Chapter 79: Thank you so much

Standing behind her, a faint, knowing smile appeared on Mom’s lips. She walked forward with slow steps and came to stand near the sofa.

"Even if I couldn’t hear what you two were talking about inside the room," Mom’s voice was very calm in the silence of the night, "I’ve been hearing that sound of him slamming the door in anger for many years now."

The demon blinked slightly, but she didn’t say anything.

Mom leaned down and looked at Himanshu’s face as he lay dead asleep on the sofa. "I know you care about him," she said very gently, and then turned her face to look at the demon. "But you should understand his feelings too."

The demon locked her eyes onto Mom’s face. She just kept staring at her closely. Deep down, she was trying her best to keep her expression as flat as stone, not letting the stir rising in her eyes show on the outside.

But there are some feelings that, no matter how hard you try to stop them, still show up in the tiny lines of your face.

"A guy only fights when it comes to his own people..."

Mom hadn’t even finished her sentence when the demon’s patience snapped, and the words just slipped out of her mouth—

"Then am I supposed to say nothing to him for getting into a fight?!"

In the dark hall, the demon’s voice suddenly echoed way louder and sharper than expected. Both her hands had clenched into fists on their own, and her eyebrows were pulled tight.

This was the first time. Ever since she came into this house, this was the very first time Mom had seen such clear expressions on her face and in those lifeless eyes of hers.

For the first time, she had spoken this loudly. For the first time, a human tremble and fear could be clearly heard in that robot-like, steady voice of hers.

For a second, Mom’s eyes widened a bit in surprise. But the very next moment, that surprise on her face melted away, and a deep, relieved smile spread across her lips.

Seeing that smile on Mom’s face, the demon realized what she had just done. Her breath caught in her throat.

She immediately looked away, loosened her clenched hands, and took a step back, pulling into herself—as if, in a panic, she was trying to hide this real side of hers back behind that same cold mask.

Silence fell over the hall again for a few seconds. And then Mom’s very quiet voice came through.

"If I were in your place, I would have said the exact same thing."

As low as Mom’s voice was, the weight behind her words was just as deep. That one sentence seemed to touch and calm the storm rising inside the demon.

Mom took a long breath and sat down near the sleeping Himanshu’s head.

"My boy..." a soft whisper slipped out of her mouth. She looked toward the demon once again, "And thank you... for coming into his life. And for making his life feel alive again."

The demon stood frozen in her spot. She had no idea how to reply to that.

"You know, when he was little, it felt like he had some unlimited battery inside him," a glint of old memories came into Mom’s eyes, her voice carrying a bittersweet ache. "He always tried to be ahead in everything.

Always just trying to make everyone laugh and take care of them. But as he grew older... that smile of his slowly vanished. That excitement of his started getting buried somewhere deep inside."

Mom’s fingers stopped on the edge of the sofa. Her eyes dropped down.

"Maybe it was my own fault," Mom’s throat got a little heavy. "When it was the right time, I didn’t pay attention to him.

If I had paid attention to his studies and his struggles back then, maybe he never would have lost that smile of his... and never would have drifted away from his childhood friends.

I was the one to blame for all of this, the one who couldn’t give him a better life."

She swallowed hard. "I thought if I never let him feel the lack of anything, if I gave him every comfort, then his brain would be able to understand things just like other normal people and everything would be fine."

’Brain?’ Hearing that word, the demon’s eyes narrowed slightly. Lines of confusion showed up on her forehead.

"What do you mean?" the demon asked in her low, serious voice.

Mom reached her hand out and very lovingly stroked Himanshu’s messy hair. Her fingers stayed tangled in his hair.

"In his childhood, he got a very deep injury on his head—on his brain," Mom started explaining without taking her eyes off him. "Because of that injury, he couldn’t remember things for too long.

But as time passed and his outside wounds healed, I thought everything was fine. I thought his head went back to normal like before. But I was wrong... that injury left a deep impact on his studies and the way he thinks."

A look of helplessness flashed across Mom’s face. "And I was such an idiot too... I just kept fulfilling his needs from the outside, instead of holding his hand and pulling him out of his real struggles and that loneliness."

Then Mom raised her head and looked straight into the demon’s eyes.

"But the day I found out that someone else besides me had come into his life... I can’t even tell you how happy I was. The thing I couldn’t do in all these years despite being his mom, you did it in just a few days."

Saying this, Mom stood up from her spot, stepped forward, and tightly held the demon’s cold hand between both of her warm hands.

The demon’s body stiffened for a second. She looked down at her hand, which was trapped between Mom’s hands.

"Thank you so much," Mom’s voice was trembling.

Her wet, teary eyes were looking at the demon as if this girl had shown up and solved the biggest problem of her life forever.

Before the tears pooling in the corners of her eyes could roll down her cheeks, Mom let go of the demon’s hand and quickly wiped her eyes with her palm.

Pulling herself together, she gave a faint, watery smile. "I should go now. Good night."

Saying this, Mom turned around and walked toward her room.

The demon just stood there in the dark like a statue. Without blinking, she kept watching Mom walk away until Mom stepped inside her room and closed the door with one last smile.

Click.

Even after the door closed, the demon just kept staring at that shut door for a while. She could still feel the warmth of Mom’s hands on her fingers, and the words she had spoken were echoing inside her head like a heavy hammer.

After a few moments, she very slowly turned her neck and rested her eyes on Himanshu’s calm face as he slept on the sofa.

Now, as she looked at that face, she didn’t just see a stubborn guy there—she could also clearly see the broken childhood and the deep loneliness hidden right behind it.