16

What do I do now? I thought, holding the cell phone I had taken from my pocket. Actually, I should explain why a tech-averse individual like me ended up with a cell phone. I can’t claim that it was for any communication with friends, unfortunately. It was just a method of contact to make sure I didn’t miss any publishers in case one of my submitted novels got a positive evaluation. So, with my principles crumbling under the slightest of pressure, I got myself a piece of newer technology.

Anyway, that cell phone, which hadn’t yet been used to make calls to any friends or receive any calls from editorial departments, still had plenty of battery. I had only used it to call my apartment managers, so it should have had a few more hours left of calling… Granted, I can’t remember how long phone batteries lasted for continuous call times a decade ago, but even assuming they were weaker, it would at least do me better than those old one-use telephone cards that at best only gave you a few minutes with emergency services.

Back then, cell phones were probably pretty commonplace among university or high school students, but it wasn’t to the point where even elementary schoolers were getting one (it wasn’t even common for them to have personal alarms yet). For U, the world of communication devices likely didn’t extend outside of walkie-talkies or landline phones yet. She might not have even known what a cell phone was.

As long as I had that phone, my escape was all but guaranteed. I wasn’t sure of the house’s address, but I had seen the house nameplate, and I knew my kidnapper’s first name, so that would be enough to get the police to me relatively quickly. Being locked inside a closet that only locked from the outside would be proof enough that I hadn’t broken in while the household was away.

So what my plight really boiled down to was a child’s incapability to plan ahead. I had heard that even kidnappings planned by adults failed more often than not, so a kidnapping planned by an elementary schooler was a recipe for disaster. And I know, this entertainment novel isn’t developing like your average modern light novel plot.

U wasn’t some kind of beast, and she wasn’t a monster.

She was just a kid who was messed up in the head.

A dumb, pitiful kid, just like I used to be.

That was what scared me so much, and if she wasn’t corrected soon enough, then she would end up irreparably damaged in the near future. But she knew that, too, which is why she sunk as low as committing a crime to make up for that deficit… while remaining entirely unaware of how counterproductive that was.

Suddenly, I was struck with uncertainty. I had a near-absolute guarantee of safety, and since I could call the police for help whenever I wanted, unrelated thoughts began creeping through my mind.

Was calling the police really the best choice?

Was it the only choice?

I couldn’t stop the thoughts.

If I called the police, the girl might not be tried under the law, but she would definitely receive some form of punishment, and very severe punishment at that. She had done something very serious, so it would be treated as such. But I had to wonder if that would actually help her, or if it would only serve to warp her even more than she already was. I knew how a kid like her would be viewed in the public eye. I knew very well.

There was a very good chance that a girl who was not a monster could easily become one… In that case, she might have no choice but to become an author. Not unlike my aspirations to become an author at the time.

But if that’s how it is… maybe putting up with it, as in giving in and staying silent, would end up with a more peaceful resolution. I couldn’t shake the thought. It wasn’t that I wanted U to get away with it or anything. I wanted her to have to reflect on her actions.

But I figured maybe just telling about U to her parents and letting them take the role of her parents was the best way forward.

I might’ve been all slashed up by a knife, something that would never happen to an ordinary person living an ordinary life, but for an aspiring author, it could be taken as a valuable experience (I’m writing this, after all). Getting dragged off to the mountains or something was one thing, but it only came down to being invited into someone’s house, so if I tried hard, I mean really hard, stretching my imagination to the limits, I could just barely possibly write it off as a childish prank. People get hurt playing along with children all the time.

And all that thought was just for show.

That’s just me, making selfish and defensive calculations behind every thought and action, figuring how I can shape what I say to sound considerate towards the other party, like I just did there.

I couldn’t imagine the embarrassment of reporting to the police that I’d been kidnapped by an elementary schooler. I’d sound so pathetic asking for rescue from an elementary schooler, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to keep a straight face during the call without laughing at myself. But If I started laughing, they’d think it was a prank call, and let’s be honest, even if I kept it straight the whole time, they’d probably still assume it was a prank call.

Besides, the police knowing was one thing, but if the incident was publicized, I’d become the university student that got kidnapped by an elementary schooler. There might not be much news on it due to the culprit being an elementary schooler, but people would still find out one way or another.

Then what would follow? Hardly an ideal university life. Granted, the more I thought about it, the more obvious it became that even those circumstances wouldn’t be all that different from normal for me, but it would still be worse, somehow. It had to be. The last thing I ever wanted to do was stand out.

When the rubber hit the road, I couldn’t abide by my decision forever, but it was too early to call the game. The knife was no longer near me, so the emergency aspect of the situation had already abated.

There was a possibility that I could settle things peacefully, and that became my mission. Fortunately, the closet was located very close to the front door. Her parents would be able to find me right away if they came back, which had likely slipped the little girl’s mind as she racked her immature brain for a place to put me. I could call for help before the parents even began removing their shoes. Sure, they might get suspicious, but being locked in there at least helped my situation somewhat. It wasn’t like they would assume their daughter had captured and locked away a thug in the closet like we were in Home Alone or something.

But then I took the thought one step further. Why would U have locked me in a closet so close to the entrance? At first, I figured it was just due to the ease of access, but thinking a little deeper, it crossed my mind that she might have done so because she had been locked in the same closet before. Children who lack knowledge and experience will typically just repeat what’s been done to them in a “monkey see, monkey do” sort of fashion.

That presented a glimmer of hope. After all, locking a child in a closet is a stereotypical pattern of discipline. If it had been done to her before, then that meant this girl had parents that were up to the task of correcting her. If she had the kind of parents that were overly doting, especially to a strange child like her, things would’ve gotten even more difficult, but I had the slightest glimmer of hope that maybe things would work out after all.

They just had to.

I was so caught up in what I thought was hope that my carefree mind didn’t bother taking that thought just one step further. Sure, locking a child in a closet could be considered a typical pattern of discipline.

But the other side of that coin is that it’s also a very typical pattern of abuse.