Chapter 273

“People often try to fill their own deficiencies through others. A child who grew up wandering without parents becomes obsessed with family and children, and a child who grew up unloved awakens to s****l desire earlier than others.”

When he was young, a sailor he was close with once said that.

“I was a child abandoned by everyone. In every memory I have, I was alone. Since no one helped me, I had to learn how to be independent earlier than others. Ah, but this isn’t a deficiency—it’s a result. Whenever you lose one thing, something else always comes along in its place, right?”

Sitting on the embankment with him, tossing food to the seagulls, Logan asked,

“What’s your deficiency, then?”

The man snatched the seagull food Logan was holding—it was just a piece of dried bread—and popped it into his mouth as he replied.

“I told you. I was abandoned. That’s my deficiency, and the source of my dreams.”

His face was lined with wrinkles, looking more like an old man despite his youth, worn down by fatigue. Yet his eyes sparkled with the vitality befitting his age.

“One day, I’m going to build a family. I’m just drifting for a while so I can one day live a peaceful life in an ordinary household.”

In the end, the goal was to settle down.

There are those who, yearning for that ordinary life, are willing to risk the dangers of their present. It’s only through that struggle that they can finally become ordinary.

What did it mean to be ordinary? Logan had a house, and a grandfather who’s a reliable guardian. Did that make him ordinary?

The man laughed as if he had seen right through Logan.

“You’re the happiest orphan I’ve ever seen. Since your family is overflowing with money, you’ll be able to live in comfort without doing anything.”

Ah, his life had been dismissed. Well, it was true, it’s not easy to empathize with a life you haven’t experienced. If it were the Logan of later years, he would have just nodded quietly at those words.

But a child can’t choose their words with such consideration for others. Logan retorted, indignant.

“You’re wrong about everything. I’m not an orphan. And I’m not particularly happy, either.”

“Then you must be a greenhorn who doesn’t even know his own place.”

Logan swung his fist, and the man allowed himself to be struck by the childish punch.

“See? Even when you hit me, I can’t fight back. You’re just a pampered rookie.”

“……”

“Sure enough, you’re different from me. You have a guardian, unlike me. Still, being abandoned is the same, isn’t it?”

“No, my parents just passed away, that’s all. I’m sure they never wanted to leave me like that.”

Logan’s grandfather often showed him his mother’s portrait. He probably did so hoping that her child would remember the daughter he had lost before ever seeing her face.

“I see. So no one’s ever told you the truth.”

The man gave a sly smile, deep creases furrowing his hard face.

“As I thought… you really are someone who doesn’t know his own place.”

The man was acting strangely today. Normally, he’d tell exciting stories of sea monsters and pirates, but today, he’d done nothing but pick fights and get under Logan’s skin.

“This is boring. I’m leaving.”

Logan stood, dusting the sand from his backside. The man grabbed his sleeve.

“Leave that behind.”

“……”

Logan set the seagull food down beside him.

The man grinned carelessly, thanking him for the charity.

“You’ll realize what your deficiency is someday, too. And when you do, maybe you’ll come to think as I do.”

Logan raised one eyebrow, as if to say, ‘What are you talking about?’

The man stared out at the boundless horizon and spoke.

“An illusion about family, and an anxiety about what comes after.”

“Anxiety…? Why would you be anxious? Isn’t it good to achieve your goal?”

“I think about having a family every day. But can someone like me, who doesn’t even know what a family is, really become a decent husband or father? Honestly, I’m not confident.”

“……”

“What about you, kid?”

The man predicted that one day Logan would come to think as he did. If so, Logan absolutely never wanted to live that way.

“I don’t need a family or anything like that. My deficiency is the complete opposite. I’m sick of this place. I just want to get out of here, anywhere.”

The sea. If possible, he wanted the sea. In the man’s stories, the sea was a world even more urgent and dizzying than a fairy tale.

“I’m going to become a sailor and wander for the rest of my life.”

The man laughed.

“It’s easy for you to say that now. I’m worried about you. I hope you realize soon that you’re not in a prison, but in a greenhouse.”

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