“Preparation for studying abroad at an overseas gifted academy.”
“You read well.”
Proud! Gru shrugged her shoulders.
“It’s the best place in America. It’s good for networking, and the curriculum is excellent, too.”
Curriculuum? Gru responded with the all-purpose answer that could get her out of any situation.
“Yesh!”
As he swapped the booklet for her, he continued.
“Britain is good, too.”
“Bwittain!”
While looking through the booklet, Gru clumsily echoed him.
He praised her once more, “Impressive,” and Gru beamed a bashful smile again.
But why was this situation so familiar? It shouldn’t be.
‘America, Britain, studying abroad…’
Rolling her brain, stuffed with pseudo-experiences from TV and YouTube, round and round like tumbling dice, the channel flickered and stopped at one point. A lightbulb flickered on in her head.
This was it. A scene she often watched in YouTube hot clips.
[(Sweet Potato Warning) Please Leave for Our Daughter. What is the Chairman’s Secret Request?]
- You must want to study design by now. Here is a ticket to America. Take this money and leave.
Recalling the scene where a powerful person handed the protagonist a plane ticket and money, Gru’s expression hardened.
This isn’t the time to laugh, is it?
Gru pressed her eyes shut with her hands clasped together.
‘Another major crisis!’
She had caught S-rank monsters, nabbed pickpockets, and rescued Nayeon Unnie when she was being controlled by a high-rank Awakener.
She had overcome countless ordeals, but this crisis seemed impossible to solve with a duck-bill performance.
However, thanks to remembering her YouTube knowledge in time, she could more or less cope with it.
Because she had almost said, without knowing anything, “Gru likes Britain, the cloud drawn here looks like Baby Shark.”
She had almost boarded a plane to Britain to see a Baby Shark cloud.
A plane… She had never been on one.
‘A plane… might be nice…’
Ha!
She shook her head left and right.
No! Gru had decided to be a strength to the Guild Leader. Wasn’t this exactly when the Guild Leader was having a hard time, when Gru had to stay by his side?
As a guild member of Hyeonak, and as a foster child and housemate.
Gru rolled only her eyeballs and glanced at the Chairman.
‘Does the Guild Leader’s dad want Gru to go far away?’
Suddenly sullen, Gru fidgeted with both hands.
Memories of when she had been abandoned suddenly surfaced. It was always hard to accept not being recognized.
Disappointment, hurt—thumbtacks formed all over inside her heart, stinging painfully.
How could she express this feeling? How should she say she wanted to be by the Guild Leader’s side for him to listen?
“Just say whatever it is.”
“Whatewer?”
“Yes. Try saying it.”
If that was the case. Gru decided to make a bold request without backing down.
“Meat!”
Onsuhyeong asked back blankly, as if doubting whether what he had heard was real.
“Meat? ……A meal?”
“Yeth. Wice and meat.”
Just thinking about the Guild Leader made her lose her appetite so much that she had only picked at lunch. She had even given her snack to a friend.
She wasn’t particularly gluttonous, but giving up her snack was a first in her long kindergarten life.
‘Gru, you made a fatal mistake.’
Today’s snack had been her favorite strawberry yogurt. In a moment of bravado, she had missed out on it.
Was it because hunger left only instinct? She didn’t know how to overcome this situation, but she was simply hungry.
For a side dish, meat was the best, after all. Gru, a carnivorous kindergartener, pictured meat dripping with juices.
Gruuurgle!
Right on cue, her stomach clamored for food.
Hmph! As Gru clutched her belly, Onsuhyeong, who had maintained an expressionless face the whole time, said with a slightly urgent expression,
“White Knight, to Olson Hotel. As fast as possible.”
*
It was a restaurant with a grand view of skyscrapers beyond the large windows.
Gru watched a giant banner hanging down large enough to cover an entire wall of one building, then turned her head to the plate in front of her.
‘Mmm.’
She picked up her fork and stabbed the center of the steak in one go; juices flowed out.
Just as she was about to lift it straight to her mouth to eat savagely.
Onsuhyeong hurriedly swapped Gru’s plate with his own. The steak he had diligently cut since it arrived was placed in front of her.
“Fank you.”
She bowed and put a piece in her mouth, chewing thoroughly.
As the child’s cheeks puffed up, his expressionless lips faintly curved up.
Then the moment his eyes met Gru’s, he turned his head and covered his mouth.
“Ahem.”
Onsuhyeong coughed and picked up his knife, and Gru tilted her head in confusion.
He only cut the meat and couldn’t bring himself to put it in his mouth.
‘If he does that, the Guild Leader would say he’s nibbling.’
Because Jurim fed her so well, Gru had been nibbling a lot these days just as he said.
When that happened, Jurim would sit Gru on his knee and become a mother bird, feeding her spoonful by spoonful.
Having quietly observed Suhyeong nibbling, Gru dipped two pieces of steak and toddled over to his side, holding them out to his mouth.
“……!”
Suhyeong alternated his gaze between the steak piece approaching his mouth and Gru.
“Aahn—”
When he cautiously accepted it, Gru pitter-pattered back to her seat, then pushed her plate forward and moved right next to Suhyeong.
Sitting beside him, Gru ate one piece herself and fed Suhyeong two pieces at a time.
The plate emptied quickly, and when Suhyeong offered the steak pieces from his own plate, Gru accepted them like a baby bird.
Whether it was because eating meat put her in a good mood, or because feeding each other was pleasant.
Gru’s face flushed red as she smiled, and Suhyeong finally couldn’t hold back and let out a breathy laugh.
He covered his mouth with his hand and said softly,
“My word, you really know how to steal one’s senses.”
He had thought he would be grateful enough if the child weren’t afraid of him, but he never dreamed that after meeting so briefly, they would be stuffing food into each other’s mouths like this.
He had always been taciturn by nature, so his compatibility with children was horrendously bad.
Because of that, the grandfather was simply staggered by this utterly unexpected situation.
While he repressed his hearty laughter, the server confirmed they had finished their meal and left with the plates, saying dessert would be brought out.
Gru returned to her seat across from him and cleared her throat.
Now that she had filled her stomach, it was time to say what she needed to say.
Just in case, Gru pushed the water glass on the table far to the side.
‘You can do it!’
Soon, she clenched both her tiny fists tightly and opened her mouth.
“Ch-Chairman!”
At Gru’s address, Onsuhyeong’s eyebrows rose slightly.
“Do you not wike Gru?”
Onsuhyeong, who had been drinking wine, coughed softly.
He raised his hand to stop those approaching with handkerchiefs.
Coming from the child who had personally fed him meat just moments ago, the words were far too bewildering. With a blank face, he asked back,
“Why do you think that?”
“Gru doesn’t wanna go far. Gru wants to stay by the Guild Weader’s side.”
“Ah…….”
Onsuhyeong held a faint, barely visible smile.
At the immensely softened atmosphere, Gru opened her eyes wide and round.
“Do you wanna stay by Jurim’s side?”
Nod, nod.
Right now, when the Guild Leader was having a hard time, she wanted to give him strength even more by his side.
As she nodded her head vigorously, Suhyeong spoke as if it were no great matter.
“If that is your wish, then it shall be so.”
‘Huh?’
This easily? Gru’s eyes rolled around.
‘In dramas, they splash water and everything.’
Perhaps it was a tactic to lull her into letting her guard down.
Gru pulled the water glass back over and, watching his reaction, gulped down all the water.
Then she ostentatiously placed the empty glass on the table. Since she couldn’t drink the wine, she remained on guard.