Ficorpio
Chapter 1
Chapter 1
I succeeded in healing the broken antihero who had never known love.
Then I gave him a child.
I swore to him that no matter what happened, I would never abandon us.
But The System decided, on its own, that the fated heroine was the only rightful partner. So it tore me away and sent me back to my original world.
Six years later, I was sitting at the table, coaxing my best friend’s daughter, Nina Carter, to finish her dinner, when someone knocked on my apartment door.
The little boy standing outside looked as if he’d been carved from porcelain, too beautiful and too delicate to be real. But the moment he saw the child beside me, the rims of his eyes turned red.
“Dad’s losing it again.”
He looked straight at me.
“So… are you the mother who abandoned us?”
The little boy at the door was dressed in a custom-tailored suit, a bow tie neat at his throat, every detail painfully polished.
And his face—
Those distinctive blue-gray eyes.
I knew almost instantly whose child he was.
He looked too much like Adrian. The eyes, the nose, the whole sharp little face—it was like looking at a miniature version of him.
But that was impossible.
I had left Adrian and our child in another world.
When I didn’t answer, the boy stepped around me and walked inside as if he belonged there.
I snapped out of it and hurried after him.
But then he stopped.
Frowning, he turned and fixed a guarded stare on Nina, my best friend’s daughter.
“So this is why you didn’t want me and Dad anymore,” he said.
“Because you have another child now.”
He looked far too mature for his age. There was a cold little composure to him, the kind of stern, grown-up expression no child should wear. It reminded me so much of Adrian from years ago, before I’d ever managed to break through to him.
Back then, Adrian had always worn that same dark, handsome, unreadable face. Brooding, distant, indifferent to anyone who tried to talk to him.
When I’d first started trying to win him over, I’d run into wall after wall.
I parted my lips, wanting to ask how on earth he had gotten here.
“Aunt Autumn… who is this boy?”
In the heavy silence, Nina peeked out from behind me and spoke in a timid little voice.
From the day Nina was born, I’d claimed her as my goddaughter.
All the love and regret I could never give my own child, I had poured into my best friend’s daughter instead—twice over, maybe more.
I had almost treated her like she was my own.
I reached back and smoothed her hair, still not sure how to answer.
Should I say this is my son?
But in this world, I was still the kind of woman people called permanently single—someone who had thrown all her time and energy into her career.
For me to suddenly have a child out of nowhere would be bizarre, to say the least.
Besides, even if he looked exactly right, Adrian and my son belonged to another world.
He couldn’t become my son here just because he said he was.
In the end, we would still need a DNA test to confirm everything.
Chapter 2
Chapter 2
So I only said, “He’s a friend’s son. He’ll be staying with us for a while.”
The moment the words left my mouth, the boy’s carefully controlled expression broke apart.
His eyes turned red almost instantly.
“So Dad was telling the truth,” he said.
“You really don’t want us anymore.”
My gaze dropped to his small hand, clenched so tightly it was trembling.
A child was still a child.
He had been forcing himself to stay calm this whole time.
In the middle of our standoff, the little boy’s stomach growled.
Twice.
He immediately turned his face away, embarrassed, the tips of his ears flushing red.
“Let’s eat first.”
I took the little backpack off his shoulders, brushed the dust from it, and hung it beside the coat rack.
The dishes on the table still hadn’t been cleared away. I didn’t know what he liked, so I went back into the kitchen and fried him an extra egg.
He pressed his lips together and stared at the bowl of rice and bone broth I set in front of him, as if he were in a trance.
From this angle, his chin looked heartbreakingly thin, sharp from being underfed.
How exactly had Adrian been taking care of him?
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Ethan Sterling.”
He picked up the spoon and carefully took one sip of soup. Then his eyes lit up. A second later, he lifted the bowl with both hands and drank a big mouthful.
Ethan.
It was a beautiful name.
Back then, not long after I gave birth, The System had forcibly dragged me back to my original world. I hadn’t even had time to name my baby.
I looked at the child’s soft little face, still tense no matter how hard he tried to stay composed.
Everything inside me turned bitter.
When I vanished without a word all those years ago, Adrian must have hated me.
He had always been someone starved for love, and I had left him and our son behind in that world all alone.
The entire meal, Ethan stayed quiet.
Such a small child, sitting properly at the table, eating without making a fuss.
I put a few more bites of food into his bowl.
He stared at the green peppers for a moment, clearly hesitating, but in the end he still picked them up and stuffed them into his mouth.
His little brows immediately knitted together.
That, at least, he got from his father. Adrian hated green peppers too.
And yet, no matter how much he disliked them, Ethan still cleaned his plate completely.
After dinner, I carried sleepy little Nina to wash up and get ready for bed.
When I came back to the living room, I found Ethan fiddling with a smartwatch, swiping at it over and over. The second he saw me, he shoved it behind his back.
His eyes blinked rapidly, guilt written all over his face.
I pretended not to notice.
“Does your dad know you came to see me?”
What if Ethan had suddenly crossed into my world on his own?
Chapter 3
Chapter 3
If his son disappeared, Adrian would lose his mind in the other world.
But at the same time, something tight and trembling rose in my chest—nerves, and a quiet, impossible hope.
If Adrian had come too…
Would I be able to see him again?
Would I get one chance to make up for the goodbye I never gave him?
Unfortunately, I heard Ethan answer in a small voice—
“No.”
“Dad wouldn’t come with me.”
Of course.
He still hated me.
I tugged at the corner of my mouth in a bitter little smile, and because of that, I missed the way Ethan looked like he wanted to say something and couldn’t.
I took out a new set of pajamas we’d bought for Nina and handed them to him.
“We’ll go get you some new clothes tomorrow.”
“There’s only one bed in the house.”
“Would you like to sleep with me tonight?”
The light in his eyes sharpened all at once.
He stared at me, wide-eyed. A child’s feelings were impossible to hide, no matter how hard he tried. He pressed his lips together and said, “I always sleep alone at home.”
Then, after a beat, “But… okay.”
I watched him dash straight into the bathroom, and my mood finally lifted a little.
Lying in bed, I tossed and turned for a while. Beside me, Ethan carefully edged closer and burrowed into my arms.
By the middle of the night, he’d pressed his whole body against mine, wrapping his arms around my neck with not even an inch between us.
It was early summer. Between the blanket and his clingy little body, I got so warm I opened my eyes.
The first thing I saw was Ethan’s bright, shining gaze.
“Why aren’t you asleep?”
Nina was sleeping on my other side, so I had to keep my voice low.
“I can’t sleep.” As he said it, he rubbed his soft hair against my neck and shoulder.
I pulled the blanket back over the little stomach he’d kicked bare and tucked it in around him.
The window was cracked open, and the rustle of leaves drifted in from outside.
In my ear was the steady sound of Nina’s breathing.
Then I heard Ethan whisper, almost breathlessly, “Mom.”
Right after that, like he’d gotten shy, he buried his face against me.
There was that soft warmth against my chest, that clean, sweet scent only children seemed to have. I looked down at the crown of his fluffy hair.
My heart melted.
I had dreamed about this more times than I could count.
In those dreams, I stayed by Adrian’s side. I watched him and our son move through year after year, through spring and summer and fall and winter.
We had promised to take a vacation on an island together.
I was wearing a flowing white dress, thin and bright in the sea breeze, the hem fluttering around my legs. Not far away, Adrian stood waiting for me with his arms open.
Our son sat in a stroller, giggling, his smile radiant as sunlight.
And yet every time I woke from those happy dreams, I was alone.