[Disownment Guidebook] #WeeklyShortShortNote

My father handed me a thick book. "Read this."

The title was "Disownment Guidebook: 100 Tips for Cutting Ties Amicably." I had nothing but a bad feeling about this.

As I flipped through the pages, I found strangely specific chapters like "Chapter 1: The Basics of Offending Your Parents," "Chapter 2: A Collection of Decisive Remarks," and "Chapter 3: Examples of Moving Speeches for Severing Ties."

"Why do you have something like this?"

"Better safe than sorry."

My father replied with a straight face.

Reading on in half-despair, I saw items that felt disturbingly familiar, such as "Case Study: When Your Son Suddenly Aims to Become a Musician" and "Success Story: Successfully Betraying Your Parents' Expectations."

"Isn't this... based on me?"

"It's just your imagination."

No, it definitely is.

The last page read as follows:

"Final Confirmation Checklist: □ Quit your job without telling your parents □ Started talking about some vague dream □ Reading this book"
All of them were checked.
When I looked up, my father held out a pen.
"Just one more thing left."

"What?"

My father said quietly,

"The signature line."

At the bottom of the page, it said, "Signature: Hereby officially disowned."

I couldn't help but laugh.

"Isn't the parent supposed to write this?"

"It's about efficiency."

I see, I guess it's self-service these days.

I took the pen, thought for a moment, and wrote this:

"Pending"

For the first time, my father looked just a little bit frustrated.

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I participated in Tahara Kani-san's project, "#WeeklyShortShortNote"!