Click! Click!
As flashes went off from every direction, Geuru swallowed.
‘There are too many people!’
A pressure on a completely different level from presenting at kindergarten bore down on her.
‘I’m scared.’
Soon the deer would come out, pass by Geuru, and then the hunter would appear, looking around.
Then Geuru had to tell the hunter where the deer was.
‘Wh-what do I do? Everything’s spinning!’
Behind her, the other children were also flustered by the sheer number of spectators, not knowing what to do.
Then, all of a sudden, her eyes met Jurim’s.
Perhaps noticing how tense Geuru was, he mouthed the words.
‘It’s okay even if you can’t do it.’
Geuru looked once at her grandfather, Uncle Hungsam, and her older sisters and brothers, then focused on that feeling she had whenever she was with her dad, as if she were wrapped in clouds.
‘I want to do well!’
Hup!
I am a tree!
Just then, her deer friend came up onto the stage and scampered toward Geuru.
‘Here it comes. The enemy of Geuru’s sprouts!’
Immersed in her role, Geuru opened her eyes wide.
At her fierce expression, as though she were truly glaring at her mortal enemy, the friend playing the deer flinched and hunched her shoulders.
“……?!”
The deer had approached in order to eat the sprouts of the Geuru tree, but faced with that inexplicably terrifying acting, she wavered—
Dash!
And simply fled.
Geuru watched the deer’s retreating back with satisfaction.
‘Geuru protected the sprouts.’
Regardless of how the play was progressing, Geuru, having defeated the deer, huffed proudly through her nose.
‘The time for revenge will soon come.’
The teachers hurriedly sent the hunter onto the stage.
If the hunter stood in front of the tree and said, “Where did the deer go?” Geuru would quickly accuse it by saying it went that way, and the scene would end with the hunter chasing after the deer.
However……
“…….”
The hunter, holding a long bow, fidgeted and then shut his mouth.
It seemed he had completely panicked under the pressure of the huge crowd and the fact that he had to begin the play’s first line.
“Uu……”
The hunter lowered his head, looking as if he were about to cry.
The families watching the school performance let out sympathetic sighs, and the teachers watching from the side of the stage fidgeted anxiously, unsure what to do.
“M-Mister Hunter!”
Just then, Geuru swayed her branches gently to draw the hunter’s attention.
“You’re looking for the deer, right?”
The hunter with the bow nodded with tearful eyes.
“Y-yeah!”
Geuru smiled brightly.
“The deer is over dere!”
When Geuru moved the play along for him, the hunter lowered his bow with a relieved expression.
“Tree, thank youuu……”
Then he went over to Geuru and hugged her tight.
“Mm.”
Geuru’s nose tingled too, so she hugged the hunter back and patted his back with her branch.
At the deep embrace between the tree and the hunter that hadn’t been in the script, soft laughter broke out here and there.
Teacher Jeong Yuni waved her hand to signal that they should leave the stage, and Geuru, nodding, held the hunter as she waddled sideways in a crab-walk.
In the end, the teachers had to rush in, pick up the children one by one, and carry them off the stage.
*
The play generally proceeded in a manner similar to the beginning.
The children forgot their lines, got teary-eyed, or had to be moved several times by the teachers when it was time to exit.
But since most of the audience were family members, the clumsy performance instead drew a good response.
As for Geuru.
‘Sprouts! I protected them!’
She remained far too immersed until the final stage greeting, simply enjoying herself.
At last, the Chick Class play ended, and while Geuru was changing clothes in the waiting room, bouquets were suddenly thrust in front of her from every direction.
“Geuru-Geuru, why are you so good at acting? I’m seeing you in a whole new light.”
“Jjang-Geuru, you were so cute!”
When Gidan and Nayeon fussed over her and patted her, Geuru grabbed Uju’s hand and raised it high.
“I practiced weally hard with Uju!”
Uju nodded with a proud expression.
“You did better than in practice.”
“Hehe!”
Just then, as families began pouring into the waiting room one by one, the leader of Hyeonak’s raid team raised his hand.
“All right, all right, let’s take a group photo first. Before the reporters swarm in.”
“How do they even follow us to a kid’s school performance?”
While the raid team grumbled, someone behind them asked carefully.
“Then, shall I take the picture for you?”
It was Park Mirim, the mother of Geuru’s friend Haeri.
“I wanna be in it too!”
Haeri squeezed in between Uju and Geuru and made an adorable cheek heart.
Of course our daughter wouldn’t miss out.
Park Mirim smiled wryly and took as many photos as needed until Haeri was satisfied.
After taking the group photo like that.
The guild members, each surrounded by crowds, broke into a sweat fulfilling requests to take pictures and give autographs.
The teachers did their best to block the reporters, but it would have been too much for them to stop even the families……
Jurim, too, seemed unable to act coldly toward the families of Geuru’s friends, and was in the middle of taking pictures with them.
On Suhyeong and Geuru watched him with warm smiles.
“Geuru, I’ll hold the flowers for you.”
“Yes.”
As Geuru handed the bouquet to her grandfather, Haeri came running over beside her.
“Geuru! Tell the Guild Mastew and let’s go to the playground over dere.”
Guild Mastew?
At the word she hadn’t heard in a while, Geuru blinked.
Ah, that was what she had told Haeri. That he wasn’t Dad, but the Guild Master.
‘But not anymore.’
Geuru clenched her fists and said loudly.
“N-not Guild Mastew, he’s Daddy!”
Uju, who was standing beside her, opened his mouth.
‘He became her dad now?!’
But Haeri nodded as if it were no big deal.
“Then tell your daddy and let’s go on the swings.”
“Mm-hm. Can Uju come too?”
“Mm, okay!”
“Mom! I’m going to the swings with Geuru and Uju!”
“O-oh! Mom will follow you soon. Play carefully!”
“Okay!”
Park Mirim waved, then turned her head toward Jurim.
Geuru was asking Jurim if she could go play with Haeri.
As he signed something for someone, Jurim nodded readily, a gentle smile resting on his lips.
He really has become her dad now.
Park Mirim rubbed the tip of her nose, which had grown needlessly prickly.
‘That’s wonderful.’
Chapter: Dads
Inside the broadcasting station’s waiting room.
Thinking that lately he seemed to be coming and going from broadcasting stations more often than dungeons, Jurim waited for the start of the “Three Guild Leaders, Three Colors Special.”
It was a decision he had made because he wanted to divert people’s attention from Jjapso onto himself, but if he had known the dates would overlap like this, he would not have scheduled today’s appearance.
Jurim anxiously checked the clock.
‘The results should be out by now.’
Time had flown by, and Geuru and Serhi, who had passed the written exam, had already had their admissions interviews two weeks ago.
And the results were scheduled to come out today.
She was naturally a smart child, but Jurim was worried sick that she might have said something strange during the interview.
‘She did say she didn’t say much, but……’
I wasn’t even this nervous about my own affairs.
He recalled how calm he had been even on the day his university acceptance results were announced. If anything, his older brother and father had been the ones making a fuss……
As Jurim was thinking back on old memories, he suddenly turned his eyes to the side.
There was one more anxious person next to him.
“The interview results? They’re still not out?”
It was Gu Sinhu.
Gu Sinhu, who even brought a stylist around with him, was touching up his makeup while calling various places on speakerphone.
Gu Sinhu’s daughter, Gu Huiyeon, had also passed the written exam this year and was waiting for the interview results.
‘I feel like I’m even more nervous because of that bastard.’
Jurim glared for no reason at Gu Sinhu, who was practically trembling, and after Gu Sinhu hung up the call, he dismissed the stylist and clutched his phone desperately.
Between the fathers anxiously awaiting the results, Cheon Gyuri, who had been sitting on one corner of the sofa looking at her phone, let out a sneer.
Those two, acting that nervous. It was a rare sight, one she had never even seen during most raids.
So before being guild leaders, they were fathers—is that it?