#20

There was a consideration in Tennessee’s gestures, a desire to minimize the pain. Throughout the time he pressed down on the teeth, Tennessee’s gaze was focused solely on him. That fact made the child feel special. He realized it was merely a touch, but he felt a distinct sense of euphoria.

Then, Tennessee washed those cool hands and took out the medicine. He had applied it intermittently while the boy slept, but it was time to apply it again. The child frowned as something touched his hideously swollen left cheek.

“Does it hurt?”

“Yes.”

“Take another half of a painkiller.”

“Can I?”

Too many could cause gastric bleeding, but this amount would be fine. When Tennessee nodded, the child held out his hand. As he was handed the halved pill, the child parted his lips slightly. Tennessee didn’t understand at first, but then realized it was a signal for water.

He doesn’t even have a servant.

A laugh escaped him, but it was only water. He looked like a baby bird chirping for food.

Tennessee willingly held the water bottle to his lips, and the child swallowed the water in gulps.

“Let’s go.”

As soon as he decided it was enough, Tennessee withdrew the bottle. Wiping his lips, the child nodded and then stretched out his arm.

“Please put medicine here too.”

“I already did.”

“That was the medicine for the bruising.”

The child was pointing to a scrape. Unlike the wide black bruise, the scratch was small. A scab had already formed, so there was no particular need to apply anything. The child was pointing to a small abrasion on top of the bruise.

For a moment, a silent tug-of-war began.

The one who lost—or rather, the one who let him win—was the sinful Tennessee. Rummaging through a paper bag, Tennessee took out an ointment and squeezed some out.

“Here too.”

The next thing the child presented was a small scrape on his shin. Then his knee, then his flank. The handprint on his ankle was a natural progression. The child reproached him for not applying medicine to such a large bruise, and Tennessee, lacking the energy to argue, moved his hands mechanically.

“Let’s go.”

After spending about thirty minutes that way, Tennessee spoke, and only then did the child move. Then, he stopped abruptly again.

“Can you buy me a Mountain Dew?”

“What do you think I said? I told you that you might end up shoved in the trunk.”

“Then I’ll drink it in the trunk.”

Tennessee decided to indulge the child just for today.

Alejandro probably didn’t even know he was dying. And he certainly wouldn’t have known that his death had ricocheted in an unexpected direction.

Tennessee thought it was a good thing he had captured that man yesterday. In less than an hour of making him talk, the man had babbled not only about the rival gang but also about how the grudge had formed and persisted. Thus, Tennessee subtly dropped clues and manipulated the members of the rival gang into starting a fight.

It would have been easier to just kill him, but the thought occurred to him that the child might bear the brunt of the aftermath.

Watching the Latin Emperors engage in a shootout with the rival gang before Alejandro’s body could even be dealt with, Tennessee turned his head. The child, drinking his Mountain Dew with satisfaction, tilted his head as if asking, ‘Why?’ Tennessee shook his head and started the engine.

One had been dealt with; now it was time to get back on the main track.

“Is it safe now?”

When they returned to the hotel and Tennessee told him it was all over, that was the first question the child asked. Naturally, Tennessee shook his head. To say it was safe now—what could be more futile than that?

At the very least, he had filled in one imminent pit. However, even if one doesn’t fall through a manhole, one cannot prevent every instance of tripping over a stone or spraining an ankle. There are cases where you think it’s just a twist, but you roll properly and break all your limbs. The future is unknown, and complacency is forbidden.

Still, the fact that one crisis had passed made the child visibly relieved.

It was well past midnight. The child had been snoring softly for a while. Tennessee rubbed his aching eyes. He hadn’t slept for even an hour in two days. Before that, he had only taken the minimum amount of sleep occasionally. His insomnia was chronic. He had managed to sleep enough to survive, but having stayed consciously awake for two days, his rhythm was broken, making sleep even more difficult. He was currently taking a break from sleeping pills.

Rather than wasting time like this, I might as well get some work done.

Tennessee stood up with a sigh. His body, desperately demanding sleep, staggered for a moment, but Tennessee pushed himself to move while wiping his forehead. It was better to exhaust his body to the limit and then sleep deeply.

“Tennessee.”

As he gathered the car keys, the child, drenched in sleep, called out. However, the child’s eyes were not open. Tennessee was about to turn away, thinking it was sleep-talking.

“Tenneeeesii…”

A call that burst out along with a sob.

“Ugh, Te-Tennessee, hic, where did you go—”

The car keys went back to the side of the TV.

“Wake up.”

“Where did you go and leave me— hic, hng, hic, Tenne-sy, it hurts.”

Without even opening his eyes, the child was swept away by sorrow. A powerless hand flailed in the air. Unconscious, the child gasped and tossed and turned.

“Where… did you… hnnng…”

He sobbed, unable to even finish the sentence. Tennessee simply lifted the child into his arms. The child’s present was still walking through nightmares.

As Tennessee held the flailing child and patted him, the child, who seemed to be tossing and turning, soon grew quiet. Tennessee’s shoulder gradually became damp. Now the child could no longer call out or say it hurt; he only sobbed sorrowfully.

“I… I listened well… hic, why did you do that…”

Those were likely the words he couldn’t bring himself to challenge him with back then. The child had been unable to even accuse him, asking why on earth he had betrayed him, or why he had become such a twisted person.

Exhausted by indifference, the child seemed unable to distinguish between being stroked and being tormented.

Holding him quietly, Tennessee leaned back against the headboard of the bed. The child, who had been crying sorrowfully, had apparently reached the end of the nightmare and was now breathing regularly. Tear stains were heavy not only at the corners of his eyes but also on his chin and cheeks. Tomorrow, he wouldn’t even be able to open his eyes properly.

On a whim, Tennessee decided to spend the night like this. He suffered from insomnia anyway, and it was better to soothe the child than to waste time.

So that the number of nightmares experienced by the child, who struggled to hide the deep scars left by a great betrayal, might decrease.

Tennessee looked at the window and closed his eyes. Since he wouldn’t be able to sleep anyway, lying down would be useless, but the child, clinging to him like thick mozzarella cheese, was warm. His damp left shoulder was moist, and the occasional rubbing of a cheek against his chest felt ticklish like a spring breeze. Even if he closed his eyes, there was work to do…

With such thoughts, Tennessee gradually drifted into sleep. It was a deep, dense swamp of sleep, where he wasn’t even aware that he was falling asleep.

He would have slept through the whole thing if it weren’t for the knock asking about housekeeping. Tennessee blinked several times, his eyes not yet regaining their clarity. What time was it? That couldn’t be. When he first woke up, he checked several times.

Tennessee was still holding the child in one arm. The child, who was soon to be twelve, was heavy once lifted. If it were an average adult male rather than Tennessee, he wouldn’t be able to hold the child with one arm. However, even with a mind not yet fully awake from sleep, Tennessee could stand blankly while hugging the child.

Why am I standing? Ah, I should wash up first. Rubbing his hair, Tennessee went to the bathroom. Then he realized he was still hugging the child like a grocery bag. As he went back to the bed to lay the child down, he felt his clothes being pulled, and upon looking, his collar was gripped tightly in the child’s hand.

Not anywhere else, but the collar. As he pried the child’s fingers open one by one, the child grew annoyed. He thought he heard a word starting with ‘F’. What a nasty temper, he thought, as Tennessee firmly detached the child’s hand.

* * *

“Fill it up.”

As he spoke while handing over cash, the child hopped down. The car he was driving this time was a blue pickup truck. Having spent a considerable amount of time in the car together, the child now skillfully pressed the numbers to help with the refueling.

Tennessee looked up at the sky. In the clear sky, giant cumulus clouds drifted around, surrounding them. It was perfect weather.

“Can you buy me a snack?”

The child, who was refueling, asked. When Tennessee gave him two 20-dollar bills, the child beamed. White teeth sparkled behind sunglasses, and his mouth curved into a wide arc, as refreshing as the current weather.

Tennessee’s eyes were fixed on the child’s back as he headed toward the store inside the gas station.

The child was wearing one of the clothes bought at the mall last time. It was a short-sleeved T-shirt with a famous sports brand logo printed prominently. The child had liked the white sleeveless shirt he first picked at the mall the most, but unfortunately, due to recent events, it had become a rag and had to be thrown away.

Looking at the once-white sleeveless shirt, now stained with footprints and dirt, the child had looked devastated. He hadn’t uttered a single complaint, but that was the moment Tennessee thought it might be precisely because of that that the memory would stick with him.

At that time, it seemed as if a familiar resignation would cast a shadow over the child.

Tennessee remembered the familiar, creeping scent of misfortune. However, as if mocking Tennessee’s expectation, the child did not collapse.

They hadn’t even spent a year—no, half a year—together, but the child’s first appearance in Tennessee’s memory and his current appearance were strikingly different. Tennessee was certain that people who had known the child previously would not recognize him immediately.