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While my son was out for the night, my husband and I snuck into his room. The reason was trivial. As we were cooling off on the balcony after dinner, I saw my son leaving the castle and heading toward the gate.
So I muttered, "He's been out at night a lot lately, I wonder where he's been? " Then my husband, looking meeker than ever, said, "You might be able to find out... if you view his room."
He, like me, became suspicious of son's frequent nighttime outings. So he went into the room where his son went out a few days ago, and found something terrible.
"What's that? "
I asked him, but he simply replied, "It's faster to look," and walked briskly away. When he arrived at the front of the room, he pulled the door without hesitation.
At first glance, it was an ordinary room. There were only minimal furniture like a desk, a closet, and a bed, and training equipment, a room of a very hobbyless person. Come to think of it, he has never been a child who wanted very many toys or other things since he was a little.
"...Something terrible? "
Ignoring me, my husband silently trudged to the back of the room. At the far end of the room, he vigorously opened a desk drawer. It was the second of three drawers. The moment I saw what was inside, I gasped.
There were dead bugs. And a lot of them. And they were all in extraordinary condition. Large spiders, stag beetles, caddisflies, and larvae of some kind (and these were just only on part! ) were laid out with their legs and wings stripped to pieces.
"Why bugs...? "
The moment I muttered that reflexively, I connected the dots in my head. Nighttime outings have been conspicuous lately-Most of the bugs in his drawers are nocturnal. I finally realized what my son has done every night. He has caught bugs to brutally kill.
"How terrible he is..."
It was so horrible. I felt sick and staggered.
"A-Are you alright? "
I felt the blood drain from my body all at once as my husband catch me in his arms. Even though it was summer, my fingertips were cold. Killing bugs is not necessarily evil. Poisonous bugs will kill you if you don't kill them. But my son's is not something that can be compared to such a thing.
...Anyway, I can't keep doing it like this forever. I looked up and saw my husband staring at the left side of the room. I looked up and saw my husband staring at the left side of the room, to the right of the entrance. There was a closet closed without a single crack. I had a bad feeling.
"Is there..."
The rest of my words were muffled as my husband said, "Let's get out of here." While we were heading for the exit, my husband was walking on the side where the closet was. It was as if he was trying not to show it to me.
We didn't feel like talking until we were back on the balcony. But I think our thoughts were probably the same.
(Why did it have to come to this? )
It was my husband who suggested that we hide from my son that we were devil chojins and to raise him as a justice chojin. He was originally one of top executive of the Devil Chojin Army, but through his battles with the Justice Chojin, he learned the value of friendship and changed his affiliation to justice chojin. I could sympathize with their way of thinking, so I didn't particularly oppose it.
And this is what happened. What went wrong? Where did we go wrong? I tried to think about it, but my shocked and excited mind could not come up with a good idea.
Next to me nodding and gripping the railing, my husband was looking down straight and independent, toward where our son had left. Maybe he wasn't okay, just couldn't mentally lean on anything.
And I did not miss what he muttered afterwards.
"...Was I something wrong? "
His voice was dryly. Instead of me, a lonely late-summer breeze answered.
◆
Last week was a mess. Since then we have not found any solution. On the contrary, we saw our son dismantling bugs. All things have only gotten worse.
My husband had gone out this morning and would not be back until the evening. After seeing him off, I spent the rest of the day alone as usual, thinking about my son.
He used to be a normal kid. It is abnormal for a justice chojin to do such a cruel thing. If he had been raised as a devil chojin, would we have praised as a good deed by now? No, we were both devil chojins, and we knew many bloodthirsty people. Still, I had never seen anyone torture such a weak creature as my son. Then what the hell was that? My own child seems to me like a terrible monster that I don't know.
-We're not going to let it go on like this. It's better that it's just bugs now. But what if it turns into something else such as small animals or people? We have to stop it while we still can.
I've always had just that thought and discussed it many times with my husband. But as a result, time just passed.
(....)
I looked out the window. The weather had suddenly turned bad a few minutes ago, and there was heavy thunder outside. It will probably start raining soon. I hope it will stop by the time my husband comes home, but I doubt it.
When I sit in a daze like this, things from the past that I usually don't pay attention to slowly emerge from the depths of my memory. The day my son was born was also such weather. In the devil world, it has long been believed that the worse the weather on the day of birth, the better the omen. Even so, I, who had already become a justice chojin at the time, felt inexpressible anxiety in my spinning head after the birth. ...I wondered if that uneasiness was a premonition of what is happening now.
Perhaps because I was so lost in thought, I did not notice the figure approaching from behind until the very end.
"It's a terrible weather now."
I turned around so vigorously that my neck hurt. Standing there was my son. He was holding something like a square box in his hand.
"Haha, what's so surprising? "
The happy smile on his face is very ordinary boy. No one would ever think that this boy kills and collects bugs. The reason my heart is pounding right now is not just because I was surprised. It was because I was even more terrified than that.
"A-Anyone would be surprised if someone spoke to them suddenly...."
After saying that much, I remembered. I hadn't seen him since we finished lunch.
"Have you been somewhere? "
"No, I've been home. I was making this."
He said so and showed me what he was holding. I looked at it without thinking and almost stopped breathing.
It was an insect specimen. Moreover, it was no ordinary ones skewered on a stick. The body was torn from side to side, up and down, and the wings and legs were torn off, making it obvious at a glance it was abnormal.
"You...."
"Not bad for a first timer, huh? Look at this one, isn't it beautiful? "
My son laughed like it was nothing and pointed to a single moth. He didn't seem to think there was anything wrong or terrible about making something like this. I didn't notice it when I first saw it, but only the moth was "normal". It was all the more eerie because of that.
"...What's so funny? "
If he were a pure insect lover, I would have held my tongue. But since he was not, I had to say something. As a parent and a justice chojin, I must rehabilitate my son before he does something irreversible.
"I hate to say this, but...you've been acting strange lately. You go out late at night without telling...and you've been acting sloventy to dad. I'm sure there's something else you're not telling us."
"Why do it? You're a justice chojin, and you think you can do such a bad deed? "
I blurted it out without thinking about what would happen next. My son, who had rarely been scolded in his life, seemed shocked by my words.
What happened after that? To sum up, I was very "a moth to a flame" at that time.