Episode 14. Still, I Love My Daughters (1)
Min Seung-yeon opened her mouth with a serious expression.
“So… the kids are regressed from the future? Is that what you’re saying right now?”
“Uh, yeah.”
Kang Dae-oh knew very well that what he was saying was an absurd claim.
If he had said this without any evidence, his wife would have surely called him crazy.
However, because the third child had blurted out her identity so loudly, Min Seung-yeon had no choice but to believe Kang Dae-oh’s words.
“Since when did you know?”
“Yeyoung just found out, like you. Yera and Yebin have known for quite a while.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I was afraid you’d be as shocked as you are now.”
“……”
Kang Dae-oh knew very well that Min Seung-yeon’s mental strength wasn’t particularly strong.
That’s why he wanted to give her some time to adjust.
Because when you see a baby, not even one year old, talking and acting like an adult, you can’t help but feel a strong sense of unfamiliarity, no matter if it’s your own child.
This could easily lead to a distorted way of thinking about one’s children.
So, it was difficult to readily reveal the truth to his wife.
The ball that the youngest baby shot up was much bigger than expected.
“Even if Yeyoung is like that, how about Yera and Yebin…?”
She somewhat knew that her children were different from other children.
However, people tend to ignore things, even if they are true, unless they confirm them with their own eyes.
Kang Yera had a good idea to clearly let her mom know that they were regressed.
“Should we try solving high school exam problems? I think Mom would believe us then.”
Kang Yebin gave her unnie a bewildered look.
“Unnie, you were always last in school. Are there any problems you can solve?”
“I also officially completed the high school curriculum and graduated. At least ten problems…”
“Ten problems?”
“…Five problems?”
“Five problems? Then wanna bet with me?”
“…If it’s one or two problems…”
The hurdles were getting lower and lower.
Perhaps to comfort his eldest child, who always cowered when the topic of studying came up, Kang Dae-oh gently stroked his eldest daughter’s head with his large hand.
“It’s okay. Even if you’re not good at studying, as long as you grow up healthy, that’s enough.”
Kang Yebin brought up an uncomfortable truth from the future in response to her dad’s words.
“Dad. Before, when unnie’s report card came out, you said, ‘I don’t expect you to be 1st or 2nd in school, but wouldn’t it be good to at least be in the middle…?’”
“Oh, really? Why did I say that? Ahem!”
For the first time, he resented his future self.
Meanwhile. Min Seung-yeon’s confusion deepened as she watched her husband and daughters having a conversation she couldn’t possibly follow.
The image of her daughters she had seen until now had vanished without a trace.
Now, only the first and second daughters remained, displaying expressions and gestures she had never seen before.
Min Seung-yeon wasn’t bad at intuition, if nothing else.
Even without detailed further explanation from her husband, she had no choice but to admit that his words were true.
“……Alright. I’ll believe you.”
“Thank you, jagiya. And I’m sorry for telling you late.”
“No. You took on all these things by yourself, thinking of me. You must have been flustered too and had a lot to worry about. I’m more grateful, actually.”
Min Seung-yeon knew better than anyone that her husband hadn’t kept this a secret from her with malicious intent.
Their trust in each other was that deep.
The couple exchanged glances and smiled faintly.
At this moment.
Kang Yera said in a small voice.
“Shouldn’t we take Yeyoung and leave? Mom and Dad seem to need some hot time alone.”
As a bonus, Kang Yebin strongly jabbed her unnie’s side with her elbow! Thump!
At first, Min Seung-yeon was very flustered by her daughters’ identities.
Aren’t humans inherently adaptable creatures?
As time passed, Min Seung-yeon gradually showed signs of adapting to her daughters’ regression.
From the daughters’ perspective, there were convenient aspects thanks to their mom knowing their identities.
The most convenient thing was, of course.
“Mom! My sunbaenims are performing on a music show tonight, can I watch it?”
“You can watch it, but don’t watch it for too long.”
“Okay!”
It was the fact that they didn’t have to act like young children, 4 and 2 years old, in front of their mom.
Min Seung-yeon also knew that it wasn’t good to frequently show YouTube videos or TV programs to children at such a young age.
However, once she learned that her daughters were already grown adults, Min Seung-yeon decided to be lenient about this.
Above all, since the children’s dreams were to succeed as an idol and an actress, respectively, Min Seung-yeon decided to accept TV viewing as a form of early education.
The daughters, made comfortable by their mom’s changed attitude.
Kang Yera rolled around while lying down and looked at her mom’s back as she stood in the kitchen.
“If I had known this, I would’ve told Mom sooner.”
“What?”
Kang Yebin twitched one eyebrow and asked her unnie what she meant.
Then Kang Yera replied with an unconcerned expression.
“Well, it’s good because we don’t have to bother acting like kids; we can just talk to Mom directly, right?”
“Hmm. I don’t think it’s all good.”
“What do you mean?”
“Look over there.”
Min Seung-yeon, who was mixing formula for Kang Yeyoung, suddenly fell into deep thought.
“Wait. Is it okay to give Yeyoung formula? But they said she’s an adult on the inside. So maybe there’s no need to give her formula… But her body is still a baby, right? Still, since she’s an adult, she’d know that formula doesn’t taste good. How should I feed her? Should I start baby food already?”
In the two daughters’ ears, they began to hear the sound of their mom’s brain cells straining and eventually collapsing from exhaustion.
She showed a confused expression, muttering to herself about how to treat Kang Yeyoung.
“See?”
At Kang Yebin’s words, Kang Yera finally seemed to understand what her dongsaeng was worried about.
This was why Kang Dae-oh had deliberately kept it a secret from Min Seung-yeon.
From the perspective of the primary caregiver, it was inevitable to be confused about how to treat Kang Yeyoung, Kang Yebin, and Kang Yera.
Kang Yera had no choice but to step forward.
“Youngest.”
Kang Yera brought children’s educational materials with all the consonants and vowels written on them.
She unfolded it and asked:
“You’re going to drink formula, right?”
Kang Yeyoung was still at the stage where she couldn’t even babble.
Her grip strength was still too weak to hold a pencil or ballpoint pen, so she had adopted a method of combining consonants and vowels in this way to convey what she wanted to say.
Kang Yeyoung wiggled her small hands diligently and said to her unnie:
[Unnie, you fool]
“……”
Kang Yebin, who was watching this scene from behind, giggled.
At Kang Yebin’s scoff, Kang Yera flared up in anger.
“Ugh! You, don’t laugh! And Kang Yeyoung, you! How dare you tease your eldest unnie?”
Kang Yera tried to show off her unnie’s dignity, but it didn’t work on her dongsaengs.
This time, Kang Yeyoung gave a proper answer to Kang Yera’s question.
[Give me formula]
[It’s quite tasty]
“Huh?”
“Really?”
The two unnies showed a reaction of still not believing their youngest dongsaeng’s peculiar taste.
In fact, it was no exaggeration to say that Kang Yera and Kang Yebin almost forced themselves to drink formula.
How to put it. It wasn’t tasty, nor was it tasteless. It had a strange, subtle taste, which made them dislike eating it even more.
Nevertheless, because that was all there was to eat when they were babies, Kang Yera and Kang Yebin actually ate better than any other baby when they started baby food.
Having just escaped from formula hell, it was natural for baby food to taste like heaven.
However, the youngest, Kang Yeyoung, seemed to quite like the taste of formula.
“Mom. Yeyoung says she wants formula.”
“Oh, really? Can I give it to her?”
“Yes. Because she said so herself.”
“Alright. Just a moment.”
Min Seung-yeon shook the formula powder to mix it as well as possible with water, then approached Kang Yeyoung with a handkerchief, in case the baby spit up.
“Let’s eat, Yeyoungie.”
Cradled in her mother’s arms, Kang Yeyoung immediately put the bottle to her mouth and began to empty its contents in an instant, just as she had said.
Gulp, gulp, gulp!
Watching Kang Yeyoung, Kang Yebin made a disgusted expression.
“It really must be delicious.”
That aside.
Kang Yera reminded Min Seung-yeon of the action she had just shown and said,
“It’ll be easier for you if you just ask Yeyoung and feed her.”
“Y-yeah, I guess so. But it’s really amazing. That Yeyoung can communicate with us.”
“Still, it’s good, right? She doesn’t cry hysterically like other babies, and she sleeps soundly.”
“That’s good, but…”
Min Seung-yeon still thought.
‘Is it okay for parenting to be this easy?’ she wondered.
Before going to pick up Kang Yera and Kang Yebin.
Min Seung-yeon brought her youngest daughter and visited Kang Dae-oh’s cafe.
She frankly confessed what had happened yesterday to him.
At the same time, she respected her husband.
“How could you live so normally, knowing the kids were regressed? Every time I see the kids, I don’t know how I should treat them.”
Kang Dae-oh also worried and worried just like his wife at first.
But eventually, he realized.
That this worry itself was meaningless.
Because.
“Whether they regressed from the future or not, they’re still our daughters, right? Don’t you think?”
“That’s right.”
“Then it wouldn’t really matter, would it? No matter the reason, process, or outcome, if they’re our children, we’ll love them, and continue to love them.”
It was a very simple and straightforward solution.
In fact, Min Seung-yeon also knew.
She knew, but.
The problem was that it didn’t easily translate into action.
“I… honestly don’t know. I’m still confused…”
Min Seung-yeon subtly turned her head towards Kang Yeyoung, who was soundly asleep.
If it were other children, they would be crying and throwing a tantrum for a pacifier at this age.
Kang Yeyoung, however, was sleeping peacefully without any such fuss.
Other mothers would look at Kang Yeyoung and say enviously,
“Where else in the world could you find such a docile baby?”
“Yeyoung’s mom is blessed.”
But on the other hand, she sometimes wondered if this “blessing” truly referred to the blessing of happiness.
The fact that the children had already grown up on the inside meant…
…that the joy of watching one’s children grow up, as a parent, had disappeared.
There was also a sense of emptiness that came from this.
Kang Dae-oh gently patted Min Seung-yeon’s back.
“Don’t worry. Later on, all these worries will be forgotten.”
In Kang Dae-oh’s opinion, the best medicine Min Seung-yeon needed right now was…
…time to adapt.
