25. I Became the Person Who Reads Books to the Villain
25. I Became the Person Who Reads Books to the Villain
25. I Became the Person Who Reads Books to the Villain
"So, what should we play?"
I offered a light smile, the kind you'd give a child.
When entertaining a younger cousin, the priority was always to disarm their wariness with a breezy smile like this.
After all, a smile has been an effective tool for releasing tension in others since time immemorial.
"W-Wait!"
As if struck by an idea, Ban Ha-na bolted out of my room.
Pitter-patter.
She was quick, her footsteps nothing more than light taps.
A moment later, she came back clutching a deck of cards.
"Since you're my pet, I'll show off my undefeated card skills!"
"I'm fine with anything."
I couldn't see the connection between being a pet and playing cards, but I decided to ignore it.
Card games were a perfect tool for slipping in a little education, after all.
Ban Ha-na plopped down onto the sofa and scattered the cards across the table.
Shff, shff.
She shuffled the mess of cards with practiced hands.
Once she was satisfied with the mix, she split the deck into two piles with a self-congratulatory smirk.
"Here! This is yours. And these are mine!"
"Uhm..."
She thrust one pile toward me with immense confidence.
No matter how I looked at it, my pile was significantly thicker.
Because her only role models had been villains, this kind of low trick seemed perfectly natural to her.
"Let's begin—"
"Hold on. Don't I have way more cards?"
A fair match had rules.
If I wanted her to develop a proper character, I couldn't let things like this slide.
At that, Ban Ha-na averted her gaze.
"I dunno what you mean..."
"Look here. Mine's clearly thicker. See?"
Even a side-by-side comparison showed a blatant difference.
My pile was easily one and a half times thicker than hers.
When I kept holding the cards up for her to see, Ban Ha-na threw a tantrum instead.
"O-Okay, fine...! I'll fix it, alright...! That's so petty..."
Who was being petty here?
The world of competition was cold, and it demanded fair play.
I was the type to give it my all, even against a child.
And that rule applied just as much to the Ban Ha-na sitting in front of me.
"H-How...?"
The game was 'Catch the Thief.'
The rule was simple: whoever was left holding the Joker at the end lost.
The game had no suspense whatsoever.
No need to walk through the process—it was an overwhelming victory.
Every time my hand moved to draw one of her cards, her expression shifted through a kaleidoscope of emotions. She was no match for me.
In the end, Ban Ha-na was stuck with the Joker from start to finish and lost miserably.
"T-This doesn't count...!!"
Furious that her undefeated streak had been shattered, Ban Ha-na's pink hair seemed to flare a violent red for a moment.
That was the wrong way to act.
When you suffer a defeat, you accept the result. You look back, reflect, and use it to push forward.
Ban Ha-na's reaction was nothing more than a child's spoiled tantrum.
'That undefeated claim must be a lie, too.'
Ban Ha-na had picked up nothing but bad habits from the villains.
I intended to yank those roots out completely and try to change her, even in this short time.
But Ban Ha-na kept fussing at me.
"D-Do it again! I just had bad luck last round! Pet! Hey! Where do you think you're going!"
"It's over, isn't it? I'm not playing anymore. It's boring."
"Sit down...! The match isn't over yet!"
I ignored her words, got up from the sofa, and flopped back down onto my bed.
I am officially ignoring you now.
At this action, heavy with meaning, Ban Ha-na hung her head and began to tremble.
"A pet... defying its master...?"
I keep telling you, I'm not a pet.
Before her rage could detonate and become a real nuisance, I decided to throw her a proposal.
"I'll play Catch the Thief again if we set a penalty."
"A pen-alty? What kind of penalty?"
"The loser has to read one book chosen by the winner."
"I hate reading books..."
"Then I won't play either. It's no fun without a penalty."
"F-Fine! Whatever...!"
Just as planned.
She claimed she didn't read because books were boring.
If that was the case, I would force her to read and cram the knowledge into her head.
The binding force of a penalty.
I had no idea if she'd actually follow it, but I had to at least try.
I sat back down on the sofa and accepted the deck of cards she handed me.
"The thickness."
"I-I know, for goodness' sake...!!"
I hadn't forgotten about fairness.
My rematch with Ban Ha-na began.
After discarding all the matching pairs, I was left holding three cards, while four remained in Ban Ha-na's hand.
"...I'll draw."
I placed my hand on Ban Ha-na's cards without a trace of nerves.
Since the Joker was already in my hand, I had nothing to worry about.
'Oh, a matching card.'
My hand shrank to just two cards, leaving Ban Ha-na with three.
Now it was her turn.
I maintained my poker face and carefully watched where her pink eyes were darting.
Her small hand passed over the Joker, grazing several cards as she hesitated.
"Uhm... this one...?"
Unlike last game, she was making her choice carefully.
Then, as if struck by a revelation, Ban Ha-na picked a card.
"...This is it!"
A card chosen by pure luck.
Unfortunately for her, it depicted a laughing clown sitting on a crescent moon.
"N-No way..."
She was now holding four cards in her small hand.
Struck by shock, Ban Ha-na froze up, forgetting to even shuffle her hand.
I immediately snatched a card from her grasp.
It was a perfect match for the one remaining in my hand.
"Nice."
"That's cheating!"
She yelled at me, claiming it was unfair because I drew while she was frozen and hadn't shuffled the Joker around.
The world of competition is harsh.
There was no such thing as a do-over.
I was down to a single card now.
If she drew this one, Ban Ha-na would lose.
It was my perfect victory once again.
'In the first place, a two-player game of Catch the Thief is entirely luck-based.'
No matter what you draw, it just becomes a sequence of pairing identical numbers when only two people are playing.
The structure was such that I was guaranteed to win, since I was never drawing the Joker.
Faced with her second consecutive loss, Ban Ha-na clutched her remaining cards with the devastated expression of a deposed monarch.
"..."
"And that's the end. Time for you to go read a book, right?"
A bet is a bet.
A penalty is a penalty.
Still wearing that hollow expression, Ban Ha-na suddenly turned her sharp glare toward me.
"I'm... going. You're coming with me."
"What? Wait a sec—"
Looking sorely aggrieved, Ban Ha-na abruptly grabbed my hand and started dragging me out.
A human hand in her left, her rabbit doll's paw in her right.
Just when I wanted to rest, I was hauled along by Ban Ha-na's superior strength, dragged all the way to the library of the Black Dawn hideout.
***
The library.
A place called the warehouse of knowledge, existing to fill the voids in a person's inner world.
The space inside was fairly large and well-maintained.
Which meant someone was using it frequently.
I quickly scanned the shelves to see what kind of books were stored here.
'Hmm...'
The selection was varied.
From children's fairy tales to dense philosophy texts, it was hard to find a genre that was missing.
Yet most of the books gave off an impression of being, well, a few screws short of sane.
'Adolf Hitler... My Struggle...'
It's no wonder they fall down the villain route if they're reading stuff like this.
I quickly wrapped up my assessment of the library's contents.
I turned to Ban Ha-na, whose face was twisted into a grimace.
"The penalty is reading one book. And I get to choose the book. Right?"
"Fine..."
It seemed even she couldn't throw a fit and refuse outright.
Compared to other villains who'd break a promise in a heartbeat, she seemed like she would genuinely follow through on the penalty.
I walked straight to a shelf stacked with various children's books.
'If you want students to keep studying, you first have to spark their interest in it.'
First, she had to get her hands on a book and find the act of reading interesting.
But, would she even find it interesting...?
A flicker of doubt crossed my mind, but I quickly dismissed it.
'I just have to make her interested.'
I was Han Si-jun.
Worrying about that wasn't my style.
I pulled a book off the shelf and approached Ban Ha-na, who was curled up on the sofa.
"Time to read a book. Are you sulking right now?"
"...I'm not sulking. I wuv books."
"You love them? Then I'll grab a few more. There's tons over there."
"...No. No revolutions. No struggles."
Her intense hatred of reading caused Ban Ha-na to drop all her usual pretense.
Still, the book I brought wasn't about revolutions or struggles. It was a story about 'Heroes' and 'Villains.'
Even Ban Ha-na, who hated books, would like this.
Hong Gil-dong.
A man labeled a villain by others, yet whose actions were closer to those of a hero.
If she read this story, Ban Ha-na would surely be inspired.
The proper mindset of a hero.
For heroes of old, their core essence never changed, no matter how much time passed.
'Righteous Outlaw Hong Gil-dong. At least let her follow in your footsteps.'
With that intent in mind, I handed Ban Ha-na the storybook.
But she just stared at it blankly, a look of total incomprehension on her face.
"...What're you doing? Take the book."
My arm's going to fall off at this rate.
Ban Ha-na kept looking at me like I was speaking a foreign language, completely baffled.
Time ticked by, and just as my arm was starting to go numb.
A shocking statement fell from Ban Ha-na's small, pink lips.
"You're not going to read it to me?"
"...Why would I? Read it yourself."
"I can't read! You read it for me!"
She was close to my own age, and she couldn't read.
That information hit my brain like a sledgehammer.
"You... can't read...?"
"Yeah... I never learned how."
Ban Ha-na spoke in a deflated voice.
Raised within Black Dawn since she was a child, Ban Ha-na likely never even had the chance to learn letters.
From the moment of her birth to this very day, her existence had been confined to this organization.
The one who had picked up the abandoned newborn Ban Ha-na from the street was Shin Hae-il.
There was probably no one among the villains here who would have bothered to teach her.
The reason she ended up illiterate was the absence of any teacher.
It was entirely a problem of the environment she was born into.
I sat down next to Ban Ha-na, who was still huddled up because she couldn't read.
"I'll read it to you. Come here."
If she can't read the words, I'll just have to make her read them, even by force.
Ban Ha-na's eyes widened into circles at my words, a look of pure surprise on her face.
"A... storybook? You'll read it to me...? Really...!?"
"Really. Would I lie?"
"Hehe... No more revolutions... No more mustached man either..."
What the hell have these Black Dawn people been reading to a child?
Apparently, they used to read Ban Ha-na nothing but strange books.
No wonder the kid hates books.
That was the moment I understood why Ban Ha-na had rejected books and remained ignorant.
After studying my face for a moment, Ban Ha-na scrambled to reposition herself, settling right between my legs where I sat on the sofa.
"This way, we can both look at the same time! Right? I'm a genius!"
Her voice rose with obvious delight.
A bright, floral scent wafted from her pink hair.
Ban Ha-na was now cozily nestled in my arms.
The position was a little uncomfortable.
'This is slightly awkward...'
Wasn't this a bit too close?
But Ban Ha-na seemed to love the arrangement. She leaned back against me as comfortably as if she owned the place.
We only met yesterday.
She had dropped her guard far too quickly.
"Alright, pet! Read it! Now!"
"Hold on."
"Hurry! Hurry!"
She wriggled around in my arms this way and that, urging me to start immediately.
I opened the storybook of Hong Gil-dong and began speaking to her as if telling a story.
— A long, long time ago. Once upon a time, there lived a man named Hong Gil-dong.
Reading an old fairy tale to a child made me feel like a grandfather.
Amidst all this, I felt an unintended sense of peace.
Maybe it was because Ban Ha-na harbored no real ill will toward me, and I felt none of the life-threatening pressure that radiated from the other villains.
Seeing how warmly she regarded me threw my thoughts into chaos for a moment.
This was Ban Ha-na—who might not have committed any grave sins yet, but was destined to commit irreversibly huge ones in the future.
Should I be viewing her as a villain now?
My heart cried out that she still held potential for reform, yet my reason insisted on classifying her as a villain.
Watching her pink eyes sparkle as she innocently stared at the storybook...
I couldn't come to an easy decision.