Retire 452
by Cristae452 Fragment Collection (4)
‘Huh? I told you, I don’t know. I’ve never seen her. Didn’t I say so last time? If you were Noah, do you think you’d show me your subordinates?’
‘I wouldn’t.’
‘If you answer that fast, what does that make me?’
There was no reason to expect his opinion to change at this point, but Alex Hope, with a sensibility incomprehensible to any normal person, remained brazenly confident.
Not that I ever expected anything from him anyway. Hope was somewhat lacking in humanity, empathy, and intelligence, but as long as he had Sandra Gamble by his side as a support system, he managed to function well enough. If there had been a mage as conspicuous as that around Noah Michel, he would certainly have told me.
Not that there weren’t plenty of mages around Michel, of course. From followers to those just hoping to gain something. But of them all, the only one Michel ever used as an extension of himself, showing even a hint of his true nature, was Sam Bloom.
“This person?”
My father had agreed to handle Uirok, so I carefully held out the photo to Sophia. It wasn’t a decision I made on my own—I’d gotten permission from Isabella, Robert, and Kang Tae-woo as well.
Of course, I also asked Sophia herself. When I explained that it would help catch the bad guys, she was delighted and readily agreed.
And then—
Sophia tilted her head in puzzlement.
“I’ve never seen her.”
“You haven’t?”
“No. I hardly ever left the playroom… I didn’t even see the researchers that often.”
“I see….”
Sophia scrunched up her face as if trying to remember. But with a child’s face, it just looked cute rather than serious.
“I really don’t know….”
“That’s all right. Your brother said he doesn’t remember either.”
“Really? Did you ask Uirok too?”
“Mm.”
I nodded.
“I haven’t asked him yet, but I will.”
“He spent more time outside the playroom, so he’d probably know better.”
Sophia lifted her chin slightly, speaking with a surprising air of maturity. Not that it made her look any less adorable, with her cheeks still round with baby fat….
I suppressed a smile and nodded back with a seriousness to match Sophia’s.
“But he’s funny, you know. I’m his older sister, but he never calls me that… So arrogant.”
“Mm.”
“He’s so annoying!”
The longer this topic lasted, the worse it would get for me. I hurriedly gathered up the photo and stood.
“Are all boys like that? The boys in my class act just like Uirok!”
“Well….”
Sophia hopped off the sofa and followed close behind, grumbling.
“I don’t really know. Ask your brother when he gets home.”
“He said to ask our oldest brother!”
Kang Tae-woo, that brat.
To be honest, I hadn’t expected Sophia to remember anything.
For all the weighty deliberation, I didn’t have high hopes for Uirok, either.
If someone had played an important role in the research facility, they would have been connected to his biological parents as well. Those people loved to show off their results; I doubted they would have hidden Uirok away. If anything, they’d have shown him off. A successful experiment that could breathe, talk, and run. In fact, he was often paraded around as a promising research product.
And the Uirok I remembered was never the type to sit quietly in one place. Especially not if it was someone close to the researchers—close enough that Kang Tae-woo once called her “aunt.”
See? He never cared much about the researchers, but if it was a visitor who came all the way to the facility, they’d have known his biological parents too….
He would never have just sat still.
Anyway, if it was just one of those ordinary visitors, it was only natural not to remember.
“…Huh?”
I quieted myself and stilled my presence.
From the inner study, I could hear voices murmuring. A high, unbroken child’s voice, and the deeper voice of a middle-aged man.
…Was the conversation not over yet? What could there be left to ask?
The conversation was so subdued it made me uneasy, but I had no urge to interrupt.
Since his awakening, Uirok had become much more sensitive to people’s presence. Still, he was just a child, and it was easy enough not to be noticed. If it were any other conversation, I might have left it alone, but I needed to know about Luise Kruger too. I listened closely to the voices coming from the study. My father would surely have noticed I was there by now anyway.
“…So, what do you think? Would you like to be my son?”
What is he saying now, that man?
I told him to ask if Uirok had ever seen Luise Kruger, not to ask something like that.
I nearly burst into the study to yell at him, but stopped when I heard Uirok’s voice. Through the half-open door, I heard the sullen voice of a child.
“What are you talking about?”
“Look at that, he talks just like his brother.”
That stung my pride.
“So, well? You don’t want to?”
“I already answered all your questions! Go on! Go to work!”
“But I was sad you weren’t home. Are you really going? Really?”
“…….”
“Uirok, do you not want to live with me?”
What was he doing with the kid?
I tried to peek through the crack in the door, but whether by luck or misfortune, the two of them were standing at an angle I couldn’t see. I could just barely make out my father’s back.
I stood at the door, hesitating. Should I go in? Or…?
“…It’s not that I don’t want to.”
“Then?”
“Well, this is your house. Why are you asking me?”
“It’s your house too, Uirok.”
Arms folded, I listened to their conversation.
Compared to the conversations I’d had with my father at that age, this was… much more human.
I wasn’t keeping Uirok locked up, after all; he had his own life. He was a child, so I kept tabs on who his friends were and how school was going, but he was at the age where he wanted to keep some things private. He didn’t tell me everything.
He didn’t do anything worrying. The only thing that concerned me was how often he contacted Han Tae-kyung, but Han Tae-kyung would never get him into trouble. At most, they’d watch that crazy cat anime together.
Other than that…
Maybe Uirok relied on my father more than I’d guessed? I couldn’t tell if that was because of my father’s efforts to reach out, or because, for the first time, there was an adult besides me whom Uirok could trust. After Sam Bloom’s attack, Uirok had definitely lowered his guard around my father.
I wanted Hong Seok-young to become my father again.
If I said that, my father would protest that he’d never stopped being my father, not even once.
But he was my father—not Uirok’s.
I hadn’t asked Uirok what he wanted, because I didn’t know what he would say.
For all I knew, Uirok might not want a father at all. At his age, I felt the same way.
“If you couldn’t live here, do you have somewhere else to go?”
“Well, there’s the school dormitory.”
“That’s not a home!”
“True. So, can I call this your home too?”
Uirok didn’t answer right away, then muttered gruffly.
“It’s your house, you don’t need my permission.”
“But to be your dad, I need your permission, Uirok.”
“More than my permission—”
“Hm?”
The silence that followed was quite long.
But my father didn’t rush him, just waited. I held my breath for no reason.
I was just about to give in to boredom and walk in when—
“You should ask my brother first.”
Uirok spoke, his voice subdued in a way I’d never heard before.
I wasn’t the only one who paused at that tone. My father forced his own voice steady and asked,
“Why?”
“What do you mean, why?”
“If you said you wanted to be my son, Hee-jae would say yes.”
“That’s why you have to ask him!”
Uirok raised his voice.
“My brother always tells me to do what I want, so I have to make sure he’s really okay with it!”
What he wants.
Did Uirok… want to be this man’s son?
“If I’m your son but my brother isn’t, that’s weird! Even TV dramas don’t use such outdated secret-birth plots anymore!”
That’s not it.
No, that’s not what I meant.
“Would you like it if your brother became my son too?”
“If he says no, then I don’t want to.”
“But you want to, don’t you?”
“…….”
“Not your brother. What about you, Uirok?”
I heard a rustling sound.
The sound of Uirok shifting his body.
After Sam Bloom’s attempted abduction, my father had paid a lot of attention to Uirok. He’d always been soft with kids, but after learning I was his son, he’d become even more so. Uirok, for his part, seemed to find all the attention awkward, but he didn’t seem to dislike it.
Then and now, my stance hadn’t changed. Uirok should decide. Whether he wanted to call the man kneeling in front of him—who barely reached his own waist—his father.
It had been well over half a year since Sam Bloom’s attack. Soon, it would be a year.
The time from when I, living in an orphanage, was reunited with my father by chance, to when he offered to adopt me and I took his hand and left the orphanage, was about the same.
“I…”
Uirok spoke.
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s okay.”
“…It’s okay?”
“You can take your time to find out if you’d be okay being my son.”
“That’s cheating.”
“You caught me.”
My father chuckled.
“Even if you don’t want to be my son, I already think of you as my son, so it doesn’t matter.”
“That’s cheating too.”
There was a hint of laughter in Uirok’s voice.
“My brother might not like it.”
“Hee-jae?”
“He always has a hard time because of me… I don’t want to do anything he doesn’t like.”
“I doubt Hee-jae thinks that way. Even if you do whatever you want—”
“That’s exactly it! Because he lets me do whatever I want, he’s always the one who suffers! Even at the research facility!!”
Only then did I realize why Uirok hadn’t come to me lately.
Did he think he was a burden to me?
Was that why he clung to my father, who seemed more of an adult than me, to avoid burdening me?
“I don’t think your brother feels that way.”
“But… if I became your son, would my brother finally get to rest?”
“Well, your brother would get bored if he didn’t have work to do… Yeah. I have plenty of money. Even if I never work again, we’d be fine.”
My father’s voice was still tinged with laughter, but it was low and gentle, full of unwavering conviction.
“But you know, Uirok, just like you, I already think of your brother as my son too.”
“…What?”
“If one brother is my son, how could the other not be? Of course, you’re both my sons!”
Sometimes, I remembered how Uirok would start to say something to me, then stop himself.
Isabella, Robert, even Kang Tae-woo had all told me to talk to Uirok.
I’d just assumed it was because he was reaching the age for adolescence.
“So, Uirok. Will you be my son? Don’t think about your brother—what do you want?”
My father pressed gently.
This time, Uirok answered.
“If my brother says yes.”
I covered my eyes with my palm.
“You sound just like your brother.”
“Like my brother?”
“Yeah. Just like him.”
My father burst out laughing. Even without seeing his face, I could picture his expression perfectly.