What is a home without children? Quiet

Henny Youngman

Chapter III. Children

It wasn’t hard to deal with Manse. Having spent a few hours with the kid inside his room, helping him out with pretty advanced mathematics for a 10 year old, he realized the boy was pretty calm and reserved, keeping his mouth closed unless he needed information. He seemed to be the type to listen to everything being told to him and then went to process the information, acting according to it.  He knew Manse had a nanny but he was sure her job was pretty easy since the boy had a clean room and the moment a pen was misplaced, he quickly moved to arrange it again.

“Thank you.” Manse bowed his head towards Kyuhyun once he had finished his exercise and understood the formula behind solving it.

“No problem. But why do you study calculus now?” Kyuhyun asked as he relaxed into his chair after a few hours of bending forward a bit to see Manse’s notebook properly.

“My father is the President. He won’t be in a few months but I will be expected to keep my results high even as I grow up. I am simply preparing in advance.” Manse shrugged and then closed his notebook and book, getting up from the chair to place the two of them on a shelf.

It was only then that Kyuhyun noticed the boy had separated the shelves to his mini library according to grades, from 4th to 10th grade. Everything was arranged in such a nice order that Kyuhyun wondered for a second if the boy had OCD or something.

Getting up from the chair and looking back towards the shelves, he realized there were mathematics and Korean language books for each grade, biology and anatomy books for the higher classes. No matter how much he tried t look and find books like music or art or anything more fun, there wasn’t any. In a way, it reminded him of his own school days where his father insisted that arts weren’t particularly needed in life.

Kyuhyun now completely disagreed with him because sometimes on his missions he had to sing, to draw, to pretend to be a sculptor or have knowledge about things related to this since many of their mission where about art and retrieval of items pertaining to the countries legacy. It didn’t take to be a genius to realize Manse wasn’t having fun in his life. Then again, since he was guarded most of the times, it had to be quite impossible for him to go to the part and have fun.

“Do you avoid going to the park so that others won’t see you guarded?” he asked a he looked towards the kid, wondering if he was just as uncomfortable about being guarded as Mirae was about having people in black suits going with her to college.

“They feel uncomfortable and the smaller ones even cry upon seeing the bodyguards. Plus, they need to do a background check on everyone and that takes time and bores the children.” Manse shrugged again and then moved back to his desk to place his pens inside the case and arrange them.

Kyuhyun nodded his head, understanding what the other was saying. It was true. To secure any place, any bodyguard would be trained to first check and see if any of the people there were suspicious. Upon clearing that, they’d next make sure he is always safe and doesn’t fall down and all that and that could be a great inconvenience for playing around. It probably spoiled all the fun as well since kids had to be clumsy and could fall down and argue and all, and the bodyguards were going to prevent that from happening.

“Maybe one day I will secretly take you out to play.” Kyuhyun chuckled a little as he prepared to leave the room and return to his own.

It seemed like his words caught Manse’s attention because the boy started looking at him with somewhat of an interest in the words, seemingly wondering if it was a good idea or not. Soon, a small frown appeared on his face and Manse’s body tensed a bit.

“It is not a good idea. Something bad could happen and they need to know my whereabouts.” The boy replied with a small smile, sitting at his desk though there was nothing else for him to do there.

“This hyung....”Kyuhyun spoke as he pointed at himself. “Is really good at his job. If you want to go to the park without them knowing you are Manse, I can help out.”

It was stupid of him to suggest something like this and he knew it. It went against everything he had learned in training and everything he had done in his four years with the agency but seeing how mature Manse was without a bit of fun in his life, he wanted to help him out and make sure he knows what having fun meant as well.

If this little kid wasn’t going to experience having fun, he was going to end up just as bitter and angry as Mirae was and that wasn’t going to be a nice sight to see. Mirae was probably this angry on a day to day basis because she had lived restrained and without chances of having fun, too overpowered by the need to be guarded and looked out for all the time. He needed to make sure to finally read the files he had received on them so that he could get a bit of an inside on their history and personality.

“Thank you.” Manse bowed his head a little and then finally stood up from his chair, waiting while standing up to let the bodyguard know he has to leave so that he could go to sleep.

Wishing the little boy a good night, Kyuhyun opened the door of the room and finally left. He was still not tired so he figured he should go and take a tour of the gardens around the Blue House to make sure there were no blind spots that could put anyone in danger. Stepping outside of the building, he moved towards the garden at the left where there was a small gazebo. He had to give credit to whomever built the Blue House. The look of it was amazing. Each column and side of the building was so beautifully designed and it made the building look like a really expensive million dollars house.

But it wasn’t just the building. The gardens were taken care of quite well because he couldn’t find traces of weed no matter how much he looked around. It looked even better than some of the arrangements made inside the parks. There were quite some blind spots that made Kyuhyun feel uncomfortable but he just had to turn  his head to the side and he would see bodyguards placed at the wall, guarding the area. That made him feel much better because it meant that even with the blind spots, there were people looking over the area.

As he moved closer to the gazebo, he noticed light coming from inside of it. It was a small light, coming from an electronics which he assumed it was a phone and that meant someone was playing games or something while sitting there. He just had to narrow his eyes a little and focus in that direction to see who it was since he was trained to search for things in the dark.

His left eyebrow twitched a bit as he realized the person was none other than Mirae. Checking his own wrist watch, he realized it was almost past midnight and she had left him with Manse right after dinner. That meant she had spent a few hours doing something he had no idea what it might have been. She seemed to be exchanging text messages with someone, perhaps a boyfriend or some friends, but she didn’t look happy because sigh after sigh escaped her lips.

“Should you be out here?” he asked as he stopped at the stairs of the gazebo, quickly mentally cursing himself at striking a conversation with her.

“It’s still my house. Mind your own business.” She answered and then only snapped her head in his direction for a few seconds.

“I was asking for the sake of your safety.” He rolled his eyes and then moved a step up, closer to her.

He had to break her. Well, not break her but break a conversation with her. If she continued being this rude, pushing him away, she could end up ignoring him during serious moments and that could have led to problems.  They had to be at least on normal people terms for him to be able to do his job without worrying she might try to boycott him and put herself in danger.

“I’m sure the about 200 people here can handle a girl inside the gazebo.” She let out a new sigh and then texted someone again.

“There are 42 people on the perimeter today.” He answered as he moved all the way closer to the fence of the gazebo, leaning against it as he looked into her direction.

He wasn’t going to let her be like this towards him all the time. He had to strike a conversation with her even if she tried to hit him. She was like a more annoyed version of Manse in his eyes and the only way to get on friendly terms was to insist despite her refusing him. As she heard his words, she snapped her head towards him and he replied with showing her a smirk.

“Whatever...” she turned her head back to her phone. “I am doing something... do you mind?” she asked as she opene