Will You Be My Son?
Day two of watching the child.
The surveillance camera caught him startling awake in bed, thrashing free of the covers only to tangle his feet in the blanket and tumble hard onto the floor. He pushed himself up little by little, face flushed, glancing around the room before quietly crying as he climbed back into bed.
Watching those tears, the old misunderstanding the previous doctors had held — that he felt no pain — simply dissolved. The child had been enduring it all along.
One week of watching the child.
I watched him carefully brush the snow that had piled on the windowsill overnight, smiling to himself as he packed it into a ball — so absorbed he forgot his hands were turning red. That snowball became a tiny snowman, and the child rested his chin on the sill, giggling with pure delight. Then the attending physician came into the room, saw those reddened hands, and scolded him for it. All of it was captured on camera.
It was nothing more than the face of an ordinary, innocent little boy.
Two weeks of watching the child.
A blizzard howled through the night and jolted him awake. The camera showed him clutching the blanket with trembling hands, lights left on, eyes wide open until morning. Even after daybreak the storm refused to stop, and eventually he pulled the covers over his head and shivered. When the attending physician came in, he tried to pretend nothing was wrong — only for the doctor's ability to expose his sleep deprivation and force him under. The sleeping child looked utterly at peace, yet the blanket he had gripped through the storm never left those small hands until he woke.
Seeing that, the doctors finally understood: it wasn't that the child felt no fear.
One month since meeting the child.
Lately he kept staring blankly at the ceiling with reddened eyes, murmuring something under his breath and crying. We tried to pick up the words through the surveillance feed, but they were incomprehensible — almost certainly the language of that other world he believed he had come from. And every time the attending physician approached the room, he wiped his eyes as if nothing had happened, only to be caught every single time and pressed about what was wrong.
Word of this spread among the other doctors, and they realized how badly they had misjudged him. On a day that might well have been the last snow of the year, a crowd of them came to his room and set their own snowmen beside the little one he had made.
If I could have, I would have gone with my juniors and left snowmen of our own. But we couldn't leave the security office empty for that long — and besides, the thought of approaching a child we had been watching in case we needed to kill him sat heavy in the chest.
In barely a month, that child had turned every person he met — even us, the ones sent to end his life — into people on his side.
"Senior, shouldn't we contact the boss about this already?"
"…Just wait. This isn't some ordinary assignment — the government ordered it. Jump the gun and the only one who ends up in more danger is the kid."
My junior wanted us to report to the boss and drop the surveillance. I couldn't bring myself to agree. The boss might look at our reports and believe the child was fine. The people higher up, though, might decide he was even more suspicious for it. It had only been a month, after all.
So we carried the guilt in our chests and resolved to keep watching — not to kill the child, but to protect him.
We had to watch him nod calmly when the police came with news of his parents' deaths, then cry in silence where no one else could see. We had to watch him stare into empty air, murmuring words we couldn't understand, reaching out with tears on his face. He kept telling the attending physician and the counselor that he was fine. We alone knew how much he had cried, and we could tell no one. All we could do was keep watching.
Half a year passed that way — long if you called it long, short if you called it short — before my juniors and I could finally report that the child was not a threat. Just an ordinary boy. As a result, mercifully, the decision was not to eliminate him but to place him with a new family. Adoption of a boy came with strict conditions, but we managed to open a path toward a new home for him.
"Senior, are you applying?"
"Yeah. My family already agreed, and there probably won't be many applicants."
The minimum requirements were monogamy and having children close enough in age to the boy. Fortunately, I met both. Monogamy wasn't common these days, but my husband and I had already promised not to take on any more wives. I had two daughters — nine and four — so the age gap with a seven-year-old wasn't large. Beyond that, the preferential criteria demanded a mountain of certifications and credentials, but the licenses and commendations I'd earned working security checked those boxes too.
A month after submitting the paperwork, I qualified for the selection interviews. I sat in the waiting area with a racing heart and watched the long line of women and men ahead of me go in and come out. When my turn finally came, I drew a deep breath, opened the door with trembling hands, and stepped inside.
There he was — the child I had only ever seen through a monitor since the day we installed the cameras — face buried in a stuffed animal, catching his breath as if exhausted.
"Oh? Team Leader, you applied too?"
"I did. Honestly, I didn't think I'd make it this far."
The counselor beside the child asked in surprise when I walked in. I hadn't meant to hide anything; there simply hadn't been time to talk about it, so I left it at that. She eased us into conversation, slipping in the necessary questions along the way, and I answered every one of them honestly.
"Come to think of it, you have children of your own, don't you?"
"Yes — two daughters. The older one turns ten next year, and the little one will be five."
"Quite a gap between sisters. I imagine the older one looks after the younger a lot."
"Once she started elementary school she suddenly got so mature. Watching her play big sister has been a real gift."
Even as we talked, my eyes kept drifting to the child. In a way, I had watched him longer and more closely than the counselor ever had — and yet this was only the second time I was seeing him with my own eyes. The rims of his eyes, glancing up at me now and then, looked redder than they should have. The small fingertips clutching that stuffed animal looked more fragile than they should have.
As the conversation with the counselor continued, the child — who had met my gaze several times — took hold of her sleeve and slowly opened his mouth.
"Um…! Um… why do you… want to adopt me?"
Hearing him, I lost my words entirely. His voice was shaking. There was no confidence in it. That single question told me exactly how worn down he was — and how desperately the long line of people before me had wanted him.
And yet my mouth had gone mute. Nothing would come out.
I scrambled through my thoughts for an answer. Was it because, the first time I faced him properly, I thought he was even more precious than my own daughters? Because I had learned he was just a small child who hurt and feared and cried from loneliness? Or simply because of the guilt of having been ordered to kill him with my own hands — a need to atone?
None of it felt like something I could say to him. My mouth would not permit a single one of those reasons to leave it.
Then my lips parted, and a trembling voice began to slip free.
"…I don't know."
My reason screamed that it was a terrible answer. My mouth paid no attention and kept going.
"Why do you… want to adopt me?"
My voice shook against my will, and the woman's eyes began to tremble the same way. She couldn't answer. Her mouth opened and closed a few times, trying to form words, but no sound came out.
As her eyes shook, I shrank into myself and blamed myself for it. All I had needed to do was sit quietly and tell the counselor I hoped this person would be my parent. Why had I asked a question like that and put her on the spot? I was a little angry with myself.
But I had wanted to hear it that badly. I wanted to know whether this person with warm eyes — not greedy ones — had truly come because she wanted to adopt me. I wanted to ask whether she would see me as a person, not as something of value.
"…I don't know."
At her voice, my eyes squeezed shut on reflex. That answer made me resent myself more than her. Then the counselor's hand gently patted mine, and I opened my eyes a little and looked at the woman.
She was looking straight at me. Tears glimmered faintly in her light-brown eyes. They were simply warm. No resentment for the question I had asked. No disappointment. Just the same unchanging warmth, still looking at me.
"I'm sorry… A good answer just… doesn't seem to be coming to me…"
Her voice wavered on the edge of tears as she slowly reached a hand toward me. The police nearby tensed, but the counselor raised a hand and held them back. I didn't pull away from the approaching touch. Instead, I leaned my head into it a little.
When her fingertips met my hair, she flinched for a moment — then began to stroke me with the careful delicacy of someone handling the thinnest glasswork.
"I… I may end up apologizing to you for the rest of my life… You wouldn't know this, but I was going to do something terrible to you…"
I said nothing. I closed my eyes and let myself rest in her touch. I couldn't know exactly what that terrible thing had been — but I already knew she wasn't one of the people who visited my hospital room. She was one of the ones watching me. After all, the only people who came to my room were the doctors and the counselors, and none of them would ever do anything terrible.
With my small hands, I gently covered the hand stroking my hair. A small sign of forgiveness. And a sign that I wanted her to keep talking.
My eyes were closed, so I couldn't see her face — but I could tell her gaze was still on me, still holding that same warmth as before.
"Thank you… Truly, thank you… As much as I'm sorry… I'll stay. I'll stay by your side… So…"
She stopped. From the small, choked sound, it seemed the tears had caught in her throat and she couldn't go on. I slowly opened my eyes and looked at her. Tears were streaming down those light-brown eyes, and still she kept looking at me. Grateful, I gave her a faint smile. She answered it with a faint smile of her own and spoke again.
"So… w-will you be my son..?"
I didn't answer with words. I took the hand resting on my head and guided it to keep stroking my hair. Then I closed my eyes again and surrendered my head to that touch.
I had been sitting too long today. I was tired. So there was no need for anyone else to come in and talk after this.