Toxic Parent Reincarnation ~ When I Doted on My Daughter Destined to Become the Final Boss, She Ended Up Liking Me an Abnormal Amount ~
Aldo was enjoying an elegant breakfast: toast and coffee. As he savored them, he muttered to himself,
“Another peaceful day, huh?”
But Iris shot him a pouty look in response.
“Dad! What’s so peaceful about this? Hey, look over there!”
Iris pointed toward Aldo’s room. Through the door, all that could be seen was a chaotic mess.
“Ah… well, it happens sometimes, Iris,” Aldo said sheepishly.
“It’s always like this!” Iris retorted.
Aldo was terrible at cleaning up. That hadn’t changed even before he lost his memories. Ever since Iris’s mother left, Aldo had taken to tossing empty liquor bottles wherever, leaving the house in complete disarray. Even after cutting back on drinking, it was still the same.
“But I was surprised that you could cook, Dad. You’ve always been bad at cleaning, but Mom was the only one who ever cooked. I’d never seen you do it,” Iris remarked.
“Hmm… I don’t really get it myself. Somehow, I just could,” Aldo replied.
In his past life before reincarnation, Aldo had been someone who could cook. Yet, for some reason, he couldn’t clean. Well, it wasn’t that he couldn’t—there was a reason he’d become bad at it in his previous life.
“Anyway, you’re cleaning up today, Dad. I’ll help you,” Iris insisted.
With a groan, Aldo reluctantly got up at Iris’s urging. They started with his room, where stuff was scattered all over the floor. Iris began tidying up, exasperated but determined.
“Dad, can I throw this out?”
It was a newspaper Aldo had been reading. The date was from quite a while ago.
“Uh… hmm…”
“Why are you hesitating? There’s no point in keeping old newspapers!”
“Well, yeah, but that specific issue won’t ever be published again, so it could be a keepsake, right?”
“No, it won’t,” Iris said flatly.
Without waiting for further objections, Iris tossed the newspaper out. Aldo put up a slight show of reluctance, but once it was gone, he felt oddly refreshed.
“Huh? Dad, what’s this?”
Iris picked up a diary. She flipped through a few pages, then silently closed it.
“I’m throwing this out,” she declared.
“Huh? Throwing it out? It’s a diary!” Aldo protested.
“…”
Aldo knew Iris wasn’t the type of kid to carelessly throw away someone else’s diary. If it had been his, she wouldn’t have discarded it so easily. And judging by her reaction, it wasn’t hers either. That meant the diary belonged to—
“Iris, are you sure it’s okay to throw it away?”
“Yeah, it’s fine. I don’t need it,” she replied firmly.
“Okay then…”
“Do you want to keep it, Dad?”
“Well, if you put it that way, I guess I kinda do…”
Aldo had a hard time letting go of things. Cleaning, organizing, tidying up—he had a strange aversion to those acts.
“Are you still hung up on Mom?”
Iris gripped the diary tightly. As Aldo had suspected, it belonged to her mother.
“Not really. I don’t have any lingering attachment or anything like that. I’ve got you, Iris, and honestly, I don’t even have any memories with my ex-wife. But… that diary is a memento. Once a keepsake is gone, you can’t get it back. Memories with someone who’s still around can be remade, but memories with someone who’s gone can’t ever grow again.”
Aldo spoke with a distant look in his eyes. The reason he struggled with cleaning stemmed from his past life, etched into his subconscious. After losing his wife and child in an accident, he’d been left with an “empty” home that he kept organizing. Every time he cleaned, he’d uncover memories that could never grow again, plunging him into sadness. Throwing them away might have made it easier, but in his past life, he couldn’t bring himself to do it.
That’s why he stopped cleaning altogether. He knew it would only hurt.
“My ex-wife and I are done. I don’t have any regrets. But it’s different for you, Iris. Even if you live apart, the fact that she gave birth to you doesn’t change, so—”
“No, I really don’t need it.”
Iris tossed the diary into the trash bag without a hint of hesitation. All that was there was her resolve.
“Because I’ve got you, Dad, someone who’ll make new memories with me. My memories with Mom might not grow anymore, but as long as I have memories with you… I don’t need that stuff.”
“I see…”
Truthfully, Aldo had been afraid of cleaning the house. There might still be traces of Iris’s mother’s memories lingering here. Throwing them away could sadden Iris. But her actions made it clear she had no intention of being bound by the past anymore.
“Iris, I’ll clean properly too… I won’t run from memories anymore.”
“Yeah.”
As they searched Aldo’s room, more keepsakes tied to Iris’s mother surfaced. Each time, they were discarded. And with every memory thrown away, Iris’s smile grew brighter. Aldo realized this was the right thing.
“Phew, Dad, the room’s finally clean! Don’t mess it up again, okay?”
“Yeah.”
“And clean up before it gets messy!”
“I get it, I get it.”
“But if it’s really too much, you can always rely on me, the cleaning pro!”
Iris put her hands on her hips and puffed out her chest proudly.
“Haha, you’re right. You’re way better at cleaning than I am, Iris. A real pro.”
“Hehe!”
In the end, Aldo’s past self couldn’t let go of things, leaving his heart cluttered and unable to move on from losing his wife and child. That unresolved pain had driven him to choose death in his previous life.
If he’d been able to sort through those memories, he might have moved forward and walked a different path.
The current Aldo didn’t remember any of that. But through his beloved Iris, he’d learned something vital about moving forward.
Parents don’t just teach their children—sometimes they learn from them too. Aldo etched that realization deep into his heart.
“Alright, since you helped me clean today, Iris, how about I treat you to some snacks as a reward?”
“Huh? Really? Yay! Thanks, Dad! Oh, wait, can I ask for one more thing?”
Iris looked up at him with a sheepish, pleading expression.
“Hm? Sure, why not.”
That night, Iris opened something Aldo had bought for her. She began writing in it with a pen.
‘Today, I cleaned Dad’s room.
While we were at it, we found Mom’s diary and all sorts of keepsakes from when she was gone.
I didn’t want to read the diary. I glanced at the first few pages, and it seemed like Mom wrote about caring for me back then.
But in the end, she’s the one who abandoned me. I don’t know what’s written later in the diary.
I didn’t have the courage to read it.
If I kept it, I might end up reading it out of curiosity someday. But the one who’d get hurt then would be the future me.
So I threw Mom’s diary away without hesitation. I know keeping other keepsakes would only make me sad too. So I threw them out.
But I’m okay. Because I’ve got my amazing Dad with me.’
“There, that should do it,” Iris said to herself.
She closed the diary and went to sleep.