The Villainous Director Is Raising a Child!

With only Cha Yul begging off — not interested — the rest of the kids of the Sunshine Room, from that day on, split into teams and threw themselves into a full-scale investigation.

[Target 1: The Researchers]

"Chief! Anything the Director's always going on about?"

"Stuff the Direchtor likes or wants!"

Suho and the twins latched onto Lee Jinwoo's pant legs and pressed him, and Lee Jinwoo scratched his head with a troubled look.

"Let's see... the Director's such a hard read..."

Han Soeun, next to him, propped her chin on her hand and tossed out a comment.

"He doesn't seem interested in anything other than you lot, though."

"Huh?"

"Every day it's your training data he's staring at, and combing through artifact auctions is all him hunting for things to give you. Every time he opens his mouth it's my dolls this, my dolls that."

[Target 2: Kim Sunja]

"Halmoni! What does the ajusshi like?"

Ari hung off Kim Sunja, who was tapping the ash out of her long pipe.

Kim Sunja clicked her tongue.

"That kid? How would I know what that kid likes?"

But she set the pipe down for a moment and added, her eyes going bitter:

"Still... considering that idiot went so far as to give up his own arm protecting it, the answer's pretty obvious, isn't it?"

She tapped Ari's forehead lightly with her cane.

"Looked to me like the only thing in that fool's eyes was you children."

[Target 3: Bawi Guild (by phone)]

Lee Sea-ah borrowed Lee Jinwoo's device and dialed Seo Jihyeok with a practiced hand.

Before it had rung more than a few times, a weary voice came through.

[...Haah. The Director still hasn't woken up.]

"Ah, no, that's not it. I've got something else to ask."

Sea-ah asked, shameless.

"Could you put your Guild Master on for a sec?"

[......]

A moment later, Han Jewoon's voice came through the receiver, sounding amused.

[Well, well, little ones. What's the occasion? You've got business with me?]

"Ajusshi. You and the Director are close, right? Just wanna ask one thing."

[What?]

"What does the Director like the most?"

[Why? Getting him a present?]

At Sea-ah's plucky question, Han Jewoon's snickering carried through.

[Well now. That kid was born with a diamond spoon in his mouth — he probably already owns everything money can buy...]

He drew the pause out, then went for the point.

[But there is one thing anyone can see he treasures.]

Han Jewoon's voice dropped the teasing and went serious.

[Think about why that guy's laid up in a hospital bed in the shape he's in right now — the answer's right there, isn't it?]

The one he'd been willing to give up an arm to protect.

[It's you kids.]

The investigation done, the children gathered back in the Sunshine Room.

The chalkboard was covered with what each of them had found, but the conclusions were, oddly, converging on one point.

"The researchers..."

"Halmoni..."

"Even that annoying ajusshi..."

"They all say the same thing."

Not some expensive jewel. Not luxury goods.

The one thing every adult had, without exception, pointed to — the thing the Director treasured and clung to most in the world.

"...Us?"

The kids stared at each other, blank.

The thing the Director loved most in the world... was them?

"No way."

Suho shook his head, face flushing.

"He always said we were just... dolls. Just expensive collectibles."

Hayun buried her face in a pillow and chimed in.

"Yeah. He said we were tools that shouldn't get broken."

But even as their mouths denied it, memories that pointed the exact opposite direction were flickering through their heads.

Those blunt hands carefully fastening a knee guard.

The obsessive care in wrapping them head to toe in top-grade artifacts, going on about how one scratch would be the end of him.

And most of all... that back, taking the monster's forepaw in their place.

"..."

Suho's lips moved, and then he murmured, small.

"It was real. The Director... really did care about us."

The air in the Sunshine Room was heating, subtle, and the emotion was starting to spread — that was when—

Clap!

Ari clapped her hands and broke the silence.

"Then the answer's easy!"

"Huh?"

"Think about it. If the ajusshi loves you guys the most, then obviously he's gonna love what you love most too, right?"

Ari rapped the chalkboard and laid out her miracle logic, confident:

"When you love someone, you love everything about them, right? Whatever you treasure, he'll treasure too — guaranteed!"

"Then we give him our treasures!"

From then on, the Sunshine Room got busy.

The kids started digging under their beds and rummaging through their secret boxes, pulling out their most prized possessions.

Clatter—!

Hayun and Hajun were first, tipping their treasure chests out.

Marbles in every color, tinfoil folded into crumpled shapes, pretty pebbles, shards of a broken mirror...

And mixed in among all that junk, jingling as they tumbled out, were the top-grade jeweled rings and pretty low-function artifacts the Director had casually tossed at them saying, "Picked it up on the way."

Hundreds of millions of won in gemstones rolling around mixed in with empty candy wrappers — a treasure box that was pure chaos.

The twins' eyes lit up, and they picked out the biggest, most sparkling jewel.

"This one's the... shparkliest, so he'll like it, right?"

Next to them, Suho was hugging a grubby teddy bear tight, saying his final goodbyes.

"Bear-bear... you go and keep the Director from getting hurt, okay? You promise?"

Eyes brimming, he carefully placed his most precious friend into the gift box.

Sihyeok came in carrying a plant pot with great care.

An orange-flowered plant he'd rescued from the corner of the institute garden where it had been withering — watered every day back to life.

But the reactions from the older siblings' line were different.

"..."

Lee Sea-ah sat perched on the bed and watched this whole farce unfold in front of her, unimpressed.

"Does this... actually make sense to any of you?"

She waved the thick textbook in her hand — [Introduction to Mana Theory].

"The Director's a grown-up. Would a grown-up be thrilled to get marbles and a teddy bear? And all I've got is books — is the Director going to read a book?"

"What! You said it's the thought that counts!"

At Ari's lecturing, Sea-ah let out a deep sigh.

"...Right, fine... maybe he'll look at the thought behind it..."

She picked, from the books on her shelf, the one with the fewest words and the most pictures — the closest thing to something the Director might actually read — and tossed it, plop, onto the wrapping paper.

And then Cha Yul.

He was in the corner, lifting and setting down a 10 kg dumbbell.

"Um... oppa...?"

At Ari's word, he stopped exercising and trudged over to where the kids were gathered, dumbbell in hand.

Thud.

The heavy chunk of iron landed, crude, beside the pile of presents.

"Whaa!"

"Oppa's giving one too?"

Hayun and Hajun's eyes went round in disbelief.

Cha Yul was, day-to-day, the one most openly unimpressed with the Director.

But since that day — when the Director had lost his arm in his place and ended up drenched in blood — even Cha Yul seemed to have shifted a little.

"That guy's way too weak."

"..."

"The second he wakes up, we start him on workouts. So next time... he doesn't get hurt."

The insane notion of gifting dumbbells to a patient.

Sea-ah shook her head with a look of pure resignation, but Cha Yul dropped the dumbbell and walked back to his spot without a care.

"Ahem! Anyway... it's all here! The birthday presents!"

Ari cleared her throat and peered into the box.

Inside was a truly bizarre assortment of items, tangled together.

The twins' sparkling gems and marbles, Suho's well-worn teddy bear.

Sihyeok's carefully wiped-down orange-flowered plant pot, and the thick textbook Sea-ah had chucked in.

And crowning it all, the 10 kg dumbbell.

It looked like someone had merged a treasure chest with a recycling bin, but Ari nodded, satisfied.

"Well... it's the thought that counts! The ajusshi will love it! Probably!"

That was when—

Bang—!

The door of the Sunshine Room flew open and Chief Lee Jinwoo came tumbling in, out of breath.

"Kids! The Director... the Director's awake! They said he's on his way back to the institute now!"

"...!"

At those words, the Sunshine Room — under a full week of storm clouds — was hit with sunlight in an instant.

"R-really?!"

"Yaaaay! The Direchtor's coming!"

Suho and the twins bounced and cheered, and even Sihyeok's shadow rippled, giddy with joy.

Even Cha Yul, who'd been in the corner doing pull-ups with a don't care face on, stopped dead the moment he heard it and dropped off the bar.

"Then it's perfect timing!"

Ari's eyes lit up and she called the kids in around her.

"Midnight tonight is the ajusshi's birthday. The timing's chef's-kiss!"

"Huh? What timing?"

"We sneak into the Director's office first and hide."

Ari laid out the plan, grave.

"Turn off all the lights, hold our breath, and the second midnight hits — we jump out with the cake, ta-da! That's what a surprise party is!"

"Oooh...!"

The kids' eyes lit up with curiosity and mischief.

A perfect, absurd welcome ceremony was being prepared for the returning Director.

That night, 11:55 PM.

The Director's office, sunk in dark. The room, its master absent, held only silence.

But look closely, and the huge shadow spilling out from the bed on the floor was writhing like a living creature.

"Hey — don't push! It's tight in here!"

"Shh! Voices down! If the Director comes back, we're busted!"

The subspace of shadow Sihyeok had unfurled.

Inside it, seven children were packed shoulder-to-shoulder like bean sprouts in a jar.

"Hehe... when the Director sees this, he's gonna be so surprised, right?"

"Yeah! He's totally gonna cry from being moved! Big wah-wah sobs!"

Ari chimed in.

Suho was clutching the pretty fresh-cream cake Researcher Han Soeun had specially arranged for them to his chest, tense as anything, worried it might get crushed.

"Careful... don't push. If the cake gets squished, we're done for..."

In the middle of the racket, Cha Yul was crouched in the corner, letting out a deep sigh.

"Haah... why on earth am I doing something this childish..."

"Quiet down a bit, oppa."

Lee Sea-ah, next to him, poked him in the ribs.

"The kids wanted this. And... it's a surprise, remember. Don't kill the mood, just sit there."

"Could've just waited outside and given it to him..."

Cha Yul grumbled, but even so, he was quietly propping up Suho's back — worried the kid with the cake might get jostled.

That was when—

Step. Step.

Faint footsteps came down from the far end of the corridor.

"There! He's coming!"

Ari's eyes lit up and she signaled to the kids.

"Everyone get ready! Shh! Midnight ding, and we jump!"

The kids held their breath as one.

Stillness inside the shadow.

Click.

At last, the Director's office door opened, and heavy footsteps came into the room.

Step. Step.

A gait far slower and more tired than usual.

"Haah......"

A sigh deep enough to sink the earth carried, vivid, all the way into the shadow.

Ordinarily, Sihyeok's shadow-space was a perfect sealed chamber that cut off outside sound — but right now, for the surprise, he'd left the smallest sliver of an opening.

Because of that, every one of the Director's movements landed in the kids' ears like ASMR.

Rustle... plop.

The sound of a coat being shrugged off and tossed aside.

"Kraak..."

Even the sound of him rolling his neck, tired, cracking the bones.

"Heehee..."

"Mmph!"

The kids clapped hands over their mouths and desperately swallowed the laughter trying to burst out.

The Director, who always looked so put-together, sighing and groaning like that when he was alone — it was fascinating and hilarious to them.

Just a little... a little more...

Ari checked her wristwatch.

[11:58 PM]

Exactly two minutes to go.

The kids fingered the lighter for the birthday candles and got ready to count down.

But right at that moment.

Bzzt — bzzt—.

Breaking the still silence of the Director's office, the device on the table started buzzing hard.

"Hm? Who..."

The Director, picking the device up, muttered — and the mutter cut off dead the instant he saw the screen.

A brutal silence.

A moment later.

"Haah......"

A sigh, deep and heavy enough to sink the earth, escaped the Director's mouth.

He closed his eyes for a moment, opened them, and cleared his throat.

"Ahem. Hm."

And in the next moment—

"Oh~ Dad!"

His voice had jumped a full octave higher.

"Hey, kinda late for you to be calling. Not asleep?"

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