Chapter 115: Breaking the Silence
Alaric
My eyes widened the exact millisecond those words left Nico’s mouth. Even after literally losing consciousness and dropping to the floor, the man woke up and immediately chose violence. He was a complete and utter menace.
How could he have plotted a stunt like this the very instant he regained consciousness?
If the dining hall had felt like an absolute icebox a moment ago, it instantly transformed into something far more dangerous. The polite, traditional facade cracked wide open, and every single relative at that table turned their gaze toward me.
It wasn’t just a look of disapproval; they stared at me with a cold, calculated venom, as if they were collectively brainstorming the cleanest way to end my life right then and there.
His mother, Annie, was the first to break the suffocating silence, her voice trembling in shock and utter confusion. "What do you mean, son? Isn’t Sophia your girlfriend? You literally introduced her to me as your—"
"I lied," Nico interrupted smoothly. He didn’t hesitate as he strode into the room, his boots clicking sharply against the floor as he walked straight toward my seat.
Don’t come over here. Turn around and walk away, I pleaded silently, screaming the words in my head while praying he wouldn’t drag me any deeper into his family’s line of fire. But my mental begging did absolutely nothing to stop him.
He stepped right up to my chair, and my breath hitched as he reached down, wrapping his fingers firmly around my hand and pulling me up to stand beside him.
"What the hell are you doing, Nico?" I hissed through gritted teeth, keeping my voice down to a harsh whisper, desperately hoping he would catch the warning in my eyes.
He completely ignored me. Instead, he casually raised our locked hands in front of the entire table and pressed a gentle, deliberate kiss against the back of my knuckles.
"Alaric de Villier is my boyfriend," Nico announced, his voice ringing with absolute, unbothered certainty. "Sophia is just my friend."
Right on cue, Sophia gave a polite, supportive nod from across the table. "He’s right. I’m not his girlfriend."
The ensuing silence grew heavier, pressing down on the room like a physical weight as every pair of eyes locked back onto me.
"This is impossible," Annie stammered, the thick denial in her voice making it clear her brain was entirely rejecting Nico’s confession. "There is no way you are..."
"Gay?" Nico finished the word for her without a shred of hesitation. "Mother, please. You should have noticed it years ago. If you knew enough to notice how much I looked up to Alaric, then you should have easily seen the signs that your son has been gay all along."
There he went again, bringing up the absurd claim that I was his "idol." I stood there completely baffled, having absolutely no clue what he or his mother meant by that.
Nico’s idol? The arrogant pest had never once mentioned anything of the sort to me on the grid, and frankly, I was far more curious about that hidden backstory than the chaotic drama unfolding right now.
"This absolutely cannot be true!" one of Nico’s aunts, Min-jin, shrieked in a harsh, ringing tone. "Our family was not raised this way! It is entirely unnatural for a man to be with another man. It should never happen, and—"
"It’s 2025, Aunt Min-jin," Nico cut her off, his voice dripping with icy amusement. "The world has moved far past the outdated boundaries inside your head. Nobody out there actually cares who you love or who you become anymore."
Across the table, his Uncle Geum-ho let out a sharp, bitter chuckle. "This is absolute madness," he sneered in Korean, before switching to a venomous, roaring English as he slammed a hand on the wood and pointed directly at the head of the table. "How can you love a man? This is all because of Anderson! This is your doing!"
He yelled fiercely, but Anderson didn’t even blink. Nico’s uncle simply continued cutting his steak, entirely unfazed, chewing his food casually as if the dining table wasn’t burning to the ground around him.
"Aren’t you going to say anything, Anderson?" Annie demanded, turning her panic toward him. "Did you really corrupt my son? Did you influence him to turn out exactly like you?"
Anderson still didn’t respond. He methodically picked up his wine glass and took a slow sip, treating the explosive accusation as if it were nothing more than a mild draft in the room.
On the other hand, Nico’s cousins sat entirely paralyzed, keeping their heads lowered to their plates, terrified to utter a single word. Meanwhile, the grandfather sat at the head of the table with a perfectly stoic, unreadable expression. But I could feel the intensity of his dark eyes boring straight into me. If looks had the power to kill, the old man’s glare would have reduced me to ashes on the spot.
"I asked you a question, Anderson!" Annie raised her voice, desperate for an answer. "Did you influence my son?"
"Of course he did," Geum-ho chimed in bitterly, a sick, smug satisfaction crossing his face. "Look at him. He can’t even look us in the eye to deny it."
Nico suddenly let out a sharp, mocking laugh that cut through the arguments, instantly forcing the entire room into a dead silence.
"Influence me?" Nico scoffed, looking directly at his mother with a look of pure disdain. "You want to blame Uncle Anderson for who I am? That’s hilarious, Mother. Because while this entire family treated me like an outcast and refused to accept me, Uncle Anderson was the only person in this godforsaken house who actually made me feel safe."
Geum-ho sneered, crossing his arms. "You’ve completely lost your mind, boy."
Nico turned his gaze to Geum-ho, his lips curling into a dark, dangerous smile. "Oh, no. I haven’t lost my mind at all, Uncle. In fact, I learned how to be like this from the absolute best. You’re the one who taught me exactly how to act."
A sudden, freezing dread dropped over the hall.
Annie looked between them, her breath catching. "Seo-jun... what on earth do you mean by that?"
Before Nico could speak, the grandfather’s hand slammed violently against the table, the silverware rattling. "Shut your mouth, Seo-jun! Sit down and eat!" the old man roared, his voice trembling with rage.
But Nico didn’t back down. He leaned forward, his voice rising to match the old man’s. "What’s the matter, Grandfather? Are you still trying to hide the family secrets? Are you still going to pretend it never happened?!"
"Stop talking! I command you to stop talking!" the grandfather bellowed, his face turning a dangerous shade of red.
"What is going on here?!" Annie cried out, looking around the room in absolute panic.
As the shouts echoed, I suddenly felt Nico’s grip on my hand tighten into a crushing, desperate hold.
I flicked my eyes toward him and realized his entire arm was trembling violently, his knuckles turning stark white.
A cold sweat broke out across his jawline. He was terrified, vibrating with a deep, systemic trauma, and I instantly knew that whatever was happening right now went far deeper than a simple family argument.
"Please, let’s not disrupt the family gathering over this nonsense," Geum-ho’s wife chimed in smoothly, shooting Nico a look of disgust. "Why are you randomly attacking your uncle like a rabid animal?"
Nico let out a loud, breathless laugh that sounded entirely unhinged. "You don’t know, do you? Of course you don’t. None of you care to look!"
In a flash of pure fury, the grandfather stood up from his chair, lunged across the space, and delivered a sharp, echoing slap right across Nico’s face.
A collective, horrified gasp echoed across the table. Even my own breath hitched, a sudden, protective surge of adrenaline spiking in my chest as I took a step forward. I felt sick to my stomach for Nico, expecting him to break.
But the physical hit only made Nico laugh louder, the sound echoing off the high ceilings.
"Expected!" Nico yelled, his eyes wild and burning with years of suppressed rage as he stared down his grandfather. "It’s always the same with you! No one in this house ever loved me or cared about what happened to me. Because after all, what kind of righteous grandfather sits back and lets his own son brutally violate his ten-year-old nephew?! What kind of family covers it up, drives his own son to commit suicide from the shame, and just moves on like nothing ever happened?!"
The words hit the room hard.
Annie scrambled backward in her chair, her face completely pale. "What... what are you saying? Seo-jun, tell me right now!"
The grandfather’s hands shook as he tried to speak, his authority entirely crumbling, but Nico didn’t give him a single second to breathe.
"Now is the exact time to say what I have been forced to keep buried for all these years!" Nico roared, his voice cracking with emotion as he pointed a trembling finger directly at Geum-ho. "Uncle Geum-ho has been sexually harassing me since I was a ten-year-old child! And my father knew about it. Grandfather knew about it. And you all chose to bury it!"
Infuriated and completely exposed, the grandfather raised his hand again, swinging it wildly to deliver another strike to Nico’s face.
But this time, Nico’s reflexes were faster. He snapped his hand out, catching the grandfather’s wrist mid-air with a brutal, crushing grip. He stared into the old man’s eyes with a cold, murderous intensity.
"I suggest you think twice before you ever put your hands on me again," Nico hissed, his voice dropping into a lethal whisper.
From the side of the table, Anderson finally slid his chair back, standing up with an oppressive, terrifying aura that instantly dominated the room. He looked at the old man, his brown eyes entirely devoid of warmth.
"Let go of his wrist, Father," Anderson commanded, his deep voice slicing through the chaos with a terrifying finality. "You have already gone way too far."
