Chapter 1927: Never Let Him Love You... He’s Not Just a Yandere. He’s Worse~

"Control yourself, Little brother!" Grace said with a serious tone, trying to control her little brother’s insane thoughts.

And yet,

"You don’t understand, Elder sister..." he whispered.

His eyes softened as he looked at his mother.

"Hehe... She loved me all this time... I KNEW IT!!" he shouted happily.

After everything he had been through... after all those years of pain, he finally felt an immense happiness... as if even if the entire world fell upon his shoulders, he knew... he fucking knew he could still stand.

He could stand proudly... and shout to the world that his mother loved him!!

"You didn’t know how much I wanted this... how much we needed it, Elder sister..." he muttered in a darkened tone.

The truth was... even the child Aether had always been obsessive in his own way.

Otherwise, would anyone truly believe that a child would be willing to abandon himself so completely for someone he loved, without expecting anything in return?

He had spent years believing that his existence had brought nothing but suffering.

Now he had finally discovered the truth.

His mother loved him.

And that single truth had become the foundation of his entire world.

"Hehe... I know... she needs me... and I need her!" Lackey’s expression slowly twisted into something far more obsessive, as though a part of the child he once was had finally awakened within him.

"Hehe..."

His shoulders trembled as another quiet laugh escaped him.

"I know now."

His eyes were filled with tears, yet his smile had become almost blissful.

"I know what I have to do."

He gently rested his forehead against hers.

"I won’t let anyone take you from me again."

His voice dropped to a soft whisper.

"Not fate."

"Not death."

"Not the world."

"Not even you."

He closed his eyes.

"So don’t worry anymore, Mommy."

His smile slowly twisted into something disturbingly affectionate.

"Your son will come and find you."

His hand gently caressed her cheek.

"And when I do..."

His eyes opened; darkness and whitness swirled like an endless abyss in his eyes.

"No one will ever separate us again."

He let out a quiet, almost childish giggle.

"I’ll find you."

"I’ll bring you somewhere safe."

"I’ll lock every door."

"I’ll remove every path that could lead you away from me."

His smile became wickedly tender.

"And I’ll keep you there."

He hugged her tightly.

"Forever."

Lackey’s eyes shimmered with madness.

"You don’t have to be afraid anymore, Mommy."

His voice became almost soothing.

"Because I’ll make sure you can never leave me again."

He whispered the final words against her ear with a smile that was almost lovingly twisted.

"Don’t worry, Mommy... I’ll find you... and I’ll lock you up safely~"

It wasn’t as though Lackey had suddenly become this way.

He had always been like this.

Twisted!

Obsessive!!

Crazy in a way that remained buried beneath layers of restraint.

Most of his wives already knew.

They loved him, but they also understood the terrifying truth about the man they had chosen to love. If something ever happened to them, Lackey would not simply grieve like an ordinary man.

He would not cry, mourn their deaths, and eventually accept that they were gone.

He would break.

Not the kind of brokenness that allowed someone to heal with time, but the kind that tore apart every boundary between love, grief, and possession until nothing remained except the desperate need to keep what he loved.

A Dead Crazy!!

Selene had seen his yandere side several times.

Sandra had witnessed the remnants of that madness when she saw the visions of him killing himself for her.

Nyx had witnessed enough of his nature to understand exactly what kind of monster lived beneath his calm exterior.

They fucking knew!!

They knew this man was constantly keeping himself in check.

Because if he ever stopped controlling himself completely, they might be the ones locked away by him for eternity.

And Dora understood it perhaps better than anyone.

She was a fox.

She could sense the heart her Man tried to hide, and Lackey’s heart had never been something she could mistake for ordinary affection.

She could feel the weight behind his smiles, the possessiveness hidden beneath his casual touches, and the dangerous depth behind the way he looked at the women he loved.

That was why she had always approached him carefully.

She reached toward him, but never recklessly.

She tested the waters, not because she wanted to test him, but because she wanted to understand whether she loved him enough to surrender everything to that abyss without allowing herself to be swallowed by it.

Because Lackey’s love was not normal.

It was heavy!

Far too heavy for an ordinary heart to carry!!

It was filled with thorns that could pierce the flesh, yet somehow those same thorns grew around flowers so gentle and beautiful that no one else could even imagine their existence.

His hands could hold them with unbelievable tenderness, his voice could become softer than anyone expected, and his eyes could look at them as though they were the only precious things left in existence.

Yet beneath that tenderness was something frightening.

His love could cradle them.

His love could shelter them.

And if he ever lost control, his love could consume them.

One mistake could become a wound.

One wound could become an obsession.

And one obsession could eventually swallow everything around it.

Lackey wasn’t normal in the way a man was supposed to be.

He knew that.

His wives knew that.

That was precisely why he controlled himself.

The calm man they saw every day wasn’t an act. He wasn’t pretending to be normal or hiding some completely different personality behind a false smile.

He was controlling himself.

Every expression.

Every impulse.

Every possessive thought that threatened to rise too far.

He kept them beneath the surface because he knew exactly what would happen if he allowed them to take control.

Sometimes his wives would tease him about their own possessiveness, and He would act frightened or uncomfortable when they became too yandere themselves.

But beneath that reaction was something much more complicated.

He was attracted to it.

How could he not be?

They were showing him something that already existed inside himself.

The difference was that their obsession could still be dangerous.

His could become catastrophic.

And if one remembered correctly, during the Delta invasion, Lackey had become a monster.

He had become so twisted that, for a moment, he hardly seemed like himself anymore. He said countless cruel and ugly things to Aqua, deliberately tearing at her heart with every word, speaking with the viciousness of a devil who knew exactly where to strike.

But even then... there was one thing he never said.

He never told her that he hated her.

He never said that he was disgusted by loving her.

He never told her that he wanted to abandon her.

He never claimed that his feelings for her were a mistake, nor did he ever consider abandoning her simply because his love had become twisted beyond recognition.

Even at his most monstrous... even when his love had become something terrifying, he still loved her.

Instead, he told her the truth about what she had done.

That was all!

It’s not false, right?

The devil just told the truth in an ugly way!

That’s all!

And somehow, that was more frightening.

Because beneath all that rage, pain, and cruelty, his love had never disappeared.

In fact, his love for her had become even more possessive than that.

At that time, he had reached a point where he no longer wanted Aqua merely beside him. He wanted her inside him, and he wanted himself inside her, until there was no longer any distinction between the two of them.

He wanted them crushed together into a single existence, mixed so completely that neither of them could ever be separated from the other again.

Only one existence.

One body.

One soul.

One being that could never be separated again.

That was how deeply he had felt for her.

And Aqua should have been grateful that he let her go.

Because if he had not...

Who knew what kind of horror might have unfolded in the name of love?

That was the terrifying truth about Aether.

Even he did not know what kind of horror his love might have become.

His love was fundamentally wrong.

It was possessive, obsessive, suffocating, and dangerous.

That was why he kept it restrained.

That was why he forced himself to remain reasonable even when every instinct inside him screamed otherwise.

He understood the monster living inside his heart.

His love could protect someone, comfort them, and hold them close with extraordinary tenderness.

But once that love crossed the line...

It could also swallow them whole.

His love was twisted from the beginning and always will be...

And now he had learned that his mother had loved him all this time.

She had suffered alone.

She had cried alone.

She had remained trapped in pain while he spent years believing that she had abandoned him.

It reached the oldest wound inside him.

The wound belonging to the child who had once desperately wanted his mother’s love but had convinced himself that he didn’t deserve it.

And now that child had finally heard the words he had been waiting his entire life to hear without ever actually hearing them.

She loved him.

She had always loved him.

So did anyone seriously believe he would simply smile, wave his hand, and say,

’Bye-bye, Mommy~ Thank you for your love?’

Huh?

No.

Absolutely fucking not!

She wasn’t going anywhere.

Not after all this!!

Lackey lowered his head against his mother’s shoulder. His trembling arms tightened around her as though he were afraid that the slightest gap between them would allow the world to steal her away again.

"After that... no one is going to hurt you."

His voice was quiet, almost painfully gentle.

"No one will ever hurt my mommy again."

"I’ll protect you."

His voice trembled as though he were making a promise to himself rather than speaking to her.

"You’ll be fine."

He slowly lifted his head and stared at her tear-stained face.

"You’ll never have to suffer again."

His thumb gently wiped away another crimson tear.

"Because I’ll be there."

His breathing became heavier.

"I will..."

He stopped.

His lips trembled.

Something inside him was struggling to emerge.

"I will..."

The words refused to come out.

His expression slowly twisted further and further...

His eyes suddenly changed.

One became pure white.

The other turned completely black.

Two different abysses had opened inside his face.

His breathing stopped for a moment.

Then his lips slowly curled upward.

"Hehe..."

He gently stroked her hair, almost tenderly.

"Your son is here."

"And this time..."

His heterochromatic eyes gleamed with an unsettling light.

"I won’t let you disappear."

"You waited for me all this time, didn’t you?"

His voice carried genuine twisted affection.

"Then I’ll make sure you never have to wait again."

His arms wrapped around her even tighter.

"I’ll always come back to you."

A quiet laugh escaped him.

"And if the world tries to take you away again..."

His heterochromatic eyes narrowed.

"Then I’ll take the world apart piece by piece until I find you."

He was simply stating what he believed he would do.

Because, in his mind, this wasn’t madness.

This was love.

His love!!

The darkness deepened further in his one eye and whiteness brightened in his other eye.

It was as if both sides had finally met.

Two sides that should have clashed with one another, yet somehow, they had found the same twisted ground beneath their feet.

The mother who had loved her son so deeply that she had endured years of suffering alone, and the son who had spent his entire life yearning for that love, were now connected by the same possessive thread.

Neither of them wanted to let go.

Neither of them wanted to lose the other.

It was almost as though, in this one moment, they were the same.

The same possessiveness.

The same obsession.

The same twisted understanding of what they called love.

Lackey leaned forward and gently kissed her lips.

His lips lingered there for a moment before he whispered with an unsettling tenderness,

"Worry not, Mom... You will be mine... forever."

His arms tightened around her.

He embraced her from head to toe, leaving almost no space between their bodies, as though he were trying to erase even the smallest possibility of separation.

His body curled around hers like two twisted serpents entwining themselves together, neither willing to loosen its grip on the other.

His heterochromatic eyes glowed dangerously in the dim light.

"Never and ever~ Mommy~"

He whispered the words directly into her ear, his voice carrying an affection that was far too possessive to be called normal.

!!!

For the first time in more than a decade, the woman’s unresponsive body suddenly flinched.

It was barely noticeable.

A tiny movement.

A faint twitch of her body beneath his embrace.

But Lackey noticed nothing... and he smirked with a crazy, twisted smile.

"Hehehe~"

Grace, who quietly sat on the headboard, her eyes widened slightly.

She had been watching his twisted expression in silence, but now she became utterly still.

That expression...

She had seen it before.

Not the exact face.

But that same twisted form of love.

That same look in someone’s eyes when love stopped being something freely given and became something they desperately needed to possess.

Grace remembered a woman.

Mary Scarlet.

The image of Mary briefly surfaced in her mind.

Grace stared at Lackey.

He looked just like Mary—

’No.’

Grace slowly shook her head, her eyes remaining fixed on Lackey.

’It’s even worse...’

The more she looked at him, the more certain she became that her first comparison had been far too generous.

The twisted affection in his eyes was deeper than anything she had ever seen from Mary, and there was something almost frighteningly natural about the way he expressed it.

’It’s like... if Mary is a ten... then he is a hundred.’

Grace’s expression stiffened slightly.

’Maybe even a thousand.’

The thought alone sent an involuntary shiver down her spine. Her wings tightened slightly behind her as she watched Lackey continue embracing his mother with that disturbingly gentle smile.

’And the worst part is that he doesn’t even look like he’s pretending.’

That was what bothered her most.

He genuinely believed what he was saying.

To him, keeping his mother forever wasn’t some terrifying threat.

It was simply love.

’Did I... sign up for something worse than Mary?’

For the first time, Grace seriously questioned her own decision.

Had taking Lackey as her Little brother really been the right choice?

She had expected trouble.

She had expected him to be annoying, troublesome, reckless, and perhaps occasionally dangerous. She had even accepted that he would probably cause her plenty of headaches.

But this?

This was something entirely different.

Grace stared at him for several seconds, her expression slowly becoming more complicated.

’What exactly did I get myself into?’

She had thought she was gaining a troublesome little brother.

Instead, she might have unknowingly adopted a walking emotional disaster capable of becoming a world-ending problem whenever someone touched the people he loved.

Just looking at her Little brother... made her feel really weird.

Elder sister...

For some reason, that title suddenly felt much heavier than it had a few minutes ago.

She was the one who wanted to become his Elder sister, right?

!!!

She suddenly flinched when she saw him shoot a glance at her for some reason, as if... he read her mind or something.

Then... a dangerous thought entered her mind.

’Or... did he make me sign up for this?’

A shiver ran down her spine!

That question remained unanswered.

And somehow, Grace had the uncomfortable feeling that she didn’t want to know the truth.

Because whether he had chosen her, or... she had chosen him, one thing had already become painfully clear.

She was his Elder sister now.

And judging by everything happening right now... apparently, there was no cancellation policy!

Only... Dead End!