The room was warmly lit, soft lights on the ceiling blending with sunlight that shone through very faintly colored stained glass depicting some sort of a fairy tale I could not recognize. It seemed to tell a story of an ancient hero.
There was a clean and playful scent in the air, heartwarming sounds of children's laughter and giggles floated and filled the space.
The daycare center was located in a separate wing of the Roen Tower, reserved for employees with young children. There were many places in Roen Tower I hadn't set foot in and I wasn't sure if I wanted to explore them all, but this one was somewhere I didn't mind visiting.
I was nervous before the visit. I liked children. I liked watching them play. I liked their sound. Interacting them was a different story though.
"What if they cry?" I had asked earlier in the morning, half-joking, half-terrified.
Luc had only tilted her head slightly. "Then they will have something in common with you."
Now, standing in the center of a playroom with foam mats and plush toys scattered across the floor like artifacts of joy, I felt even more nervous than I had been at the Ceremony Hall.
At first, a tiny girl with pigtails ran up to me and handed me a block painted to look like a slice of watermelon. "This is for you," she declared, then turned and ran away, giggling. Then a boy no older than five came around and stood in front of me, very close. He looked up at me, his eyes studying my face carefully. I met his eyes and tried to smile, but it only came out awkwardly. He didn't say anything and just kept the eye contact, and then suddenly broke into smile and ran back to his friends.
A group of children approached me after that. Two boys and two girls. One of them suddenly shouted, "Catch me!" The children then scattered, each of them running in a different direction. I wanted to play together but I didn't know who to run after, until three more children joined and started to circle me, all of them asking me to catch them too.
'I suppose I could catch one of them at least," I finally built up the courage and started to run toward a girl that was closest to me. I almost caught her - multiple times. But these kids were like cats. They would just stand and wait for me to get closer, only to spring away to an unexpected direction and start running again.
It was fun. I hadn't really played with other kids like this when I was their age. I spent most of my time sitting in the sandbox. I was always concerned about someone coming and destroying what I was building, to the extent that very often, I didn't want to build something too nice because I knew I would be devastated if it was stomped into oblivion on the naughty whim of another child, who'd laugh, turn, and run off. It had happened more than once, leading me to only build things that I can rebuild again easily.
As I stopped chasing the little kids around for a moment to catch my breath, I noticed a girl seated at a corner, hunched over her desk.
Something about her pulled me in. After promising the other children that I will get back to them and we will play again, I walked across the play room.
The little girl was drawing on a sketchbook. She was drawing some sort of a fish. It had a very cute face.
"What are you drawing?"
"A seal," she answered without looking at me.
"Huh, I thought it was a fish," I instantly regretted.
"That's what everyone thinks," she said, unbothered.
"Do you like sea animals?"
"Very much."
"That's great. They are really special, aren't they?"
Then the girl stopped drawing, looked up from her sketchbook, and asked, blinking.
"Did you know that sharks have over thirty thousand teeth in their lifetime? ?"
"Oh, wow. I didn't know that."
"And they have been around even before the dinosaurs."
"I didn't know that either."
"This is a picture I drew."
She then flipped a few pages, and showed me a creature that looked like a seal but with just a lot of teeth.
"That's really impressive!"
"They are really cute, right?"
"Yes, and with a lot of teeth."
"Yes."
"And who is this? Isn't it dangerous to be so close to the shark?" I pointed at a woman and a girl standing next to the fearsome creature.
"That's me and my Mommy. And it's OK because this is an aquarium and there is a glass between us."
"Oh, is that so? I didn't see the glass."
The girl looked at me with the face that said 'Are you stupid?'
"It's glass. Of course you can't see it," she taught me.
"I'm sorry."
"You are funny."
After that, the girl flipped through her sketchbook some more and showed me even more sea creatures she'd drawn. I tried to guess what they were each time, and every time I was wrong.
"You really like sea animals, don't you?"
"Yeah."
"What is your name?"
"Bada."
"Oh, Bada-, meaning the sea?"
"Yeah."
"What a pretty name! It suits you well, too."
"Mommy said she named me Bada because I was conceived during a cruise trip."
I had to suppress my laughter.
"I really want to go to aquarium," the girl continued. Surprisingly conversational now.
"I'm sure you'd love it."
"Sigh… but I've never been to aquarium. Not even once."
"Oh? Why not?"
"Because Mommy is always so busy."
"I can take you there then."
I shocked myself by saying this. It just came out of my mouth without any deliberation.
"Really?!" Bada instantly jumped up from her seat, her hands in front of her chest in prayer pose, her eyes exploding with excitement.
Not knowing what to do, I turned to find Luc, and as she always does, she was standing right behind me - did she hear the whole conversation?
Both the girl and I looked up at Luc like two children asking for permission. Luc looked down at us with a very, very faint hint of a frown. .
"Please…?" we asked Luc for her approval.
But then, suddenly we were swarmed by all the other children from the daycare. Somehow, someone overheard us, and now they were all jumping up and down in excitement, cheering and chanting 'Aquarium!'
"Um… Luc…?"
She closed her eyes and placed her palm on her forehead. I don't think I'd seen Luc so agitated before.
"I don't think this is a good idea, Miss Roen."
That deflated everyone, earning a collective sigh.
"Please, Luc. Look at these children. They really want to go. Surely we could arrange that?"
After rubbing her temples for a few seconds and seemingly grinding her teeth, she finally spoke.
"Fine. Take Cain and Abe with you."
The children erupted in joy, jumping up and down, flailing their arms in the air.
"You are not coming?" I asked her.
"Fishes don't like me."
That was possibly the weirdest thing I heard from her yet.