Episode 18. First Vlog (4)
When Kang Dae-oh took his eldest and youngest daughters to their mother, Min Seung-yeon threw her arms around the two children.
“Are you okay? Weren’t you scared without mom and dad?”
The two children replied with a bitter smile, uncharacteristic of young kids.
“Why would we be scared?”
“Thath’s right.”
As soon as Kang Dae-oh saw the children’s reactions, he thought to himself.
They look like people who have finally escaped their mom and dad’s watchful eyes and fully enjoyed their freedom before returning.
However, Min Seung-yeon barely entertained such thoughts due to her worry for the children. Since the Kids Cafe fire incident, Min Seung-yeon tended to go blank when it came to her children’s safety.
Kang Dae-oh began to pat Min Seung-yeon, reassuring her.
“They’re not hurt, and they’re not taking it seriously themselves, so you can relax now.”
Min Seung-yeon nodded briefly.
Only then did the children successfully break free from their mother’s embrace. Still, their expressions seemed bright, perhaps happy to confirm that their mother cared for and cherished them so deeply.
Whether a child is young or grown, they still long for their parents’ love. This sister duo was no exception.
Meanwhile, Kang Yebin began to stare intently at her unnie and dongsaeng.
Kang Yera tilted her head and asked, “Why? Were you worried because unnie disappeared too?”
“No. Of course not.”
What Kang Yebin was focused on was something else.
“Unnie. Did you eat something?”
“Huh? Wh-what?”
“Your mouth is red. It feels like you ate something secretly without us knowing. Looking at it… it looks like food cooked with gochujang. Didn’t you and Yeyoung buy tteokbokki and eat it?”
At the sharp deduction from the second daughter, Kang Yera’s small shoulders visibly flinched. Kang Yera wasn’t good at lying. When someone like Kang Yebin directly hit the nail on the head like this, Kang Yera’s pupils would start to shake non-stop.
Knowing her oldest unnie’s habit very well, Kang Yeyoung shook her head as if to say, “It’s all over.”
Thanks to this, the mother’s gaze, which had been warmly looking at her daughters, turned sharp.
“Mom and Dad thought our hearts were going to drop when we thought we lost you. Were you two just nonchalantly eating tteokbokki?”
“Th-that’s not it…”
“Yera, you! You’re the unnie! You should have done better!”
“Why are you only scolding meee…?”
“Because you’re the oldest unnie!”
To Kang Dae-oh, who was familiar with military-style chain-of-command scolding, this scene wasn’t unfamiliar.
‘This will be a memory too.’
Of course, it probably wouldn’t be a good memory for Kang Yera.
Although there was a slight problem in the morning, Kang Dae-oh’s family successfully checked into the hotel.
On the first day, they drove along the road circling Jeju Island, enjoying the sea view. In between, they spent time having snacks and dinner.
Late at night.
“……”
After confirming that the children were asleep, Kang Dae-oh quietly closed the door. Min Seung-yeon, who was in the living room, lowered her voice and asked, “Are the kids asleep?”
“Yeah.”
“They must have been really tired. Oh, I don’t know why I’m so tired today.”
“I think I know why.”
Min Seung-yeon pricked up her ears at Kang Dae-oh’s words. “How do you know?”
“When Yera and Yeyoung got lost at the market, your emotions and physical energy were drained a lot.”
“Ah… you’re right.”
Kang Dae-oh had believed the children would handle it calmly and well, so he hadn’t worried that much. But Min Seung-yeon, having experienced being lost for the first time in her life, still felt her heart pound just recalling the memory.
“From now on, I need to get them that.”
“What’s that?”
“Smartwatches. I’ll buy small ones and put one on each of them so an alarm goes off immediately if they get too far from mom.”
Kang Dae-oh let out a hearty laugh at Min Seung-yeon’s words. He knew very well that the children would refuse, making it seem unrealistic. Min Seung-yeon probably knew it too. It was just her way of showing her determination to never lose the children again.
“Ultimately, everyone’s safe. Don’t stress too much about it because of that.”
Since it was a family trip after a long time, Kang Dae-oh hoped Min Seung-yeon would enjoy Jeju Island and return home happily.
As he thought about how to change the subject, a camera caught his eye.
“Oh right. Do you want to see the video I filmed earlier?”
“What filming?”
“Look at this.”
It was a video of the children diligently using forks and spoons to eat next to their parents. Their already chubby cheeks swelled even more with food filling their mouths. Kang Dae-oh found his daughters’ appearance so adorable that he picked up the camera.
“Title: The Three Squirrel Sisters. How is it?”
Min Seung-yeon suddenly let out a brief laugh, “Pfft!”
“You’re right. Looking at their puffed-up cheeks, it’s like they have acorns inside!”
Min Seung-yeon’s face brightened. At Min Seung-yeon’s smile, which he hadn’t seen in a long time, Kang Dae-oh gazed blankly at her.
Then Min Seung-yeon tilted her head. “Why are you staring like that?”
Kang Dae-oh replied, “Because my wife is so beautiful.”
Min Seung-yeon’s face turned red like a ripe apple. Perhaps embarrassment washed over her, as Min Seung-yeon reacted with a bewildered expression.
“What? No rewards will fall from the sky just because you suddenly praise me.”
“It’s not praise for a reward. I mean it sincerely.”
“……”
Come to think of it, at some point, the two of them had narrowed the distance and were sitting side by side to watch the video Kang Dae-oh filmed. They were close enough for their breaths to mingle.
At that moment.
“Wait a minute.”
Suddenly, Min Seung-yeon sprang up from her seat. Kang Dae-oh initially thought his wife was just embarrassed by the sudden passionate atmosphere between them after a long time and was trying to avoid the situation.
However, there was another reason why Min Seung-yeon stood up. Min Seung-yeon headed to the room where Kang Dae-oh had just confirmed the children were sleeping.
A moment later.
When she flung the door open.
“Whoa!”
“Ow, ow, ow…!”
The three sisters, who had been secretly leaning against the door, tumbled down like dominoes. Kang Dae-oh was so dumbfounded he couldn’t speak.
Meanwhile, Min Seung-yeon let out a deep sigh. “I knew this would happen.”
Jjirit.
At their mother’s fierce glare, the children deliberately avoided eye contact.
“I-I was just going to sleep, but unnie Yera kept waking me up, saying there was something to watch.”
“Yah, Kang Yebin! You called me first!”
“My unniews are to blame! My unniews woke me up!”
Watching the sisters blame each other, Kang Dae-oh let out a small sigh. No matter how hard the sisters tried to make excuses.
“You two. Sit down properly here. Mom has something to tell you.”
In the end, it was a scolding ending.
Although the first day of the trip was spent with their mother’s scolding, the morning of the second day started quite well from their first scheduled activity.
Kang Dae-oh, who had eaten his fill thanks to the restaurant information his daughters had researched beforehand, expressed concern while looking at the car.
“I’m so full, I might fall asleep while driving.”
Kang Yera took out her body cam and said, “Then how about we walk around nearby to digest a bit? I want to film the surrounding scenery too.”
“Shall we? What do you think is best, our director?”
Kang Dae-oh asked for the opinion of Kang Yeyoung, the general director of the vlog.
Suddenly, an idea flashed through Kang Yeyoung’s mind. “Appa. If we follow this road straight, won’t we reach the market we saw yesterday?”
“Maybe? Wait.”
Kang Dae-oh opened the navigation app and checked the continuous road. It was as Kang Yeyoung had predicted.
“You’re right. The market we stopped by yesterday comes up.”
“Then, as unnie Yera said, let’s walk for a bit. And look around the market. We couldn’t properly look around because of us, right?”
As the youngest daughter said, the market tour had been put on the back burner while they were searching for the lost Kang Yera and Kang Yeyoung. Naturally, there was a lot of lingering regret.
Min Seung-yeon looked at the three sisters, especially Kang Yera and Kang Yeyoung, and asked for confirmation.
“This time, you’re going to hold Mom and Dad’s hands tightly. Understand?”
The two daughters raised their voices and replied, “Yes, Captain!”
Perhaps because of yesterday’s scolding time, Kang Yera and Kang Yeyoung were standing at attention. Of course, their mother’s warning applied to Kang Yebin without exception.
“Yebin, you shouldn’t wander off alone either.”
“Yes, Mom.”
After making a pinky promise, their new destination was decided.
Kang Dae-oh’s family arrived at the market once again. Indeed, after walking for a bit, they quickly felt like their food was digesting. Perhaps because of this, their noses instinctively twitched at the delicious food smells wafting from various parts of the market.
Min Seung-yeon also seemed hungry, as she looked around and said, “Should we buy some snacks? It’d be a shame to leave without getting anything after coming all this way.”
At the mention of snacks, Kang Yera and Kang Yeyoung exchanged glances. Kang Yera raised her hand brightly and said, “I know a good snack shop!”
As soon as he heard that, Kang Dae-oh immediately caught on to something.
“Is that the shop where you two were yesterday?”
“How did you…?”
“I figured it out from what Yebin said yesterday.”
Since things had come to this, Kang Yera and Kang Yeyoung decided to honestly tell their family what had happened to them yesterday. They explained that they had been treated to delicious food at the snack shop and couldn’t pay because they didn’t have their wallets.
Kang Dae-oh nodded several times.
“We should go there and buy a lot.”
“We’ll buy a lot, and we’ll promote them too.”
“What kind of promotion?”
Kang Yera then talked about the female owner’s family situation, which she hadn’t mentioned yet.
“The owner there said she has a daughter around our age, and she’s very sick. She could barely open the shop because she was nursing her, but now she needs money for surgery, so she said she has to work hard. So, we want to help her. We have to pay back the value of the free food.”
His daughters’ intentions were good. The idea of repaying someone who had helped them was also excellent. But Kang Dae-oh had a question.
“How do you plan to promote them?”
It wasn’t like they could go around Jeju Island telling people that some snack shop in this market was a great place to eat and they should visit. And a snack shop that had been closed for a long time and only just reopened wouldn’t be well-known. Moreover, Kang Dae-oh and his family were residents of Seoul. They had no connections in Jeju Island, so their influence in spreading word-of-mouth was very limited.
So, he was curious about what kind of promotion Kang Yera and Kang Yeyoung were talking about.
Kang Yeyoung took on the task of answering this. Kang Yeyoung pointed with her small finger at the object Kang Yera was holding.
“We should use this.”
The identity of the object the youngest daughter pointed to was none other than…
The body cam. It was the camera they bought for their vlog.
