Trapped In A Novel As The Breeding Mate For Four Powerful Alphas-Chapter 402: My mother had symptoms like this

"You can’t bottle up resentment and fear forever. Eventually, you’ll have to face it."

Jie-Yu’s words struck my heart like a blunt knife. They were such true facts that it was hard to argue back.

Yes, I bottled up a lot of my emotions and tried my hardest not to let my fear and trauma define my current self. I even tried to face it a few times but it seems my fears were greater than I could even imagine.

Feelings of resentment and pain can never be bottled up for good, it seems.

"Young master, just how much did you have to endure?" She asked and I lowered my gaze before looking up, glancing at my masters who equally had sad expressions while looking at me.

They felt guilty that they may not have been able to take away the burden in my heart, despite all the care and love they’ve shown me so far.

When the person they live with is suffering, not physically, but emotionally, and they don’t know how to be of help, that restlessness eats at them, makes them feel incapable of such a small act, and equally makes them scared.

What use are they if they can’t even take away the pain in my heart?

Jie-Yu stepped forward and then knelt down.

"I don’t hate or blame you for what happened, young master. And I’m sure that this pain," she touched the bandaid on her face. "...is nothing compared to the pain in your heart."

"Jie-Yu," Even if she says something like that, the guilt was still there. She didn’t expect me to just pretend nothing happened, right?

"I’m fine, young master." She said, barely smiling. "But... If you want to make it up to me, you can do one thing."

Hearing that, my face lit up.

"What is it? I’ll try my best to fulfill it." I said, happy that there was something I could do but the words she said next shocked me.

"Do you mind... visiting a therapist?"

I paused.

Visit... A therapist?

Why all of a sudden?

"Hey, are you saying Hyung isn’t in his right state of mind?" Min-Cheol asked and Jie-Yu bowed her head.

"I wouldn’t dare make such a statement," she said. "But one thing that induces sleepwalking, and one where the person becomes violent without realizing it is trauma." She said and my eyes widened. "If young master went through something horrible before and had a lot of fears and insecurities, then it’s only normal that he would come to this point eventually."

My heart began to pound restlessly.

"I don’t dare make assumptions, and I don’t know what happened in the past, so I won’t just claim all this is happening due to his trauma, but that’s the major factor that leads one to sleepwalk in such a pattern."

"How do you know this?" Seo-Jun asked, folding his arms. "It’s as if you studied it."

Jie-Yu bowed her head a bit and while it looked like it was a topic she couldn’t talk about, she ended up saying it,

"My mother had symptoms like this." She said, sadly. "It started off small with her going to the kitchen and cooking while hurting herself, and then the next morning, she would wake up to find cuts on her fingers without knowing how they can about."

Self-inflicted injury?

"We came to notice it late when it moved from hurting herself to hurting the one who had traumatized her. My younger brother."

Ah, she had a younger brother? But I don’t think any of that was stated before.

"My younger brother was a brat and a tyrant even at a young age. He used the fact that he was favored by my father to get away with everything and when my mother tried to discipline him so he wouldn’t go astray, he went to report it to my father, and then..." She stopped squinting her eyes as the memory taunted her.

"You don’t have to go into details, Jie-Yu," I said to her and she nodded.

"My father inflicted pain on her, much worse than she inflicted on my younger brother," she squeezed her hands tight. "It was horrible and my mother couldn’t get up for days. After that, she ignored my brother and just lived her life. A year passed before all of this began to happen. She stabbed my younger brother’s legs and then slit his throat, all in her sleepwalk."

I covered my mouth, shocked.

That was very extreme.

"She woke up the moment my father shoved her away from the body of their dead son and just like how she didn’t know what she had been doing this whole time, fear struck her. She wanted to run and believe all of this was a dream but no matter how much she tried to deny it, it was real. And then she ended up being locked in an asylum."

The words she said made the atmosphere ten times harder.

"Eventually, her trauma built up, and in her sleep," she shut her eyes. "She walked to her doom."

What Jie-Yu was saying was simple.

Trauma was such a dangerous weapon that it could manipulate anyone.

I didn’t know it was to such an extreme extent but... I bit my lip. I definitely did not want to end up that way.

"That’s why I ask you," she knelt at my feet, looking at my eyes with her tear-filled eyes. "Please, while it is still early, you need to get treated. I can’t make such claims as you being mad or not in your right mind, but all big troubles start from small ones. While it is still early, please take care of it, young master." The tears finally fell and I could see the pain in her eyes.

She had lost her mother to such a mental issue. It would be hard for her to endure seeing someone else endure the same thing.

"Thank you for telling me that, Jie-Yu," I said, reaching my hand for her face to wipe the tears that had wet her pretty face. "And, I’m really sorry for hurting you."

She shook her head.

"It’s fine, Young master. It’s fine."

"I think I remember telling you to call me by my name." I sighed. "Are we no longer friends because of this?"

"No, no, that can’t be." She said. "We’re still friends."

I smiled.

This didn’t mark the end of the issue but I was glad that... At least she didn’t hate me.

Now, about that therapist.