# Chapter 15
It would be nice if Rite could naturally mingle with others, but I was worried. It wouldn’t be easy for Rite, who had never socialized with peers before, to join an already established group. So I asked the grocery store owner for a favor.
‘So, could you please say something to Ea?’
‘Sure, why not. It’s not a difficult thing.’
Since it was the first time I had asked for a favor, the owner smiled as if it was something unusual. Nodding readily, the owner called Ea over right there and told her to take good care of the new friend. Ea also agreed with an uninterested expression.
‘What does this kid look like?’
‘He has purple eyes.’
At those words, Ea, who had been indifferent to everything, opened her eyes wide. Purple? She tilted her head as if it was hard to imagine.
Ea spotted me from a distance and waved in greeting. Cal, who was beside her, looked annoyed as if he was in a bad mood. Not knowing if this greeting was directed at me or Rite, I hesitantly raised and waved my hand.
“Hello, mister.”
As we got closer, Ea greeted me and then immediately turned her attention to Rite, who was holding my hand. Rite also looked at Ea with wide, round eyes.
“Your eyes really are purple. That’s cool.”
Unlike Ea’s positive response, Cal glanced at Rite and smirked.
“What’s this? It’s really weird.”
At Cal’s mischievous words, I wondered whether I should intervene or just observe. Making my concern pointless, Rite calmly retorted:
“It’s not weird. It’s beautiful.”
“What? You’re calling yourself beautiful? Really weird.”
“Arden said they’re beautiful. Right?”
Rite pulled my hand, demanding my answer. I nodded in bewilderment. Ea, seemingly uninterested in the boys’ childish argument, quietly took Rite’s other hand and pulled.
“Let’s go.”
Rite let go of my hand without even looking back at me. Then he immediately ran off with the other kids between the alleys. It happened in an instant. Despite just meeting, they seemed to get along so quickly. Somehow feeling left out, I stared at the alley where Rite had disappeared for a while before moving on.
* * *
After finishing all the scheduled requests, I ran into the grocery store owner who was outside the shop while looking for Rite. The owner recognized me first and smiled.
“Seeing you without the kid, I guess he’s playing well?”
“I hope so.”
“They’ll be fine. The worst that could happen is just some fighting.”
The owner patted my shoulder with a smile, but I couldn’t bring myself to smile. I had been worried about Rite all day and couldn’t focus on work.
What if his hat came off while playing? Even though I had secured it with pins, it wasn’t bolted or glued on, so I couldn’t be completely at ease.
“My goodness, it’s all written on your face. Why are you so worried?”
The owner laughed out loud as if my inner thoughts were completely exposed.
“You’re overreacting, really. Everyone’s like that when raising a child for the first time. When I was raising my first child, I’d worry even if they just coughed.”
“…Is that so?”
Being new to raising a child, I was bound to be clumsy, but even with experience, I would still worry about a child with horns on their head. It was inevitable to be concerned when a child was even slightly different from others. I wondered if Plin felt this way when raising me.
The more I thought about it, the more worried I became, so I quickly wrapped up my conversation with the owner and went around the alleys looking for Rite. I checked the square where we had first parted and the alley where Rite had disappeared, led by Ea’s hand. After looking around different parts of the village, I finally found Rite and the children. They were in the open space in front of the temple.
Fortunately, his hat was still firmly in place, but Rite seemed out of place next to the temple with its tall, pointed spire. A child once called a monster and the temple. A monster that would devour the country established by the goddess.
Thinking that of all places, they had to play in front of the temple, I sat down on the roadside. Seeing how engrossed they were in play, it seemed pointless to call out to them now.
The children were playing a game of leapfrog. They were divided into two teams, with the leader of one team standing with legs spread apart, and others placing their heads between the previous person’s legs, forming a chain like a single horse. Then the other team would climb on top, hiding their hands while asking “odd or even,” and the leader of the horse team would have to guess. It was a physical game, so I had to anxiously watch Rite’s hat.
Rite seemed to be getting along better than I expected, as he was playing the role of the horse team’s leader. His flushed cheeks and beaming smile looked unfamiliar to me.
This was the first time Rite had spent time with others apart from me. I had worried about his social skills, but it seemed that all my concerns were unnecessary.
“Odd or even?”
Ea, who was on top at the very end of the horse, asked Rite. From my position, I could see Ea’s hands behind her back completely. Ea was holding up three fingers.
At that moment, Rite and I made eye contact. His round eyes looking at me seemed truly like a child of his age, which made me smile.
After checking if any of the children were looking my way, I raised my hand to show him the answer. When I showed three fingers, Rite grinned playfully and shouted toward Ea:
“Even!”
“Wrong, it’s odd.”
At Ea’s words, the two teams had contrasting reactions. Rite looked at me with a puzzled expression. I was also confused. Was Rite’s eyesight bad? My worry was only resolved that evening.
“Arden, what are ‘odd’ and ‘even’?”
I turned to look at Rite while preparing dinner. Rite’s eyesight wasn’t bad. He simply didn’t know the concept of odd and even.
“Didn’t the other kids explain it when the game started?”
“They did, but I didn’t understand what they meant.”
It seems all the books I’ve read to him weren’t enough. Come to think of it, he was well past the age to start school.
Right, school. Children were supposed to go to school. I hadn’t thought about it because I never attended school myself. I never had the chance to go to school. When I was at the orphanage, it was a luxury I couldn’t even dream of, and when I lived with Plin, I learned engineering as his assistant.
I didn’t particularly have any regrets or thoughts about school, but Rite would be different. These days, there are hardly any families that don’t send their children to elementary school. But I couldn’t send Rite to school… I would have to use the same method as Plin.
* * *
“Rite. Let’s go home now.”
At my call, Rite playing nearby made a disappointed face. He drooped his eyebrows and didn’t want to leave, but this was already the second time I’d used this method today. It wouldn’t work anymore.
“There’s something we need to do at home. Let’s go quickly.”
When I answered firmly, Rite gave up and said goodbye to his friends. With so many kids, even saying goodbye took quite a while.
“What’s that?”
Rite came up to me and asked, looking at the books in my arms. I handed one book to Rite and answered.
“What you’re going to study.”
“Study?”
The book I gave to Rite was a math textbook used by first graders. Rite already knew simple addition and subtraction, but I thought it would be better to teach him properly from the basics.
Rite frowned as he flipped through the textbook.
“It looks boring.”
“No. It’s not difficult, so it will be fun.”
“It’s just numbers. That’s boring.”
Seeing that his interest might drop before even starting, I handed him another book. This time it was a literature textbook.
“This one should be fun. You like reading stories, don’t you?”
He didn’t specifically answer my question, but the look in his eyes as he flipped through the book was definitely different from before.
Seeing that expression, I worried. I was fine with math or science, but I wasn’t confident in teaching literature or language. It was natural since I had never properly learned them myself. It might actually be easier to make this little one understand alchemy or engineering.
All my previous worries turned out to be right. These should be famous works since they’re in textbooks, but somehow they were all poems I’d never seen before. I had no idea what or how to teach, so all I could do was read the textbook as it was.
“Carrying this azure blue sadness, I depart…”
Even that was problematic because I didn’t understand it myself. While I was pondering what “azure blue sadness” meant, Rite, seemingly frustrated, sighed and took the book from my hand.
“That’s not how you read poetry.”
“Then how?”
“You should read it with more heart. ‘I carry this azure blue sadness for you as I depart.’ Like this.”
Rite pretended to know and read it again, but I couldn’t see much difference.
“Arden has no sense of romance.”
“Where on earth did you learn to talk like that?”
“Lucy said so.”
“Who’s Lucy?”
I asked, but I had a guess. Probably one of his friends. However, the name that came from Rite’s mouth was an unexpected person.
“Ea’s aunt.”
Ea’s aunt? I just blinked, unable to identify who that was, and only belatedly realized it was the grocery store owner. How did Rite know a name that even I didn’t know? I had lived in this village longer than Rite and had known the person for even longer.
When I lived with Plin, both Plin and I were criticized for being unsociable people. Since you grew up under my care, it’s only natural, Plin would say with a laugh. But somehow, Rite seemed different.
Moreover, I hadn’t expected the grocery store owner to assess me that way. It felt strange, as if I’d overheard gossip about myself.
“But why is he leaving? If he likes them so much.”
Rite asked with his chin propped up. His half-lidded eyes looking at the book already showed traces of boyhood.
“Who likes whom?”
“The person who wrote this poem. They must have written this because they have someone they like, right?”
“Well… they must have had their own story.”
“It’s strange. If they truly loved someone, they wouldn’t leave. In my opinion, they actually don’t love that much.”
Rite was already offering his own interpretation as he turned the page. Although he had asked a question, he didn’t seem to need my answer at all.
I don’t think I need to teach literature. It was a bit embarrassing, but for a child raised by me, I thought he had a remarkably good sensibility.
