Transmigrated into Eroge as the Simp, but I Refuse This Fate-Chapter 169: Mother

"I let you indulge. I allowed you to drift. Because you were my son. Because you were soft and kind and foolish in a world that eats boys like that alive." Her voice dropped lower. "I never expected greatness. I only wanted you to live. To be safe."

Elysia stood silently, her posture rigid, gaze steady—but she said nothing. Because this wasn't a matter of proof. It was grief.

Vivienne shook her head, the disbelief returning in waves. "And then you left. Said you were going to live on your own. Said you wanted to be serious now. I was proud, Damien. I thought it was a first step. I thought maybe… maybe you were growing."

"You don't look like my son."

Damien's jaw tightened. His hands dropped slowly to his sides as he stepped closer, his voice low and steady.

"It's still me, Mother."

Vivienne didn't move. Couldn't. Her breath came fast, shallow. She stared at him, helpless.

"Then how, Damien?" she whispered, barely holding herself together. "How did this happen? What did you do? Did you…" Her voice faltered again. "Did you do something weird again? Did you take something? Did you hurt yourself—because of how you looked?"

She pressed a hand to her mouth, eyes brimming now.

"You used to say things like that," she whispered. "When you thought I wasn't listening. That you were disgusting. That your body was broken. I tried to ignore it. I thought you'd grow out of it. I thought… I thought it was just you being dramatic."

She stared at him again, and the horror was creeping in now—sharp and maternal and absolute.

"Did Dominic force you?"

Damien's eyes widened slightly, but she didn't stop.

"Did he push you again? I knew he hated how you looked. I knew he wanted to break you. He's always tried to fix you like you were some defective investment. Did he threaten you? Was this because of some damn inheritance clause?"

Still Damien didn't speak. Her voice grew sharper, laced with fury and something too fragile to name.

"Or was it that girl? Celia? Did that bitch say something to you?"

Damien blinked.

Vivienne's hand trembled as she pointed now—not at anyone, just at the air, at the ghost of memory and insult and betrayal. "I knew it. I knew she would ruin you."

She spat the words like poison.

"That lying, manipulative thing. She shamed you, didn't she?"

She was trembling now—not with rage, but with helplessness. With love weaponized into panic.

"Is that why you broke the engagement?"

Damien stepped forward again, closer now, until only inches separated them.

Damien stood there, watching his mother unravel—not in madness, not in drama, but in something far more intimate.

Grief. Confusion. Fear.

He saw all of it in the tremble of her lip, in the desperate clench of her fingers, in the haunted flicker behind her eyes as they searched his face for something—anything—familiar. But what stared back wasn't her soft, broken boy. It wasn't the son she had spent seventeen years sheltering from the world with silk gloves and whispered reassurances.

It was someone new.

And Damien understood. He did. Because from her eyes, the transformation must've looked unnatural—inhuman, even. Too fast. Too sharp. The kind of change no gentle process could achieve.

Of course she thought someone forced him. Of course she believed he had been manipulated, or tormented, or shattered.

Because the idea that he had done this by choice?

That he wanted to be this way?

That was the part she couldn't accept.

Not yet.

His gaze dropped slightly, taking her in—the soft slope of her shoulders, the rise and fall of her chest, the way her robe's sleeve was beginning to slip down her wrist as her hand still hovered in front of her heart like a shield.

She looked so small right now.

And Damien…

He had grown.

Literally. Figuratively. Everything in between.

He looked down at her, the top of her golden hair barely reaching his chest now, and for a long, quiet moment, he didn't say anything.

Then, his voice cut the silence—not loud, not angry.

But cold.

Low.

"Attributing my change to someone else," Damien said, staring directly into her eyes, "is disrespecting every drop of effort I bled to make it happen."

Vivienne flinched. Just slightly. As if the truth had weight.

Because it did.

"I didn't do this for Father," Damien continued, tone still steady but sharpened at the edges. "I didn't do it for Celia. I didn't do it because someone hurt me. I did it—because this body was tired of being a waste of potential."

He let the words hang for a moment. Let them sting.

Then—softly, gently—his expression changed.

The coldness faded. His lips twitched upward in the barest hint of a smile—one laced with something warm, even if the warmth was quiet and small.

"I know you care, Mother," he said, softer now. "I know you've always cared. But hearing it said like that… like I'm a victim again? It's a little embarrassing."

She looked up at him, blinking through the cloud of emotion, still shaken, still not fully believing—but listening now. Finally listening.

And Damien—carefully—reached out.

He cupped her hand, the one trembling near her chest, and held it in his own. His palm was warm. Steady. Strong in a way it had never been before.

"I didn't want to be a waste anymore," he said quietly. "That's all."

No theatrics.

No grand explanation.

Just the truth.

Vivienne's fingers curled tighter around his, but her voice was gone.

She stared up at him, her son—her Damien—and something behind her eyes fractured.

Not from pain.

Not from fear.

From the realization that the change she had once dreamed of—the change she never dared to demand—had come to pass.

And not because of her.

Not because of Dominic.

Not because of shame or pressure or outside scorn.

But because Damien had chosen it. Alone. Quietly. Brutally.

A soft, trembling breath escaped her lips, and then—without a word—tears welled in her eyes. No drama. No gasp. Just an overflow too long held back.

The last time she cried had been in silence too. Alone, behind closed doors the night Damien told her he was moving to Blackthorne Villa.

It was supposed to be temporary. A test of independence. But when he said it—when he said "I need to get away. I need to fix myself."—she had turned away with a smile and nodded like any supportive mother would.

Then she'd gone to her room and wept.

Not because she was afraid of losing him.

But because, for the first time, he had wanted something more than comfort.

And now, standing before her—this tall, sculpted, composed figure wrapped in discipline and quiet resolve—was proof that he had followed through.

Her tears spilled freely now, silent rivulets down her cheeks. And for the first time in years, she didn't hide them.

How could she?

Her son had changed.

The boy she had once shielded from the cold ambition of the Elford name now embodied something far more dangerous than ambition.

Conviction.

Her lips quivered, and she tried to speak, but no sound came. So instead, she let herself move—just once—just enough.

She reached up with her free hand, brushing her fingertips along Damien's jaw, still stunned by the firmness of his cheekbone, the hollowness beneath, the matured angles that had replaced the softness she once knew.

"You…" she finally managed, voice barely above a whisper, "you really…"

She choked on it. Smiled, tearfully. Then pressed her forehead gently to his chest.

"…You really did it," she breathed, her voice cracking.