In the orphanage early that morning, Mia was lying in bed, sound asleep. Ever since the holiday began, she had slept until late morning every day, but today, the noise downstairs woke her up bright and early.
She pulled the blanket over her head and tried to go back to sleep, but no matter what she did, she could not drift off again. Annoyed, she climbed out of bed and headed downstairs in her pajamas, intending to give the person making all that noise a good talking-to.
Still half-asleep, Mia stomped downstairs and shouted angrily.
"Kyle! What are you yelling about so early in the morning, you—"
But when she reached the stairs, she realized nearly every child was packed into the first-floor hall. The person surrounded by the crowd was someone she knew all too well.
"Oh my god, Roy, you're back!"
The moment Mia recognized Roy, she pounced on him. She and the other children crowded around him and made a fuss for quite a while before she suddenly realized something was wrong.
"Wait, today's only the nineteenth. Didn't you say you wouldn't be back until the afternoon of the twenty-first?"
The other children were curious too, especially after noticing the bandages around Roy's ear. They chattered around him, asking what had happened to it.
"This?" Roy pointed at his right ear and explained carelessly, "I accidentally scraped it at school. It's nothing serious."
Hearing that, no one pressed further. They simply kept surrounding him, chattering away and asking him one question after another.
The children's enthusiasm made Roy a little dizzy. He had come back once at the beginning of the month. Only two weeks had passed—was this much excitement really necessary?
"Alright, alright, stop shouting. This afternoon, I'll take you all shopping. Bee Bro has made