After becoming a chaotic daughter

——Father's relatives came to the door.

Kunikida's words made Nanako a little confused, whether it was "relatives" or "looking for her", she was a little confused.

[...Where did father come from? 】

Every New Year's Day is spent in the detective agency. Nanako has long classified her idiot father as a standard bachelor who "the elder has passed away and has not yet married a wife", and has used "Because of the parallel world, it is a little different. Probably also Normal" reason convinced myself.

But when Kunikida suddenly appeared in front of him and opened the door, he said "Mr. Ranpo has relatives who came to the door", which made Nanako's head unable to turn all of a sudden. He opened his mouth, and spit out a modal particle in a daze:

"……what?"

Her dark round eyes did not turn.

Stared at by such a pair of dark eyes, Kunikida stood outside the sliding door and maintained the posture of opening the door until the silent air spread in and out of the living room for several seconds, then suddenly raised his left hand to block the door. Between himself and the two people in the room, there was a gesture representing "stop".

Kunikida lowered his head and pushed his glasses: "No, it's nothing, I didn't say anything just now, I just accidentally slipped my tongue."

"..."

Nanako scratched her head, she thought about what Kunikida said when she opened the door just now, and remembered that the complete sentence Kunikida said was "What happened when Hanabou said that Mr. Ranpo had relatives came to the door", and it wasn't Said that Dad was really approached by some "relatives".

...But the flower bag clearly said "Does Mr. Ranpo have a lover?"

Nanako still couldn't quite figure it out. Except for the four words "Mr. Ranpo", these two sentences cannot be said to be exactly the same, they can only be said to be different.

The pronunciation of "family" and "lover" in Japanese is also as wide as a river that Dazai jumped into. I don't know how Kunikida has to listen to mishear it like that.

Hanging her head and thinking for a long time, Nanako didn't come up with a reason. As a senior retreating performance artist in China who "doesn't work, give up No.1", Nanako quickly gave up and continued to ponder this unsolvable problem. Feel free to find a reason to explain it.

——Maybe Dubu brother’s tinnitus is due to working too much overtime.

Nanako is going to talk to Yosano after she goes back, and ask Yosano to give Kunikida a physical examination. If she is not in good health, she should be treated early.

She thought of this in her heart, but with a small expressionless face on her face, she said dryly to Kunikida: "Oh."

It looks like I believe it, and it looks like "I'm perfunctory to show that I believe it".

Kunikida couldn't judge whether Nanako's reaction represented the former or the latter, but out of his trust in the "good boy" (and the idea of ​​deception), he put a big "√" on the former very arbitrarily, I firmly believe that Nanako is convinced.

He went inside, kicking aside the litter and clutter that was strewn all over the living room, trying to make a way for himself - he couldn't do it as easily as the little Nanako. He settled down in the utility room—but after only taking two steps, he still unbearably bent down to tidy up the messy room.

"What were you talking about just now?" He continued to ask without raising his head while picking up a patterned haori that had been thrown on the tatami.

Hanada didn't answer his words, but turned her head and cast her eyes on Nanako.Without Nanako's consent, he would not casually tell others about Nanako's entrustment, even if this "other" is his good friend Kunikida.

Moreover, even though he had a brain twitch just now and interpreted Nanako's words in a completely wrong direction, after Kunikida broke into the door and shouted the sentence "Mr. After realizing it, the "mother" Nanako said should not refer to "Mr. Ranpo's lover".

He almost forgot that Nanako is Mr. Ranpo's adopted daughter, so of course she will have another "father" and "mother" in the biological sense.

Nanako looked at Kunikida who was picking up dirty clothes all over the room, pulled the hem of his coat, and kept her mouth tightly shut, wondering if she should tell Kunikida or not.

When talking to the flower bag, she feels that the flower bag will not tell other people, just like if you whisper to a pot of cactus, the cactus will not tell others what you said.

But Kunikida is different. Kunikida is more like a "parent" or a "teacher". Every student knows that if they say something secret to a "parent" or "teacher", within three days, the whole world will know.

"Parents" and "teachers" are the worst people in the world who will keep children's secrets.

Nanako didn't speak, and the flower bag didn't make a sound. Kunikida threw out a question, but he didn't get an answer from the two of them. He stopped packing his clothes, stood up, looked at Nanako, and then looked to the side A bag of flowers shrunk into the quilt.

"...What's wrong?" He sensed something was wrong.

Nanako shook her head, the ponytail she tied was thin and soft, like a puppy's tail, and she quickly shook it from side to side a few times.The flower bag under the quilt also covered her mouth, shook her head quickly, and let out a humming sound of "uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu".

Taking all the clothes he picked up and throwing them into the washing machine, Kunikida came out of the bathroom, looking suspiciously at Nanako and Hanakou through the lens.

Relying on his instinct as a "teacher", he was keenly aware that the crux of the problem should be Nanako.

Kunikida stopped tidying up the room, he walked up to Nanako, swept out a circle of empty tatami mats around him, sat down cross-legged first, then raised his head and waved, and said to Nanako, "Sit."

Nanako sat down opposite him obediently.

"Did something happen at school?" Kunikida asked her patiently. He still remembered that Nanako went to school to take the make-up exam today, and wondered in his heart if he failed the make-up exam... But this is not the same as "ranbo" Mister has a lover." What does it matter?

He recalled the shout from the flower bag that he heard when he first entered the room, and for a moment he couldn't figure out what was going on.

Nanako shook her head, but still didn't say anything, she lowered her head, her dark eyes only staring at the pattern on the tatami.

She was short, and when she lowered her head, Kunikida only had a small, fluffy black head. Kunikida looked down at the top of her hair, feeling a little helpless.

Nanako is very obedient most of the time, but if she doesn't want to be obedient sometimes, it will make people feel headache, either repeating the attack or shrinking her head. The current situation obviously belongs to the latter.

Kunikida pondered for a while, and then suggested: "Well, let's exchange 'information'. Tell you what you were talking about just now, and I can also tell you something you want to know matter."

After he finished speaking, he paused, and then said, "You can start with me, do you have anything you want to ask me?"

Nanako: "..."

Nanako: "Is the sum of e+π an irrational number?"

Kunikida, who has been a math teacher but doesn't think he can solve this world-class math problem: "..."

"Change the question." Kunikida tried to apply, "At least I have to know the answer... Otherwise, even if you ask, I won't be able to answer the answer."

After he finished speaking, he waited for a while without waiting for Nanako's new question, and realized that Nanako seemed to be silent again, which made Kunikida rub his eyebrows with a headache.

Maybe he should tell Mr. Ranpo, and let Mr. Ranpo quickly use his invincible super reasoning to "think of a way", instead of sitting in a messy room like this, pulling an unanswered question with Nanako. question.

The questions thrown out are like stones thrown into the swamp, not to mention "floating in the water", they can't even splash a single bit of mud, and they just sit there without saying a word.

After all, he is not a child anymore.

Kunikida could only convince himself so in his heart.

It's normal for adolescent children to have a little secret. As long as they haven't done something bad and don't want to tell adults, then don't tell them.

In contrast, he might as well go back and ask Mr. Ranpo, who is "still single at the age of 26", if he really has a "lover". If this is true, then the whole society must be on guard "Big deal".

He was just about to say to Nanako, "It's okay if you don't want to say it, just go and supervise Kabuki doing fifty push-ups", when Nanako, who was sitting opposite him, raised her head a little, her dark eyes rolled, and looked up at him Looking in the direction of the cat, it looks like a cat that just hides under the table and watches people secretly.

"If I told you, would you tell Dad?" Nanako asked him in a flat tone.

Kunikida was taken aback.

But immediately, he realized that this was the "question" Nanako asked him.

He only thought for a second, and answered Nanako honestly and seriously:

"If you want to do something bad, I will tell Mr. Ranpo and the president. Or if you encounter a dilemma that I can't help you solve, I will also look for someone who can help you solve it depending on the situation. People with problems. Other than that, I will keep it a secret for you and never tell anyone else.”

Nanako thought about it for a while, and felt that the things she wanted Hanakou to check were neither "doing bad things" nor "difficulties". middle.

Moreover, Kunikida is a very upright person, upright to the point of being a bit stubborn. If Dazai said such a thing, Nanako would definitely not believe it, but when Kunikida said it, Nanako felt that she should still believe it.

If Kunikida lied to her, she would give Kunikida's phone number to those women who were crying to find Dazai.Then tell them it's Dazai's father's call, and ask Kunikida to clean up the mess for Dazai.

After making the plan, Nanako pursed her lips, and while organizing the sentence, she answered Kunikida: "I want the flower bag... I want to know... it's just... um..."

She didn't know where to start again.I don't know if I should say "Let Huadai help me find my mother", or "I want to know who my mother is", or "Do you remember who my mother is" - Nanako remembers, and finally When I first brought her back to the detective agency, besides Ranpo as her father, Kunikida was also there at the time.

"A few days ago, I saw an aunt." Nanako finally started from here, "I saw her before... During the summer vacation, she came downstairs to the detective agency."

She spoke in a very "straightforward way", without any ups and downs in her tone, like a toy car running unsteadily from one end of the board to the other, but Kunikida felt something bad in his heart I had a premonition, as if the toy car was equipped with a mercury bomb, as long as it was shaken a little, the shaking mercury would trigger a violent explosion.

"And then." He forced himself to calm down, and continued to ask Nanako.

Nanako raised her head, raised her small face, and looked at Kunikida expressionlessly. There was no light in her dark eyes, like a dusty window.

"That auntie also has black eyes." Nanako said to Kunikida.

There are many people with black eyes in the world, but Kunikida has seen the woman who visited the detective agency, so of course he knows what Nanako means by "the eyes are also black".

He often saw Nanako, so he got used to it, so that when he first saw that woman, he didn't even notice any difference from others, but in fact, like this, the pupils of his eyes were completely black. Humans are actually rare.

For most people with black eyes, the color of the pupils actually gradually fades from the middle to the edge.At the outermost part of the pupil, the lighter ones will even turn into a kind of tea-brown that is close to light gold, or gray with a bit of cobalt blue.

Kunikida: "Do you want to find her and meet her?"

If there is such a mysterious thing as "blood relationship" in the world, Nanako saw that woman and felt that she was very familiar, so she thought "maybe she is my relative" in her heart , Wanting to recognize relatives, this seems to be a very normal thing.

The age difference between Ranpo and Nanako is really not like a real father and daughter. Although no one in the detective agency will mention it, Kunikida can vaguely feel it. Nanako actually remembers that she was raped Bu Bu's adopted child, not Luan Po's biological daughter.

After all, she was seven years old when she was adopted, and it was the age when she could remember things clearly.

——So Nanako wants to meet her real relatives?

Such a guess emerged in Kunikida's mind.

But in the next second, he heard Nanako from the opposite side reply: "...I don't want her to go to find her father."

Nanako's little head drooped again, she lowered her head and tugged at the corner of her coat, her little face showed no emotion, she just stared blankly at the corner of her coat.

Kunikida was silent for a while, and then slowly spoke again.

"You think she might be your relative."

"Ah."

"But you don't want to go with her."

"Ah."

"I don't want Mr. Ranpo to know about it either."

"……Um."

Kunikida didn't give Nanako an answer immediately, he just frowned tightly, as if he was thinking about something, and after a while he exhaled a long breath, like a deep sigh.

"I'll help you get in touch... find that lady."

In the end, he still didn't tell Nanako that "Mr. Ranpo has already seen that lady", he just said to Nanako so seriously.

"This should be a matter that adults should be responsible for solving. If you want to say something to the other party, you must carefully and carefully consider what you want to say, and you can't make a hasty decision."

"This is a very important matter. You have to think it over before making a decision. ...Although I still think that this kind of matter should be discussed with Mr. Ranpo and the others," Kunikida said in the middle of this sentence, still He didn't continue to say, "Even if you don't want Mr. Ranpo to know, you can ask the president for his opinion. The president is a person who has experienced countless storms, and you can also listen to his opinion."

"The most important thing is to be cautious!"

"When making a decision, you have to think carefully about this matter with the idea of ​​'how will you spend the rest of your life?' Regret, even if you regret it, you must stick to the decision.”

He is like a teacher watching his students about to step into the examination room, and he meticulously tells the students the most important things in this exam that must never be forgotten.

Kunikida still thinks that Ranpo should be told about this matter, but Nanako doesn't want Ranpo to know, and he also promised Nanako that as long as she didn't "do something bad" or "be in an unsolvable dilemma", she would not tell others about it. It can only stay in place indecision.

He kept the secret of "father" from "daughter". Correspondingly, at this moment, he should also make a decision to keep the secret of "daughter" from "father".

Either become a faithful keeper of secrets, or reveal all the secrets.

"Yeah." Nanako nodded.

She is "Nanako Edogawa", but she is not "Nanako", so it is impossible for her to go with that aunt, because even if that aunt really wants to pick up someone, the one she wants to pick up is also "Nanako" , instead of "Edogawa Nanako".

But "Nanako" is dead.

She wants to explain to that aunt before her father finds out, and make things right by herself, so that her father will not know about it.

【…】

She didn't want Dad to know about it at all.

The author has something to say:

Children's three major illusions: My father doesn't know, I can do it, I can solve things without telling my father

The three major illusions of parents: the child doesn’t understand anything, the child can’t do anything, I can solve the problem by myself without telling the child

Kunikida who hides from both ends: Although he is a middleman, there is no difference in the price to make money, and he is always on the verge of overturning.