“I’ll grant any request you have. Go ahead and tell me.”
“Then to Geuru……. Ah, but first!”
Geuru cleared her throat with a couple of hums and then asked with a solemn face, slowly and deliberately.
“Do you love Ssabu?”
“Huh?”
Reiji ultimately couldn’t help but bare an utterly baffled expression.
“This is a request I can only make after hearing an answer. Do you love Ssabu?”
At the question asked with such gravity, as if officiating a wedding, Reiji could only gape.
At the same time, a sudden wave of baby scent washed over him. And it brought back the memory of when he first held Kazuki.
The bean-sized hand that had gripped his index finger tightly.
The days when he had been just an ordinary person, when he had frantically cleared his work because he wanted to see that still-wrinkled face…….
“Of course. I love him. Very much so.”
There was no need to lie to a child.
He had thought it would be something like a cute request to meet Kazuki if he loved Ssabu.
That much wasn’t difficult.
He didn’t know whether the son who had said he would kill his father would welcome such a meeting, though.
It wasn’t that he hadn’t met Kazuki all this time because of any particularly grand reason.
Reiji was simply a man whose innate nature was like that.
A man who hid an impulsive and destructive nature beneath a polite and elegant demeanor.
Completely different from Kazuki, who would even cry for the relatives that abused him.
Therefore, to avoid making Kazuki like his wife who had grieved every day upon seeing his underworld self, he had deliberately kept Kazuki away. That was all.
Thus, Reiji had expected that he could accept the child’s request without difficulty.
But contrary to his expectations, the truly cute request was something else entirely.
“Then, please let Geuru arrest you.”
“……?”
“What?”
“……?”
This time, not only Reiji and Beillakeu, but even Joorim in the back with his arms crossed and head bowed couldn’t help but stare at Geuru in astonishment.
“Apologize for all the bad things you’ve done. Become a good dad and meet Ssabu…….”
“Become a good dad?”
“Yes……. Because. Ssabu seems to have a lot of worries.”
Geuru drooped her shoulders sulkily and continued speaking.
“Right now Ssabu is sick. So he should take medicine, but he isn’t and is just leaving it be. I think he doesn’t want to take medicine.”
“……He’s sick but won’t take medicine?”
“Yes. So…… I was thinking that maybe Ssabu actually doesn’t want to get better. I don’t know why, though Geuru doesn’t know…….”
The quest had said that Kazuki was hesitating.
As a young child, Geuru found it hard to fathom the complicated hearts of adults.
Because to Geuru, taking medicine when sick was only natural.
“…….”
Geuru looked at Reiji, who was listening seriously with quite a grave expression, then glanced toward Beillakeu.
Beillakeu shook his head as if to say such a request wouldn’t be granted anyway.
But the moment Kazuki was said to be sick, Reiji’s expression hardened.
He might be a bad person, but he was probably not a bad father.
“So Geuru just wants to take away Ssabu’s worries. And I’ll make lots of fun and happy things. Because when you want to be happy, that’s when you want to get better the most.”
Geuru shuddered as she recalled past memories.
“Like when my friends were playing house and Geuru wanted to get better quickly to join them…….”
When Geuru had been at the orphanage, lying down groggily, it had been devastatingly sad when friends pulled covers over their heads and played house.
She didn’t know why you want to play several times more when you’re sick.
“So Ssabu needs to gain the strength to take his medicine. Please become Ssabu’s good dad.”
Geuru clenched her fist.
“Because then Ssabu will be happy!”
“…….”
A brief silence hung in the air.
Geuru rolled her eyes toward Reiji, who couldn’t readily open his mouth.
Because she was suddenly scared that she might have said something strange.
Then, Reiji, who had listened silently, soon smiled.
“It seems I’m enough of a worry for that kid.”
Geuru furrowed her brows.
“That’s a bad thing…….”
“Malice is better than indifference, after all.”
“……?!”
Could that be so? As Geuru’s eyes trembled at the twisted affection, Joorim subtly spoke.
“Don’t teach the child strange things.”
Reiji chuckled lowly and met Geuru’s eyes steadily.
“You have truly beautiful eyes.”
At Reiji’s praise, Geuru smiled brightly.
He suddenly realized he had developed deep interest and affection for this bouncy child.
So much so that he wanted to grant the child’s absurd request.
“Little one. I too have a proposal I’d like to make. Could the arrest be not now, but later? There are things I must do before being caught, you see.”
“Hmmm…….”
He might slip away like this and break the promise. But Geuru read sincerity in Reiji’s eyes and nodded.
“Yes. It’s fine.”
“Thank you.”
“Promise!”
When Geuru held up her pinky, Reiji sealed the promise with a coating and even a copy.
“Ah, and. You have to let only Geuru arrest you.”
That way, Geuru’s crime could be taken into consideration!
But she swallowed the rest of her words. She couldn’t let Joorim know that Geuru had become a criminal again.
Reiji chuckled and said he understood, patting her head.
“I promise that too. I shall let only you catch me.”
“Hm!”
Only after hearing that promise did Geuru hand over the handcuff key.
Soon after the handcuffs were undone, Joorim spoke.
“Geuru, put the transformed thing back and return it to its original place.”
“Yes.”
“Little one, a moment. Could you take this to Kazuki?”
“Yes?”
What Reiji took from his bosom was a small, old train that looked to be several decades old.
He took out a fountain pen and wrote a message on the train in Japanese.
Geuru received the toy train and opened her mouth wide.
“I don’t know if this will lessen Kazuki’s worries…… but couldn’t it at least give him a small happiness to the point he’d want to get better?”
Geuru smiled.
“Then Geuru will definitely deliver it!”
Geuru, swinging her fist with a “leave it to me,” carefully put the train into her inventory and moved to return the handcuffs to their original place with Beillakeu.
“……Hoo.”
Joorim watched Geuru’s retreating figure in a daze, the very figure who had captured that big shot with a single pinky promise.
While Interpol, which had once had its headquarters half-destroyed for approaching Reiji rashly, and the various countries whose key figures had been assassinated would welcome this with open arms…….
Just imagining a five-year-old girl catching and offering up such a big shot already made his head hurt.
It would no doubt flip the international investigation agencies on their heads.
Moreover, it must not have been an easy decision for Reiji.
As Joorim was suddenly worrying, “Should I be careful that the Hyunak building doesn’t explode?” Reiji straightened his back with a smiling face.
[“There will be much to do to settle my affairs before being arrested.”]
Reiji let out a deep sigh but soon laughed aloud as if amused.
[“I never imagined I’d be asked to let myself be arrested. Certainly your daughter is cute, kind, and very peculiar.”]
[“……I’ll take that as a compliment.”]
[“Of course it’s a compliment. She caught me, didn’t she.”]
[“Geuru…… would say she understands even if you granted a different request right now.”]
[“I didn’t want to. Because I grew curious about what a ‘good dad’ according to a child means.”]
[“More importantly, Reiji. Regarding the child…….”]
Reiji smiled.
[“Don’t worry, On-chan. Not speaking carelessly about anything is my strong suit, isn’t it?”]
Reiji watched the child trotting back after putting down the handcuffs, then took a step. At the same time, his body began to disappear like smoke.
At this, Geuru’s eyes went wide.
It seemed others couldn’t see him, as everyone passed by Reiji comfortably and went about shopping.
Reiji waved to Geuru and then turned to look at Joorim.
[“Are you a good dad?”]
[“Of course.”]
At Joorim’s brazen answer, Reiji burst into laughter.
[“When you said you adopted a daughter, I doubted my ears, but now you’ve become a fine father.”]
[“Yes, well. I’m a kinder and more respectable dad than anyone. I don’t get arrested by a five-year-old genius who’s smart, cute, and lovely.”]
[“Is this revenge for the letter? Having become a doting father, your heart has grown even narrower.”]
Joorim shrugged his shoulders.
“Hmph,” Reiji twitched his eyebrows and gestured to Geuru, who was staring blankly at him.
“Hm?”
As Geuru came pattering over, he whispered something.
A crease ran through Joorim’s brow. What was he saying?
At that moment, Reiji’s form flickered and vanished like a candle going out.
And Geuru, having returned immediately after hearing Reiji’s whisper, checked under the cart.
“Ah! There really is one! A meal kit!”
Ah, found out.
He had hidden it invisibly at the very bottom, but it seemed Reiji had given her a hint.
Joorim snatched up the meal kit so Geuru couldn’t steal it.
Geuru hissed and struggled to grab the meal kit.
It was fine if only he was the bad dad, but why was Reiji trying to make him a bad dad too?
Joorim, whose temper had flared, scooped up the struggling Geuru.
Whining that he was mean, Geuru wrapped her arms around his neck.
Joorim smiled and kissed Geuru’s cheek.
Geuru’s giggling laughter spread out, and Beillakeu, watching this, let out a hollow laugh.
‘She actually did it.’
When Geuru had said she would arrest him with toy handcuffs, he had thought it was absurd.
Because even without Geuru bringing the key, someone like Reiji could have broken the handcuffs and leaped away.
He had thought they would end up killing or fighting each other.
Beillakeu had lived for a long time and therefore believed he could judge the situation better than his master.
But in the end, it was his master who had achieved everything she wanted peacefully.
It was trivial, but…… Beillakeu gazed at Geuru, smiling happily in Joorim’s arms.
This isn’t so bad either.
The tiny girl, the complete opposite of Shayer, was always passionate and lovely.
At first, he had become her kin with a resigned, whatever-will-be-will-be attitude…….
Beillakeu realized his body was transforming again and headed toward the restroom.
……She’s trash-tier right now, but if she grows a little more, she might become his perfect master.