Chapter 272: Whoever she is, I don’t care

Seeing someone cry had never been something the little child cared about.

He knew what crying was, of course. His uncle had shown him books about human behavior, including the physiological and psychological responses associated with distress.

Tears were produced by glands around the eyes.

Crying could occur in response to pain, fear, grief, frustration, and other emotional stimuli. It could also function as a means of communication, particularly among young children who had not yet developed the ability to express their needs through language.

The little child had memorized these facts.

He understood the process, but he did not understand the point.

Why should a feeling cause water to leak from someone’s eyes? Why should the muscles around a person’s mouth distort, their breathing become irregular, and their voice break into noises that conveyed little useful information? Why did people sometimes become incapable of speaking coherently when they were upset, despite possessing perfectly functional mouths?

He had searched for answers in his books.

Some authors described crying as an involuntary expression of emotion. Others emphasized its social purpose, explaining how tears could encourage sympathy, communicate vulnerability, or strengthen interpersonal bonds.

The little child had read all of it.

None of it had made crying any less peculiar.

In his mind, a person who cried was a person undergoing a recognizable physiological response. The response had identifiable causes, predictable characteristics, and several documented functions. Once these had been learned, there was little reason to devote further attention to it.

That was how he approached most things.

He learned what something was, determined how it worked, and moved on.

But crying was different in one respect.

His uncle did it frequently.

Not in front of him, of course.

The man would excuse himself, walk into another room, and close the door. His heartbeat, voice and body reactions weren’t foreign to him at all.

Then his uncle would return.

His face would be composed again. His voice would be steady. He would ask whether the little child had finished his meal or remind him that his lessons were about to begin.

Occasionally, his eyes would remain red.

He knew his uncle was crying, he also knew that the man seemed to be missing someone.

Someone was absent, the absence caused distress, the distress produced crying.

He could not understand why his uncle continued to react to the same absence when nothing about the situation had changed.

If the person was gone, then the person was gone.

Crying did not bring them back. It did not alter the contents of a photograph or restore anything that had been lost.

But his uncle had explained that people were not always reasonable about such things.

"You’re a human, Myles," the man had told him on one occasion. "You need to learn how to understand other people."

His uncle was the one who taught him about the world, and his explanations were usually sufficient for practical purposes.

When the man told him to smile, he smiled. When he was told to be gentle, he adjusted the force of his movements. When he was instructed to pay attention to what happened around him, he observed his surroundings more carefully.

He was also told to care.

Care about animals.

Care about other people.

Care when someone was hurt.

Care when someone was sad.

The little child learned the appropriate responses and stored them alongside everything else he had been taught.

These instructions were not difficult to remember.

Their purpose, however, remained obscure.

He did not feel compelled to smile when he was happy, because happiness was not something he experienced with any intensity. He did not naturally soften his movements out of concern for someone else’s well-being. He could recognize pain and understand its causes, but another person’s suffering was never important to him.

His uncle called these things human emotions.

The little child accepted that explanation.

As far as he knew, he was supposed to be human.

Yet he had never encountered another child who resembled him in any meaningful way.

Still, he did not ask, there was no reason to.

***

"CAN’T YOU... can’t you understand...?"

His uncle’s voice trembled so violently that the words nearly broke apart.

The little child looked at him.

The man was standing in the middle of the room, his shoulders tense and his hands shaking. He seemed to be struggling to keep his voice at an ordinary volume, but the effort was not working. Every breath brought another fracture into his speech.

"This, this! How could you, how?"

The little child waited.

He had no answer to provide.

He did not know what the man was referring to, although he could see that something had upset him considerably. His uncle’s face had become flushed, his eyes were wet, and his breathing was uneven.

In this world, the little child knew that he did not know everything. There were things he had never read about, events he had never witnessed, and circumstances his uncle had never thought to explain to him.

Generally speaking, this did not bother him.

He had no particular desire to fill the gaps in his knowledge.

But occasionally, in the endless dullness of his days, he encountered something unfamiliar.

When there was nothing else to do, observing it was as reasonable as any other way of passing the time.

He had not sought out this particular experience, he had simply been there.

And now his uncle was shouting at him.

"MYLES!"

The man lunged forward and grabbed him.

His hands were bloodied.

The little child looked at them first, then followed the movement of his uncle’s arms as he was pulled closer. The man’s grip was unsteady, his fingers tightening around the child’s shoulders with a force that seemed disproportionate to the situation.

"Are you listening to me?"

The little child looked up.

"You can’t ever commit such cruelty again! Animals are our friends. Do you understand? They’re living creatures! Is it because I didn’t teach you about it? Didn’t I tell you, you are—"

"Uncle," the little child interrupted. "Am I human?"

The little child regarded his uncle with the same blank expression he had worn throughout the conversation.

He was not asking out of distress. He was not seeking reassurance, nor was he worried that the answer might be unpleasant. He had identified a contradiction and wanted it resolved.

Frankly, he did not consider himself human.

The conclusion seemed logical.

He possessed abilities no ordinary human child could demonstrate. His emotional responses were severely restricted, and even those he could imitate required conscious attention.

He had to be taught how to behave in ways that other children seemed to understand naturally.

His uncle insisted that he was human.

Perhaps the man was confused about the definition.

If that was the case, the little child could recommend reading a book together. There were several useful volumes on human biology and behavioral development, and some of them were written in language simple enough for a young child to understand.

He could bring one to his uncle and explain the relevant passages.

There was no need for the man to become upset over a question of classification.

His uncle stared at him.

Then, slowly, he nodded.

"You are," he said, his voice suddenly much quieter. "You’re human, just like me."

The little child tilted his head further, as though adjusting the angle might make his words easier for the man to hear.

"But, uncle, we’re both not like humans."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

Before the little child could answer, his uncle seized him and shoved him violently against the wall.

His feet slipped against the floor, and he stumbled as the man’s hands released him. For a moment, he struggled to regain his balance. Then he fell, landing awkwardly on his side.

He remained there, looking at his arm, a bruise already forming beneath the skin.

He did not feel particularly upset about it, but only his uncle could physically hurt him like this.

His uncle, however, looked as though he had done something terrible.

The man pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. His shoulders slumped, and for a moment he stood motionless, staring at the floor.

Then he bent down and picked the little child up.

"I’m sorry, Myles," he murmured. "I shouldn’t have thrown you like that."

The little child nodded.

His gaze remained fixed straight ahead.

Now he understood the situation a little better, his uncle was simply delusional.

The man had become distressed over an observation that was, from the child’s perspective, entirely reasonable. He had responded with anger, then regret, and now he was attempting to repair the situation by apologizing.

So, there was nothing for the little child to do about it.

"Listen, Myles," his uncle said.

The man’s voice had become gentle again, although the child’s ears could still detect the uneven rhythm of his heartbeat.

"Your mother and father were both human."

The little child looked toward him.

"My sister always loved and cherished you, even before you were born. She was such a beautiful soul, Myles. You are just like—"

The child glanced up at him, his pitch-black eyes met his uncle’s.

And the man froze, putting him down.

Just like that, he turned and walked away from the child, leaving him alone inside the room.