#THE_LAST_MINUTE_GROOM
©Sir_Zach
EPISODE 34
“Jeslyn, you. are. my. father’s. wife!” He spelled it out for her. “You are almost like those girls running after my father and we both know the reason.” He smirked, hoping to see her raging like usual.
However, Jeslyn smiled bitterly and brushed his hair with her fingers, careful enough not to ruin it.
“Your father and I are in this marriage for a reason and…” she thought against telling him. “I don’t necessarily have to be your blood sister for you to see me as one. Besides, how many stepmothers do you see running around the house with their stepson? How many stepmothers and stepsons can you point out do what we both do?”
She watched as his brows furrowed. “None,” she answered herself.
“That’s because I don’t see you as a stepson. You are like a little brother I don’t have…”
The thought of Christine swept through her mind. How they used to play when they were kids, how she protected Christine like a mother hen when they grew up, how she went out of her way to make Christine feel among, and also the times she spoke to her grandfather to try harder than he already was, to make his heart accept Christine.
The memories were too deep that a tear leaked from her left eye.
Jeslyn smiled embarrassingly at Valen and slowly wiped her tear with the back of her index finger.
“You see, that’s the difference between you and me. You don’t shed your tears, but I do and that’s why I can be wh@ťěver character I want to be in public without anyone knowing that I’m hurt.
But in your case, you are not your father who can conceal his pain extremely well. Putting your personality together, I can say that you hide your pain by hurting others.
Valen… that’s wrong…” she pulled his left hand and placed it on her palm.
“You are still very young. What character do you want your mother to see when she returns?… I heard she’s not dea–”
“She left me!” Valen screamed in his cute childish voice.
Valen’s outburst startled Jeslyn. She never thought the child would open up to her. The pain he was hiding in his eyes was slowly starting to show.
“She left me! What kind of a child would she expect to see.” Valen bit his lower lip harshly after saying that.
He didn’t understand why he was being vulnerable in front of Jeslyn and also didn’t understand why he felt her pain, but the boy tried to fight against himself. He tried all he could to not open up but failed.
“Something must have happened, she might have been in a very compromising situation–” Jeslyn tried to reason with him but Valen was too bitter to hear anything.
“Nothing happened to her! My father is the greatest man in the Country. What could she possibly be scared of? My father can protect her, but she–”
Valen frowned when he felt a wet liquid running down his cheek. He raised his left hand to touch it, but Jeslyn grabbed the hand and shook her head.
“Let them flow, it would help lighten your heart.”
“I h@ťě you…” his voice broke.”I h@ťě you more than I h@ťě that woman!!”
Valen’s willpower broke and the tears he had been holding back for so long gushed out like a fountain.
“Oh, child,”
Jeslyn pulled him forward and hugged him, allowing him to cry without resolve. Hearing the child’s crying voice made Jeslyn’s eyes tear up, but it wasn’t right for her to also be crying when the child was, so she composed herself.
“Valen, you cannot h@ťě your mother, she carried you through 9 months of hardship, and on the day she gave birth to you, she saw hell. I believe she took care of you for a while before she left.
No woman would willingly let their infants go. Even demons feel an attachment to their little ones. Your mother is just like the strong-willed women fighting for survival in their own way.
Their actions might have been wrong in our eyes, that’s why they have something called ‘conscience’. It follows the bad people and haunts them for the rest of their lives.
It might also seem like a lot of people don’t have a conscience, but I tell you, child, they do. Just that they choose to not be bothered by it. And when it gets too much, they choose other means to vent their frustration while some show remorse.
Child, your mother can’t be one of those without a conscience. She’ll return to you and explain everything.”
The more Jeslyn talked, the louder Valen cried.
“She h@ťěs me… She left because she doesn’t want me,” Valen mumbled amidst weeping.
“No mother h@ťěs their child, dear, she must also be suffering right now,” Jeslyn said while stroking his back.
That was what she wanted. She needed the child to cry out all his sorrow so his heart could be free.
Like Valen said, his mother had no good reason for leaving, but Jeslyn couldn’t bring herself to say something so horrible to a child. She knew it would poison his mind against love and humanity.
Well, Mulan did. Everything Valen knew and what he grew up to be was all thanks to Mulan.
After a long while of crying, Valen sat on the bed, looking tired while hiccuping. His face was red and Jeslyn wanted him to sleep it off after eating and getting a massage and cold patch. She didn’t want him to get a severe headache.
“Valen, I should get your pajamas instead. You should rather sleep it off after eating or else, you’d get a headache.”
Valen only nodded and didn’t say a thing. He also didn’t want anyone to see him looking like a weakling.
Jeslyn returned the black shorts and shirt to the wardrobe and brought out black pajamas. She sighed while looking at it before she took it to Valen and helped him get into it.
The child didn’t shy away from her, probably because his emotions was over the place.
After he has gotten into his pajamas, Jeslyn made him sit on his bed and arranged the cake and pastry in front of him.
“It seems you can’t eat everything at the moment. I should take the cake away while you eat the pastry?” She said.
Seeing that his swollen eyes were focused on the mooncakes, Jeslyn smiled and picked out a purple and white one and cut it into four parts, revealing the cooked egg and date paste inside.
She could have baked the pastry if she hadn’t cooked the egg, but she doesn’t like the taste of baked mooncakes. She likes it with a little bit of a chewy and melting feeling.
Remembering something, Valen paused and looked at Jeslyn.
“You don’t like it?” Jeslyn asked, a little worried.
“I don’t eat sweet things.”
“Oh… that, your father permitted it. He said you are allowed to eat mild sweet things once a week.”
The boy said nothing and just picked a piece of mooncake. He examined the cake for a while before he took a bite. The shell was mildly sweet until he tested the date paste and egg.
Chewing them together with the softshell of the cake was simply delicious. One of the best things he had ever tasted. After all, he’s not allowed to eat sweet things.
“How does it taste?” Jeslyn asked with puppy eyes, waiting to get compliments from Valen.
Valen looked at her but said nothing and continued to eat quietly.
Jeslyn sighed and sat dejectedly. “Boy, it’s not easy to make food, you should show appreciation when a favor is done for you.” She lamented while pouting.
“You said it’s an apology,” Valen reminded her with puffy eyes staring at Jeslyn without emotion.
“Hmm, but there’s no harm in saying something to me for my hard work,”
“I didn’t say I needed you to–”
“Fine, fine, fine, just eat in peace. You still need a massage before you go to sleep.”
“I’m fine now, I don’t need a massage,”
“No…” Jeslyn shook her head.” That won’t do. You’ll get a headache tomorrow.”
“It’s just 4 PM, I won’t sleep for that long.” Valen was starting to get annoyed but couldn’t figure out if it was at himself or Jeslyn. He just wasn’t liking how he had become free with Jeslyn.
“That’s right, but… forget it,” Jeslyn sighed.
After a while, Valen was done eating. Jeslyn made a call, telling Maya to bring a cold patch to her.
“Lie down for a massage,” Jeslyn patted the bed.
Valen wanted to protest, but Jeslyn pulled him into the bed and started to massage him without permission.
Although she wasn’t a professional, she was able to get Valen to fall asleep in a few minutes.
With the cold patches ready, she placed them on Valen’s forehead before she sent Maya to take the cake back to the fridge.
A while later, Jeslyn felt thirsty and went to get water from the kitchen. However, before going, she made sure to pull a blanket to Valen’s chest to prevent an unexpected incident while she was away.
Inside the quiet kitchen, Jeslyn opened the fridge and took out a bottle of water which she poured into a glass cup. She took her first gulp, a second, and just when she was about to swallow the third…
“Boom!”
The sound came unexpectedly from nowhere. It shook the mansion including Jeslyn who choked on water.
“Hack– hack– Ahem…”
She entered a fit of coughing while trying to make out what just happened.
Before she could pull herself together…
“Bang!”
“Bang!”
“Bang!”
“Dun–Dun–Dun–Dun–Dun!”
“That’s a… Gun!!…”
Coming to the realization, the glass cup dropped from her hand and water spilled all over the floor with the glass making a shattering sound.
“Va— Valen!”
Jeslyn dashed out of the kitchen, sprinting straight to the child’s room. Everywhere was quiet except from the gunshots coming from outside the house.
Yes, outside. She just realized it.
On the stairs, Jeslyn, who wasn’t paying attention due to the urgency to go meet Valen immediately, bumped into something.
She was about to take a step from the object without looking when a voice pulled her from her world.
“What’s the urgency?”
Jeslyn looked up at the man in black staring at her with those apathetic eyes.
Jeslyn pointed a trembling finger at the entrance, believing he mustn’t have heard the gunshots a while ago.
“Th– there’s a– a fight– gunshots…”
Just when she finished speaking, another deafening sound was heard.
“Boom!”
Jeslyn fell forward and hugged his waist. Her heartbeat was so messy that it would make a good music beat for TikTokers.
“He– hear that?” She asked in a frightened voice.
“Hmm,” Maverick answered nonchalantly as his eyes bore holes in the middle of her head.
“You should head to your room and lock your windows… They are bulletproofed.”
“No, Valen needs me,” Remembering Valen was still alone in his room, Jeslyn let go of Maverick and stepped to the side before dashing up the stairs.
She didn’t even stop to ask why he sounded so relaxed when his roof was on fire.
“Call Pink,” Maverick told Code 2 before he headed down the stairs with one hand in his pocket and the other hand holding a black gun.
Jeslyn didn’t pay attention, so she failed to see the gun.
Inside the room, Valen was sitting on the bed. Although he didn’t look frightened like Jeslyn, his forehead was covered in sweat. The child’s eyes were unfocused as he looked towards the widow. He couldn’t hear the gunshots but the way the mansion shook when the loud sound went off sent the boy’s heart into turmoil.
“Valen,” Jeslyn hurried to the bed and pulled the child into her bosom.
“I’m– I’m fine,” the child said but his voice betrayed him as it quivered which Jeslyn didn’t miss.
“Yes, I know you are fine. You are the brave and strong Valen Lu.” She said while soothing the child’s back to calm his fear. “Your father has gone down to handle it, everything will be fine.”
Hearing that, Valen subconsciously heaved a sigh of relief.
Jeslyn smiled bitterly. How could a child be raised to bear so much?
‘Mulan, I won’t let you off!’ She thought as a tear dropped from her right eye.