Chapter 273: Annoying failure

"Get up."

The little child was lying on the grass, staring at the sky.

His nose was bleeding.

A thin trail of red had run over his upper lip, and a few drops had stained the front of his clothes. He could taste the metallic residue in his mouth, although he did not find it particularly unpleasant. Above him, the sky was an uninterrupted expanse of blue, with a few clouds drifting slowly across it.

It had been three years since that day.

Three years since his uncle had stopped looking at his face.

Something had changed in the man after their conversation. The difference had not been immediate in every respect, but it had become increasingly apparent as time passed. The gentle mannerisms disappeared first, then the occasional smiles. Eventually, even the simple habit of picking the little child up when he was tired had vanished.

His uncle no longer held him or told him to smile. He no longer praised him for remembering his lessons or encouraged him to display the appropriate expressions.

In fact, he rarely addressed him outside the instructions necessary for their daily activities.

The man’s heartbeat had changed, too.

Where there had once been irregularities, sudden accelerations, and the occasional frantic rhythm, there was now something much duller.

A slow, restrained heartbeat, almost devoid of the peculiar disturbances the child had previously associated with his uncle’s presence.

The man was rarely home.

He would leave for extended periods, attending to matters the little child knew nothing about. Sometimes he would return in the middle of the night. Other times, he would arrive just before dawn, his clothes carrying unfamiliar scents and his heartbeat heavy with a mixture of resentment and exhaustion.

Enraged.

Dejected.

Those were the closest descriptions the little child could assign to the sounds he heard.

And whenever the man returned, they trained.

Sometimes they went to the mountains late at night, immediately after his uncle came home. On other occasions, they left early in the morning, before the man had to go elsewhere.

There was a particular rule.

He was not allowed to use his energy to attack his opponent.

His physical strength alone was to be used during combat. The energy he possessed could only be released to disintegrate sufficiently large objects when instructed.

It was a restriction his uncle had established, and one the little child followed without complaint.

The mountains were an ideal place for such exercises. There was an abundance of natural obstacles, and the surrounding vegetation provided more than enough space for their movements.

The little child slowly lifted himself from the grass.

His uncle approached.

There was no attempt to help him stand. No hand extended towards him, no inquiry about whether he was hurt.

The man simply went straight for another strike.

The child’s eyes followed the movement.

He raised his arm.

The impact was caught against his forearm, and before his uncle could withdraw, the child shifted his weight and kicked him away.

The man’s body moved backward, propelled several metres through the air.

He approached a tree, but did not fall against it. His feet found the ground just before impact, and he steadied himself with a small adjustment of his posture.

The child was already moving again, launching himself forward.

His uncle dodged, turning his body aside while reaching for the child’s arm. The little child adjusted his trajectory at the last possible moment, slipping past the man’s grasp.

Then his elbow struck the side of his uncle’s head.

The impact was sufficient to send the man down.

He landed on the ground, momentarily unable to continue.

The little child stopped, his breathing remaining steady.

He looked at his uncle, waiting for the next instruction.

There was nothing particularly satisfying about having landed a successful strike. Nor did he feel especially proud.

His uncle eventually got up.

"That’s enough."

The little child nodded.

The man turned and began walking. He followed immediately, maintaining a short distance behind him.

The vegetation surrounding them was dense. Trees grew close together, their branches overlapping above the narrow path. Wildflowers covered patches of the ground, while smaller plants grew between the stones and roots.

It was one of the few occasions when the child found himself voluntarily looking around.

There were many things in the world he had not encountered before. There were many flowers, insects, animals he had never seen in real life. Such discoveries were not particularly exciting, but they provided a temporary distraction from the otherwise repetitive nature of his days.

He looked at a small cluster of flowers and, as he took another step, he tripped.

His body fell forward, and his face struck the ground.

For a moment, he remained still.

There was no pause in the man’s footsteps, no glance over his shoulder, and no indication that he had noticed the child falling behind.

The little child slowly pushed himself upright and sat down.

He looked at his clothes. They were dirty now.

There was soil on the front of his shirt, and some of the vegetation had caught against the fabric. He examined the stains for a few seconds before turning his head.

A rock, that was what he had tripped over.

Then he stood up, brushed some dirt from his clothes, and resumed walking.

His uncle was already several metres ahead.

He had known for a long time that his uncle did not necessarily love him. At least, not in the way other adults seemed to love their children.

For years, he had understood the man’s tenderness as something directed towards an idea rather than towards him. His uncle had looked at him and seen someone else.

That was why the man had once been so gentle, he had simply been projecting his memories onto a child who happened to resemble someone he had lost.

The little child had never found that particularly important, until recently.

There was something he had begun to consider over the past three years.

If he had never told his uncle that they were both unlike humans, would he have continued holding him? Would he have smiled at him? Would he have remained gentle?

The question had no immediate answer, but the little child had gradually come to understand something about that conversation.

His uncle had not been delusional about being human, just not entirely. His heartbeat wasn’t wavering because of his delusions, but because it was an half truth.

The man had insisted that they were human, and the child had initially dismissed the statement as an error in classification. Yet, after three years of observation, he had encountered enough evidence to reconsider.

His uncle could love someone, he could grieve, he could remember another person with such tenderness that the mere sight of a familiar expression was enough to disturb his heartbeat.

And that person was his sister, his mother.

His uncle had loved her and still did. If his uncle was human because he could experience such things, then perhaps the little child was human, too.

That conclusion was difficult to establish with certainty, but it was not unreasonable.

After all, he was her child. He had inherited something from her, even if he did not know what.

Being human was not entirely about behaving like other humans, perhaps it was something that existed independently of the things he could observe.

He considered the possibility, then another question appeared.

If he was human, why did his uncle not love him?

He had seen families on the streets, particularly during the mornings when he was taken to school. Parents accompanied their children, holding their hands or adjusting their clothes before letting them go.

Their expressions were peculiar.

There was a tenderness in their eyes that seemed to appear naturally whenever they looked at their children. Some bent down to speak to them, others carried their little ones when they became tired, and a few would kiss their foreheads before saying goodbye.

The children responded with equal familiarity.

They reached for their parents, clung to their clothes, and complained when they had to separate.

The little child had watched these interactions many times. He had read about parental attachment in books.

It was a common human behavior, particularly during early childhood. Parents generally developed strong emotional bonds with their babies, and physical affection was one of several ways in which those bonds could be expressed.

He knew this, but he had never experienced it.

Perhaps the problem was that he did not behave like other children.

Perhaps his uncle could not recognize him as someone who needed protecting because there was nothing particularly childlike about him.

He did not cry when hurt. He did not ask for comfort. He rarely expressed any preference, and he could perform tasks that ordinary children could not even comprehend.

Maybe his uncle simply did not know how to treat him, that was possible.

Then another thought occurred to him.

If he were to receive affection, would he become more human?

Perhaps human emotions developed through experience. Perhaps affection was something that had to be received before it could be understood. Perhaps his inability to experience certain feelings was not an inherent characteristic, but a stage of development he had yet to overcome.

He had been told repeatedly that he was human.

If so, there might be a process through which he could awaken the parts of himself that remained dormant.

He did not know what he was, exactly.

He knew that he had a human appearance, that his uncle claimed they shared the same nature, and that his own characteristics differed considerably from those of everyone else he had encountered.

There was no definitive answer.

The uncertainty was unfamiliar.

It was not quite fear. He had no particular expectation of a terrible outcome, nor did the possibility of being something other than human frighten him.

It was more like an unresolved problem.

An answer was missing, and he had no means of obtaining it.

He did not like that.

For once, his uncle might be useful.

The little child looked at the man’s back.

"Uncle."

There was no response.

He took another step.

"Uncle."

The man stopped.

The child reached out his hand.

"Pick me up, please?"

His uncle turned.

For a moment, he did not move.

His eyes widened, and the child’s keen hearing caught a sudden disturbance in his heartbeat. The man’s expression changed so quickly that the little child had difficulty assigning a single description to it.

There was surprise.

Something else, too.

His eyes had become slightly teary.

Then the man walked back.

He bent down and picked the little child up, placing him against his chest.

He had observed children being carried many times. They generally wrapped their arms around their parents, sometimes resting their heads against their shoulders.

So, he imitated the movement.

He put his arms around his uncle’s neck and held on.

Ba-dump.

Ba-dump.

Ba-dump.

His uncle’s heartbeat had become considerably faster.

The man embraced him in return.

For a moment, he simply held the child, his hand resting against his back. His expression softened, and his eyes remained fixed somewhere beyond the little child’s shoulder.

The result, however, was not what the child had anticipated.

His uncle was feeling nostalgic, he was not responding to the child himself.

He was remembering someone.

The little child felt something unfamiliar.

It was faint, but distinctly unpleasant. Something inside him seemed to tighten, although he could not immediately identify the physical or emotional origin of the sensation.

He did not like this... annoyance.

After all, he really wasn’t his uncle’s family.

The man was treating him as though he were someone else, just as he had done years ago. Even now, after all this time, the child was merely an object onto which his uncle could project memories.

He had followed the instructions.

He had behaved like a child without being told to.

He had reached out, asked to be carried, and wrapped his arms around the man.

He had done exactly what other children did.

And yet, he still was not being loved.

"She used to be just like this," his uncle murmured.

His hand moved gently over the child’s back.

"Always fussing to be picked up..."

The little child rested his head against the man’s shoulder, his black eyes staring into nothingness.

This was not the first time he had failed at something. Failure was a familiar occurrence, particularly during training. But whenever he encountered an unsuccessful result, he could usually repeat the process, make the necessary adjustments, and eventually achieve what he wanted.

He could break a wall.

He could jump three metres into the air.

He could learn a movement after observing it only a handful of times.

But this wasn’t the same, he did not know how to succeed.

His uncle would never love him.

***

When they returned home, his uncle carried him into the living room and set him down on the couch.

The little child adjusted his clothes, as the man stood in front of him. Tears were forming into his eyes.

He did not even wait for the child to look up properly before bending down and embracing him.

"I love you."

The little child’s eyes widened.

For a moment, he did not move.

His uncle’s arms were around him, holding him close. The man’s heartbeat was unmistakable, and the little child could hear the sincerity in its rhythm.

Ba-dump.

Ba-dump.

There was no particular irregularity associated with grief. No distant, troubled rhythm, no resentment, no attempt to conceal something.

This was different.

The child slowly raised his arms and hugged him back.

He could tell.

This was... a truth.

His uncle loved him.

The realization produced something he had never experienced before.

It was unfamiliar and surprisingly pleasant. Something seemed to settle inside him, as though a question that had remained unanswered for years had finally received a proper response.

Yes, this was satisfaction.

Of course he could do this.

He could be loved.

There was no reason someone who looked human, behaved like a child, and belonged to a human family could not receive affection.

Who would love someone who was not human at all, someone who merely looked like one?

But he was at least part human, his uncle was right, and now someone loves him.

The little child held on a little tighter.

He had received something, something he had not known how to obtain.

His uncle slowly tilted his head backward.

The man’s gaze moved towards the wall.

The little child followed it, and then he froze.

One of the many portraits was hanging above the living room furniture.

A painting depicting a boy and a girl playing together.

The boy was particularly similar to his uncle. His facial features were the same, only his hair were arranged in a way the man had never worn his own.

The two children in the canvas had blonde hair, brown eyes... they didn’t look like anyone that could be related to them, either.

He looked at the painting for several seconds.

Something sour spread through him.

It was an unpleasant sensation, more distinct than the annoyance he had experienced earlier. His arms remained around his uncle, but his fingers gradually stopped moving.

He looked at the painting, then at the man holding him.

The child had been wrong, his uncle had not been looking at him when saying those tender words. He was fully, unhesitatingly speaking to someone else.

What the man was feeling now was actually...

Closure.

"I’ll tell you everything, Myles, so listen carefully."