A Secretly Capable Child Is Seeking For Her Dad (Novel) - Chapter 110
Chapter 110
Tie’s eyes widened.
Then he looked at Zen with a bewildered expression.
“What’s this?”
At that, the tips of Zen’s ears turned bright red.
Without even answering, Zen hurriedly shoved the thing he had brought into Tie’s hand and said,
“Don’t you know amber? It’s a gem that comes out of the coal mine.”
“A geeem?”
Tie’s expression grew even more puzzled.
For something called a gem, the thing Zen held out just looked like a colored pebble.
“But why are you giving Tie a gem?”
Zen kept his mouth shut, then let out a deep sigh.
“Because you saved our village.”
Tie’s eyes grew round.
With his cheeks turning bright red, Zen added,
“And you brought medicine so my face could be treated too!”
Only then did Tie’s gaze turn to Zen’s right cheek.
Zen still had gauze with medicine on it stuck to his cheek.
It was the place where he had been injured when Reginald’s knight caught him on the second day Agabert came to the village.
As Tie looked blankly at it, Zen hurriedly continued.
“If it weren’t for you, my mom and dad would still have had to work in the coal mine every single day. And because it hurt me to watch that….”
“Because it hurt you?”
“I would’ve kept doing bad things to try to help somehow.”
Suddenly the image of Zen trying to steal Veil’s necklace came to mind.
Back then, Tie had wondered why a child who looked barely any older than herself would do such a bad thing.
“Then stealing big brother Veil’s thing back then was….!”
Avoiding his gaze, Zen said in a voice that seemed to crawl away,
“…I know it was a bad thing. But we had to sell things like that for my family to live.”
With his eyes, Zen indicated the gem he had just pressed into Tie’s hand.
“That gem, my grandpa gave it to me before he died. He said he found it in the coal mine. I was saving it to sell only when my family was really, truly on the verge of starving to death….”
“….”
“The adults said it. That now big sister Adeline’s become the lord, so we don’t have to worry about starving to death anymore.”
“I, I see….”
“So take it.”
Tie unconsciously fell silent.
Then, after a long while, he nodded hesitantly.
With a somehow touched feeling. He pulled the bag on his back around to the front.
And while carefully tucking the amber Zen had given him deep into the inner pocket, he said,
“Thank you, Zen. Tie doesn’t have much to her name, but Tie will add this in well and….”
It was then.
“But hey, ahem! Do you maybe have a boyfriend?”
Tie lifted her head at the sudden question.
For some reason, Zen was twisting his body shyly, tapping the ground with the tips of his feet.
The lips of Tie, who had blanked out for a moment, fell open.
‘This is… a confession?’
His heart pounded wildly.
Suddenly, something that had happened when he attended Hanbit Kindergarten came to mind.
‘Lee-seo, you know… can I be your boyfriend?’
It was the day when, by chance, Quail Class and Flower Deer Class had had outdoor lesson time at the same hour.
That day, Tie and the children of Quail Class saw it.
Beside the slide, one of the older boys from Flower Deer Class confessing to the older girl he liked!
‘Take this ring too!’
That older boy had even given the older girl he liked a full one-carat diamond ring.
That day, the children of Quail Class stood there unable to regain their senses as they watched.
The older girl who received the confession seemed hesitant at first.
But soon, becoming conscious of the looks around her,
‘Okay!’
with a shy expression, she promptly accepted the ring.
Although the ring was so large that it did not fit her finger.
But that day remained a historic one for the children of Quail Class.
For some reason, by the afternoon, the parents of the older boy who confessed had come to the kindergarten!
‘Haa, we’re sorry, Teacher. Our Hyun-seo… no, there really are no words I can say, I’m too embarrassed….’
‘N, no, it’s all right, sir. Things like this happen from time to time, you know. Still, at least the children didn’t lose it while playing with it? Hahaha….’
The children of Quail Class began theorizing as they watched the teacher and the parent having a serious conversation.
‘Why did Hyun-seo oppa’s dad come to kindergartin?’
‘Idiot, you don’t even know that? It’s because Hyun-seo hyung got married to Lee-seo noona all on his own.’
Of course, Tie had been one of them.
‘Right. Marriage is supposed to be something super serious. Even in dramas, the chief director’s mom says it. She makes her eyes like this and says, even if I die, you two will never get married!’
‘But isn’t that “as long as I die”?’
‘That’s that and this is this.’
‘Uung….’
What were the matters between men and women?
That act, which seemed like something only adults could do, stirred a strange sense of forbiddenness in children.
That was why it was an unknown realm that made curiosity rise all the more.
‘And to think a day like this would come for Tie too….!’
Swallowing hard, Tie lifted her head.
Zen was still blushing all over his face and twisting his body.
“It’s just. If you don’t have a boyfriend, I’m tall and run fast, so I was wondering what you thought….”
But one must not make such an important decision on feelings alone.
It was just as Tie was about to ask Zen a few questions.
“Wh, wh, wh, wh, what is this squirt saying right now?!”
Veil suddenly appeared from somewhere.
He stood there with his mouth open, stammering.
“How old are you. How old are you that you’re already talking about boyfriends and all that?”
Zen narrowed his brows.
Soon, a rebellious look came over the child’s face.
“…I’m six.”
“Do you even know what a boyfriend is?”
Zen stuck out his lips sulkily.
“Mister. Do you think I’d confess to her without even knowing that?”
To Veil, whose mouth had fallen open, Zen added,
“When you become boyfriend and girlfriend, you tie each other’s shoelaces. You always wait and eat dinner together, and the boyfriend holds the door for the girlfriend too.”
Tie swallowed hard.
To think she knew about things between men and women that Tie herself didn’t know.
Zen really did seem to be six years old.
‘Pass on maturity!’
Having made up his mind, Tie lightly tugged on Veil’s sleeve.
“Big brother Veil.”
Then he said,
“Tie is in the middle of a children’s conversation right now, so Tie would like you to go wait over there.”
Veil staggered where he stood.
But Tie pushed past Veil and stepped forward, then put on a demure expression.
“Then was what you gave me earlier instead of a one-carat diamond ring?”
“Huh?”
“When you confess, you’re supposed to give a one-carat diamond.”
Zen’s eyes grew round, then he nodded.
“Uung. Right.”
“Okay, I get it. But Tie has to go to the imperial capital today, you know. Are you okay with long distance, Zen?”
Actually, that was the most important question of all.
But at the words long distance, Zen’s expression turned puzzled.
“Long distance? What’s that?”
Lifting one finger, Tie began explaining diligently.
“It’s what Teacher Lee Sol-jae from Quail Class says. It means the boyfriend and girlfriend are far away from each other, so they only see each other once in a while.”
“What? Once in a while?”
“Yes! If they’re busy, they might only see each other once every three months!”
Zen’s face darkened. Hesitantly, the child asked,
“Then does that mean we can’t have dinner together every day……?”
“I guess not?”
Shocked, Zen stared blankly down at the ground.
Soon, with a face full of awkward distress, she looked at Tie.
“If that’s how it’d be, I don’t think I can be your boyfriend after all, so what do I do….? Sorry.”
Tie blinked.
But soon, as if she had expected this, she smiled brightly.
“It’s okay!”
Zen, who had been frozen stiff with distress, looked at Tie.
“Aren’t you disappointed?”
With the bag slung neatly behind her back, Tie answered,
“Not really. Tie finished preparing her heart when Tie became a mercenary.”
“Preparing your heart?”
“Uung. Because, considering the nature of the job, it’s natural not to have time to play with a boyfriend, right?”
“Th, that’s true….”
Zen’s eyes shone with a strange kind of admiration.
Then, sounding genuinely regretful, Zen added,
“What a shame. If you’d let me be your boyfriend, I could’ve held the door for you every day.”
Tie coolly waved her hand.
“Can’t be helped. Even if it’s a shame, let’s think about reality! Zen, you’ll be able to meet someone even better.”
Then she indicated the bag with her eyes.
“Thanks for the gem! If I come play again next time, let’s play together then!”
“Uung….”
One also has to know how to let go quickly when it’s not the right connection.