Chapter 154: Ah, why would you say so, Daddy?
Olivia bounced on the big bed for a while, looking super excited.
"This bed is so bouncy." She yelled amidst her giggles.
Noah and Michael watched her from both sides of the bed just in case she bounced off the edge by accident.
The beds weren’t supposed to be this bouncy, but it seemed like this bed was a special case, and Olivia just happened to be the first to discover it.
And thanks to that, she was having the time of her life as if she were bouncing on a trampoline.
"Is this safe?" Michael asked Noah who was on the other side.
"As long as we’re here, I guess it’s fine." He said, his eyes following Olivia’s up and down movement.
"Hm, in that case, I guess it should be fine." Michael answered.
But at this rate, when would they get to bed?
Olivia was so full of energy and wanted to spend the night with her parents, as she had insisted on spending the first night with them.
There was no way Olivia would know what they had planned and had interrupted with her naivety and longing for her parents by her side, but still...
They couldn’t help but feel she was cooking up a scheme.
She was just like that.
Even Noah, who just got to know her, could feel that vibe from her.
There was no time in his life when he felt rebellious, so he could not relate. Even as a child, he was managed strictly and only followed instructions, but Olivia’s free spirit now reminded him of his time in the woods, living with wolves.
This free spirit... She had a lot of it and because of that, she felt she could do whatever she wanted.
Well, he wasn’t complaining.
He wanted his daughter to feel that way without any restraints.
She could feel like a princess and he would help make it happen. She was a princess, after all.
In this life, he would not let any sort of limitations bring down his daughter’s wishes and wants.
He would spoil her to bits... That was what he had been thinking this far, but seeing how Michael handled her, he came to realize that to spoil her to bits would need a lot of effort because one wrong move and he could cause her to suffer instead.
"Alright, that’s enough." Michael said, planning to catch Olivia but she evaded him. "Sweetheart, it’s time for bed. You can’t think of having it easy since you need to go to school tomorrow," he added but she bounced into her daddy’s arms and then gave him the puppy eyes.
"Daddy, Olivia wants to stay up for a little bit longer." She cooed innocently that Noah found it so hard to reject her offer.
He even wanted to convince Michael to just let her play a bit more, but Michael quickly took Olivia from him, but she was hard to take since she hung on to her daddy’s arms and didn’t let go.
"Olivia,"
"No, Daddy, save me." She screamed while laughing, and Michael sighed.
Even seeing how Noah wasn’t trying to help it looked like they were planning to give him a hard time.
"Okay, fine. You win." Michael said and let go of her. He felt exhausted. "I’ll go check on the others on how they’re doing. But by the time I get back," he gave her a peculiar look. "I won’t let you have what you want, young lady."
Olivia shivered and then turned to Noah.
"Papa can be so scary." She said and Noah laughed.
Yeah, it seemed that way.
He watched Michael’s back until he was gone and then he sat on the bed with Olivia in his arms.
"Did you want to say something to me, Olivia?" He asked, stroking her hair.
"Ah, why would you say so, Daddy?" She asked, looking rather mischievous.
"It looked natural that you would cling to me since I’ve got a very soft heart for your antics, and I would tolerate your stubbornness, but it also felt like you were waiting for Michael to leave so we could be alone." Noah explained.
It didn’t make sense though. Maybe he was reading too much meaning into his daughter’s action. She could’ve genuinely wanted to use him as a shield to avoid sleeping early but then again, since she was his daughter, he felt she was doing things with intentions.
Was he just being sensitive?
Well, there was no harm there, right?
Whether he was right or not didn’t matter.
He was holding his daughter, which was what mattered.
"Daddy is so smart." Olivia suddenly said, reaching out her small hands and wrapping them around his neck. "Papa never got it when I did things with intentions. Maybe he just doesn’t believe I’m capable since I’m so young, haha." She giggled and then Noah, though surprised at first, smiled.
Yeah, she was definitely his daughter in that sense.
"Then, what does my daughter want to talk about that she waited for her Papa to leave first?"
"Hm, I just wanted to say..." She looked towards the door and then whispered in Noah’s ears. "You have to treasure Papa a lot. Papa has been holding on this long because he has me but that’s not enough. I’m too small so the love I have to give is small. My small love did not help Papa as much as I wanted it to." She looked sad. "But if it’s Daddy," the sad frown on her face disappeared and she smiled brightly. "You’ll be able to give him a lot of love so he never looks sad again."
Noah was stunned by his daughter’s words. Yes, she was smart, but didn’t she need to know these words to actually be able to use them?
As young as she was, she was already speaking that way like some sort of young philosopher.
But more than that, it was astonishing how much she cared about her Papa and how observant she was.
It was astonishing.
He smiled and then kissed her cheek.
"Don’t worry, darling. I have enough love to share between you and your papa and it won’t ever run out. So, you can rely on me now." He hugged her to himself and Olivia nodded.
"Then I’m counting on you, Daddy."
Noah looked up at the ceiling, gently patting the back of his daughter in his arms.
He made them worry. Even his young daughter, that was barely five, had so much to worry about. She was already thinking so deeply about her family at such a young age.
Was this because he took too long? The only source of joy Michael had in these five years was the child in his arms and that child felt it.
She felt the kind of role she was playing in Michael’s life and knew what would happen if she didn’t grow up strong and healthy. She knew that but at some point, she began to feel she was not enough.
Born with a small body but a mind as big as the adults in her life, Olivia had taken the responsibility of putting a smile on her Papa’s lips.
But since she was very smart, she knew where her capabilities lay and what her limts were.
She could not cover up the hollow in her Papa’s heart. She could not dry all the tears. She could not raise her Papa’s fallen shoulders.
This was why her heart was always aching and she cried whenever she could. She could not contain the fragile emotions she had as a child, anyway. And she just so happened to have a lot of tears locked up somewhere, ready to burst at any given time, haha.
She missed her Daddy whom she did not fully know and had never met. But since her Papa was always talking about him, always describing the things he did as if he had visited the previous day and was out for work on this day, the way he smiled and cheered at the memories he recalled... Olivia felt like she had met her Daddy a thousand times over.
She felt like she knew him.
She felt as if he had never been apart from them and he had kissed her head good night several times. She felt as if he had dropped her off at school, waving at her to have fun at school.
She felt so familiar with him and when she watched his video on her Papa’s laptop, it was especially so.
She imagined going on a trip with her Daddy. She imagined they were a happy family. She imagined he was with them every single day.
So much imagination.
It was weird. She was a kid with a lot of weird and wild imaginations but those imaginations felt so real that she could not even act like she did not know her daddy.
At some point, she wanted to be mad at her daddy for not being there to wipe her tears or her Papa’s tears but she could not blame him when her Papa kept speaking about him that way and how he was fighting for their safety.
Michael said all this, not expecting young Olivia to understand since she was still a child but Olivia understood completely and it was because of that she was able to take up the responsibility of wiping her Papa’s tears to whatever extent she could while praying for her Daddy to finish his work and come to them already.
Despite all this, Olivia always smiled in front of her Papa.
"Daddy," she called in her sleep as she softly wheezed. "Papa misses you a lot."
Noah heard his daughter mutter and then kissed her forehead.
He could understand how much he made them wait. How much he had to make up for.
He would definitely make it up to them.
"Has she finally fallen asleep?" Michael asked as he walked in and Noah raised his head.
