Arcadia Chapter 2.3

Even if he had sincerely wanted to become a businessman, I had nothing to say to him, so I just mumbled and stroked the child’s head.

Leaving his head in the large hand, Dia stared intently at the card with eyes as green as new foliage. Soon, as if his interest had waned, he tossed it toward the pile of discarded cards and burrowed into Van’s embrace, which radiated a cozy warmth.

Before long, Van ran out of things to teach and resorted to a drastic measure.

— That’s insincere. You don’t even have the basics.

“What do you want me to do? You think I want to be like this? That kid is weirdly smart, you know?”

— I’m sure he is. It’s about time…

With a laptop in one hand, he had no free hands left. Van wedged his cell phone between his shoulder and ear and stepped onto the ladder.

“What?”

— Don’t show him anything weird. I’m worried.

“You worry about everything.”

After climbing down the ladder, Van shoved the disconnected cell phone into his pocket and walked toward the glass wall. Dia, who had been looking at a fairy tale book covered in scribbles, threw the book down and ran over. Van, lifting the child up in a sweep, gave him a playful scolding.

“Anyone would think we haven’t seen each other in years.”

“Why?”

“What do you mean, why?”

Every time he returned after being away for an hour to get a meal, Dia would welcome him like a father returning alive from a battlefield, and playing along with it was uniquely entertaining. Cuddling nose-to-nose with Dia, who now felt quite heavy when held with one arm, Van held up the laptop.

“This will probably be better than me.”

In this day and age, what was the need to teach by reading books one by one? Not in an era where the internet was overflowing with educational materials that someone had painstakingly created.

Van, who had been contemplating the teachings that were beyond his abilities in between his meals, decided to borrow the power of the internet. Under the judgment that he would have no excuse to face Michel if Dia grew up all messed up after being taught haphazardly by him, a man who had lived an easy life, Van confidently turned on the laptop and connected to the internet, only to be flustered.

“Why isn’t this working?”

The internet wouldn’t connect. He rummaged through his pockets, pulled out two cell phones, and checked them; the old-fashioned one had no internet function at all, and his own phone, like the laptop, couldn’t find a network. He had been so busy chasing after the kid without even a moment to look at his phone that he was only now noticing this.

Feeling crestfallen, Van pounded the now-useless laptop with his fist. Dia, sitting right next to him, looked back and forth between Van’s serious face and the brightly lit laptop screen.

As a small blessing amid the misfortune, the movies Michel had collected were neatly stacked on the hard drive. For Dia, to whom the only person he had ever met was Van Clark, himself, movies were not a bad choice in that they could show him a diverse cast of human characters and the world outside the house, but…

“Why are all the movies so weird?”

They were famous works, recognizable just from their titles, but they were all about fighting, splattering blood, and slashing… nothing but violent movies. They were fine for killing time, but it was difficult to show this kind of thing to a child. As Van scrolled down and down, Dia, who had burrowed between his legs, suddenly stuck his face forward.

“I can’t see.”

When he tilted his head to the left, Van caught the small head that followed his chin and held it in his arms. At last, from this dreadful list of movies, he found a few that were reasonably decent. They were rather successful romance movies. Hoping that the story of lovers who were at odds due to family opposition and an absurd misunderstanding, but who eventually tied the knot after many twists and turns, would impart a great lesson to Dia, he started the movie and lay down.

“If you listen, you’ll be able to understand.”

It was the best education Van, who had little formal schooling, could provide. While he was using his fingertips to pull over a distant file folder, the production company’s logo faded from the screen and the movie began.

Dia, who was usually distractingly restless, unexpectedly focused on the movie, just as Van had hoped. As if fascinated by the world contained in the small screen and the languages spilling from the actors’ mouths, even his fidgeting fingers stopped for a long time. Van, glancing more at Dia than at the movie, scribbled down a record with erratic timestamps.

20xx. 12. 21. At this point, seems about 4 or 5 years old. He’s calm and well-behaved. He’s overly dramatic, but on a cute level. Personality is decent.

“Oh, this is a no-go.”

Van, who had glanced at the screen without thinking, hastily reached out his arm and rewound the video. Watching the rapidly rewinding screen, Dia leaned on the shoulder of the prone Van and asked.

“Why?”

“You can’t watch this yet… Why is this so long?”

The movie had barely started, and they were already all over each other. He zipped past the screen plastered with the actors’ naked bodies and finally arrived at the scene of the morning after they had done the deed, then withdrew his hand. Dia, his gaze fixed not on the screen but on Van’s face, posed a question that was difficult to answer.

“Why not?”

“You can watch it when you’re a little older. Not now.”

Van, once again pinching the little nose and wiggling it from side to side, turned the head of the child, who was so very, very curious, back toward the screen and continued his record. No, he tried to continue, but his thoughts went astray.

They say it’s better to do it ahead of time, but this age is a bit… But do I have to give him sex education too? ???

A row of question marks trailed off. Van stole a glance at Dia’s profile, his eyes fixed on the playing video as if he’d never looked away. The small nose buried in his chubby, baby-fat cheeks was cute. His long, downturned eyelashes would occasionally blink slowly.

How many days would those plump, fair cheeks last? Already feeling a sense of wistfulness, he poked one with his index finger.

His eyes widening at the finger that suddenly poked his cheek, Dia met his gaze and then quickly crinkled the corners of his eyes into a smile. His slightly parted lips unexpectedly chased after the index finger. After he narrowly avoided the small, neat teeth, Dia followed, propping himself up with his hands on the floor.

Laughter overlapped with the actor’s soft-spoken lines. After tapping the child’s lower lip and pulling away a few times, Dia, getting annoyed by the finger that was just out of his grasp, grabbed Van’s wrist with both hands.

“Hey. This is a Van-foul.”

“No, it’s not.”

When he made a fist to hide his finger, the child set his teeth against the back of his hand. The feeling of the hard teeth gently scraping his skin was ticklish, so he turned his prone body and swept Dia up. A grunt escaped him involuntarily.

“Oof. You’re heavy now.”

“Heavy?”

Holding him by the waist and lifting him into the air was significantly more strenuous than lifting him while standing. His giggling face wasn’t unpleasant to look at, so he swung his arms around for a bit before holding him in his arms and once again rewinding the movie, which was turning strange again. Hadn’t the love scene just ended? His brow furrowed at the incomprehensible plot development.

“I’m not confident about teaching this kind of thing.”

“Why?”

Dia wriggled up to his neck and asked the difficult question.

“I’m just not very good at it.”

“Not good at it?”

“Yeah.”

Leaving the movie playing on a mundane scene, he was putting the child down on the floor when he momentarily froze. The nuance of his words felt a little strange. Dia blinked his large eyes and looked at Van’s lips. Van hesitated, then shrugged.

“No? I’m not not good at it. Me.”

“You’re not?”

“I’m not. When I do it, it’s no joke…”

He couldn’t bring himself to say such things in front of a small child, so he grabbed Dia’s innocent head and turned it toward the laptop.

“Just study.”

Perhaps there was no need to teach him, since he wasn’t even human. Van, who was of the mindset to deal with things as they came, scribbled through the question marks trailing across his notebook and left a short memo: ‘Later.’ Not knowing when another strange scene might pop up, he put away the file folder and sat down close to the child.

A world in which the child had a slim chance of ever belonging flowed by within the small screen.

20xx. 12. 24. The day had finally come.

Van straightened the blanket that was haphazardly draped over the back of the chair and strode toward Dia, who was waiting in front of the doorway. The day was ending and midnight was approaching; it was time to execute the plan he had been contemplating all this time.

“Van looks happy.”

“It’s a day off.”

Dia, whose speech had improved considerably, naturally reached out and wrapped his arms around Van’s neck. Straightening his back, Van lifted the child with some difficulty and waved a piece of paper with tape on its corners.

“Let’s go up. Secretly.”

When he smiled mischievously, Dia, who didn’t even know what it meant, smiled back and buried his nose in the crook of his neck. Van went into the corner, stood on his tiptoes, and stretched his arm out to slap the paper onto the camera he wanted to smash every time he saw it. After pressing it down firmly to make sure it wouldn’t fall, he quickly exited the doorway.

“This is the second time, right?”

Excluding the day he was taken out of the membrane and washed, it was time to show the ground level at least once to Dia, who had been confined to the basement. And Christmas was the perfect time for an unexpected gift.

After climbing the ladder, Van put the child up on the next floor first before pulling himself up. As he sat down in the living room, the first thing he saw was the back of a round head looking around.

“How is it?”

As soon as he spoke, Dia turned right around. His pale skin shone transparently under the streetlight filtering through the gaps in the curtains. His calm demeanor and impassive gaze, uncharacteristic of a young child, stirred a faint sense of guilt, causing him to discreetly avert his eyes.

“What’s wrong, Van?”

A small hand touched his cheek, stroking the skin. A smile gracing his lips, Van took the hand that was gently caressing his face and lowered it.

“Want to see the house?”

Changing the subject, he finished climbing out of the basement. He blocked the basement, which they wouldn’t be going down to anymore today, with a display cabinet and took the child’s hand. He also needed to make Dia exercise, as he showed no intention of walking on his own two feet, wanting to be held whenever he clung to him. He ruffled the hair of Dia, who was looking up as if disappointed, and headed for the stairs.

Since it was his first time climbing stairs, he held the child’s hesitant hand firmly and took a step. Matching his slow pace, Van arrived on the second floor and grabbed the doorknob of the room where he had spent his childhood.

“My room.”

He opened the door with a grin. He let in Dia, whose eyes were sparkling as if the humble room was something spectacular, and the child walked step by step, looking around. He nudged a model car lined up on a shelf, and after brushing his fingertips against the blue blanket, he arrived in front of a narrow bookshelf. Dia, who had been sweeping his hand over the bookshelf, took out a picture frame at his eye level and stared at it intently.

Van’s eyes widened when he spotted the frame Dia had picked up. The wooden frame was an object extremely familiar to Van. He gazed blankly at the frame, which held a photo he used to check unconsciously every time he came to his hometown, then sat down on the edge of the bed.

“When I was little. Cute, right?”

He chuckled, praising himself. He had expected a scolding like ‘Don’t be a jerk,’ but the unsociable Dia nodded three times, which made him let out a hollow laugh. Wondering what to do with this kid, he rested his chin on his hand and waited for him to finish his appraisal.

Dia’s finger lingered over the photo of a mischievously smiling Van before moving to the two people hugging his shoulders tightly. His upward gaze seemed to be asking who they were, so Van uttered the words that now felt strange to him.

“Mom, Dad. Hmm… I wonder if you know what that means?”

As someone who had personally witnessed the child’s birth and growth, Van doubted whether Dia could understand the concept of parents. After fumbling to explain in his limited vocabulary that they were the people who brought him into the world, Dia slowly approached the bed and held out the frame.

“Are they gone now?”

No one had ever asked him so directly, so he was taken aback, but the feeling wasn’t entirely unpleasant.

“Yeah. They’re gone.”

Taking the frame, Van brushed the stray golden hair from the child’s forehead and told him about a past that was nothing special.

“There was a car accident. Bad luck.”

It had been so long ago that he couldn’t even remember it well. There were only fragmented memories, like the scene of the coffins being lowered, Michel sitting at an empty dining table with his face buried in his palms, and mornings where kisses and conversation had disappeared… While fiddling with the old frame, its edges worn from being handled so much, he felt the texture of paper on the back.

When he turned the frame over, he saw a note, folded into the shape of a ddakji, tucked between the frame and the backboard. Wondering what the note was about, he was about to unfold it when Dia folded his arms on his lap and brought his face close.

“Then is Van alone?”