Episode 58. Nightmare (3)
Even the next day, Kang Yera seemed perfectly fine, but a strange scene continued to unfold where Kang Yebin alone seemed to be worried.
However, she didn’t directly ask Kang Yera anything. Or say things like, ‘Unnie, is something bothering you?’ Kang Yebin didn’t step forward to try and solve Kang Yera’s problems.
Rather, what should I say?
She just kept showing signs of being conscious of Kang Yera.
From Kang Dae-oh’s perspective, it was a very unusual sight.
And for good reason.
‘Given the second child’s personality, she wouldn’t just go around being conscious of others like that.’
Even if the other person was her unnie. Kang Yebin tended to say what she wanted right away.
No, rather, because the other person was her unnie, she showed that tendency even more often.
If there was anyone she found most difficult, it might be their mother.
But that was just because their mother purely nagged a lot, like a mother should.
Anyway, as a result, Kang Yebin’s uncharacteristic behavior had been continuing for several days.
Today was no different.
After finishing their meal. Even when the family gathered in the living room after a long time, Kang Yebin’s consciousness of her unnie continued.
Had about 30 minutes passed like that?
Kang Yebin stood up first.
“I have a shoot tomorrow, so I’ll get going first.”
Since the shoot was scheduled for early in the morning, she had to start getting ready for bed.
Otherwise, she might be late for the set tomorrow.
The moment Kang Yebin left.
As if she had been waiting, Kang Yeyoung opened her mouth.
“Doesn’t our second unnie seem a bit strange?”
It was exactly what Kang Dae-oh wanted to say. He felt relieved inside that Kang Yeyoung had brought it up first.
“She’s been like that ever since she came back from that all-night shoot last time.”
“Dad, you noticed too?”
“Yeah. I was debating whether to tell you guys, but I’ve been observing for now……”
Kang Dae-oh had initially told Min Seung-yeon about this.
At the time, Min Seung-yeon had tried to dismiss it lightly, wondering if it was just unnecessary meddling.
But after Kang Yebin’s strange behavior continued for several days, she, too, slowly started to look worried.
While the three of them were talking like this.
There was only one person. Someone who hadn’t noticed Kang Yebin’s subtly changed attitude at all.
That was Kang Yera.
“Yebin looks strange?”
“Unnie, you didn’t know?”
When Kang Yeyoung asked Kang Yera with an incredulous expression, she nodded her head.
“Yeah. Not at all.”
“No. Why?”
“I just thought it was the usual thing, you know.”
“What’s that?”
“Yebin sometimes just seriously worries about trivial things on her own, you know. Or suddenly has a concern about acting. Being serious and grave is like Yebin’s basic passive ability. So I just thought it was that again this time.”
She did know it, to be exact, but she didn’t realize it was to the extent that the other family members would keep worrying about it.
Kang Yeyoung reacted with an incredulous expression at her eldest unnie’s words.
“Yebin unnie worrying like that, I think it’s because of unnie.”
“Me? Nah. No way.”
“It’s true. Ask Dad and Mom.”
Kang Yera’s gaze turned towards Kang Dae-oh and Min Seung-yeon.
“……Really?”
Both of them nodded their heads up and down simultaneously.
It was a bit funny that the person directly involved hadn’t noticed at all.
“Unnie. Did you perhaps do something wrong to Yebin unnie recently?”
“No, not at all. I don’t recall anything like that.”
“There might have been something you didn’t perceive as wrong, but it felt wrong to our second unnie. Yera unnie, you’re super insensitive to things like this.”
“What? What is she talking about? Where else would you find someone as delicate and quick-witted as me?”
“Among us, you were the only one who didn’t notice Yebin unnie’s strange behavior, did you forget that so quickly?”
“……”
Kang Yera was speechless at her youngest sister’s remark.
What on earth was causing Kang Yebin to act like that?
The family put their heads together many times to think, but.
No suitable answer emerged.
At that moment. Kang Dae-oh cautiously brought up a hypothesis that had suddenly occurred to him when he was talking with Vice Chairman Yoo In-seok last time.
“What if, you know.”
After much deliberation, Kang Dae-oh slowly opened his mouth.
“I’ve been thinking, could it be related to something that happened before you guys regressed to the past? Dad was thinking that.”
At that moment.
“……”
“……”
A heavy silence fell between Kang Yera and Kang Yeyoung.
Kang Dae-oh didn’t know much about their past.
But.
The sisters knew among themselves what had happened and how they had regressed to the past at a relatively young age.
Even if they didn’t know exactly, they probably had a vague idea.
Kang Dae-oh could tell just by their reactions.
Min Seung-yeon, seemingly having never heard of it either, directly asked her daughters.
“Now that you mention it, what caused you to regress? You said you’d tell Mom and Dad someday. But you still haven’t told us.”
“W-well, that is to say……”
Kang Yera looked greatly flustered.
Meanwhile. Kang Yeyoung glanced at Kang Yera’s expression.
Don’t ever tell, unnie.
It was as if her eyes were saying just that.
After momentarily sealing Kang Yera’s mouth, Kang Yeyoung changed the subject.
“Oh, right! Mom. You said you needed to pick something up from the convenience store earlier, right! Let’s go together. I’ll get to drive for the first time in a while too.”
“Huh? Now?”
“Yes! Dad. Mom and I will be back quickly, so could you please clean this up with unnie?”
Kang Dae-oh nodded his head widely and immediately replied that he understood.
While his youngest daughter and wife were away.
As requested by Kang Yeyoung, Kang Dae-oh began cleaning up with Kang Yera.
“Dad will do the dishes. You go upstairs and rest.”
“No, it’s okay. I’ll do it with you.”
Kang Yera, wearing the spare rubber gloves, stood shoulder to shoulder with Kang Dae-oh.
In their old house, the sink was so small that it was almost impossible for two people to stand side by side and do kitchen work like this.
Now that their house was spacious, whether it was two or three people, the ability to do kitchen work simultaneously had become a huge advantage.
Since they were doing it anyway, Kang Dae-oh decided to wash all the remaining traces of their dinner as well.
At first, he relied heavily on the dishwasher.
But after running it a few times, it didn’t seem to provide the desired cleaning power, so now he usually just washed dishes by hand.
When he did it with his daughter like this sometimes, it didn’t take long.
And because it naturally created an opportunity to spend time with his family, it wasn’t bad.
While it was true that the development of science and technology provided convenience to humans.
He sometimes wondered if it was gradually taking away the small joys that could be enjoyed in daily life.
Perhaps that’s why Kang Dae-oh tended to like anything that allowed him to share daily life with his daughters.
Clatter, clatter.
As only the sound of dishes clattering against each other echoed in the kitchen for a while.
Kang Dae-oh opened his mouth first.
“You seemed to have gotten a lot of side-eye from Yeyoung earlier.”
Kang Yera lightly shrugged her shoulders at her dad’s words and replied with an indifferent expression.
“It’s just daily life, you know.”
Kang Dae-oh reacted with a bitter smile at her words.
At first, the kids frequently fought with each other.
But as all three of them grew older, such instances had decreased significantly.
Although they already had the mental age of adults since childhood, their bodies were still those of children.
It seemed their physical age had somewhat influenced their mental age.
But now that their bodies were also full-fledged adults, it was very evident that all three of them had truly become adults.
Even when they said something, they didn’t blurt it out immediately but thought about it two or three times, which was one of these effects.
Of course, it wasn’t always like that.
Especially in Kang Yera’s case, she still occasionally blurted out words without filtering them in her mind.
Still, her behavior had never caused a major problem in the entertainment industry, so Kang Dae-oh didn’t intend to say much about it.
Suddenly, Kang Dae-oh wondered what Kang Yera was like before she regressed. He became curious.
“Even before you regressed, was the atmosphere always like this when you talked with your younger sisters?”
“Back then, well…… We didn’t really have many chances to meet each other. We lived separately to begin with.”
Kang Yera lived with her dad.
Kang Yebin and Kang Yeyoung lived with their mom.
And that was from when they were young.
Of course, they later met again as colleagues in the entertainment industry.
There was bound to be a big difference between seeing each other at work and seeing each other at home.
In the workplace, there were many eyes and ears of others around, directed at the sisters.
So, there were many times they couldn’t easily express what they truly wanted to say.
But this life was different.
Even now, the sisters lived in the same house.
So they could have more honest conversations than before.
However, they didn’t really have many opportunities to confide in Kang Dae-oh and Min Seung-yeon.
Because they were adults.
Since they were already full-grown adults in terms of mental age, they couldn’t easily confide their worries to their parents.
Kang Dae-oh was always concerned about this aspect of his daughters.
So, on this occasion, he decided to mention something to Kang Yera that could, in some ways, be an awkward question.
“Could you tell Dad what led you to regress? Can you slowly tell Dad?”
“……”
Kang Yera’s hands stopped for a moment.
In fact, Kang Dae-oh vaguely knew how Kang Yera had ended up regressing to the past. He knew very roughly.
The daughters also noticed that Kang Dae-oh vaguely knew.
So, as if being careful with each other, they intentionally avoided talking about it.
Fearing the atmosphere might become heavy for no reason.
But Kang Dae-oh had thought wrong about this.
“Dad thinks, you know. If there’s a painful wound that’s hard to talk about, that a comfortable and trustworthy presence with whom you can always bring up that story, is family.”
A presence with whom one can even reveal their own flaws.
The closest beings to oneself in the world.
Family.
So Kang Dae-oh thought.
That he hadn’t yet become a proper family to his daughters.
For this, Kang Dae-oh had made the request to Kang Yera first.
Whether to accept it or not was Kang Yera’s choice.
After a long period of contemplation.
Kang Yera finally opened her mouth.
“The reason I was able to regress was……”
She spoke with a weak expression, continuing with difficulty.
“Because I made a bad choice myself. The world was too hard for me to live in.”
