Chapter 20 My Daughter Can't Lie

My Daughter Can’t Lie

Satsuki is acting strange.

“Dad, you see….”

It’s June.

The rainy season has started, and it’s been raining a lot lately.

Satsuki turned 17 on May 5th, and her everyday life has not changed much.

But today, she was acting a little strange.

“Absolutely… Never, don’t look at the trash can today, okay?”

“…why?”

I tilted my head at the unusual request.

It was all the more strange because I’d never consciously looked at a trash can before.

The fact that she went out of her way to give me a verbal warning made me suspicious.

“No, if it’s no, then it’s no.”

Satsuki didn’t give me a reason, but her eyes moved and her body swayed restlessly.

Satsuki is bad at lying.

Maybe it’s because she was raised to be honest. I don’t know how she is in front of other people, but especially in front of me, she doesn’t seem to be able to lie.

She does what she wants in front of me.

She does what she wants to do, only what feels good, and moves according to her emotions.

I guess that’s why she can’t lie.

“What are you hiding?”

“I’m, I’m not hiding anything!”

Satsuki is obviously shaken.

Her attitude made it obvious that she had a secret.

“I wonder if that’s true~? Satsuki has a habit of flaring her nostrils when she lies~”

Let’s try it.

Satsuki doesn’t have such a habit, but I decided to tease her a little.

“What?!”

Then Satsuki immediately held her nose, which was funny.

“Ah, I have a habit like that!? It’s not cute!”

“… Haha. I’m kidding. But you’re so panicked, it’s even more suspicious~”

Satsuki’s cheeks puffed up as she laughed.

“Dad, you can’t lie to me!”

“Sorry, sorry. But can you say what you just said to yourself?”

“Grrr… Dad’s so mean! But I love this part too!”

She casually confessed to me, but I’ll let it go.

The reason she seems so panicked is because she must be hiding something.

But it’s not like I really want to know.

“Well, okay. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t think you need to, but if you need help, just let me know.”

People have many secrets in life after all.

It’s the same with me not being able to tell Satsuki that she’s a stepdaughter.

Satsuki is also a girl. She’s already 17 and about to grow up.

There must be things she doesn’t want to tell me. I thought she shouldn’t have to force herself to say them.

“Daddy, you’re so sweet… How wonderful. I love you even more now.”

“Only in moderation.”

I’m getting better at ignoring confessions.

When you’re told every day that she likes you, it’s only natural that you get better at avoiding her confessions.

So here’s what I’m going to do.

I’m not going to ask her about her secret.

“In that case, I won’t tell you. Phew… I wasn’t sure I could hide it if Dad asked, so that’s good!”

“Is that so?”

“Yes! I was about to mention the class observation without thinking!”

It seems that Satsuki is too bad at lying.

“… You say it, Satsuki.”

“Aah!”

She screamed after she said it.

Apparently, she was trying to hide the “class observation”.

“Hmm, I see.”

I didn’t want to force her to know the secret.

But if I knew, I couldn’t just ignore it.

“So you threw the printout of the class observation in the trash? Does that mean you really didn’t want anyone to see it?”

“Ugh, ugh… nyaaaaah!”

Satsuki shouts. She jumped at me to stop me, but her weight was so light that I easily blocked her.

Then I went over to the trash can and took out a carefully folded print from inside.

“Nooooooo!!”

As expected, it said "class observation".

“You’re not coming, are you? Dad, you’re not coming to see me, are you?”

…The answer, of course, was, 

“No. I’ll be there. I’m definitely going.”

There is no reason not to go to her class observation.

I had been wondering for a while how Satsuki was doing in school.

That’s why I wanted to go to Satsuki’s school.