#12

By the time the child woke up, it was already late afternoon, well past lunchtime.

The child blankly sat up and looked down at their wrists. The skin had been indented and bruised from the zip ties, but bandages had been wrapped around them at some point. The child sat blankly on the edge of the bed.

“Tennessee?”

The surroundings were too quiet. Occasional horns were heard outside the window, but there was no sign of anyone inside the hotel.

“…Tennessee?!”

The child bolted upright. He wasn’t there. There was no ashtray, and no Tennessee. The child quickly entered the bathroom and flung the door open.

And they found Tennessee shaving.

“…Oh.”

“What.”

The child smiled awkwardly and quietly closed the door… then opened it again.

“Is that a gunshot wound?”

Perhaps because he was about to wash up, Tennessee was shirtless.

Tennessee always maintained a clean suit and a sleekly combed hairstyle. However, contrary to that polished exterior, Tennessee’s body was covered in all sorts of scars. There were burns, lacerations, and circular gunshot wounds.

“Yeah.”

“Where from?”

“Afghanistan.”

Tennessee moved the well-sharpened razor. The distinct jawline was hidden by foam and then smoothly revealed again. The child watched the scene blankly.

“What about that one?”

Because there were so many scars, Tennessee had to turn his head to follow the child’s gaze to see which one they were pointing to.

“This too. Gun.”

“…I see.”

Suddenly, a stillness descended. The child blushed, thinking back to their unsightly behavior from yesterday. Anxiety returned, wondering if they had revealed too much of their own depths.

That was how anxiety worked for the child. It never arrived during times of misery. Instead, it kicked open the door the moment peace arrived, stealing away the precious moments.

“Why did you look for me?”

“Pardon?”

Tennessee asked in a low voice, without shifting his gaze from the mirror.

“You just woke up and looked for me.”

The child hesitated before finally confessing the truth.

“I thought… Tennessee had left…”

Unexpectedly, Tennessee didn’t sneer. He stared at the child for a moment and then spoke.

“I’ll tell you.”

The child looked up with an ambiguous expression, unsure whether to laugh or cry.

“I’ll tell you in advance, if I’m going to leave you behind.”

“…Yes.”

It felt more reliable than a promise like ‘I won’t abandon you.’ Even if Tennessee had said that, they wouldn’t have believed it anyway.

Tennessee remembered when he himself had been abandoned. His father, who always smelled of alcohol, vanished in a flash with a promise that he would return—leaving behind a mother who vomited filthily from drug use.

‘Don’t go! Daddy! Don’t leave me here! Please take me with you! Daddy! I’ll be a good boy, I’ll listen to everything you say!’

It wasn’t much different from the pleas the child had made yesterday. No, he thought it had been even more miserable than that.

At the very least, he and the child were strangers, and he had dozens of reasons to abandon the child, but his father had not.

As a biological father, he had the duty and obligation to raise him, yet he left behind his sobbing flesh and blood. What was more cruel happened just before the departure.

‘I’ll be back. Take care of your mother until then.’

Tennessee believed that if someone was going to abandon you, if they were going to leave you behind, it was only polite to teach you as quickly as possible that you had been left and must now stand on your own. Though he had learned that lesson in a painful way.

He continued to wait. While his mother spent the remaining money on drugs and cockroaches and rats swarmed the house, young Tennessee slowly wasted away.

There were times he sat outside the house, watching endlessly, wondering if he might actually return one day.

If his father had simply told him then that he was abandoning him and to figure out how to survive on his own, it would have broken his heart, but he would have recovered much faster.

Knowing this, Tennessee had no intention of torturing the child with false hope.

The two sank into a familiar silence. Tennessee was lost in his own thoughts, and the child in theirs. Yet, it wasn’t uncomfortable or awkward.

Despite having sent the child away saying he was going to shave, Tennessee couldn’t move his hands. He set the razor down as if throwing it.

‘Tennessee, Tennessee! Please!’

What was he supposed to do then?

Once this job was finished, he planned to leave Texas and part ways with the child.

His intention was to hide for a while until he grasped the situation. And once things were resolved, he could go back to living the fucked-up life he had always lived.

‘I’ll listen to you! Tennessee! Please, I’m sorry!’

But the child kept clinging to him.

‘I’ll shoot! If I had a gun, I would have killed everyone! I wouldn’t have hesitated to kill them! But I hate Tennessee’s gun…!’

At first, the child had been so tense they couldn’t even cling properly, but then they had thrown themselves into his arms. The act of reaching out two hands had become so natural that even Tennessee had moved unconsciously.

Unlike when he first picked them up, they had grown heavier. They knew how to laugh, and they knew how to take care of someone they considered their own.

‘Please hold me tight.’

For the first time since becoming an adult, Tennessee could not find a solution to a problem.

* * *

Tennessee checked his watch. The child wasn’t here. He had sent them on an errand.

Perhaps because the events of a few days ago remained vivid in their mind, the child didn’t want to go outside after sunset. However, as if out of stubbornness against their own fear, they bluffed, insisting they would go out alone.

Thinking a restaurant near downtown would be fine in broad daylight, Tennessee told the child to go buy lunch.

“You didn’t eat breakfast today either, right?”

The child, who was halfway playing the role of a wife, set down the takeout food. When he held out his hand, the child handed over the receipt and the change, and Tennessee left a twenty-dollar bill.

“It’s a tip.” When he said that, the child let out a little smirk.

They’re only learning things like that. Tennessee felt that the child’s smile was starting to resemble his own.

While Tennessee smoked, the child had already laid out the salad and sandwiches on the table. They even urged him to eat quickly with a glance. Anyone watching would think they were his wife. Tennessee took a large bite of the club sandwich. Then, the child reached for their own portion of food.

“What is your job?”

The child’s questions had increased significantly. In the beginning, answers like “Shut up” or “You don’t need to know” worked, but now they were undeterred by such responses.

“I told you, I’m a soldier.”

“Yes, I know. So, what is your job?”

“…”

Their way of handling things had improved too. It was becoming unclear who the master was.

“…Have you killed many people?”

Tennessee, who was about to eat the sandwich, was momentarily speechless. Early this morning, the child had groaned in the throes of a nightmare. Tennessee knew that the killing from that day had been seared into the child’s mind.

What answer should he give? While he pondered, the child nodded as if Tennessee’s silence was an answer in itself.

“…They were very bad people, weren’t they?”

Having a mouth full of food was a good excuse. Tennessee simply shrugged. He didn’t know whether to lie, make an excuse, or not answer at all.

Conversation had always been easy for Tennessee. Concise, saying only what he wanted to say. He never spoke of things he didn’t want to. But with the child, it had been different from the first meeting.

He hadn’t expected his destination to come out so easily when asked where he was going. It was half-unconscious. Like a memorized line that slips out when prompted, whenever the child nudged him, he found himself opening his mouth without realizing it.

“How old were you back then?”

Tennessee was gradually losing his appetite. This wasn’t the kind of conversation to have over a meal. The only saving grace was that there was no low-brow curiosity or amusement in the child’s eyes. It wasn’t that he didn’t understand. The child had asked these kinds of questions frequently, especially after seeing the scars.

They were clearly asking about the people he had killed, but their attitude was as if they were asking who had tried to kill Tennessee. As if Tennessee had been backed into a corner and chosen murder as a last resort. But the reality was different.

Tennessee couldn’t decide whether to wake the child from their fantasy and remind them of the cold reality, or let them remain asleep in this innocence.

Children had always been difficult for Tennessee. Women were actually easier to deal with.

“You.”

When Tennessee finally spoke, the child snapped their head up.

6 – Chapter (Text/chapter.xhtml)

“I’ll answer most things, but you should be careful about what you ask.”

It was a profoundly ominous statement.

After bringing the child’s appetite down to the depths of the basement with such a foreboding remark, Tennessee finished his own sandwich with gusto.

Since I ruined your appetite, you should pay the price.

While Tennessee finished his salad, sandwich, and drink, the child had managed only two and a half more bites.

Now it’ll be quiet.

Tennessee prepared to head to the hotel’s fitness center. Over the last two weeks, the thing he had done most was drive, followed by exercising. Having eaten sweets along with the child, his body felt heavy, leaving him with nothing to do but work out.

As he took off his shirt, he could feel the child’s gaze. Even to Tennessee, his upper body was quite unsightly. His arms, abdomen, and shoulder blades were particularly bad. Though he couldn’t see them himself, his back was also covered in small scars.

“Please tell me.”

Tennessee thought the child had given up, but he asked anyway. Changing into a comfortable short-sleeved T-shirt, Tennessee replied.

“No.”

“……Didn’t you just say you’d answer most things?”

“This isn’t ‘most things.’”

With those words, Tennessee left the room, teasing the child. He could almost hear the sound of the boy huffing in frustration.

What Tennessee had told the child was true. If it didn’t cause too much trouble, he wanted to let him know. He didn’t know why himself. The more he revealed, the more the child might be put in danger or paralyzed by fear.

Tennessee immersed himself in his workout. He consciously tried not to think about anything.

‘Baby.’

Dammit.

With a surge of irritation, Tennessee set the dumbbells down. Barely an hour had passed.

‘Baby, come here.’

Tennessee’s first murder had been nothing special.

‘……He was a very bad person, right?’

Tennessee had never once spoken of his first kill. It was not a badge of honor, but a nightmare.