The Villainous Director Is Raising a Child!

I took the full weight of the falling bookshelf with my whole body.

"Nngh...!"

Swallowing back a cry, I grabbed the child's small body and shoved her — practically threw her — as far away from me as I could.

The moment she was safe, the strength holding me up gave out.

The full weight of the bookshelf slammed the air out of my lungs, and the coppery taste of blood filled my mouth.

"Ughhh...!"

Beeeee—.

A sharp ringing swallowed every other sound.

Beyond it, the children's crying, someone frantically calling my name, and quick little footsteps blurred together, muffled as if I were hearing them from underwater.

Even through the fogged-over vision, one thing came through clearly — Hayun, crying.

Ah. She's crying. She must have been so scared...

A sigh of relief slipped out at the fact that her small face didn't have a single scratch on it.

At least she's not hurt.

I clung desperately to my scattering consciousness with one thought — I had to reassure the kids.

"It's okay, it's okay... shh."

The voice that came out along with a blood-flecked cough was ragged, but the comfort in it was real.

Through the blurring haze, I gave the children a faint smile.

"Are you... hurt anywhere...? Look at me... look at Teacher..."

That was as far as I got.

The hand I'd been trying to reach out to them wouldn't obey, and my gentle voice didn't go any further.

The thread of consciousness I'd been holding onto snapped clean through.

I passed out where I lay.

"Look at Teacher..."

That was as far as he got.

Pinned under the bookshelf, the hand the man had been trying to stretch out toward the children dropped, limp. The eyes that had, just a second ago, been desperately trying to take something in — those eyes fell shut.

That was that.

I froze where I stood.

I didn't know why, but my head had gone completely white.

That obnoxious man, the Director who'd been like a demon to us — Chae Junhyeok had gone down.

Just three weeks ago, that man had called us his toys. He was the kind of garbage who got off on our suffering.

And then, overnight, he'd turned into a different kind of crazy.

The day he'd passed out from too much pain, he'd stopped the experiments and told us we'd be playing house from now on instead.

Up to that point, I'd figured it was just some new kind of torment.

But then... calling it the rules of the house, that man had started changing everything.

The horrible containment room had turned into a warm space, and one wall was packed with the kind of toys and books my siblings would love.

Even the food, which used to be like pig slop, had been swapped for warm dishes I'd never seen in my life.

I couldn't wrap my head around it.

What could that man possibly get out of a "house" where he did nice things for us?

And what Sea-ah had said made me even more confused.

She said the one who'd carried me back from the lab, when I'd passed out, was that man.

The man who used to hit me for so much as touching him, saying it was disgusting — had actually held me?

I thought Sea-ah had to be mistaken about something, but the other kids beside her all nodded too, and it only muddled my head further.

And most of all, over the past three weeks, that man's behavior had been genuinely bizarre.

The hellish experiments, the horrible injections — all of it had stopped.

He didn't make us do a single thing.

Instead he just came in at the same time every day, sat in the chair furthest into the corner, and looked at his paperwork.

But—

Does that man really think we don't notice?

He pretended to look at the paperwork, but he was always watching us.

And the way he watched... it wasn't the numb, cold way a researcher observes a test subject.

Especially when the little ones were playing with their toys.

The warm, gentle look that would rise onto his face.

After I noticed that look, the little ones had started playing at the toy box only when the Director was there.

The younger ones, who hadn't been at the institute long, were being tamed fast by the soft beds, the warm food, and that man's kind eyes.

But Sea-ah and I weren't.

We hadn't forgotten.

How horrific that man's whims had been — planting hope in us, and the very next instant grinding it into despair under his heel.

That was why we'd thought we had to protect everyone from this deceptive warmth.

But he'd shattered that thinking of mine to pieces.

The way he'd thrown himself in the way to save Hayun.

Why. Why would he do that. I'd been lost in confusion trying to find an answer, and what pulled me out of it was the sound of the little ones crying.

"Waaah! Director! Director, open your eyes!"

"...Director, wake up... please wake up...?"

The twins' crying set Suho off, and he broke down in a panic and started sobbing too.

Sihyeok bolted for a dark corner of the room; Sea-ah, opposite him, face gone bone-white, was straining with everything she had to lift the fallen bookshelf.

The little ones' raw grief and desperate cries.

All of it hit together, hammering at my hardened defenses.

Then, with the sound of the door opening, a researcher I recognized rushed in, robot in tow.

"Director!"

The robot lifted the heavy bookshelf like it was nothing, and there beneath it was the man — one arm bent the wrong way, head bleeding badly, laid out on the floor.

His face was drained of color, pale as a corpse. Hair damp with cold sweat clung to his forehead. Blood ran from his temple, staining the collar of his shirt red.

Cradled in the robot's rigid arms, the man looked like a broken doll.

It was hard to believe this was the same man who, not long ago, had been swaggering around the institute.

The man was carried limply out of the room in the robot's arms, the researcher hurrying out after him.

Clang—!

The steel door shut again.

The room was left with nothing but a heavy silence, the children's sniffling, and the vivid stains of blood still on the floor.

I stared at the spot where the man had been lying.

The blood on the floor had spread out, like the tangle in my own head.

Was he a monster I should hate — or, as his last words had said, a teacher I should trust?

That man I couldn't figure out was shaking my whole world.

Who the hell are you.

Out of a deep darkness, my consciousness slowly surfaced.

Blinking, I looked up at the pattern of an unfamiliar ceiling.

Not the feel of a hard cot but something soft, giving under my body.

The infirmary — the one I'd been to with Cha Yul.

Reflexively, I pushed myself up.

I'd been braced for the awful pain you'd expect after being crushed under a huge bookshelf, but my body felt weirdly light.

On my back and shoulders, where the wounds should have been, there was only the faint dry residue of a clear gel.

They'd treated me with the healing factor, it seemed.

But before I could feel any relief, my heart dropped.

...The kids? Hayun? She saw a person get pinned right in front of her — wasn't she traumatized? What if something happened while I was out?

Anxiety wound itself tight around my heart.

I lurched out of the bed and rushed into the empty corridor.

Destination: the containment room.

Standing at the door, I held my breath and cautiously opened the outer door.

Inside, the space where the children were came into view through the huge reinforced glass.

The room was dim, and every one of the kids was lying in their own bed.

The collapsed bookshelf had been cleared away so cleanly it was as if the accident had never happened.

And where the tall bookshelf had stood, it had been replaced with a low one, at the children's eye level.

Only then did I let out the breath I'd been holding.

Thank god. Nothing had happened while I was gone.

But even that wasn't enough to settle me. I softened my footsteps and, without a sound, opened the second door leading into the room itself.

Lit faintly by an emergency light, the room was still.

As I got closer, I saw the twins and Suho all curled up in one bed, arms around each other, asleep.

The three small faces were streaked with tearstains, their eyes swollen.

My chest ached.

...How much did they cry, for their eyes to be this puffy. They must have been so scared.

Without thinking, I reached out and carefully brushed the tearstained corners of their eyes as they slept in soft, even breaths.

Please, no bad dreams.

That was when a cold voice came from behind me.

"...What do you think you're doing."

I turned slowly.

In the darkness, Cha Yul was staring me down with those red eyes.

I slowly withdrew the hand I'd stretched out toward the children and put my mask back on.

Then I met Cha Yul's red eyes — full of suspicion — head-on.

"I was worried my precious dolls had gotten a scratch on them. Got a problem?"

"'Worried,' huh."

Cha Yul snorted.

"Cut the hypocrisy. You just came to enjoy the sight of us suffering."

He wasn't wrong.

At least, that had been true of the old Chae Junhyeok.

I forced down the anger that came up at the thought of him, was quiet for a moment, then let out a small laugh.

"I did, yeah."

"...!"

"But I told you, didn't I? That got old too."

I stood there at a lazy slouch and looked down at Cha Yul.

"Toys that shake with the same face every day — I was starting to get bored. So I switched over to house. This is much more fun to watch."

Cha Yul's red eyes went past surprise into narrow, deep wariness.

I lifted the corner of my mouth like it was all very amusing.

"What's with that face. Believe it or don't. Suit yourself."

"..."

"And if you really don't trust me, then protect the little ones yourself. Ah, no."

I paused, then met his red eyes and let out a mocking laugh.

"I told you before. The state you're in now, you couldn't beat me in a lifetime. So... if you really want to protect your siblings, eat what's put in front of you and build up your strength."

With that, I walked out of the containment room without looking back.

The moment the door shut behind me, the taut thread of tension I'd been holding snapped.

My body — which I'd pushed hard the second I got up — belatedly screamed at me.

Legs shaking, I braced myself against the cold wall, panting hard, barely managing to stay on my feet.

Still... Hayun didn't look hurt.

That alone was enough for me to breathe out in relief.

Along with the relief, the sight of the children's tear-soaked faces came back to me and something in my chest throbbed.

Every part of me wanted to run right back in and tell them it was okay, but...

I couldn't.

What those kids needed right now wasn't clumsy tenderness — it was a consistent villain.

And looking at it that way... judging by how Cha Yul had stood there glaring me down and wary to the end, my delinquent act was going pretty well.

I was quietly laughing to myself, weirdly pleased, when a chilling thought caught up to me.

...But what if all this strutting around gets me brutally killed, exactly like in the original?

A cold shiver crawled down my spine.

"Ah-hah-hah..."

A dry laugh came out, and I forced the uneasy thought away.

"There's still eight years to go. Kids first. Focus on the kids!"

Muttering to myself, I was on my way back to the bedroom when—

Down the corridor, Lee Jinwoo came rushing over from the other end, out of breath.

"S-sir! Where have you been!"

He stopped in front of me and looked me up and down with plain amazement.

"You're — you're already up and moving! The treatment took much better than I expected! You must respond very well to the healing factor!"

Oh, really?

I was pleased at the good news, but I kept it off my face.

"You ran all the way out here at this hour to tell me that?"

"Ah!"

Lee Jinwoo's eyes lit up like he'd only just remembered why he was there.

"Director! From the accident earlier... we found some incredible data!"

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