if writhing.

“No, I don’t want to, Dad…! P-Please, forgive me…!”

“It’s all something you brought on yourself.”

“D-Dad, p-please…!”

Like a child who lost their parents’ hand at an amusement park, he desperately reached out toward his father, but his father only looked down at him indifferently without a shred of mercy.

“Stay quiet as a dead mouse until I find a suitable match for you. Though as a recessive omega, there won’t be anything but a concubine’s position.”

“D-Dad…! Ack…!”

Jeong Taeseok, who had grabbed Doeon’s nape to prevent further resistance and hauled him up, twisted his arms behind his back and bound them. As the hard upper arm pressed against his back, he could no longer dare to resist and burst into the sobs he had held back.

“Hng, D-Dad….”

“Guard the front of the door so he can’t have any foolish thoughts.”

“Yes. President.”

Through his streaming tears, the callous back of Taeoh brushing off his pant legs as if dirtied and stepping out the door imprinted in his mind. It’s over. Doeon’s breath choked with despair.

Until the languid afternoon sunlight changed to the burning evening glow, and the gradually encroaching darkness pushed out the orange sunset, Doeon sat curled in the corner of the room with his face buried in his knees.