“What’s that?” A voice rang behind me.

  Eiri leaned her head down onto the couch rest, her face right beside mine, peeking at the book I was reading. She breathed a rexed sigh, her breath smelling of her favorite strawberry fvored toothpaste.

  “Written by Ayashiro Hiteji, it’s a new release.” I said, pulling the book towards the right for her as I read through the next line in the book.

  In the dark cavern, the homeless woman grabbed Aohito’s hand, a warm feeling radiating inside of his palm.

  “It’s called ‘The Bronze Buddha.’” I crified.

  “Eeeh…” A sound in between confusion and curiosity escaped her, as she quickly gnced through the page I was reading. “So… what’s it about?”

  “How to expin…”

  I looked up at the ceiling, briefly thinking back on the story I’ve been reading the past few weeks on and off. I could not quite see the deeper point behind the story yet, so I decided on a more basic expnation.

  “It’s simir to one of those stories where a guy travels into the past or reincarnates inside one of those fantasy worlds to fix his life mistakes, that kind of story.”

  “And that, what’s that about?” She points at the bottom of the page, tapping at it until I finally look over. “Karma.. System?”

  “It gives different rewards if you perform tasks in an evil or righteous fashion.”

  Supposedly representing the belief in god, or by extension prayer, influencing reality. At least according to some reviewers online.

  I put my thumb on the corner of the page I’m at, before browsing back to an earlier chapter.

  In the introduction scene, the very few mission after the main character reincarnates 20 years prior in his life, he gets a simple task:

  Get a perfect score on a test.

  “As you see here,” I dragged my finger across the page, highlighting the lines depicting the moment of the test starting. “He chose to cheat. More out of curiosity than necessity, of course.”I then tapped on the lower right side of the page, onto the words that said impure completion, bolded and all.

  And so, for his efforts, he gains a pair of gsses that can see through anything, to be able to see whatever he desires on command.

  “Mhm…” Eiri nodded. “So… because he did something bad, he got something he can do bad things with?”

  “He considered it. Peeping, stalking, things his old self would have done.” I spoke, flipping a couple pages ahead. “And… right here, you see, he instead uses it to find his friend after he gets lost in the mountains.”

  As I finished my brief expnation, I flipped back to where I was reading before. Behind me, her shadow cast over me. Looking back at her, she’d stood up, putting her hands behind her back, before swiftly swaying over to the side of the couch.

  Without warning, she fell down on my stomach with her full weight, forcing a cough out of me.

  “Need me to scoot over?” I asked with a pained grunt, putting down my book on the table.

  Without answering, she rubbed her ass on my stomach to get comfortable, letting out a pleased sadistic snickering.

  “Am I getting too heavy?” She asked, despite damn well knowing she doesn’t weigh much at all for her age.

  “I’m getting too old.” I coughed out.

  She gently pced her hand on top of my thigh. “Poor thing, get better.”

  “Aging isn’t a disease, you know.”

  Instead of answering to my retort, she turned over, ying herself on top of me with our stomachs touching, and her thighs squeezing against the sides of mine.

  “Hug.” She demanded from me with that same pyful, yet demanding voice.

  I leaned up with a sigh, letting my hand rest on her back, our lips only inches apart so to where I could feel her breath stick to me again.

  “We shouldn’t, it’ll just make Riyu mad.”

  Like earlier this week, when I gave Eiri a piggyback home from the grocery store.

  “Hug!” She demanded, sounding a bit more upset.

  Knowing that she’ll only become uncontrolble if I don’t py along, I decided to give in for now.

  “There, you win.” I said, pcing my other arm around her, as she gleefully tightly wrapped her arms around my waist.

  For one reason or another the st few months she’s been stuck to me like a clingy cat, popping in every now and again to demand my attention for hours on end. I’ve been too soft on her because of how cute I found it at first.

  “Do you believe in it, dad… about karma?” She turned to ask, after a few silent moments between us, her expression shifting as she’d broken off into a deep thought.

  “Personally, I don’t think so, though I prefer if it did.”

  Those who do evil should get evil done onto them, it’s really only fair. Though when reading the news, reading through historical accounts, or listening to people’s stories, that sadly rarely happens in the end.

  “What if I just for once want to do something really, really bad?” She smirked at me, rubbing her finger against my chest. “Should I still be punished?”

  On occasion tely, she’d do these oddly suggestive gestures. I think it’s purely just to mess with me, but it still makes me somewhat uncomfortable having her breathing down my neck this closely, with her eyes staring with full concentration at me.

  This was definitely one of those trick questions she’d been pulling since around st april.While I considered how I should react, I heard a sudden smming near the door. Riyu, my wife, gred at the two of us as she walked in.

  “Eiri, what did we say about physical contact?” She asked with her arms crossed.

  “Dad doesn’t mind, right?”

  “It’s fi-” I tried replying, but was swiftly cut off by Riyu’s sharp voice.

  “Kato, don’t you dare.”

  Given the annoyance shown in her voice and on her face, she’s in a terrible mood today. Usually, that would be arming enough for Eiri to finally get off of me. But in an unusual act of defiance she stayed right on top of me, pushing her breasts further up against me..

  I lightly nudged her shoulder, hoping she’d get the message. But with a self satisfied smile, she turned to me.

  “It’s okay.” She quietly whispered to me, as she turned her gaze towards a fuming Riyu. “See, he doesn’t mind.”

  My wife’s icy gre had now redirected towards me, with good reason. I am really not helping with willingly ignoring Eiri’s odd behaviour, because in truth, I don’t mind it much at all.

  Riyu finds it more a matter of me being too weak to set boundaries, but Eiri gets upset with me if I refuse to py along, thus we end up in this three way impasse.

  Forced to bear the weight of her growing annoyance though, I relented, gently grabbing Eiri’s shoulder.

  “We can read and hang out again tonight.” I whispered. “Time to get up, come on.”

  She rolled over, slowly preparing to get up, before whispering her answer.

  “My room, locked door, got it?”

  “...Fine.” I sighed after brief consideration, as she finally pushed herself up off of me.

  Riyu turned to me as soon as I sat up on the couch.“Eiri has school soon, I’ve packed lunches for the both of you.”

  I gave Eiri a quick look, and with a nod, she ran off to her room to get dressed into her uniform.

  “She really takes after you.” Riyu scoffed at me. “Always being so endlessly stubborn. Haah…”“That’s what a parent has to deal with, don’t think other families have it much better.”“I’d assume the mother in most cases doesn’t have to take over the fatherly duties… like instilling some discipline and order into an unruly child.” She continued to nag at me.“I don’t want to be a hardass for no reason.”“Don’t give me that, you know damn well she’s out of line.” She scowled.

  At some point, there came a rift between Eiri and Riyu, with me being pced right in the center of the constant bickering. I’ve tried being reasonable to both sides, but it’s hard to always make a fair judgement when both parties constantly sour my mood.

  Lately, I’ve been doing extra overtime at my job just to get out of this mess. Today I’ll probably take on some extra work as well. Saves me from becoming an alcoholic at this rate.

  “Look, I’m sorry. I know you’ve been stressed out.” I try to pcate her.

  “Then try to at least make my life a little easier once in a while, please. I don’t know what’s been happening with Eiri but she’s become impossible to deal with without you around. At least… keep her in line a bit.”

  It was clear she wasn’t in the right headspace to deal with a rebellious teen. It all started a while ago when they got into their first big fight. Don’t even remember what it was about, but ever since they stopped seeing eye to eye.

  I wish I could tell her to be an adult, suck it up and reconcile. Tried asking Eiri that as well before. But any time I suggested the obvious it would be utterly vetoed.

  Yet I’m the one being called stubborn.

  As I sat in silent contemption, Eiri dashed out of her room. Riyu, who was still annoyed, refused to acknowledge her and focused her attention on washing dishes in the kitchen, likely to distract herself.

  “Well, time to go then.” I sighed, checking my watch. Have a good day, honey.”

  She awkwardly froze for a moment, before silently continuing her work.

  As I approached the front door, holding my daughter’s hand, I heard her speak up behind me though.

  Right behind me.

  “Hey… I love you, be safe.”

  Before I could turn around she pnted a kiss on my cheek, hugging me from behind.

  “..I will. I love you too.”

  As Eiri waved back, we stepped out the door.