try begging
Leon bent down and met the child's bewildered, turquoise eyes. He then reached out and placed his hand on the child's cheek.
It doesn't break. I feel warmth and soft skin. So this is not a dream.
I tried to calm my trembling hands and touched the face that looked just like mine with my fingertips. There were many things I wanted to say to my daughter when I met her, but the moment I saw her face, everything evaporated and nothing remained. Only a groan that sounded like laughter occasionally escaped.
"Why are you crying, sir?"
The child who had been looking at him with her eyebrows furrowed reached out her small hand and stroked his cheek. In that brief moment when the child wiped away his tears, Leon felt as if he had regained the three years he had lost. Only then did he clear his throat and ask the question he had only asked in his dreams for a long time.
"Hello, my daughter. What is your name?"
The child looked at him blankly and answered curtly.
"Ellie."
Ellie... . Ellie... .
He traced the name on the tip of his tongue, savoring it. Ellie. The moment it came out of his daughter's mouth, that ordinary name took on as much meaning as Grace.
While practicing the two most difficult words in the world alone, the child who was chewing on cookies again suddenly raised his head and pouts.
"Ellie is not your daughter."
"That's not you."
Leon held his daughter, who was so small that she seemed like she would break if he touched her, but who had grown too big to wait for him, with trembling hands. Then he whispered in the child's ear the words he had practiced for a long time.
"Nice to meet you, Ellie. I'm your father."
"nah."
The boy standing with his arms crossed shook his head firmly.
"Mom told me not to follow an unknown man."
"I told you I'm not a stranger?"
The major was trying to persuade a two-year-old boy who was not even half his age. This was an unexpected situation for Campbell, who had expected the major to take the child away by force and lock him in a hotel.
From the hair to the shape of the eyes, nose, and mouth, it was impossible to deny that they were of the same blood at a glance, but the child did not believe that the major was his father.
"Then should I ask what that old man says?"
The major suddenly pointed at Campbell, and the boy gave him a confused look. Campbell also felt confused, as if the major was looking at him with rebel eyes.
"Yes, anyone can see that they are father and daughter."
"Did you hear? That old man looks like him."
Leon explained the meaning of the word "father-daughter" to the child who did not understand it in simple terms, and even asked the children gathered around him.
"Ellie's dad? That would be nice."
"What the heck. His dad is a liar!"
"Wow, that's exactly right."
"Look at this. My friends say they look alike too."
"no!"
The child stamped his feet on the ground and got angry.
"Ellie, please take care of your mother!"
"Yeah, that stubbornness is your mother's."
Finally, Leon took the child inside and stood in front of the full-length mirror on the wall.
"Look closely with your own eyes. Don't they still look similar?"
The child who had been adamant that "Ellie looks like her mom" went through a period of intense denial, shouting "Ellie looks like her mom!" and soon began to waver, saying, "No...Ellie looks like her mom..."
The child muttered, touching his hair, which was exactly like mine.
"But Mom said that Ellie's dad was in heaven and that's why he couldn't come..."
No, my daughter. Daddy was in hell without you. You saved him from that hell.
Leon looked the child in the eye and asked.
"Ellie, have you ever wondered about your father?"
Fortunately, the child nodded.
"God sent my father to Eli because Eli missed him."
"...okay?"
When the child winced, Leon smiled and held the child's hand.
"Let's go see Dad and Mom."
"Okay."
When the mother was thrown in there as bait, the child let go of his previous stubbornness and followed along obediently.
"Who are you? A child without permission, ah...?"
An older-looking teacher stopped him in the hallway of the daycare center, but he couldn't continue speaking when she took off her sunglasses and showed her face. The woman stared blankly at him for a moment before speaking again.
"Are you the father? But you are definitely Ellie's mother..."
Grace must have lied to Ellie about her father's death at work.
"I don't know what my wife said, but we are just separated."
That's not wrong. Leon walked out of the daycare center with Ellie, passing the still-dazed teacher.
"Are you going to my house?"
I thought she had come out because she had told me to go see her mother, but the child asked me this as soon as they got in the car. Leon had planned to call Grace after they got to the hotel, but the moment the child said, "Our house," he changed his mind.
The child, who was the only one who knew where the house was, said he had only walked there once. The driver followed the child's instructions and drove at a slower speed than if he had walked.
"Phew, let's do it. Kyaha, again! Let's do it again!"
In addition, the child was so excited that he kept asking the driver to honk the horn, saying that it was his first time driving a car. It was amazing how he was so unashamed and quirky even with people he met for the first time, just like my mother when she was little. Thanks to that, it took 10 minutes to get to the apartment that was less than a minute away by car.
Judging from the clean appearance of the exterior, it was a building that had been built not long ago. Leon left Campbell and the driver to wait in front of the building and led the child inside.
"This is our home."
The child proudly stopped in front of a door on the fourth floor. Leon opened the door with the key hanging around the child's neck and went in, lost for words.
The house was much smaller than he had expected. He had thought it would be larger than the house in the South where Grace had given birth and raised her child, as the child had grown up. Even then, he had vaguely wondered how everything necessary for a family could fit into a space smaller than his bedroom in the annex.
Leon opened the door to the only room and was speechless again. He finally came to his senses and asked the child who was rummaging through the toy basket in the living room.
"Where does Ellie sleep?"
"there."
A hand that had been buried in the basket came out and pointed to the bedroom where Leon was standing.
"You don't have a bed?"
The child tilted his head and ran over. Then he pointed with his hand to the only bed in the bedroom. So the child didn't have a separate room or even a separate bed. To Leon, who knew that children are raised by their nannies and have their own rooms from the moment they are born, and that they don't sleep in the same bed as their parents, all of this was out of the ordinary.
How poor are you?
There were only two loaves of bread the size of a palm in the kitchen. On the table were a bunch of cookies and boxes of chocolates decorated with ribbons bearing the logo and name of the Paramoor Theater.
Are you really so poor that you have to steal food?
As Leon felt a mixture of embarrassment and despair, the child suddenly ran to the bed and shouted.
"My muffin!"
I thought she was looking for a snack, but the child was actually pulling out a brown stuffed rabbit from the middle of the bed, covered with a blanket, and holding it in her arms.
"Muffin, sleep well, okay? My baby is so good."
I can't believe I called my rabbit doll "baby" when I was a baby and gave it kisses like a mother. I couldn't help but smile. Leon asked, carefully stroking the child's head.
"Who bought this for you?"
"Mom made it for me."
"okay?"
That woman knows how to make something like this.
"I guess Mom loves Ellie a lot."
The moment he said that with a smile, the child raised his head and frowned.
"You don't know?"
She even scolded him as if to say something so obvious. The child had no idea that loving him was not something that was obvious to her. That was also proof that the woman loved the child.
I came here just to see how you've been living. I was planning on taking the child to a hotel, but somehow this is how it turned out.
"It's time to eat, baby."
The child sat him down on the living room sofa, gave him a doll and a toy bottle, and told him to feed 'Muffin' milk. Then, he excitedly ran around the house. Leon's eyes never left the child who was moving without rest.
He still couldn't believe that his daughter was right in front of him. It was the most ecstatic and cruel dream Barbiturate had ever given him.
She even scolded him as if to say something so obvious. The child had no idea that loving him was not something that was obvious to her. That was also proof that the woman loved the child.
I came here just to see how you've been living. I was planning on taking the child to a hotel, but somehow this is how it turned out.
"Wait a minute. Ellie will bring out the tea."
The child rummaged through the toy box, saying he wanted to get some tea. Then he ran into the kitchen with his little feet and brought out a box of chocolates.
He laughs, talks, walks. Everything he does is amazing. It's something that any human would do, but what my child does is truly amazing. Even the two eyes and ten fingers that any human would have are amazing.
Clearly, at one point, he was so small that I couldn't even feel his movements. The last time I saw him, he couldn't speak or walk, but now he could take off his shoes and coat and put them away on his own.
And you even know how to speak a foreign language.
"Ellie."
"huh?"
"Where did you learn Norwegian?"