"The tiger was super smart."
"It was going to have me follow it at first, but then it ended up carrying me instead."
"Maybe it could tell I was feeling down."
He'd let it slip that he'd cried, but he absolutely wasn't going to say that again.
How embarrassing.
He was already in sixth grade.
And he was a boy.
He'd cried just because he'd fallen over...
If his friends found out, they'd definitely tease him.
"The tiger even took me to see fireflies."
"Otherwise, it probably would've taken me straight out of the forest."
"Ah."
The child suddenly cried out.
"What is it?"
The old man asked, puzzled.
"I was thinking..."
The child looked thoughtful. "Did the tiger put me down because it heard Grandma coming?"
"The fireflies must've all left because Grandma came."
The more he said, the more certain he became that this was what had happened.
"Then, when it saw how desperately I was looking for it, the tiger must've come out."
The child's eyes crinkled with a smile.
The tiger looked so big, but it seemed like it had a soft heart.
"Grandpa, the tiger was this big."
The child spread his arms wide, showing how large the tiger was.
Yesterday, he hadn't had a chance to tell anyone about the tiger.
Now that he was talking about it, he had so much to say.
"It was really imposing."
"It scared me at first."
The child smiled sheepishly.
"But the tiger was super cool, and super beautiful, too."
"The patterns on its back were so colorful, it was like they were glowing..."
The old man's eyebrow twitched.
Cool, sure.
Beautiful, sure.
But what did cool and beautiful look like together?
And were there tigers with colorful patterns?
The old man furrowed his brow,