I Became a Mother (Completed Main Story) - Chapter 16
“Do you even have the right to say that to me? A so-called teacher not only fails to guide a child onto the right path but conspires and plays games instead.”
Hyo Jin was utterly flabbergasted—not by shame, but by Kyo Hwan’s icy, mocking response.
“So then—if you’re that angry, why didn’t you just hit me instead? Why take it out on the child?”
Kyo Hwan, looking exhausted, let out a deep sigh and strode forward quickly, eager to wrap things up before Team Leader Nam returned with Seung Yul.
“From the very beginning, I never liked you. Still, I hired you because I trusted Professor Kim Yong Hoon. But instead of honoring my trust, you’ve betrayed it so thoroughly that you’ve turned me into an abusive father. Had you properly taught me how to be a teacher, I never would’ve laid a hand on my precious child.”
Hyo Jin had to crane her neck looking up at him as he loomed right in front of her, forcing her to take a hesitant step backward.
“Seung Yul said he wanted to be a good child!”
Yet you didn’t even try to understand his feelings—you just hit him.
“He’d heard so often that, having grown up without a mother under his grandmother’s care, he must have issues. He told me he thought if he had a mom, he could become a good child too. So I pretended to be his mom for just one day—because he said he wanted to do something good.”
“Then why didn’t you just say that honestly back then? You insisted Seung Yul knew nothing about it!”
“That’s—!”
Caught completely off guard, Hyo Jin was left speechless.
“…”
She was already furious beyond measure—worried that Seung Yul might get scorched by the fallout.
“Now that we’ve talked things through like this, I’m realizing it was truly fortunate for Seung Yul that I cut ties with you right away.”
Instead of correcting your child’s misbehavior, you’re only frantic about shielding him.
“It’s always the incompetent ones who lack skill yet get swept away by their emotions.”
Glancing at his wristwatch as if he’d wasted too much time before his meeting, Kyo Hwan checked the hour.
“Listen carefully.”
Since you were introduced by Father, I’m showing you this last courtesy.
“Our Yul will live a life completely different from yours.”
“So what…?”
Biting her lip hard, Hyo Jin wondered if he was about to lecture her like Lady Min Ja Hyun would.
“Yul is going to lead the law firm someday.”
That meant maintaining rational judgment and composure under the inhuman pressure and stress that ordinary people couldn’t bear.
“Do you even understand what happens if someone like you gets hung up on personal emotions all the time? You’ll become someone who can’t make decisions—someone who ends up ruining the fortunes and lives of thousands. Do you get that?”
“But that’s not who he is yet.”
Did he really not understand?
“Seung Yul is only nine years old.”
Second grade—technically nine, but biologically just eight years old.
“But as I taught him, I realized there was nothing for me to teach him at all. Maybe it’s you who doesn’t know anything…!”
Who—me?
Kyo Hwan’s eyebrow shot up sharply, irritated that she’d called him “that person” after having referred to him that way herself.
“No matter how important your job may be outside, inside this house, your role is Seung Yul’s dad—not a lawyer.”
Seeing him suddenly speechless, unable to muster a rebuttal, Hyo Jin seized the moment to press him further.
“Have you ever played with your child even once after coming home from work? Have you ever read him a book? Since I’ve been at Sangnimwon, I’ve never once seen you and Seung Yul spending quiet, quality time together—let alone having an actual conversation.”
“Why would I even—!”
“Seung Yul, come here. I told you—if words don’t work, you’ll get punished. One, two! Next time you do this, you’ll be punished again.”
Hyo Jin mimicked Kyo Hwan’s harsh tone, as if muffling his voice itself.
“You can’t seriously think that counts as communication. Nowadays, even dogs aren’t raised that way.”
“Hah! So you’re saying your competence as a teacher made you cave in to a little kid?”
“I didn’t cave in to Seung Yul—I wanted to understand his heart. I didn’t just appease him—I truly understood him!”
“Don’t make excuses. No matter how you dress it up, to me, it just looks like you were helplessly toyed with by a child’s antics.”
Seeing Kyo Hwan turn away as if even this moment were too much to waste, Hyo Jin clenched her fists tightly.
“It’s fine—even if I was played for a fool.”
“…”
“As long as Seung Yul is happy.”
“…”
“I knew I was being used—but I did it anyway. For the sake of Seung Yul, who wanted to be a good child for his late mother.”
“What?”
He’d seemed absolutely certain he wouldn’t turn around, no matter what she said—but now he twisted his face into a grimace and glared down at her with murderous intensity.
“What did you just say? For his late mother…?”
Hyo Jin looked straight into his shocked, twitching eyes, her own gaze firm as if to say, “Do you finally get it now?”
“Seung Yul wanted to be a good child for his mother. But you beat him until the cane snapped, calling him a bad child—never once trying to understand his feelings.”
“…!”
“You may be a brilliant, capable lawyer—but you don’t know a single thing about your own son, Seung Yul.”
You don’t know why he did it. You don’t know what he likes.
“You’re a complete zero as a father!”
“Team Leader Nam, I’ll take Seung Yul inside first.”
After hanging up, Kyo Hwan watched from a distance as Team Leader Nam left the school with Seung Yul getting into the car.
After hearing Hyo Jin say that Seung Yul wanted to be good for his late mother, he couldn’t figure out what expression to wear when facing his son.
Returning late by taxi to Sangnimwon, Kyo Hwan climbed the wooden stairs to his wife’s art studio.
The space, once filled with warmth, was now saturated with chilling silence.
“Come in.”
His wife used to greet him with a bright smile whenever he opened the door—but she was no longer here.
When would he ever get used to a world without her?
Beneath the large sunlit window, Kyo Hwan lowered his eyelashes and let out a deep sigh.
“I’m going crazy, Se In. Because of our son.”
In the silence where no reply would ever come, Kyo Hwan muttered complaints no one could hear.
“I beat him until the cane broke because he touched the money you left behind—and now they tell me it was for you. He just wanted to be the good child you’d love. That’s why our Yul did it.”
You saved every last won people gave you during your pregnancy—never spending a single penny—because you planned to give it to Yul when he was born.
Why did it have to be like this? Yul couldn’t possibly know any of this.
His eyelids, closed against the sunlight, trembled faintly.
Se In, am I really doing wrong by our child?
“He was talking with Mommy.”
The child, who’d dozed off inside the closet, claimed he’d fallen asleep resting his head in his mother’s lap. In truth, all he’d pressed against his cheek was her paint-stained apron.
Yet he kept insisting it was her.
His mother—the one he’d never even met in his life.
“But Se In, what drives me even crazier is this—our son calls another woman ‘Mom’ besides you.”
The moment she stepped into our house, she put on your clothes and startled me as if you’d come back to life.
A woman who’s never married and has no children keeps pretending to be Yul’s mother right in front of me.
“You may be a capable, brilliant lawyer—but you know nothing about your son Seung Yul. You’re a total failure as a father!”
Me—Yul’s dad?
Always interfering, always nagging me.
“Seung Yul has nothing left to learn—maybe it’s you who doesn’t get it…!”
I thought Yul didn’t understand my heart. But she says it’s me who doesn’t understand Yul’s.
Who does she think she is? She’s not even Yul’s mother.
But what really drives me insane is this—her words aren’t wrong at all. Damn it.
That night.
Around the steaming oden cart, office workers who’d just finished work crowded together, enjoying draft beer.
“Mr. Choi.”
“Father.”
Yong Hoon, setting his worn leather bag on the chair, pressed his palm gently on Kyo Hwan’s shoulder just as he was about to stand up, making him sit back down.
“Stay seated. Did you wait long?”
“No. I figured it might take a while for you to arrive, so I started drinking ahead of time.”
Yong Hoon ordered the same beer from the server, took off his jacket, and sat down beside him.
“Feeling better now?”
“Huh?”
“I heard you nearly killed Seung Yul.”
“Did Mother call you?”
“Teacher Bong told me.”
“…!”
“She said she agreed to be a mom for just one day, thinking it was a good thing, but got thrown out. She also said if she’d known the amount was 20 million won, she would’ve stopped him herself.”
Clearly, he’d confessed everything upfront, worried Yong Hoon might get a complaint call.
“But why hit the child? He didn’t squander it on games—he donated it to kids with developmental disorders. Shouldn’t that be something to praise? After all, it was money Se In originally meant for Yul.”
Instead of answering, Kyo Hwan gave a bitter smile and asked, “What’s your relationship with Teacher Bong?”
“Oh, that…”
Yong Hoon set down his chopsticks, having just mixed wasabi into the soy sauce dish the server brought, and gave an awkward smile.
“It was shortly after I lost Se In.”
“…?”
Eight years ago, Kyo Hwan lost his spouse—but Yong Hoon lost his only child.
After the funeral, he let go of everything.
He couldn’t eat. He couldn’t sleep.
He stopped cutting his hair or shaving. His only outing was buying soju at the convenience store every night.
“Mister, take this.”
One night, just like any other, after paying at the register,
a uniformed high school girl hurried after him and handed him a bento box.
“I saved this for myself, but I’m giving it to you as a staff privilege. You only seem to drink alcohol.”
Yong Hoon tried to refuse, but the girl insisted, saying it reminded her of her own father who’d recently passed away—and pressed the bagged meal into his hands.
“When I heard that, it felt just like Se In had sent her—worried about her dad left all alone.”
“Dad, please take care of yourself. Don’t just drink—eat something.”
And since she’d also lost her father around the same time, it didn’t feel like a coincidence at all.
“So I asked how old she was—she said she was in her third year of high school.”
Right in the middle of college entrance exam prep.
“When I asked if she wasn’t going to university, she said she couldn’t afford tuition and was working part-time at the convenience store.”
“…”
“I asked why she didn’t just take out a student loan. She said because her dad passed away leaving debts, she’d become credit-impaired and couldn’t borrow anything.”
“So that’s how you two met? I assumed you’d asked a professor you knew to recommend her.”
Seung Yul calls this woman “Mom,” and Father says she reminds him of Se In.
“So to her, you’re a benefactor, then?”
Father definitely wouldn’t stay silent after hearing that.
“No—it’s she who saved me.”
“…”
“You still have Yul, but what joy do I have left? I lost Se In’s mother first, then helplessly lost my only daughter too. If not for that girl, I would’ve followed Se In.”
Seeing Hyo Jin—already credit-impaired before even stepping into society because of her father’s debts—made him realize he could actually help someone, and his will to live flared up again.
“If she’d known even a little about the law, she wouldn’t have taken on such excessive debt—but she accepted it herself, fearing it might hurt the grandmother who’d raised her in her mother’s place.”
So as he ran around contacting people to restore Hyo Jin’s credit, his daily life gradually returned to what it had been before he lost his daughter.
He started meeting people again—so he washed his face, got haircuts, shaved, ate when hungry, and slept.
“Mr. Choi, I believed Teacher Bong would understand Seung Yul’s heart. She also lost her mother young and was raised by her grandmother.”
“…”
“You already have eleven specialist tutors teaching Yul, don’t you?”
“…”
“So wouldn’t it be alright to have just one teacher who truly understands Seung Yul’s heart…?”
“…”
Kyo Hwan stayed silent, gulping down his beer, as Hyo Jin’s words echoed in his ears.
“I didn’t give in to Seung Yul—I wanted to understand his heart. I didn’t just appease him—I truly understood him!”
Male lead reborn without memories — but he still falls for her.
The person he finds displeasing in this life turns out to be his cherished wife-master in previous life…
Xie Zhi and Fang Xianxing who had known each other for less than three days through a blind date sat in the same car in front of the civil affairs bureau. They had a disagreement and failed to get married.
Xie Zhi immediately took out his phone, slid through his contacts, and randomly selected the next marriage candidate.
The woman snatched his phone and hung up. Looking at his phone wallpaper, she awkwardly changed the subject: “An ancient painting, eh? It looks pretty good, it’s just that the person in the painting looks a bit like me.”
When he heard this, he sarcastically mocked her for being so delusional, completely unaware that, the person in front of him was the reincarnation of Wen Ru, the famous prime minister of Yuan Shun whom he most admired…
The female CEO who doesn’t want to get married with a divorce agreement in hand × The male archaeological researcher who will only get married if he’s sure he can get divorced
Took back his own words real fast, funny man. Wonder what her message is
He really is a bad father. Kinda sad how he just left his son alone.