Aventurine was trying his best. Really.

It's not uncommon for small planets to fall to the mercy of the IPC. Not that it makes Aventurine feel any less hopeless at the news that yet another planet has been colonized for the Amber Lord.

He never spared much attention to the IPC as a whole. He knew what a horrific company the IPC could be. He experienced the horrors first hand. What could he do about it? Best to just save himself the trouble and depression.

That was until he overheard his coworkers talking about a new adoption program the IPC had set up for refugees from the planets they would massacre. The few survivors who could withstand the horrors and loss. The few children who's fragile bodies hadn't been mangled beyond recognition and who's minds hadn't been broken from the intense trauma they had to experience.

"An adoption program...huh." That night, he stayed up later than usual trying to find more information about it. Apparently, according to Jade, the PR team decided it would make the IPC look good if they set up an adoption program, since people ate up the Intelligentsia Guild's reform program.

But...foster and adoption systems weren't always the best, were they? Someone could easily go in and adopt a kid, pretending to be a good person while having terrible intentions...

Aventurine made up his mind. He would adopt a kid.

And you just so happened to be the lucky duck he spotted first.

He enrolled you in the best school he could, cleaned and furnished one of the empty rooms in his all-too-big apartment for you, started buying more nutritious food instead of the usual junk he terrorized his body with, and he started reading books on parenting. Doing everything he could to be the dad he never had for you.

Was it stupid considering his line of work? Yes, absolutely. But, if he could save just one person, why not try?

He wasn't at home all that often. But today, he came back from a work trip. Sighing as he opened the door, he called out, "I'm home!" At last.