I froze for a moment and instinctively reached out to pick it up. It wasn't that the photo frame was anything special. It was just that in this clean, tidy room, there was hardly anything decorative at all, and this was the only thing that looked like a decoration. Naturally, I was curious.
I picked it up. The photo was simple: five people.
The old man... Yeah, he must be the old man. He didn't look much different from when I'd met him.
"Who's the little girl standing beside the old man? A relative of his?"
In the photo, a pretty little girl stood beside the old man, beaming with an innocent smile. Judging by her age, she looked to be only five or six.
And the old man was probably only in his twenties.
Well, well. This old geezer had certainly been busy sowing his seed early.
The little girl in the photo bore some resemblance to the old man when he was young. No doubt about it—she must have been his daughter, right?
"Is this... the family the old man mentioned?"
He'd made a mistake for his family. He hadn't been able to save them, and he couldn't make up for his mistake, so...
"So that's why he became so depressed?"
In the photo, the old man was in his twenties, full of confidence, successful in his career, and handsome, too. He must have been a proper bachelor.
There weren't any women in the photo, though, and the other people didn't seem to be related to the old man. He was wearing a white lab coat, and the others
were all wearing white lab coats, too.
The old man stood at the far right, with his daughter beside him. On the left were two middle-aged men. One of