The Villainous Director Is Raising a Child!

"Director... I wanna shee him..."

Hayun mumbled it, faint, arms wrapped around her knees.

The room they were in wasn't the containment room anymore — the Director had ordered it renamed the Sunshine Room.

The first time he'd changed the name, the researchers had recoiled — "Is this a kindergarten or something?" — and even the kids themselves — the ones actually living in it — had wrinkled their noses at how childish it sounded. But the Director had stuck with the name to the end.

And inside that warm little Sunshine Room now sat five children, drooping like puppies who'd lost their owner, wearing the gloomiest faces the world had ever seen.

"Um... should we call again?"

Suho fiddled with the device in his hand, on the verge of tears.

He'd half-strong-armed it out of Lee Jinwoo.

"No. Wait."

Lee Sea-ah shook her head, firm.

But her own eyes wouldn't come off the device's screen either.

"It hasn't even been thirty minutes since the last call. If he'd woken up... he'd have called us first, for sure."

She said the words, but the truth was the kids were already at their limit.

They'd been taking half-hour turns dialing the Director's number by rotation.

Every time the tone rang, the kids' eyes lit up with hope — but the result was always the same.

["...Like I said before, he still hasn't woken up. I'll call when he does."]

What came through the receiver was never the voice they were waiting for.

Always just that man in the glasses.

"I should've... I should've healed him faster..."

Suho stared down at his own hands, blaming himself.

"If I'd just been a little quicker... the Director wouldn't have been that badly..."

At the words, the horrific memory came flooding back into every child's head.

The Director in Han Jewoon's arms as they emerged from the Gate entrance, drenched in blood.

The empty sleeve dangling limp, and the fresh blood dripping, heavy.

Wuuung—.

The shadow at Sihyeok's feet rippled like a restless animal in step with his anxiety, and around the twins, the toys, caught up in telekinesis, quivered and lifted into the air.

The mood was one wrong word away from tipping into an all-out crying fit.

"Stop it."

Lee Sea-ah bit down on her lip hard and steadied the kids.

"They said the treatment's finished. He's probably just tired, and taking a while to wake up."

"But..."

"You think the Director would like it if we sat here crying? He gets back and finds our eyes swollen shut — he'll scold us for sure."

Sea-ah put on her bravest voice, but the air stayed heavy.

They couldn't leave it like this.

Clap!

Sea-ah clapped her hands, exaggerated, to shift the mood.

"Oh, right! Now that I think about it, I heard something."

"Hm? What?"

"I heard yesterday — three days from now is... the Director's birthday."

"Birthday?!"

For a moment, the kids' eyes lit up and color returned to their faces. But the light didn't last long.

"...So what."

Suho's face fell again, and he mumbled.

"The Director isn't here. Even if we wanted to celebrate, we can't..."

Just as the air was about to sink heavy again, Sea-ah forced her expression even brighter.

"No! Look at it positively!"

"Huh?"

"If the Director were here, sneaking around preparing something in secret would've been really hard. But since he isn't here... we've bought ourselves time to prepare perfectly!"

"...!"

"We'll get a huge, jaw-dropping surprise party ready for when he gets back! So he's so happy the pain just goes away! How about it?"

The kids looked tempted, but still hadn't quite committed.

Sea-ah turned her head, urgent, and looked toward the corner.

"Right, oppa? Right?"

She was winking hard, sending desperate SOS signals in his direction.

In the corner, Cha Yul was silently working through push-ups.

Drip, drip. His whole body slick with sweat, he flicked a glance up at Sea-ah and answered, indifferent.

"Sure. Well, knowing the guy, he'd probably love it..."

The blunt agreement was the fuse.

"Then should we make a cake?"

"Noona! I'm doing balloons! I wanna blow up balloons! Let's decorate the whole institute!"

"I'm... I'm gonna give the Director a present! I'll give him my toy!"

Life came back into the kids' faces, and a loud, tumbling brainstorm kicked off.

But the excitement didn't last long.

"But..."

Hayun tilted her head and asked.

"How do you do... a grown-up's birthday party?"

"..."

Silence fell over the Sunshine Room in an instant.

The kids went dead silent and just stared at each other, blank.

Fair enough.

Most of the kids in this room had never, in their entire lives, had a proper birthday spread.

Back in the orphanage days, the joint birthday parties — everyone gathered in the auditorium every three months to be handed a single chocolate bun.

That was the whole of what they knew of a birthday.

Sea-ah and Suho, who at least had faint memories of family from when they were young, put their heads together, but...

"I can't... really remember."

"Blow out candles on a cake... sing a song...? Is that it?"

The birthday parties buried in their hazy memories were painfully faint.

None of them had ever prepared a party for someone else.

That was when—

Creak.

The door opened, cautious, and Ari poked her head in.

"What is it! What's going on?"

Ari came in, reading the room.

Right up until a moment ago it had been a funeral in there, so she'd been holding her breath outside — but the sudden bustling had gotten to her, and she couldn't hold her curiosity down.

"They said the Director-ajusshi is back? Huh?"

"Ari!"

Lee Sea-ah ran over as if a savior had walked in and grabbed Ari's hand.

"That's not it — actually, we're trying to throw a surprise birthday party for the Director..."

Sea-ah explained the whole situation to Ari.

That the Director's birthday was coming up soon, and that they wanted to prepare a surprise party.

As Ari listened, her eyes went wider and wider, and then began to shine.

"Wait! A birthday party? Awesome! That's gonna be so fun!"

Ari threw both arms up and cheered.

The only one among them who'd been raised in an ordinary household, showered with her grandmother's love.

Every year: seaweed soup, cake, friends' well-wishes. A veteran had entered the room.

"Me! I've done it! For grandma's birthday, and for my own birthday too!"

Ari puffed her chest out, thumping it.

"Everyone move over! I'll teach you!"

And so began Ari's Spartan-drill birthday coaching.

Ari planted herself in front of a chalkboard from god knows where, rapped it with a toy magic wand, and declared:

"Everyone, listen up! The heart of a grown-up's birthday party isn't cake or balloons."

Ari's eyes went solemn as she looked around the room.

"Those are just decorations... the real thing is presents! Grown-ups love material stuff!"^※TL Facts. You've learned well Ari.

"Mate... rial?"

"Yes! Feelings alone won't cut it. You need something they can hold, or they won't be happy!"

Ari waved her wand around and launched into her personal experience.

"When it's the old village head's birthday and you show up empty-handed and just say 'Happy birthday, live a long life~' — he'll just go 'oh, thanks' and won't even look at you."

Ari lowered her voice, serious.

"But if you shove some expensive jar of honey or a gift set of dried yellow croaker from town at him — like this? Suddenly all his wrinkles smooth right out and his gums are on full display! 'Aigo, what's all this, why would you—!' — and he'll grab you and make you stay for a meal too!"

"Whoa... a total attitude flip?"

"Exactly! So the conclusion is what? 'Congratulations aren't done with your mouth, they're done with objects'!"

At Ari's rock-solid old village head philosophy, the kids nodded like they'd received a major revelation.

"All right, from this moment on — debate! What does the ajusshi seem to like the most, day-to-day?"

The first hand up was Hayun's.

"Me! I think I know!"

"Oh, what?"

"The Director... likes mirrors the most!"

Hayun shouted it, dead certain.

"I saw him! Every day he talks to himself in front of the mirror!"

She sprang up from her seat and even acted it out.

She tilted her tiny chin up like this, cocked one hip out, and mimed a swaggering little brat — surprisingly convincing.

"He goes in front of the mirror like, 'What would you know?' 'You defying me?' — like that!"

"Whoa... really?"

"Yeah! And then he laughs by himself all mean and makes shooo many faces! I read in a shtory book, that's called prince disease!"

"Ooh... makes sense."

Then Suho, next to her, raised his hand carefully.

"Um... I've got a different theory..."

"What is it, Suho?"

"The Director... I think he really loves sweet stuff."

Suho was serious.

"He always carries that little candy tin in his pocket, right? And the moment anything gets even a little hard or scary, first thing he does is pop a candy? Sometimes he'll go through them two at a time..."

He tilted his head.

"I've never seen a grown-up who likes candy that much before. Maybe... he's got a total baby's palate."

That was when Cha Yul, who'd been listening with his arms crossed, snorted.

"You're all wrong."

"Then what's your theory, oppa?"

Cha Yul clicked his tongue like he'd heard enough.

"There's exactly one thing that guy loves. Shopping."

"Ah...!"

The kids let out a chorus of gasps at the same time. It was a devastatingly strong candidate.

"You lot never been in his office? Is that place an office or a warehouse? Open the door, delivery boxes stacked to the ceiling — you can't even find a spot to put your foot down."

Cha Yul shook his head and drove the fact home.

"The second he hears 'delivery,' even from a dead sleep, he shoots up and bolts out. And the look on his face when he's opening the boxes? Like he's just won the world."

"But that's not a present we can give him!"

Hayun stuck out her lower lip and pushed back.

"And on top of that, one more decisive one. Playing dolls."

"Playing dolls?"

"Yeah. Every day he puts this on us, tries that on us, and beams about it. And he keeps calling us his dolls."

Sea-ah rested her chin on her hand and analyzed.

"All right, let's sum it up. Looks in the mirror admiring his own face, likes eating candy while unboxing deliveries, and plays dress-up with a group of children."

"Uh......"

When Sea-ah's analysis was done, a strange silence settled over the group.

They were all picturing the Director in their heads, and what was coming together wasn't anywhere near respectable — it was something dangerous, disturbingly off.

That was when Ari tilted her head and asked, pure and innocent:

"Isn't that... just... a *rich pervert*?"^※TL LOL

"..."

Under Ari's blunt, unfiltered truth-strike, the kids had nothing to say, and could only look at each other's faces. Nothing hurts quite like a thing you can't deny.

"He is not!"

Suho shouted, on the verge of tears.

"I mean... everything you said is true, but... the Director isn't a weirdo like that!"

The twins went beet-red and shook their heads, desperate.

"Yeah! He likes putting clothes on us, but... he's not a pervert!"

Even Sihyeok, who'd been silent in his corner, must have snapped, because the black shadow at his feet surged up and drew a huge X in the air.

An emphatic wordless absolutely not.

"O-kay... sure..."

Ari looked between the giant shadow-X hanging in midair and the kids' bright, insistent eyes fixed on her, wearing a distinctly unconvinced expression.

"If you all say so... then that's what it is, I guess."

Ari pushed her doubts aside and rapped the chalkboard with her wand.

"Anyway, that's not the point. The point is that the ajusshi is a guy with money who loves shopping."

Ari's face went serious.

"That's the actually tricky part. He probably already owns everything a person could own, and his standards are sky-high... you think what we can scrape up from our allowance is going to cut it?"

"Ah..."

The kids drooped again. What could their little hands make that would please a man who bought multi-billion-won artifacts the way you'd buy chewing gum?

That was when Ari snapped her fingers, like something had clicked.

"For times like these, there's a trick!"

"What is it?"

"Us racking our brains isn't gonna get us anywhere. We use the connections card!"

"Connections card?"

"Yeah! We ask the people close to the ajusshi. He might've casually let slip what he wanted, right?"

Ari clenched a determined fist.

"From this moment on, we split into teams and start our investigation! We go to the researcher-saems and to those Bawi Guild ajusshis over there and dig up intel!"

"Ooh...!"

The kids' eyes lit up with hope again.

"All right! Operation begin!"

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