Getting a room at a corridor-style roadside motel was easy. Although he had to put on a bit of a show since he couldn’t sneak the child in.

‘Get in my arms.’

‘…What?’

The price tag still clung to the jacket of the boy who was backing away. Lightly ripping it off, Tennessee reached out both hands.

‘Shut up and just get in my arms.’

When Tennessee growled, not wanting to haggle, the child hesitated but eventually leaned in.

‘Keep your mouth shut until I say it’s okay.’

‘Yes.’

Though he answered well, the child’s body was stiff. No one sleeps like this unless they are a robot.

Telling him to pretend to be asleep properly, Tennessee pushed the child’s head deep into his chest.

‘Wrap your arms around me properly, too.’

The child’s hands, which had been resting awkwardly on Tennessee like a toilet lid, relaxed more naturally.

‘Don’t be nervous. Pretend to sleep.’

As long as the child acted well, it wasn’t hard to mimic brothers on a road trip.

Tennessee carried a bundle of things in one hand and held the child in the other. Then, he felt the tension gradually leave the child’s body. Adjusting the child leaning against him, Tennessee naturally conversed with the employee and received the key.

After locking the door, he laid the child on the bed. The child was breathing rhythmically. When Tennessee took out a beer and said it was over, the child’s eyes snapped open.

“How was I?”

He was quite sly. A cooperating kidnap victim deserves a reward. When given a Mountain Dew, the child happily popped the can open.

Tennessee lay down haphazardly and turned on the TV. Ignoring the sign that said “No Smoking,” he lit a cigarette. Gray smoke drifted up in the small motel room.

The sound of gulping was heard, and the child, having finished the soda quickly, wiped his mouth. He then glared at the cigarette between Tennessee’s fingers as if it were an arch-enemy. The child asked.

“What are you going to do with me?”

While watching a comedy show where people laughed and chatted, leaning against the headboard, Tennessee asked a different question.

“…How old are you?”

“Eleven.”

Among the children Tennessee had killed, there were those younger than that.

It was in Afghanistan; they had tried to fire an RPG-7 hidden in their arms. He thought it was inevitable, but occasionally, a vacant, immature gaze would pop up in Tennessee’s mind.

Tennessee smirked and shook his head.

“You’re probably nine.”

“It’s true. My birthday has passed, so I’m eleven. I’m in fifth grade.”

Tennessee scanned the child from head to toe. He didn’t look that age at all.

“Middle school next year?”

The child nodded. To think someone of this build and height was going to a public middle school. Tennessee clicked his tongue.

2 – Chapter

His gaze was fairly fierce and he seemed to have some guts, but children of that age can be more cruel than hitmen.

Once he started school, he’d probably end up drinking all the toilet water. It was obvious he would become an easy target for bullying. It would be even worse if word got out that he was from a foster home.

Still, it was a relief that he was small. If he had been large for an eleven-year-old and shown any signs of being rebellious, Tennessee would have killed the child on the spot.

“What were you planning to do?”

As Tennessee asked, stubbing out his cigarette, the child fidgeted with his fingers.

“I asked why you were hiding in the backseat.”

“……I was going to run away.”

“Where to?”

The child shook his head.

“Anywhere. I couldn’t stand living there anymore, so I snuck into the car when Mr. Huston went out.”

And he had tried to get out when the car seemed to stop, but Tennessee had gotten in. So he couldn’t leave.

“Why didn’t you say something as soon as I got in?”

“……Are you asking that seriously? Are you teaching me how to commit suicide?”

Quite caustic. Tennessee conceded, evaluating the child.

The child had only been caught because Tennessee had driven for several hours almost without stopping; if it had been an ordinary person, they would have stopped the car long ago, and the child would have used that gap to escape.

Every time he shook his head, his black hair became disheveled. He looked just like… a puppy. Cute, but too scruffy to actually want to pamper.

“Go wash up first.”

When Tennessee pointed toward the bathroom, the child moved as told.

Tennessee continued watching TV until the child entered the bathroom. He didn’t know what was interesting about it, but since he had watched it while deployed and was watching it now, he figured it must be a fairly popular show.

The sound of rushing water echoed. Lighting another cigarette, Tennessee waited a while longer. After about five minutes, he walked toward the bathroom. The door was locked, but he picked the lock with ease.

The child was humming a tune while squeezing out some shampoo. Leaning against the door, Tennessee slowly observed him. Feeling the cold draft and the faint scent of cigarette smoke brushing against his bare shoulders, the child looked up and spotted Tennessee.

Confusion, humiliation, and a desperate something clouded his blue eyes.

“Get out.”

The child hunched his shoulders, wrapping his arms around his body. Tennessee scanned the child’s shoulders and arms with mechanical eyes.

If it were merely the embarrassment of being seen naked, he wouldn’t react this way. Tennessee instinctively felt that the child carried memories far more malicious and persistent than those of other children.

“Get out!”

As the child screamed in a shrill voice, Tennessee approached without hesitation. The child collapsed. Even while trembling, he frantically searched for an exit.

Everything was written on the child’s face. Pleading, frustration, a desperate will to survive, and the self-loathing of having accidentally trusted someone.

He was probably cursing himself. It wasn’t a completely wrong thought. Tennessee’s iron rule was that there was no one in this world to trust. So, it was a mistake to trust someone so readily just because they gave him a few Lunchables and a Mountain Dew.

“D-don’t do this, get out, get out!”

“Who did that?”

The child’s small body, curled up with knees hugged tight, shuddered violently.

Not just the arms, but the back and thighs were covered in marks. Even more malicious were the burn scars etched along the spine. The circular scars, dotted in a row, were marks from something being pressed and twisted into the skin.

“Get out, please.”

“Was it that man, Huston?”

“…….”

Under the pouring water, the child remained silent for a long time.

The scars were horrific. Some were darkly pigmented, while others were healing into pink.

Tennessee clicked his tongue, not because of the number of scars, but because of their placement. They hadn’t been applied randomly. They were spaced regularly along the spine, like stepping stones. The dotted line of scars was sadistic. This wasn’t the work of mere delinquent teenagers. It was a sick hobby. Someone had savored the child’s pain, watching until the end as he gagged at the smell of burning flesh and despair.

“Was it him?”

The wet head nodded faintly up and down. Tennessee stood up.

“Finish washing up.”

The cigarette he had just lit dropped from his fingers. The cigarette extinguished with a hiss as it hit the toilet water. Watching Tennessee’s retreating back, the child buried his face in his palms.

Amidst the waterfall of water, the child chewed over Tennessee’s dry tone. He stared blankly at the door, as if the man were still standing right there.

Sniffling, the child stood up. A strange person. ……An incomprehensible adult.

As the child emerged from the bathroom, Tennessee stood up as if taking a baton pass. Entering the bathroom, he stripped off the uncomfortable suit and shaved the stubble that had grown overnight.

When he came out clean, he saw a round shape on one side of the bed. The child had crawled under the covers, curled up tight.

This person is untrustworthy too, I should run away the first chance I get—Tennessee chuckled, imagining the child’s thoughts.

“……Mr. Huston’s friends were like that too.”

Having changed into comfortable clothes, Tennessee lay down. At the slightest sound, the child flinched and stiffened.

“What do you do for a living?”

The child asked, wrapped tightly in the blanket like a cocoon.

“You get in even when the door is locked, you’re good at stealing cars, you have a gun…….”

“Soldier.”

“……Aren’t soldiers supposed to be the opposite? Tracking people who lock doors, stopping people who steal cars…….”

Perhaps baffled by the answer, the child turned away.

Tennessee noted that there were no tear tracks in the child’s eyes.

He tried to put strength into his gaze, but in Tennessee’s eyes, the child was simply fragile, even if he wasn’t crying.

“I am a soldier.”

Liar, the child muttered, turning away again.

“Now. We have to leave early tomorrow.”

“…….”

The lights went out, and Tennessee closed his eyes in the dark room.

The child did not show his helplessness. It was a relief that he seemed to know his despair might be an unnecessary annoyance to someone else.

Tennessee drifted into a familiar, light sleep.

* * *

“Wake up.”

Tennessee gave the child a nudge. The child immediately rubbed his eyes and sat up. It was a reaction typical of someone who had been sleeping lightly.

“What time…….”

Checking the clock, the child buried his face in his palms.

No matter how many new clothes you put on them or how clean they get, a person’s aura doesn’t change.

It was only morning, but as soon as he opened his eyes, the child fell into despair by habit. A thick sense of hopelessness and the resignation peculiar to those who are lost emanated from him.

At Tennessee’s command, the child trudged to the bathroom to wash his face. With a face still heavy with sleep, he put on his shoes and jacket.

Was his own childhood like this? Tennessee often found his own image overlapping with the child’s.

It was an unwelcome feeling. If the child had been spoiled and bratty, Tennessee wouldn’t have felt this sense of floating detachment and kinship.