The Newspapers Write About a White Horse Waiting at the Entrance to the Shopping Center

Hortensja wanted to know what had happened, but no one in the security office seemed eager to explain anything to her. She was seated in a chair. Kyo sat opposite, busy with some coloring book his mother had given him. The Pole tried to get his attention, but the parent glared at her, so she decided to stealthily send a message to Hikaru to come as soon as possible.

She tried to pick up on the conversation that the other adults: Kyo's mother, the security guard, and the store employee who had been sent to get the security guard when she asked for help, were having. With each passing minute, she was getting more and more nervous, afraid to call, not wanting to attract unnecessary attention. She just silently begged him to hurry up. The boy noticed that something was wrong, carefully got down from his seat, and approached Hortensja. The girl leaned down to him, and the child wanted to comfort her in his own way and patted her on the head.

It would have been quite a touching scene. If not for the fact that Kyo's mother took him as far away from Hortensja as possible and raised her voice, resuming the discussion, with difficulty holding her kicking son in her arms. The child who just did not understand what was happening. The girl only wanted to help, and she had the impression that she was being labeled the bad one, especially since many times the finger was pointed at her. She felt stifled when she did not even have the opportunity to defend herself or at least learn the accusations.

Hortensja analyzed every moment of her time in the mall, recalling all the stores she had visited. She was convinced that she had not acted suspiciously in any of them and had paid for her purchases everywhere. She looked again at the furious expression on Kyo's mother's face and realized that someone might have assumed that she wanted to hurt the child.

The Pole stood up to say something, but the security guard gave her a look, telling her not to try, and sat back down. The woman's voice, trying to convince him that the young girl had definitely wanted to kidnap her son, was exceptionally shrill. The guard wanted to take this matter seriously, but it would have been much easier for him if he didn't have a headache. He didn't care about her assumption that all women of other nationalities were bad because her husband had cheated on her with an English teacher, who he had met at a course they had sent him to from work. Prejudices were her problem, but now they were significantly affecting his work. The hysterical mother demanded that the police be called, and the disoriented girl be handcuffed, but she looked as if she would rather beat her. She wouldn't let him, the café employee, or her own child actually speak, and he only wanted to find out the truth before taking drastic steps.

Everyone's attention moved to the out-of-breath Hikaru, who appeared in the doorway. He didn't care what all the fuss was about. He just wanted to make sure that his beloved hadn't been hurt. Hortensja looked at him with hope in her eyes, which shone with tears gathering in them. The man quickly assessed that she hadn't suffered any physical injuries and sighed with relief. Kyo's mother reminded him of the presence of third parties with a loud snort.

“A damn seductress,” she drawled in an icy tone. “And a damn idiot who fell for it.”

The security guard decided not to comment out loud so that she would be careful with her words in front of her own child. Instead, he asked Hikaru to talk to the girl and tell the others her version of events.

"Horteni, tell me what happened?"

"I heard the child crying, so I found him and tried to calm him down somehow," the Polish woman began, clenching her hands on her knees. Hikaru took her hands, but he couldn't stop her from sobbing nervously. "I sang him a song and then took him to the café, because I wouldn't be able to talk to him normally. I thought about taking Kyo..." The boy's mother almost jumped on her for the mere fact that she knew her child's name. Hortensja swallowed hard and continued. "To take him to security. I suspected that maybe then they would call her over the loudspeakers. At the café they told me that one of them would go to get security and I should wait there. I bought the little one ice cream so he wouldn't start crying again, and we were looking out the window at his mother. Then everyone showed up and told me to come here. Do they think I did something wrong?" she asked in panic.

"I'll find out soon," Hikaru replied worriedly.

He told Hortensja's version and saw that the other men were nodding as if everything they had found out so far matched up. Only the woman and Kyo, who had been put down on the ground in the meantime but was still held tightly by his mother, reacted nervously.

“Lies!” She exclaimed before Hikaru had even said the last word. “That girl definitely wanted to kidnap my Kyo! You can never trust these foreign women! Everything they do is bring evil!”

“She just wanted to help a crying child!” Hortensja was surprised that her boyfriend could raise his voice but not spread a negative aura around himself.

“This is also indicated by, among other things, the monitoring,” the tired security guard announced. “I think you assumed wrongly from the beginning. You should apologize to her for the misunderstanding and thank her for reacting, and thanks to which your son was found quickly, and he didn't have to cry and stress for long.”

“You have got to be kidding me! I'll file a complaint against all of you right away, and you won't have to come to work tomorrow!” The woman was getting excited, as if she knew she had some secret ace up her sleeve that she could use. “You were just lucky that you managed to thwart her attempted kidnapping.”

Everyone had had enough. Hortensja still didn't know what was going on. She instinctively took Kyo on her lap, who hugged her leg, after he managed to break away from his mother, who was busy proving her point with her screams. The security guard and the café employee would rather do something else, and they could only pin their hopes on Hikaru, if he understood that even if they joined forces with this type of person, they wouldn't win.

He asked Hortensja to stand up, but Kyo didn't leave her side. The Japanese bowed, followed by the boy, and the girl understood that she was expected to do the same. However, she didn't miss the smile of victory that the woman didn't hide.

“I'm sorry I got lost,” the boy began. “Horteni just helped me.”

“I apologize on her behalf…” Hikaru felt disgusted with himself for not being able to defend Hortensja. “That her behavior led to this misunderstanding.”

“I want to hear it from her.”

“I'm sorry,” the girl said after giving in to the weight of the stares of everyone gathered, who just wanted to close this matter and not come back to it.

The woman didn't comment further. She had won, and that was enough for her. She took Kyo and left without a word. Hikaru thanked the security guard for his help and for not calling the police. He hoped that Hortensja would be relieved with the turn of events, but he was met with her cold gaze and lips pursed with anger. She also left the room silently.

“Hang in there, young man,” the security guard muttered. The café employee reluctantly agreed with him and patted Hikaru on the shoulder. “It will be hard to placate such an angry woman.”