“.…… what brought my daughter to the office?”


  ‘Naturally, I held her in my arms, and she hugged me as if she was used to it. The child smiled. It was a bright, innocent smile.’


  “Nothing? I just came to see you!”


  Ria looked up at him as if she wanted to know what’s wrong with him. It was a shameless and imposing answer that Caitel just laughed it off. It was a simple daily life, but he felt a strange sense of separation from his memory.

  A daughter.

  ‘Come to think of it, since when did I have a daughter? I never wanted to be a father.’


  He wondered. She was made without any plan or intention, but she gradually became the only exception in most of his personal rules. Indeed, she became his daughter.

  Looking down at Ria, who was now more familiar to him than anyone else, Caitel thought. How did this happen?

  Then, he stupidly realized by looking at her eyes.

  Right, I allowed her to live because I was interested in these eyes. It was just a moment’s whim, though. That’s right. It certainly was at first.

  “Daddy?”


  A stupid woman who desperately wanted to have a child instead of keeping her life, and a man who held this child alive at the spur of the moment, he didn’t know which one’s more stupid, but he certainly didn’t feel this way at first.

  At first, it’s just……

  An amusement to soothe my boredom. It was only that much.

  ‘The only thing she could do was cry, smile, eat, and sleep, but maybe I was amazed to see her trying to talk and turn her body upside down and start to sleep. Was it the cause of the trouble that I began to keep by my side? Was it the problem as to why I started wondering what she would think when she knows that her father is this kind of person? Was it wrong to just wonder if she will be pessimistic about her situation?’


  ‘I don’t know.’


  He was curious about it before, but now he forgot all about it. He couldn’t even some of those worries remember now.

  It was a shocking thing.

  “Daddy!”


  The red eyes that he also had were shining naively. The way she tilted her head in wonder when he stared silently was so obvious. It’s so apparent that it’s meaningless to look at them like this.

  I could see her mind all the way to the bottom. Who else would be as pure as this?