Episode 42. Twenties (1)
Kang Dae-oh, who got into his car to go to work, shivered as soon as he sat on the car seat filled with cold air.
“Ugh, it’s so cold.”
He turned on the seat warmers to the maximum, but it seemed like it would take some time for the seats to regain warmth.
‘Should I have parked the car outside?’
It would have been better if he had started the engine beforehand and then gotten in.
Since idling was prohibited in the underground parking lot, he had no choice but to endure the cold with his entire body.
‘Well… this will be over soon.’
The very next week, a big event was scheduled for Kang Dae-oh’s family.
They decided to move out of the apartment they had lived in for a long time and into a detached house.
Once they moved there, there would be a private parking lot. He wouldn’t have to worry about what others thought and could start the engine freely above ground.
Kang Dae-oh, who had driven out of the underground parking lot, looked at the now familiar apartment scenery and thought to himself.
‘We really have lived here for a long time.’
Thanks to his daughters’ help, Kang Dae-oh and his family were able to leave their old villa and start a new life in an apartment.
Two months ago, realizing it was time to move to a new home, they began looking for a place to move to.
What they thought would be a long search ended earlier than expected.
This was because the daughters had a clear idea of where they wanted to move.
A penthouse complex located in the heart of Seoul.
It was literally a luxurious house that wealthy people would live in, with a spacious yard like something out of a drama and a terrace on the second floor.
Kang Dae-oh, Min Seung-yeon, and their daughters decided to pool their money little by little to establish a new home here.
Upon hearing that a good property had become available, they immediately put down a deposit without needing to examine the house in detail.
Kang Dae-oh asked his daughters, just in case, ‘Is this okay?’
The answer he received was ‘Yes’.
They said it had a good location along the Han River, and demand was steady, to the extent that wealthy people sometimes bought it for investment purposes.
So, Kang Dae-oh, without hesitation, completed the signing with Min Seung-yeon under joint ownership.
Although they would be living in a completely different area from where they used to live.
Nevertheless, Kang Dae-oh didn’t feel particularly worried.
Because his wife and daughters were with him.
Just then, a DJ on the radio was reading a listener’s story.
“-Listener 2812. You sent in that your daughter is getting married this year, and your mother’s heart feels heavy… Oh my. How could it be easy to send a beloved daughter, raised with such care, to another man? That’s just how a parent’s heart is. I understand it well.”
Not only the DJ, but Kang Dae-oh also seemed to understand that sense of regret.
‘Come to think of it… Yera will be entering university next year.’
It was early November. High school seniors were facing the huge hurdle of the Suneung (CSAT).
Kang Yera also undoubtedly held the title of a test-taker, but…
‘She wasn’t really studying.’
Kang Dae-oh let out a chuckle.
In fact, Kang Dae-oh didn’t really care much about Kang Yera’s academics.
However, Min Seung-yeon was different.
Perhaps because her younger sister, Kang Yebin, consistently ranked within the top 5 in the entire school despite being busy, Min Seung-yeon tended to nag Kang Yera, saying, ‘You need to act like an unnie!’
Whenever that happened, Kang Yera would cover her ears and quickly run away.
‘After Suneung, will I be able to escape Mom’s nagging a little?’
He was secretly curious about how it would turn out.
Only 5 days remained until the Suneung.
Just then, a program that mainly covered entertainment news was having a Suneung special, introducing for fun which famous celebrities were taking the Suneung this year.
Kang Yera, one of them, appeared on screen.
Kang Yeyoung pointed at the TV screen and said.
“Oh, unnie is on.”
“Where?”
Kang Yera showed interest, thinking she was on TV because of news about her album.
But the moment she saw the words ‘Suneung Idol’.
Wrinkles appeared on Kang Yera’s beautiful forehead.
“They don’t have to introduce things like that one by one.”
“Why? Suneung Idol-nim.”
“Don’t put such strange modifiers on me. Just hearing it makes me feel like I’ll have a seizure.”
Kang Yera, then as now, had not changed her dislike for studying.
Kang Yebin glared at her unnie and asked.
“You’re studying well, right?”
“Hearing about studying from Mom is enough, so you don’t have to do it too. Don’t you feel sorry for this unnie?”
“This is all for your own good, unnie.”
“Wow. You sound like a 꼰대 (kkon-dae).”
“What? Want more nagging?”
Kang Yera’s shoulders visibly flinched.
Kang Dae-oh swallowed a laugh to himself, watching his daughters having a sisterly talk in the living room of their newly moved house.
Thanks to the house being much larger than their previous one, the family’s chatter felt like it was echoing from everywhere, as if listening in a concert hall.
‘It might also be because the furniture hasn’t been fully moved in yet.’
Even though they brought all the furniture from their previous house without discarding anything, it wasn’t enough to fill this new house.
Because of this, Kang Dae-oh had made plans to go with Min Seung-yeon this weekend to buy additional necessary appliances.
With talk of studying, Min Seung-yeon wouldn’t stay quiet.
“Kang Yera. The Suneung is next week. When are you going to study?”
“I-I’ll do it later!”
“When is ‘later’? Yesterday, you told Mom you’d study in the evening before sleeping. Do you think Mom wouldn’t know that you chatted on the phone with your friends until you fell asleep?”
“H-How did you know that…?”
“Mom knows everything.”
A mother knows most things about her children.
As Kang Yera made a disgusted face, Kang Yeyoung giggled and said.
“Unnie. You said it was your dream to live with Mom before. Now that dream has come true, why do you dislike it?”
“The mom I wanted to live with was a mom who was endlessly kind to me, not a nagging mom.”
In the end, unable to resist Min Seung-yeon’s pressure, Kang Yera had no choice but to return to her room.
The detached house consisted of two floors in total. Kang Dae-oh and Min Seung-yeon were to use the first floor, and the three daughters were to use the second floor.
Kang Yera’s footsteps ascending the stairs to the second floor seemed unusually heavy.
Kang Dae-oh saw Kang Yera’s drooping shoulders and gave a wry smile.
“Honey. Don’t be too hard on Yera. Studying might just not be her aptitude.”
“Still, she needs to maintain a basic level of grades. I’m not asking Yera to be top of the class. I’m just telling her to be average.”
In fact, from Kang Yera’s perspective, just maintaining average grades was doing very well.
However, since she disliked studying so much herself, Kang Dae-oh tried his best to defend Kang Yera, but he couldn’t break Min Seung-yeon’s stubbornness.
Finally, Suneung day arrived.
For Kang Yera, who was the first among his daughters to take the Suneung, Kang Dae-oh temporarily postponed going to work and started the car to drop her off.
About 5 minutes passed.
As the air inside the car warmed up.
Min Seung-yeon and Kang Yera were seen coming out of the house, arm in arm.
“Ugh, it’s cold!”
Kang Yera clung closer to her mom.
Min Seung-yeon gently stroked Kang Yera’s other arm with her hand, diligently transferring warmth to help her daughter feel less cold.
Although she had nagged her intensely about not studying.
Still, there was no one who loved and cherished Kang Yera as much as her mom.
Kang Dae-oh opened the back door, taking on the role of escorting his wife and daughter.
“Get in quickly. It’s cold.”
“Thank you, honey.”
After Kang Yera got in first, Min Seung-yeon got in next to her.
Kang Dae-oh, settled in the driver’s seat, displayed the pre-entered test site address on the navigation screen.
If they left now, it would take about 15 minutes to reach the test site.
“The traffic won’t be bad, right?”
Kang Dae-oh shook his head at Min Seung-yeon’s question.
“It won’t be busy at this time. And I heard on the news earlier that because it’s Suneung today, companies and public offices deliberately delayed their start times.”
If traffic congestion occurred, there was a very high possibility of many latecomers.
It was because of such concerns that these measures were deliberately taken.
Kang Dae-oh, holding the steering wheel, recalled old memories for a moment while dropping off his daughter.
“It reminds me of when I took the Suneung a long time ago.”
“What was it like when you took the test, Dad?”
“Well… the atmosphere itself was similar. Though the subjects and scoring were quite different.”
It had been over 20 years, so those memories naturally felt distant.
Still, the feeling he had when going to take the test back then was unforgettable.
“Did you study well, Dad?”
“Me? I was just about average.”
“Then I should aim to be like you, Dad.”
A small laugh escaped Kang Dae-oh’s lips.
“Don’t be too nervous. When you’re nervous, your mind goes blank, and even problems you usually solve well become difficult.”
Kang Dae-oh generously shared his own tips, just in case they might help his daughter.
Kang Yera nodded, saying she would keep her dad’s advice in mind.
As they talked, they had arrived at the test site without realizing it.
But.
The scenery at the test site was a bit unfamiliar.
Not only were there people who came to cheer, but also many reporters with cameras.
“Look, Kang Yera is here!”
“Where, where!”
“Yera-yang! Please look this way!”
It seemed the reporters already knew which test site Kang Yera would be taking the Suneung at, as they had formed a photo line early and were waiting for her.
Some of the reporters seemed to have spotted Kang Dae-oh and Min Seung-yeon and asked them for photos as well.
“Kang Representative-nim and Seung-yeon-ssi, could you stand together?”
“Us too?”
“Yes! Please!”
Min Seung-yeon showed embarrassment.
Then Kang Dae-oh whispered quietly to his wife.
“Let’s quickly take photos as the reporters want and leave. That way it’ll end faster.”
He was right.
In the end, Kang Dae-oh, Min Seung-yeon, and Kang Yera, who could be called the protagonist of the day, the three family members gathered and had a short photo session in front of the reporters.
Reporters asked Kang Yera about her determination for today’s Suneung.
Kang Yera said with a confident smile.
“I will aim for a perfect score!”
“Ooh…!”
Exclamations of admiration came from everywhere at the mention of a perfect score.
Min Seung-yeon asked Kang Yera with an incredulous expression.
“Can you really get a perfect score?”
“I can at least aim for it, can’t I?”
In other words.
She was just bluffing.
Instead of Min Seung-yeon, who was sighing, Kang Dae-oh gently massaged his daughter’s small shoulders with both hands.
“Go and do your best, daughter.”
“Okay!”
Although she had no hobby in studying.
Her confidence alone might be the best in the school… no, the best in the entire nation.
Kang Dae-oh thought that was enough.
