Arcadia Chapter 3.3

What could he do? He had to get through the moment.

The surroundings grew even darker when they arrived at the forest surrounding the town. As the sunlight that had seeped through the clouds like an ant’s piss was blocked by the tree leaves, the forest’s desolate charm shone through. Van, bypassing an area cordoned off with police tape, led Dia down a path he had frequented as a child.

Despite the lack of rain, they stepped onto the damp dirt path and went deeper into the forest, where the sound of chirping birds could be heard from somewhere. Following the chirping that led them to a densely overgrown area, they finally reached their destination. Van looked down at the boy who had been following him quietly. With his lips slightly parted, Dia was staring at the mist-covered lake as if it were a marvel.

“This town has a lot of lakes. Have a look around. Just don’t go in the water.”

With the weather being overcast year-round, seeing a clear lake was a miracle, but the misty lake had its own charm. Van let go of the boy’s fidgeting hand and sat down on a large rock. He let Dia, who was looking around with curious eyes, marvel to his heart’s content and took out his phone.

He held the phone, which was barely getting a signal, high up to the sky and checked for messages. Still no word from Michel today. You’d think he’d at least check in once after entrusting him with a million-dollar project, but he was a man who took indifference to the extreme, probably getting all his reports through Wayne.

“So heartless.”

Van pouted, finished sending the replies he couldn’t because Dia had snatched his phone, and then went into his photos app. The most recent picture was a profile shot of a blond boy engrossed in a book.

Van zoomed in to look at the photo and let out a sigh laden with regret. If he’d known he would grow up this fast, he would have taken more pictures of him as a baby. He had only taken one picture every now and then for documentation, so the number of baby Dia’s photos could be counted on one hand. About forty of them.

He was admiring a picture of a young Dia solving a puzzle with his plump cheeks puffed out when he lifted his head. Van, who was about to call the boy over to show him, frowned and looked around the quiet lake.

“Dia?”

The boy was nowhere to be seen.

“Dia!”

Van stood up from the rock and called for the boy at the top of his lungs. As he spun around to find Dia’s shadow, the shadows of the densely grown trees cast down as if they would pour over him. The lake was calm, and the wind was cool. Nevertheless, a chill ran down his spine when he couldn’t see the boy.

Damn it. He spat out a curse between his teeth and stepped onto the path. Van, about to move instead of staying put, heard a faint whimper from within the forest. A whimpering sound was followed by a crack, the sound of something breaking.

Van, who had stopped in his tracks to listen, heard the sound of footsteps on the damp ground. He turned his head in the direction of the presence, and Dia appeared from between the densely packed trees. The beautiful boy, who broke into a bright smile the moment he saw Van, came running. He should have welcomed him warmly, as he had been so startled, but what the boy was holding in his hand made Van hesitate.

“Is that your….”

“It’s a gift, Van.”

Dia smiled as refreshingly as if he were proposing and held out a rabbit with a broken leg. The rabbit, its ears held in a grip as white as a plaster cast, struggled violently. Van, who had been staring blankly at its terrified black eyes, couldn’t say anything for a moment, then wiped his hardened face and asked.

“…Did you do this?”

“Do what?”

“Its leg.”

Dia blinked a couple of times and then slowly looked between the struggling rabbit and Van. A bewildered light flickered in his eyes, which had been rolling as if reading the atmosphere. The boy, who had been moving his lips as if choosing his words, opened his mouth cautiously.

“It betrayed me.”

“Betrayed?”

“I was trying to catch it, but it ran away, so….”

Dia stammered out an excuse. His face didn’t show that he understood he had done something wrong. He had simply keenly noticed that the situation was unfolding differently from what he had expected. Dia, who looked crestfallen as if he were about to burst into tears, muttered in a barely audible voice.

“I just wanted to be loved by you, Van….”

Van pressed a hand to his forehead, feeling a headache coming on. He looked back and forth between the rabbit, which was on the verge of fainting, and the boy with the face of an angel, then scrubbed his face with his dry hands. Van, who had never imagined he would confirm how the absence of a proper educator could ruin a child in this way, thought to himself.

This is a real big problem, isn’t it…?

The walk, masquerading as a lover’s escape, ended there. On the way back home, Van, with a miserable heart, told the boy the things he shouldn’t do. Not knowing how to explain it clearly, he used childish excuses like ‘Animals are our friends. Therefore, we shouldn’t harm them,’ to which a glum-faced Dia replied in a small voice.

“I know. But….”

“You knew and you still did it? Really?”

“…You’re not going to be mad?”

“When did I ever get mad? I’m just saying you shouldn’t hurt animals for fun.”

“I didn’t do it for fun. It betrayed me first. So, so….”

“So what?”

“You’re mad, Van.”

“…You’re really starting to make me mad. I’m asking you why you broke its leg when you knew it was wrong.”

Dia’s plump lips moved several times as if he had a lot to say. The boy, realizing that the reason of ‘betrayal’ he had brought up was merely an excuse, hung his head low.

“I thought you would understand, Van. Because you love me….”

“Ah, understand….”

Van blankly muttered the word that had come out of Dia’s mouth. Thought I would understand. To summarize Dia’s rambling, it was this: Dia wanted to gift him the cute rabbit he had found while walking in the forest. But a wild rabbit isn’t that easy to catch. The boy seemed to think that the rabbit, which had run away instead of letting him approach, had betrayed him. In Dia’s mind, the great wrong of ‘betrayal’ was more powerful than any social rule, so he judged it was okay to break its leg, and he arbitrarily concluded that Van would understand this whole disaster and happily accept the gift. All with that damn love as his justification.

Van looked at the rabbit he had ended up bringing with him with uneasy eyes. He had a rough grasp of the sequence of events, but that didn’t mean he understood.

To feel sympathy for the small creature, which was frozen and trembling, Van himself was a human who had lived his life committing numerous acts of killing. If he found an injured rabbit somewhere, he would feel sorry for it, but he was by no means benevolent enough to go out of his way to treat it. However, because of Dia, who was a little bit off in the head, he had no choice.

To make him realize that the rabbit he had injured with his own hands was a precious life, he had to somehow treat this tiny creature. The problem was that there was no way a veterinarian would be in a remote village where it took an hour just to go to and from the supermarket.

“Go inside for now. I’m going to get this treated, and you apologize to it later.”

“…Okay.”

Van pushed the boy with slumped shoulders inside the house and firmly closed the front door. To think that he had come out for a change of pace only to witness the possibility of the boy becoming a psychopath—it was a strange feeling indeed. Should he be glad that he discovered it early, or should he be sad that the child he raised had the makings of a criminal?

Van, with a look of disgust, crossed over to the house next door. In a neighborhood where wooden houses were the norm, the red brick house was quite out of place. Standing in front of the door, Van sniffled and raised his hand. He really didn’t want to, but this guy was the only one he could ask for help right now. He rang the doorbell and waited for about three seconds, but no one came out. After ringing it about ten times in a row, the door finally opened.

Even though the weather was still chilly, the man wearing a black short-sleeved t-shirt revealed his unpleasant mug. Wayne, standing crookedly with his arms crossed, pointed out Van’s rudeness instead of a grand welcome.

“Don’t you know how to wait?”

“No. Treat this.”

Van abruptly held out the rabbit with the injured leg. Wayne’s brow furrowed as he looked down at the disconcerting object, which was hardly a housewarming gift.

“That thing did this?”

“Not ‘that thing,’ it’s Dia.”

“Right. So Dia, that thing, did this? Didn’t I tell you not to go out?”

His intuition was disgustingly sharp. Van, at a loss for words, averted his gaze from Wayne. It’s not like he knew Dia would cause trouble. He was about to shove it at him and tell him to just treat it and forget the argument when Wayne said something astounding.

“Why not just kill it? Or leave it.”

“Are you crazy?”

“Even if that kid hadn’t done it, its leg could have been injured at any time. Another animal could have done it, or it could have been an accident. Is there really a need to fix it? It was just unlucky.”

There was some truth to what Wayne said. Dia had no ill intentions, and the rabbit was unlucky. But Van, who had inadvertently taken on the role of a babysitter, had no intention of justifying the boy’s pure malice. He forcefully pushed the rabbit, which had even stopped struggling in its terror, into Wayne’s arms.

“No. I’m going to show Dia that it gets better. So do something about it. A splint or something.”

“Why?”

Wayne, who frowned as if the rabbit’s body heat against his skin was unpleasant, questioned him just like a young Dia would. Van, who was clapping his hands together to brush off the fur, retorted with a look that said he was asking the obvious.

“What do you mean why? They start by killing animals, then they kill people, and then they become serial killers. If he gets caught for that, then I’ve done unpaid labor.”

“So you want me to fix it because there’s money on the line?”

“Of course.”

Van, who had answered shamelessly, turned to leave after unilaterally informing him that he would be back in two hours. As he was crossing the lawn with its dead grass, he heard a voice calling from behind him. He glanced back to see Wayne, holding the rabbit by the scruff of its neck, smiling faintly.

“Let’s have a meal. Leave that one behind.”

“I don’t want to.”

“You said you were curious. About the research.”

Now? Dumbfounded, he turned his body completely around, and Wayne, who had thrown a bait he couldn’t help but bite, told him the dinner time and abruptly disappeared into the house. He barely managed to stop himself from spitting in front of the door.

Van trudged back home and looked around the living room as he took off his coat. A few books were scattered untidily on the sofa, but Dia was not there. He naturally started up the stairs to the second floor, but his mind was in considerable turmoil.

Dia didn’t seem to feel any guilt about breaking the rabbit’s leg. Common sense would dictate that he should see a child psychologist immediately, but their situation was bleak. Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that they did go to a psychologist.

Did you adopt the child?

No. He was born alone in the basement of my house.

You raised the child in the basement?

They said he wasn’t allowed to go out. It wasn’t on purpose.

Was the child homeschooled?

Yes. With YouTube.

What did you show the child?

Romance movies. Sometimes there was some action mixed in, but well… they all watch that stuff when they grow up anyway, right?

While he answered with all sincerity, the psychologist with a warm smile would be busily tapping on the phone hidden under the desk, reporting him to the police. Van didn’t want to get handcuffed because of a child he hadn’t even given birth to. So, he and Wayne had to handle this as cleanly as possible….

Leaning against the doorway, Van stared blankly at Dia, whose slumped back exuded gloom. The boy, who was sitting on the floor with his gaze fixed on the carpet, slowly raised his head. As soon as Dia’s eyes met Van’s, he poured out smooth words as if he had memorized them.

“I did something wrong, Van.”

“What did you do wrong?”

“Hurting it. I shouldn’t have done that, but I thought you would like it.”

Dia, hastily confessing his wrongdoing, looked extremely nervous, as if he were afraid of getting on Van’s bad side in the slightest. Van, narrowing his eyes, observed the boy with suspicion and then let out a long sigh. He admitted his mistake himself, and he was looking at him with such pathetic eyes, so was there a need to be so stern? Van trudged into the room and sat down next to Dia, who still hadn’t taken off his coat.

“People make mistakes. You’re not a person, but… just don’t do it again.”

Van, who had offered comfort in a mature way for the first time in a long while, put an arm around the boy, who cautiously rested his head on his shoulder. Dia’s stiff body relaxed, and his soft voice lingered in Van’s tired ears.

“Van.”

“What.”

“I thought you were mad at me and wouldn’t come back.”