The deal

His face, covered in that physically sickening smile, had not even had time to change.

His whole body froze, like a wooden puppet whose joints had not been oiled in time. I could almost hear its wooden joints creaking. His blue-tinged eyes took on a gray so lifeless that they felt utterly unfamiliar to me.

Though I did not really understand what he had said about contributions or some great master, I understood one thing: he needed me.

"No!" I repeated, stressing each word.

I stared at the handsome man before me. Once, I had felt a child's adoring affection for a face like that, back when my mother was still alive...

Before I turned nine, I had a wealthy, happy family, a beautiful, devoted mother, and a handsome, talented father. I had everything a child could wish for: my parents' love and a happy home.

Back then, little as I was, I never even thought about it. Deep down, I assumed that happy, blissful life would last forever.

But one perfectly ordinary day, an overcast day, Father disappeared early in the morning. I sat alone at the table eating a simple breakfast, while Mother had not eaten breakfast either and was hiding in her room. With my ear against the door, I could hear his quiet sobs. I knocked, wanting to go inside and comfort Mother.

But it did little good. Mother simply went from quietly sobbing to holding me and wailing.

The days that followed seemed shrouded in gray mist, indistinct yet clear. Father had gone bankrupt, though fortunately he had no debts. Our standard of living simply plummeted. Our three daily meals went from beautifully plated steaks to hard, dry bread and ham with a rank smell, and our bright, clean villa became a cramped, narrow basement.

Mother had always been a strong woman. She quickly adapted to our straitened circumstances and found a job as an accountant to cover the household expenses.

But Father, who had lived comfortably since childhood, could not stand that life. After repeatedly failing to find work, he gave up on himself and stayed home. The place reeked of smoke and alcohol all day long. Mother kept comforting and coaxing him, but it did no good.

I looked at this unfamiliar father and still wanted him to play with me as he used to, only for him to shove me away while watching television. Mother held me in her arms, stroking my head and comforting me.

"Father's just been in a bad mood lately. We need to give him a little more time..." She said this to comfort me, and herself.

Perhaps that gentle approach had some effect, because Father finally began going out. Perhaps he had found work, or some other kind of job? He came home at irregular hours, sometimes at noon, sometimes the next morning, and slowly began bringing money home.

During those two days, Mother was always smiling, and dinner was far more plentiful than before. Yet I always felt there was something mixed into her smile, especially when her gaze fell on that paper envelope, far thicker than one containing a month of her wages.

Mother had also tentatively asked Father what he was doing. At first, he would fob her off, but later he became openly impatient. Whenever Mother so much as asked a question, all she received was loud shouting.

Still, those days were fairly stable. Back then, I thought that everything would be fine if only Father became a little gentler.

I still remembered that it was my birthday. Father had promised to come home early to spend time with me, and Mother left work early too. She had promised to buy me a very big cake, but however long I waited, Father did not return, and neither did a cake. Only Mother came back, her face deathly pale. I had never seen that expression on her face.

Mother hurriedly packed a few things, then pulled me along to leave. I asked where Daddy was.

Only silence answered me.

We had already been very quick. From Mother's return to packing our things and leaving, not even ten minutes had passed.

But we could no longer leave.

I had never seen that sort of expression appear on a face. It looked like sorrow, yet also like wild laughter, as though the two most extreme emotions had appeared on the same face.

"Darling, where are you going?"

Mother pushed me into the room, kissed my forehead, and then locked the door.

"Sweetheart, I need to talk to Daddy about something. Can you play on your own for a while?"

I felt a little frightened. With a child's sensitive heart, I could clearly tell that something was wrong with both their moods. I pressed my ear to the door, but the sounds were still indistinct.

There was no argument, only faint snatches of sound, as though they really were having a proper conversation.

Not much time passed. In less than an hour, the door opened. Father and Mother were both smiling, as though everything had gone back to the way it used to be.

"Darling, I'll buy our son a cake. Look at our son. How adorable he is. He'll surely grow into an outstanding person. He'll grow up, won't he?"

Mother did not answer. She stroked my head again, almost lovingly.

"Sweetheart, what would you like to eat?"

That was the last birthday I ever celebrated, filled with an almost ironic happiness.

Father made a great deal of money and became even more successful than before. We moved back into our old big house, and everything seemed to be taking a turn for the better.

But not long afterward, Mother fell ill. She grew thin and haggard, going all day without eating or drinking, until eventually she could survive only on nutrient injections.

Father often took Mother out for treatment, never once bringing me along, but her illness never got better. It even grew more and more serious.

What saddened me even more was that Mother seemed to no longer love me. First came verbal abuse, then beatings. Whenever I approached her room, Mother would throw anything within reach at me.

Even Father was the same, beating and insulting me, doing every cruel thing one could do to a child. I grew angry and confused. I did not understand what had happened. How could the people I loved most, who should have loved me most, treat me so cruelly?

Until Father told me, with a slight trace of pity, that Mother had asked him to treat me that way.

It was undoubtedly a bolt from the blue. Unable to believe it, I ran to Mother's room to confront her. What I received was more than an answer. My mother spoke the only words she had said in those two years.

"Yes, I asked him to do it."

I no longer remembered how I crawled out of that room. I curled up in my room, refusing to eat or drink. A sudden high fever nearly killed me, but they saved me again. In my dreams, I seemed to faintly hear Mother stroking my hair with her thin fingers and kissing my cheek as she once had. She wept and told me she was sorry.

But when I woke up, I understood that it had all been a dream.

Two years later, Mother died. There was no funeral, and no one was informed. I did not even get to see her one last time. There was only a pitch-black coffin.

Father did just as Mother had said, not even sparing me a glance. As though exiling me, he dumped me here: a house and enough living expenses to see me through university.

Not long after moving here, I met Freddy...

Back then, I had thought I would spend the rest of my life rotting alone in an empty, cold house.

On the surface, it seemed I had freed Freddy from the adoptive father who beat him, the adoptive mother who ignored him, the classmates who bullied him, and the teachers who slandered him. Everyone seemed to regard me as his savior, but only I knew that he had saved me, whose heart should have been dead.

"I want Freddy to be able to live well, to grow up safe and healthy, and to have the ability to do what he wants."

That was what I said.

The man before me froze for a moment, looking somewhat dazed, as though he saw through me another person he knew extraordinarily well. He gave me a complicated look.

"Deal."

Freddy happily picked out food. Hospitals in this era did not have particularly good meals: whole wheat bread with a thin slice of sausage, and oatmeal boiled so soft that it was a little disgusting.

This already counted as decent food.

Holding the tray, he carefully made his way to my hospital room, but there was no one in the bed, as though no one had ever lain there. He caught hold of a nurse passing by.

"Where's Klein?"

The nurse thought for a moment, then told him.

"That little boy with black hair? Don't worry. His family picked him up."

Freddy's bewildered eyes went perfectly round. The hospital's cold white light fell across his face, making it look excessively pale. That face, which should have been young, tender, and full of life, was filled with confusion and stunned realization.

After that, he stayed outside the hospital room, refusing even to move to a seat a little farther away. He waited as the oatmeal in his hands cooled and congealed. The sky gradually darkened, and then he was sent away.

Though the nights were not cold at this time of year, they certainly were not warm. A small figure who should have been tucked into bed early wandered aimlessly, eventually arriving at the home he shared with Klein.

He opened the door and turned on the lights. It was as cozy as ever, yet something was always missing. He curled up in bed beneath the covers, but his whole body remained icy cold. He could not help comforting himself.

Klein will come back. He'll definitely come back. He said he wouldn't abandon me, that he'd live a good life with me...

The next day, a steady knocking came at the door. Freddy, who had not slept all night, practically sprang out of bed and ran downstairs to open it without even putting on his shoes. But the person outside was not the one he longed for.

It was a group of people in black suits, their hair meticulously slicked back, looking like plastic.

"Freddy, right?"

"Who are you?"

They nodded to one another, and the man at the front spoke.

"We were sent by Klein... the young master."

"Then when is he coming back?" Freddy asked with almost unbearable urgency. His bloodshot eyes brimmed with the light of hope.