Ch.98Chapter 98. Sweet and Romantic Holiday (2)

The best thing about moving into this house? If you asked me, I’d say it’s the natural lighting.

On this lazy Sunday morning, the sunlight piercing through the white curtains was absolutely perfect.

“Ugh.”

The moment I opened my eyes, a tiny foot greeted me.

I definitely fell asleep holding Juliane, but somehow this kid had rotated completely and was now stretching her foot against my face.

I was about to push the foot away when—

“Sniff… haaah…”

I pressed my nose against it and inhaled.

Shit. It smells so sweet.

Did she go to bed without washing her feet?

Just one more time.

No, two more times.

After burying my nose in her foot and breathing in about four more times, I was finally able to move Cuss’s leg away and sit up.

“Mmm… hehe.”

Juliane was lying on her side, sleeping with a silly grin on her face.

Seemed like she was having a pleasant dream.

Though it was Sunday and I wanted to sleep in, I couldn’t skip breakfast.

Just as I was carefully trying to get out of bed—

“Oh…”

That’s when I discovered the tentacle wrapped around my thigh.

What the hell is this?

She fell asleep like this yesterday.

I thought it would naturally release by morning, but I didn’t expect it to still be like this.

What if Juliane had woken up before me?

She would have inevitably discovered the tentacle, and the thought made me shudder a bit.

I need to resolve this issue someday.

Should I just cut off the tentacle?

She said it regenerates, so I could just shave it off daily like facial hair.

Cuss might only feel pain at first, and then eventually become numb to it.

‘Should I just tell her…?’

Or should I just reveal everything to Juliane?

Psychologically, that would be the easiest solution.

Then Cuss wouldn’t need to wear those baggy dresses around the house and could wear comfortable shorts instead.

I could openly tug on her tentacles whenever she didn’t listen.

There were many advantages.

The problem was that the risks outweighed all those advantages.

‘I guess that won’t work.’

I gently wiped the drool from Juliane’s mouth and sucked my finger.

Despite appearing so carefree, Juliane is quite a conservative person.

She might be prepared to accept everything about Cuss and me, but…

It would probably be difficult for her to accept that Cuss isn’t human.

She’s someone who could potentially throw humanity into chaos.

If Juliane had to weigh her love for Cuss and me against humanity, what choice would she make?

Whatever her choice, it would be an incredibly painful experience for her.

Rather than putting her through that, it’s better if she doesn’t know.

I shook my head and focused on unwrapping the tentacle from my leg.

“Eek… damn…”

This crazy girl.

She wrapped it so messily.

I was searching for the end of it, but this idiot had tangled the tip inside, making it impossible to unwrap smoothly.

In the end, I had to take drastic measures.

“Gack?!”

I grabbed the tentacle and squeezed it hard as if I was going to crush it.

Cuss’s eyes flew open, and she sprang up from the bed like a coiled spring.

She jumped toward me and ended up straddling my shoulders.

Damn it. Now she was hugging my head tightly, refusing to let go.

“Hey. I can’t see. Get off.”

“Mmm…?”

Her voice sounded stupid, as if she hadn’t fully woken up yet.

Ugh. Shit.

This girl is going to break my neck.

“Brrrrrr.”

“Huk?!”

I immediately lifted her skirt, pressed my lips to her stomach, and blew a raspberry.

Cuss seemed quite startled, arching her back before losing her grip on my head and flopping back onto the bed.

However, her legs were still on my shoulders, so she ended up hanging upside down with her skirt flipped up.

“Are you awake now?”

“Grr…”

I roughly patted Cuss’s head, who was making a displeased face, and left the bedroom.

Soon, Cuss followed behind me with her hair all messy.

It was a miracle that Juliane was still sleeping peacefully despite all this commotion.

“Yawn… I wanted to sleep more.”

“Then you should have kept your tentacle still while sleeping.”

“How can I control something that moves on its own?”

“Well, then I guess it can’t be helped if you get caught.”

“…”

If you get caught, it’s more troublesome for me than for you, isn’t it?

Stupid girl.

I opened the refrigerator to see what we could eat.

All that was left were some fruits and… a bit of leftover pizza from yesterday.

It seemed a bit much to eat pizza for breakfast.

I decided to make do with fruit for breakfast.

I could have sworn we went grocery shopping just the other day, but somehow the refrigerator was already empty.

With two mouths to feed, the rate at which food disappeared was no joke.

When I lived alone, I never worried about food expenses.

But now with a kid in the house, I needed to consider nutrition, which was quite a headache.

I made up my mind.

I would definitely hold onto Juliane.

Relying on a civil servant’s steady income while I stayed home as a househusband, playing with Cuss—that seemed like the most ideal life.

“I’m hungry.”

“Stop lying. You’re not that hungry.”

“I really am.”

“If I punch your stomach and you don’t throw up, I’ll believe you. How about that?”

“…I don’t think I’m hungry after all.”

That’s what I thought.

How could someone who ate until she was stuffed yesterday be hungry so early in the morning?

Unless she had engaged in some calorie and hormone-consuming activity all night, but she just lazed around in bed.

Today, with few ingredients available, it was time to finish off the bananas that were on the verge of rotting.

They’d be fine eaten as is, but I knew the most delicious way to enjoy them.

I pulled out the blender from the storage corner.

It had gathered so much dust from disuse that I needed to wash it first.

“Oh, right. Hey, Cuss.”

“Yes?”

“That, that guy, you know.”

“That guy?”

“You know, the one who was locked in the supply room with you.”

“Oh. You mean Jake.”

“…”

Looking at Cuss lying on the sofa playing with her phone, I felt a surge of anger.

I had long forgotten that guy’s name, but she casually mentioned it…

What exactly happened in there?

According to Cuss, they just sat back-to-back and chatted about trivial things, but how could I believe that?

Men of that age are all beasts.

They spend 24 hours a day thinking about how to undress pretty girls.

Even if he truly didn’t do anything, he might have been laying groundwork to sleep with her later.

I decided I needed to put a stop to this before it went any further.

“Do you have his number? His phone number.”

“Hmm… no.”

“Why did you hesitate before answering?”

“I was trying to remember if I had his contact. My memory is a bit fuzzy.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really.”

“…”

For a moment, I suspected she was lying.

The way she was fiddling with her phone and grinning, I wondered if she was texting Jake…

Damn, I’m not some jealous wife with trust issues. What am I doing?

This is driving me crazy.

“Oh, but I do have his brother’s number.”

“You mean his younger brother?”

“Yes.”

Tom, was it?

That little kid.

He occasionally hung out with Cuss.

As for him…

Since he was just a kid, I wasn’t particularly worried about him hanging out with Cuss.

“Then ask him for Jake’s number. Find out and let me know.”

“Why do you want Jake’s number?”

“Because I have something to discuss with that guy.”

I had some man-to-man talk to do with him.

I wasn’t planning to intimidate him or anything; I just wanted to have a friendly chat.

Also, I wanted to gauge how much he knew about Cuss’s true identity.

“Hmm… Jake is a nice guy.”

“What? How would you know that?”

“When I said I was cold, he took off his cardigan and covered me with it.”

“…”

Cuss lifted her head from the sofa and looked at me upside down with a face that couldn’t be more stupid.

Is that what makes someone nice? Damn.

This is really frustrating.

“You… you shouldn’t trust just anyone who’s nice to you.”

“I know. Humans hide their true selves. Jinsoo does too.”

“Yeah, exactly. So how can you call someone you barely know ‘nice’?”

“But Jake is genuinely nice. When the gunshots rang out, he tried to protect me by shielding me.”

“He embraced you…?”

This bastard.

I have one more unforgivable reason to hate him.

I’m really looking forward to meeting him now.

“Jake is nice, but he seems a bit stupid. He feels like he lacks survival instinct as a living being. So I don’t trust him. I only trust Jinsoo.”

“Trying to flatter me now won’t help.”

I’m already quite upset, you know.

I turned around to hide my twitching lips.

I was planning to make a banana shake.

The ingredients were simple.

Just a couple of bananas, milk, and honey.

I peeled and sliced the bananas into the blender, then poured in an appropriate amount of milk.

It would have been better if we had vanilla ice cream or something similar.

It would have made the shake much smoother.

In its absence, I had no choice but to add honey.

Then, all I needed to do was run the blender until the bananas were finely ground.

Whirrrrr…!

“Huh? What’s that noise?”

Awakened by the loud sound, Juliane walked out of the bedroom in a half-asleep state.

She was absentmindedly chewing on a strand of hair that had curled inward, so I pulled it out with my finger.

Impressive that she could eat her hair even with a bob cut.

“It’s a banana shake.”

“Wow. Shake…”

“Let’s have this for a simple breakfast. We ate a lot of pizza yesterday, so we’re still full, right?”

By the way, yesterday’s pizza was a big failure.

The taste was decent, but I misjudged the quantity.

I thought two pizzas would be enough for three people, but the oven was unexpectedly large, so we barely touched the second pizza.

Still, it was a miracle that we finished one whole pizza.

Both Cuss and Juliane ate like they were possessed.

“Hehe. The pizza was really delicious. If only we had added pineapple, it would have been perfect…”

“Please don’t say that in public. I’m tolerating it because it’s you, but if it were someone else, they might have punched you.”

“Heung… is it that bad?”

I always wondered what kind of people enjoy baked pineapple, and it turns out they were closer than I thought.

I’ll respect her preference, but…

We won’t be sharing Hawaiian pizza anytime soon.

“If you like Hawaiian pizza so much, why didn’t you just live in Hawaii?”

“Hawaiian pizza wasn’t actually created in Hawaii.”

“Oh, really?”

I didn’t know that.

Learned something new.

“Speaking of Hawaii, I’d like to live there someday. The beautiful beaches, the endless horizon… Wouldn’t it be perfect for a leisurely retirement?”

“Hmm. Then I guess we’ll have to live separately.”

“Why?!”

“I plan to live in the city until I die of old age. This place is already uncomfortable enough; I can’t live in a place more rural than this.”

It’s always the city folks who’ve never lived in the countryside who have such fantasies.

No matter how beautiful the scenery or how fresh the air, it won’t remain appealing after a few months or years.

I’m determined to live in the city until I’m old enough to smear poop on walls due to Einstein’s disease.

“Tsk… you have no romance.”

“Does romance put food on the table? Here, it’s ready.”

“It’s ready?!”

She sure has a good ear for food.

Cuss had already tossed her phone onto the sofa and was running over with fire in her eyes.

As I poured the shake into cups, she was already extending her hand as if it was her due.

It’s customary to serve elders first, you know.

But seeing her extend both hands so politely, I couldn’t bring myself to scold her.

This isn’t Korea, and it would be too much to make a fuss about such things.

“Here you go. Take it and drink.”

“Mmm…”

After handing her the cup, I roughly patted her head.

Soon, Cuss scurried off to the living room with her cup and turned on the television.

I filled the other two cups, giving one to Juliane—

“Hehe. Thank you.”

—and keeping one for myself.

We sat facing each other at the table, watching Cuss who was engrossed in the TV while sipping her shake.

A penguin documentary that Cuss liked was playing.

Juliane’s expression was so fond that anyone would believe she was Cuss’s real mother.

“Hehe. She seems to like penguins?”

“She sure does.”

“Let’s go see penguins sometime.”

“…”

I don’t want to go all the way to the Arctic just to see penguins.

I went there once during my military service, and even though we were just near the Arctic, it was so cold that I refused to go on deck.

“Did you make progress in Washington?”

“Of course. Everything’s almost ready, and we can trigger the scandal anytime.”

“Should we trigger it right away?”

“No. Winter would be better timing. That’s the federal budget review period, so both the Senate and House will be busy.”

“Wouldn’t it be counterproductive to trigger it when they’re busy?”

“Those people actually prefer to work when they’re busy. Despite being called a review period, not many are genuinely busy without a moment to spare. It’s easier to get attention when something happens during work time rather than during a break or vacation period.”

“Ah…”

As expected of the daughter of a four-term congressman.

She understands the nature of politicians perfectly.

“Now, all preparations are truly complete.”

“Can you clear my name?”

“I can. Of course I can. Despite appearances, I don’t jump into fights I can’t win.”

“I’m counting on you, Juliane.”

“Ehehe…”

I wiped off the white shake residue from Juliane’s mouth.

It felt like we’d come too far.

Now all we can do is hope for the scandal to successfully break.

As Juliane said, to prevent new victims.

And to clear my name…

“It’s sweet.”

“Very sweet. It’s filled with love.”

“Pfft. That suddenly got cheesy.”

Ah. Do I really need to clear my name?

I just wanted to stay like this forever.

I wished every day could be Sunday.

It was a childish thought I hadn’t had since elementary school, and here I was, in my thirties, thinking it again.