Episode 10. Object of Admiration (1)
Not long after the first birthday party of Kang Yebin, Kang Dae-oh and Min Seung-yeon’s second daughter, ended.
The day Kang Yera went to kindergarten for the first time had arrived.
“Yera! Are you all ready?”
In response to her mom’s question, Kang Yera showed her kindergarten bag that she was carrying and replied with an excited voice.
“Yes! All we have to do is leave now. Are you taking me, Mom?”
“No. Mom can’t go because I have to clean up Yebin’s poop and feed her. Dad will take our Yera to kindergarten on his way to work. Right, Yera’s dad?”
Perhaps it was thanks to the heavy drinking session he had with his friends last night.
As a result, Kang Dae-oh still had a headache.
But he couldn’t not go to work.
Even if it was just to earn money for his cute daughters’ formula and diapers, Kang Dae-oh forced himself out of bed and hurried to get ready to leave.
Min Seung-yeon glared at Kang Dae-oh and asked.
“Are you going out without washing up?”
“I was thinking I could just wash up at the cafe……”
“Today is the first day you’re meeting the principal and teachers at the kindergarten Yera will attend. And you’re going to go looking like that?”
“……”
First impressions are important in whatever you do.
He couldn’t give the impression that Kang Yera’s dad was messy, so Kang Dae-oh walked to the bathroom without a word.
After quickly washing up, he came out with Kang Yera, who was waiting.
The distance between the kindergarten and their home wasn’t so far that they had to drive, but since he was also going to work, Kang Dae-oh immediately started the car.
Kang Yera took her seat next to him.
Kang Dae-oh personally fastened Kang Yera’s seatbelt.
“Thank you, Dad.”
“You’re welcome. It’s your first day. Aren’t you nervous?”
“Not at all.”
“Right. Of course not.”
For Kang Yera, who had made a living by singing and dancing in front of strangers, being nervous just for going to kindergarten was nonsense.
He had newly entered the address of the kindergarten Kang Yera would attend into the navigation system.
Since it was a place they would be going back and forth to for the next few years, he didn’t forget to add it to his favorites.
“Then, let’s go.”
“Okay.”
Kang Dae-oh skillfully turned the steering wheel.
On the way to kindergarten, Kang Yera asked her dad.
“But Dad. Is it better to keep us a secret from Mom?”
“Probably? As you know, your mom isn’t the strongest mentally. And if something outside her common sense happens right in front of her, she’ll panic. There’s that. And also……”
In fact, there was one thing Kang Dae-oh was most worried about.
“If she finds out you came from the future, I worry if she’ll be able to raise you like normal.”
Because even though they look like young children, they are adults inside.
Min Seung-yeon would be very confused about how to raise the children.
It was clear that this confusion would act as another source of stress for Min Seung-yeon.
This was the biggest reason Kang Dae-oh continued to insist on keeping it a secret from Min Seung-yeon.
“And anyway, if something big is going to happen, you can just tell me. It’s one thing when you were infants, but now you can walk and talk yourselves, so there’s no problem telling your dad directly, is there?”
“That’s true. But are you okay, Dad?”
“Me?”
“Yes. You said earlier that the confusion caused by us could become another source of stress. So I was wondering how you’d be.”
Kang Dae-oh, who had stopped the car temporarily for a traffic light, smiled faintly.
“Do you know what Dad’s hobby is?”
“Isn’t it making coffee? That’s why you run a cafe.”
“Besides that. Actually, I have one more hobby.”
Kang Dae-oh took out his smartphone and showed her the main homepage of a certain platform.
It was a web novel serialization platform.
“I sometimes read web novels whenever I think of it. So I’m familiar with reincarnation, regression, and possession.”
Although he never thought it would actually happen to his own daughters.
Still, compared to Min Seung-yeon, he was able to accept this abnormal situation more flexibly.
Kang Yera spoke with a slightly shocked expression.
“I didn’t know. That Dad reads web novels.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Even though I lived with Dad, there’s a lot I don’t know about him.”
Kang Dae-oh gave a wry smile.
“It’s the same for me when it comes to you two. But don’t worry too much. You can get to know me slowly from now on. Right?”
Kang Yera nodded her small head.
The car, which had stopped for a moment, started moving again.
Upon arriving at the kindergarten, teachers came out to greet the children.
“Hello. I’m Kang Yera’s dad.”
“Oh my! Yera is here! She’s even prettier in person, isn’t she?”
Kang Dae-oh knew very well why the kindergarten teacher was talking about Kang Yera in person.
Previously, when more than 20 children collectively burst into tears at the pediatrician’s office, Kang Yera had personally sung children’s songs and performed actions to soothe them.
The video from that time was uploaded to YouTube and became a big hit, reaching 700,000 views.
Perhaps that’s why.
Not only the kindergarten teacher but also some parents of other children seemed to recognize who Kang Yera was.
“She’s that child who sang at the hospital, right?”
“Oh my, that’s right, it is!”
“How can she be so cute and pretty?”
“I heard she used to be a diaper model too.”
Whispers could be heard from all over.
Amidst the outpouring of people’s attention, Kang Yera gave an awkward smile.
Meanwhile, Kang Dae-oh felt quite good, perhaps because his daughter was being praised as pretty by people.
“Our daughter, shouldn’t she debut on YouTube?”
Just then, the kindergarten teacher clapped her hands once and spoke.
As if she had been waiting for Kang Dae-oh to say this.
“Actually, our kindergarten runs its own YouTube channel. We edit and upload videos of the babies. If there’s an opportunity, could Yera also have a video uploaded like that?”
“If Yera says it’s okay.”
Children are not their parents’ property.
Whatever he decided to pursue, Kang Dae-oh always wanted to ask for his daughters’ opinions and make decisions.
This was Kang Dae-oh’s parenting philosophy.
“Then, with the teachers and your friends. Have fun and come back. Okay?”
“Yes, Dad.”
Kang Yera faithfully answered Kang Dae-oh’s words.
At her sharp and clear demeanor, the kindergarten teacher looked at Kang Yera with eyes full of wonder.
Most of the children who, like Kang Yera, would start kindergarten today were clinging to their moms and dads who were leaving them, crying loudly.
However, Kang Yera was calmly saying goodbye to her dad. From the teacher’s perspective, it would naturally be surprising.
Kang Dae-oh, who had first dropped Kang Yera off at kindergarten, got back into his car to go to work at the cafe afterward.
‘Yera will do well at anything. I’m not worried about her……’
A wry smile appeared on Kang Dae-oh’s face as he changed the navigation’s destination from the kindergarten to the cafe.
‘I’m the problem.’
The time had come for the dad to do well, more so than his daughter.
On the day it had been a week since Kang Yera started attending kindergarten.
Kang Dae-oh, who had now become accustomed to taking his eldest daughter to kindergarten as part of his daily routine, opened the cafe at the usual time today without change.
Although there was a slight change in the cafe’s opening hours due to the kindergarten drop-off, it wasn’t enough to significantly affect sales.
This was because there was only one customer who rushed to Kang Dae-oh’s cafe as soon as they woke up.
It was the owner of the laundry shop located right across the street.
“Since Kang-sajang’s cafe opening time got later, from some point on, waiting at the laundry shop, wondering ‘When will Kang-sajang arrive?’, became my daily routine.”
“I’m sorry, sajang-nim.”
“No, there’s nothing to be sorry about. Anyway, I just spend my time doing laundry here. While I’m organizing customers’ laundry, before I know it, Kang-sajang starts operating the cafe. Then I just come over here at that time.”
To that extent, the laundry shop owner couldn’t give up the coffee Kang Dae-oh provided.
It was also the closest cafe in terms of distance.
And Kang Dae-oh’s coffee-making skills were considerable.
In fact, the laundry shop owner even wondered why Kang Dae-oh’s cafe hadn’t achieved great success yet.
Thanks to the laundry shop owner, who always spoke highly of him, Kang Dae-oh’s self-esteem was able to rise another notch today.
“I should offer sajang-nim a service today. Do you like sweets, by any chance? I’ll pack some matcha cookies for you too. They’re good with americano.”
There’s probably no one who dislikes free service.
The laundry shop owner praised Kang Dae-oh’s knack for knowing exactly how to make regulars.
Kang Dae-oh stood up to prepare the drinks.
It was then.
Kang Yera’s singing voice flowed from his smartphone, which he had left unattended for a moment.
“Kang-sajang. That video, isn’t it the one that’s online?”
“Yes, that’s right. I had paused it while watching for a bit, but it seems to have unpaused.”
His daughter looked so cute in it that it became one of his treasured videos he watched whenever he was tired or stressed from work.
Kang Dae-oh personally left a comment on this YouTube video.
Hello. I am the father of the child in the video. I would be grateful if you could look kindly upon our daughter. Something like that.
The person who uploaded the YouTube video pinned Kang Dae-oh’s comment so that it would be clearly visible to people.
Thanks to this, Kang Dae-oh’s comment received thousands of likes, and many replies expressing envy for having such a cute daughter were being posted.
Today, too, there was a new reply to Kang Dae-oh’s comment.
Kang Dae-oh, who had pressed the pause button, stopped what he was doing for a moment and checked the most recent reply.
For a moment, Kang Dae-oh doubted his eyes.
“……Huh?”
“Kang-sajang. Why? Was there a bad comment?”
The laundry shop owner asked, showing concern.
One of the downsides of the internet is anonymity.
This makes it too easy to post malicious comments.
The laundry shop owner wondered if Kang Dae-oh was reacting that way because of a malicious comment.
Fortunately, that wasn’t it.
Instead, the reply contained surprising content in a different sense.
“A proposal came for Yera to…… sing an anime theme song.”
“What? R-really?”
The laundry shop owner was also greatly surprised.
Among children’s anime theme songs that kids watch, it’s common for children of a similar age to sing the title song.
There were many songs like this in the cartoons Kang Dae-oh watched when he was young.
However, Kang Dae-oh had one concern.
It was because he wondered if this offer was real or not.
There was no way to confirm if the person who introduced themselves as a music producer belonging to a certain company was real.
‘No, wait. I can confirm it.’
He could ask Kang Yera right away, but she was busy making new friends at kindergarten.
In that case.
“Hello. Are you home right now?”
Kang Dae-oh called Min Seung-yeon.
If there was no way to confirm with Kang Yera directly.
There was another alternative.
“Excuse me, could you put Yebin on the phone? Right now.”
He could ask the other regressor.
