#15

Feeling a peculiar gaze, Tennessee turned around. It was the child. The child was leaning crookedly against the wall with their arms crossed. It was a look that asked, Are you going out again?

Tennessee was someone who had been through repeated adoptions and returns, never having grown up in a stable home. He wondered if he had had a grandmother who cared for him deeply, whether she would have given him a look exactly like that.

The child looked at Tennessee’s attire with half-lidded eyes.

“Where are you going?”

“A strip club.”

As the words slipped out unconsciously, the child gasped. Then, despite having a face that looked as if they had a lot to say, they managed to hold back the nagging. It was a reaction that made even Tennessee feel a slight sense of unfairness.

In the first place, Tennessee was going to the club operated by Megan, and that place was exclusively for women. Even if he went, he’d only end up ruining his eyes by seeing men wearing nothing but scraps of cloth, tempting women with all sorts of obscene poses.

He was only going because Megan had left a voice message. If he had visited a strip club for his own personal pleasure, he wouldn’t have felt this strange.

Feeling no need to explain in detail to the child, Tennessee silently finished getting ready. He shouldn’t have told the child where he was going in the first place. He didn’t know why he spoke so easily to this kid.

“Isn’t that the place where… that…”

“That what?”

Tennessee smiled languidly, as if to see what the child was talking about.

“That… where people get paid to wiggle on people’s laps.”

It was a comment that almost made Tennessee burst out laughing. Not liking his reaction, the child pouted. Then, glancing at him, the child asked quietly.

“Can I go with you?”

“What?”

“I’ll stay quietly in the car.”

After looking at him so crookedly, the child now looked up with large eyes, like Puss in Boots. When there was no response, they even clasped their hands desperately.

It was a request that would never fly. Even if Megan ran it, it was a strip club, and there was no telling what might happen. Surely, drugs and sexual harassment would be rampant somewhere. However, the faces of the gang he had seen last time crossed his mind. By now, they probably knew what kind of child he was accompanying. Though he wasn’t keen on it, this was better. Tennessee nodded in permission.

As soon as Tennessee parked the car and turned around, the child beat him to the punch.

“I’ll stay here.”

Tennessee, who had started to say “Ye…”, simply nodded. He even turned on the radio.

“Turn on the heater if you’re cold.”

“The weather is warm, though?”

7 – Chapter

“Then turn on the air conditioner.”

“…….”

“It won’t take long.”

The child nodded. As Tennessee opened the door, the child called out to him in a small voice. He turned his head to look at the child.

“Um… I’m sorry for asking about the person you killed. I didn’t mean to make you feel bad.”

“I didn’t feel bad.”

“But you still remembered a bad memory.”

The child seemed lost in thought for a moment, looking to the left, remembering how Tennessee’s eyes had dropped. He was a man of few words. Even in that moment, the child knew that Tennessee had swallowed many words.

Closing the half-open door, Tennessee let out a small sigh. Megan’s message had been concise, and her voice hadn’t sounded urgent, but Megan wasn’t someone who contacted people for no reason. The faster the work was handled, the better. Tennessee checked his watch. He figured it wouldn’t be too much to spare a few minutes.

“It was my mother. She was a heroin addict.”

‘Baby.’

Tennessee hated the way that woman called him; it made his skin crawl.

‘Where’s your father?’

‘Mom, that was two months ago.’

Heroin was the mildest of it. She was a woman whose entire body had been ruined by all sorts of drugs. It had been an eternity since the last time she had been lucid. She would stare out the window with glazed eyes before doing drugs. Used syringes rolled across the floor, and blackened, burnt spoons lay scattered everywhere.

She also suffered from severe depression. The house died in darkness, and much like the home, Tennessee withered away moment by moment. Sometimes, despair and rage flared up together. It happened every time he saw the woman collapsed on the floor like a dead dog.

It happened one day. For some reason, the curtains that usually blocked the windows were open. His mother was lying in bed, and Tennessee had just returned from a distant church that gave out free food. He had already eaten his own portion, and the sandwich for his mother was still in his hand.

Mom. Mom.

She didn’t answer. He thought she was just sleeping. Then, he discovered new needle marks on her arm. Her body was a map of every possible injection site. When she ran out of veins, she began stabbing into the backs of her hands and feet. He felt a wave of disillusionment.

When the drugs wore off, she would hold Tennessee and cry.

I’ll do better. Baby, let’s get through this together.

Whenever that happened, Tennessee felt the storm raging in his chest settle. He couldn’t count how many times the crashing waves calmed, only to surge and sink again.

Watching her lie there like a corpse, Tennessee was slowly becoming disgusted.

Tennessee set the sandwich down. He hadn’t even been able to apply for food stamps properly. There was nothing to eat. There was no hope.

In that moment, Tennessee felt a surge of rage that he could no longer overcome.

He was infuriated by the fact that there was no hope. That she had driven both herself and him into a place without hope. And at the father who had left, leaving behind nothing but the torture of false hope.

That day, Tennessee realized that when rage becomes too intense, it turns into frost, making a person cold and calculating. With an unbelievably clear head and a frigid spirit, he put on gloves.

Then, he took the gun from the safe atop the cupboard. He already knew the combination. His mother, suffering from severe depression, had repeatedly taken the gun out to stare at it several times a day before putting it back.

Tennessee stepped toward her as she slept, intoxicated by the drugs.

Between his worn-out shoes and the dirty carpet, a used syringe snapped with a scream. Holding the gun, Tennessee stared at her for a long time.

It would have been better if his father had been there. Then he could have killed him immediately without the trouble of searching.

Tennessee grabbed his mother’s hand. A wretched female body, cold and losing its vitality with each passing day.

At the time, Tennessee didn’t even breathe heavily. He was simply peaceful. He calmly recalled the things that needed to be done. Remembering that his mother was left-handed, he placed the pistol in her left hand. A faint sound of breathing reached him.

Tennessee then touched her cracked index fingernail and hooked it over the trigger. With a deep breath, he placed his own finger over hers.

She didn’t wake up until the end.

And then, one shot.

The fact that she was lying down, unlike other suicide victims, or that no suicide note was found, wasn’t even a consideration. This was a neighborhood where people died every single day anyway. The police didn’t even examine the bodies properly. Moreover, her heroin addiction and depression were no secret.

He later learned that he hadn’t even needed to wear gloves. The adults around him didn’t show the slightest bit of effort. It was an investigation that lacked any actual investigation.

That was all.

“It was a strange feeling, seeing something I had only imagined become a reality.”

That was all Tennessee said. The child was licking their parched lips.

“……That’s terrible.”

“Right, it was a terrible thing for that woman.”

“No…….”

I meant for you, the child said only with their eyes. But they worried that Tennessee might be offended if they spoke it aloud. They didn’t want it to be perceived as cheap sympathy.

Tapping the steering wheel lightly with his index finger, Tennessee asked, leaving the silence behind.

“Are you afraid of me?”

At that single question, the child suddenly burst into tears, as if they had been holding them back until now.

Tennessee, who had wondered how scared a child would have to be to cry, changed his mind upon seeing the child’s reaction.

The child shook their head while sobbing sorrowfully.

“I wish, hic, I had been Tennessee’s daddy.”

“……What?”

Why such a random answer? Tennessee was confused, but the child was speaking from a heart without a single shred of lie.

“Hic……. I would have been good to you.”

How presumptuous.

The words came to him naturally, but surprisingly, he didn’t feel bad. It was because he felt the intention beneath the words rather than the expression itself.

“You’re crying. I’m going to head out.”

Tennessee stepped out of the car. The child, who had been wailing and then looked up with a confused “Huh……?”, watched Tennessee’s retreating back blankly. Then, an inexplicable sadness washed over them, and they shed tears again.

To the child, Tennessee’s tone felt utterly detached. Despite what had happened, Tennessee seemed to be living better than anyone right now. They hoped he wouldn’t think they were pitying or feeling sorry for him recklessly.

The child cried alone for another ten minutes. Then, they suddenly remembered that Tennessee hadn’t said when he would return. Sniffling, the child quickly wiped away the tears. Their sleeve was already a mess.

Even so, a minor is alone, at this hour, in the middle of the night! Alone in a car—he wouldn’t meet some woman somewhere and come back half a day later like last time, would he?

……But it was suspicious.

He told me to stay here. The child wavered. At least ten minutes had passed since Tennessee left, so they wouldn’t be able to catch up even if they ran now.

As the child, wearing tear stains like accessories, was tossed about by immense agony, knock knock! The window rattled. Startled as if struck by lightning, the child opened the door. It was Tennessee.

“You’re finished already?”

“……If you’ve stopped crying, follow me.”

Tennessee had been about to enter the club but changed his mind. He couldn’t stop thinking about the kid.

“……You want me to come into the club?”

You truly have no end to your immorality. Seeing the child’s face look exactly like that, Tennessee furrowed his brow.