Episode 2. Different from the start (3)
Two days had passed since he rejected the offer from a Tooset official to hand over his store or push for a franchise agreement.
Min Seung-yeon, holding Kang Yera, asked Kang Dae-oh, who was rushing to work as usual, with a worried expression.
“Are you really sure you can just flat-out refuse that?”
“Huh? What are you talking about?”
“The offer that came from Tooset. I thought you, honey, would think about it a bit more before deciding. I didn’t expect you to refuse it right away that day.”
Too quick a decision could come back later as a boomerang named regret.
That was Min Seung-yeon’s concern.
She didn’t want to see her husband heavily regretting the past while drinking.
However, Kang Dae-oh shook his head, repeating ‘It’s fine’ several times.
“This is good.”
“Well, if you say so, honey… I don’t mind. But what made you decide not to do it right away, as soon as you brought up the idea of thinking about it?”
Perhaps because her husband’s attitude had changed 180 degrees in such a short time, Min Seung-yeon was left wondering about his demeanor from the previous night.
Kang Dae-oh’s gaze turned towards his daughter, who was quietly sleeping in Min Seung-yeon’s arms.
“My daughter said, ‘Daddy, don’t do it!’ So I shouldn’t do it.”
“Yera said that?”
“Yeah. In my opinion.”
Since it was something an angel baby had designated, Kang Dae-oh decided not to have any lingering regrets about this matter anymore.
Kang Dae-oh had absolutely no intention of regretting or lingering over Tooset’s offer.
However, it seemed Tooset felt differently.
“Sir!”
The man who had given Kang Dae-oh his business card last time visited the store once again.
Kang Dae-oh greeted the man with a business smile, pretending nothing was amiss.
“Welcome. It’s very hot, isn’t it?”
“Yes. It’s incredibly hot! I walked for about 5 minutes and I’m already sweating… No, that’s not what I came here to talk about.”
He unknowingly fell for Kang Dae-oh’s conversational skills.
The man, belatedly regaining his composure, began to press Kang Dae-oh about what was going on.
“Why aren’t you answering my calls? Huh?”
“As I told you via text, I’ve decided to simply operate this store personally, by myself.”
“Oh, come on, sir. Is it because you don’t like the terms? Then I’ll go back to the company today and negotiate for a better offer. If you’re considering a franchise agreement, I’ll make sure to take good care of things so that we can smoothly agree on material costs and interior design fees. Could you please reconsider?”
The man seemed quite pleased with the location of Kang Dae-oh’s store, as he tried his best to persuade him.
However, Kang Dae-oh’s mind was already made up.
Kang Dae-oh’s gaze went to the man’s left ring finger.
“Team Leader. You’re married, aren’t you?”
“Huh? Oh, yes.”
“Have you had children?”
“Of course. My child is doing well at daycare.”
“Is it a son or a daughter?”
“A daughter. But why do you ask…?”
The man found it difficult to adapt to Kang Dae-oh’s sudden train of thought, asking about his daughter out of nowhere during a discussion about a franchise agreement.
Kang Dae-oh asked the man bluntly.
“If your daughter asks you, ‘Daddy, please do this and that,’ what would you do, Team Leader?”
“Well… I don’t know the specifics, but if it’s within my ability, and it’s not an illegal act, I’d usually try to grant it.”
Fathers want to grant everything their children wish for. This is a father’s heart.
Kang Dae-oh was no different.
“I think I’ve explained all the reasons.”
“…???”
It was only after mulling over Kang Dae-oh’s words for a while that the Team Leader was roughly able to understand why he had refused the offer.
“Did your daughter tell you not to do it?”
“Yes.”
“How old is your daughter, by any chance?”
He thought if it was serious enough to affect a franchise agreement, she must be at least an adult.
However, Kang Dae-oh’s reply was enough to leave the Team Leader dumbfounded.
“She’s just over 100 days old.”
“What?”
The man was momentarily confused about how to react to the fact that she was an infant.
Soon, regaining his composure, he calmly began to persuade Kang Dae-oh once more.
“Sir. What would a child know? She can’t even speak properly yet.”
“She can’t speak, but she expresses herself very clearly.”
“Is that… so? That can’t be right…”
He, too, was a father who had raised a child, so he knew well.
The fact that a baby at this stage cannot express themselves at all.
It would be a time when they can’t even properly control their own arms and legs. Nevertheless, Kang Dae-oh showed excessive blind faith in his daughter.
The Team Leader interpreted Kang Dae-oh’s attitude as follows:
He must have already decided in his heart to refuse Tooset’s offer. Perhaps he brought up his daughter on purpose because he couldn’t think of another reason to give?
“…Understood. Since you’re saying it like that, I guess I have to give up.”
“Thank you for understanding.”
“If you ever change your mind later, please feel free to contact me at my number.”
“Yes, I understand.”
Kang Dae-oh replied that he would, just for formality, though he doubted that would ever happen.
Just as the man was leaving, the owner of the laundromat happened to enter the store.
The laundromat owner pointed at the man who had just left and asked,
“Isn’t that the guy who told you to hand over your store, Mr. Kang?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Oh my. You’re not thinking of selling this store, are you? You shouldn’t. My wife really loves the drinks you make, Mr. Kang.”
He had come here today again for his wife’s errand.
Kang Dae-oh gave a faint smile to the flustered laundromat owner, telling him not to worry.
“You can rest assured, I’ve decided to keep the store as it is.”
“Oh, really? That’s good, Mr. Kang.”
Kang Dae-oh decided to treat the Tooset incident as a brief happening and erase it cleanly from his mind.
Because his daughter told him not to do it.
It seemed good not to have any regrets about this matter.
A few days earlier.
After finishing Kang Yera’s 100-day celebration with their family at home, Kang Dae-oh and Min Seung-yeon headed to a nearby cafe with their daughter.
Midway, Kang Dae-oh said to his wife with a wry smile,
“If we’re going to a cafe, we could just go to our own store.”
“No.”
“Why? It’s your husband’s shop.”
“We go there too often. On days when I want to feel good, I want to go somewhere else to drink coffee.”
It was strangely persuasive.
Indeed. Kang Dae-oh also sometimes thought about going to a different cafe, not his own, to relax for a bit.
Because his store was, for him, both a workplace and a job.
Even when he was at the cafe, the thought of continuously working rather than resting would often linger in his mind.
Perhaps because of that, this time he couldn’t help but absolutely agree with his wife’s words.
Meanwhile, perhaps because it was her first outing since birth, Kang Yera was busy looking around, blinking her big eyes multiple times.
“Aww-woo! Bwaa―!”
The babbling session began again.
Min Seung-yeon let out a deep sigh.
“Our daughter, I think she’ll be a huge chatterbox when she grows up.”
“Why?”
“You probably wouldn’t know. Yera, I mean. She babbles a lot when she’s at home. Even though there’s probably not much to talk about. She just babbles and babbles and babbles whenever she sees Mom… At first, I used to babble back, but eventually, my throat hurt too much to keep doing it.”
“That much?”
“Yeah. That much.”
Because Kang Dae-oh had no choice but to go out and work for their livelihood, he couldn’t grasp what kind of daily life his wife and daughter had in real-time.
There were many things he wouldn’t know unless Min Seung-yeon told him stories like this.
“Which cafe should we go to?”
“Wouldn’t somewhere around here be good? It’s awkward to go far with a baby.”
“Then… wait a moment.”
Min Seung-yeon quickly started searching the surrounding area on her smartphone.
“There are a few places, but it might be a bit difficult to go.”
“Why?”
“The closest place is Tooset.”
Since it was also the place where Kang Dae-oh had an unfortunate encounter recently, Min Seung-yeon couldn’t easily suggest going to Tooset.
“Should we look for another place?”
“No, let’s go there.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah. They didn’t cause me any harm. We just exchanged some words, that’s all. There’s no particular reason for me to dislike Tooset.”
That was also true.
Following Kang Dae-oh’s suggestion, Min Seung-yeon moved to Tooset with Kang Yera.
But then.
Something felt a bit strange.
“Oh my? What’s this?”
An empty store.
This sign was written on the door:
[Going to protest at the headquarters with the franchise owners. Due to this, we will be temporarily closed. We apologize.]
“Protest?”
“What’s going on?”
The unexpected words greatly flustered the couple.
Unlike them, Kang Yera nodded her round head as if she had expected it.
Then she turned her body and pointed at Kang Dae-oh’s smartphone.
“Are you telling me to search and check what’s going on?”
“Aww―!”
In response to Kang Yera’s reply, Kang Dae-oh began searching for the latest articles related to Tooset using his smartphone.
At that moment.
Something astonishing happened.
[Tooset CEO Oh Seong-cheon, collectively sued for embezzlement, breach of trust, forced unfair contracts, etc… Shocking!]
[‘The franchise agreement with Tooset was hell…’, a tearful confession from a store owner.]
[Consecutive stock price drops due to owner risk. Is Tooset okay like this?]
“Oh my goodness… Honey! Look at this!”
Min Seung-yeon, seemingly having just read the article Kang Dae-oh saw, showed the full text and sighed in relief.
“If we had decided to sign a contract with Tooset, we might have been protesting at the headquarters too.”
“Indeed.”
Kang Dae-oh was still dumbfounded.
He had thought there was something unsettling about it, but it hadn’t led to a firm conviction.
“We were lucky.”
Towards Min Seung-yeon, who mentioned luck, Kang Dae-oh slowly shook his head.
“It wasn’t luck.”
“Huh? Did you know this would happen from the start?”
“Not me, but…”
His young daughter, who was diligently wiggling, was the hero who saved the couple from crisis.
If it hadn’t been for Kang Yera.
If his daughter hadn’t opposed it so strongly.
Min Seung-yeon’s words might have become a reality.
For a fleeting moment, Kang Dae-oh’s eyes met Kang Yera’s.
Then Kang Yera, who had been looking at her daddy, smiled brightly.
‘It was really good that I listened to Yera.’
Kang Dae-oh also smiled back and stroked his daughter’s small head with one hand.
“Thank you, daughter.”
And at the same time, he swore.
That he would become a good daddy who listens well to his daughter’s words from now on.
Whenever he looked at Kang Yera, he felt a very strong urge that he should do so.
