Chapter 27 - Umiko

I watch my parents drive away, and the gravity of what I had just agreed to hits me. My mother wants me to have a child with Fenriz before she dies, and I fully agreed to it without even thinking it over.

What in the world made me say yes? What made me want to make my mother happy even though she never cared about my happiness? Not only that, but I agreed to it without Fenriz even saying it's okay!

“Umiko,” his voice cuts through my panicked thoughts, and my head snaps towards him. He walks over to me with his hands in the pockets of his slacks and smiles slightly. “Are you okay?”

I don’t know why it happened, but as soon as he asked me this, it was as if a floodgate opened, and I just broke down in tears. He wraps his arms around me in a warm embrace and simply holds me close while I let out whatever is pent up inside of me.

Hurt, anger, disappointment, and sadness - everything that little girl felt while trapped in her childhood home without any help from her siblings or mother. I j