Episode 3. The Babies’ Star (2)
The first day of the cultural center class.
It was not only Kang Yera’s but also Min Seung-yeon’s first cultural center class in their lives, so they were very nervous.
This nervousness continued even when they met the instructor before the class began.
“Hello, ma’am. Oh my! Your baby is so pretty! She’s a girl, right?”
Min Seung-yeon nodded, confirming that her words were correct.
It’s quite difficult to tell the gender of infants just by looking at their appearance.
It’s not yet the period when physical changes occur based on male or female gender.
Furthermore, even if it’s a girl, if too much of their baby hair falls out, they might shave it all off. It’s not easy to distinguish by hairstyle, so it’s common to ask if a boy is a girl, or vice versa.
But Kang Yera was an exception.
Bright, clear eyes.
Beautifully grown eyelashes.
Even shiny lips.
Anyone could only see her as a girl.
“What’s her name?”
“She’s Kang Yera.”
“Kang Yera… Our Yera will become an idol when she grows up, won’t she? It hasn’t even been half a year, but if she’s this pretty, she should definitely become an idol.”
Min Seung-yeon verbally denied it by saying ‘No, not at all’, but her facial expression, in contrast, seemed very pleased.
Like Kang Dae-oh, Min Seung-yeon was also happier when her child was praised than when she herself was praised.
She too had already become a mother.
The instructor introduced other teams to Min Seung-yeon and Kang Yera.
“This mother here is also raising a girl. It seems like you two will get along well, won’t you?”
Since they would be seeing each other once a week for the next three months, it wouldn’t hurt to get to know each other beforehand.
No, rather, they should get close to minimize awkwardness when proceeding with the class later.
The instructor had this intention, introducing the mothers to each other, and the children to each other.
However, neither Min Seung-yeon nor the other child’s mother were particularly outgoing.
It’s natural to feel awkward when meeting a stranger for the first time.
Just as an awkward atmosphere was about to form.
“Nyuah!”
Kang Yera’s sudden voice from her baby stroller broke the awkward atmosphere.
The instructor, as if sensing the moment, reacted to Kang Yera’s actions.
“Oh, Yera! Your voice is so loud. Teacher was surprised.”
Kang Yera smiled sweetly and let out another loud sound, as if trying to show off her vocal volume.
At Kang Yera’s actions, the other baby slowly began to show interest.
Min Seung-yeon mustered up the courage and asked the baby’s mother.
“How many months old is she?”
“She just passed 125 days… so a little over 4 months.”
“She’s older than our Yera.”
“Oh, really?”
While the two women talked, Kang Yera, perhaps to ease the other baby’s tension, moved her small hands “buung-buung” (waving/flapping) and showed friendliness first.
It was as if she was saying, ‘Let’s be friends too!’
At Kang Yera’s actions, the child’s mother gave a curious look.
“You said her name was Yera, right? Yera doesn’t seem to be shy around strangers?”
“Yes. Even when we go to the hospital or go out. She doesn’t cry when she sees other people; instead, she smiles brightly.”
“I’m envious. My daughter cries just by seeing her grandparents. Yera doesn’t seem to cry much?”
“She hardly ever cries.”
Kang Yera cries when she’s hungry, or when she’s pooped. It’s usually one of the two.
Even that crying is very short.
Moreover, she doesn’t fuss to be held.
“Rather, if I try to hold her…”
As Min Seung-yeon made a gesture to hold her, demonstrating, Kang Yera shook her head, vehemently refusing.
Then, she showed a gesture of tapping Min Seung-yeon’s wrist “tak-tak.”
“She does this.”
“Oh my. What kind of action is that?”
“Well, to me, it feels like she’s saying, ‘Mommy, your wrist hurts, so you don’t need to hold me often.’”
Indeed, Min Seung-yeon had never once worn a wrist brace, an essential item for mothers with newborns and infants.
Even the mother of the baby she was talking to was wearing a wrist brace, but Min Seung-yeon was perfectly fine.
The more she heard, the more unbelievable Kang Yera’s existence seemed to the baby’s mother.
How should I put it?
“She looks like a baby that only exists in fantasy.”
Min Seung-yeon also gave a short smile of agreement in response.
“I feel that way too.”
A lucky charm had come to the Kang Dae-oh and Min Seung-yeon couple.
With another team joining the class, the lesson finally began.
A minimum of 3 teams. The first morning class, which barely met the criteria to avoid cancellation, began with tension.
The instructor let out an awkward laugh and said jokingly.
“It seems like we’ll need a lot of ice-breaking time today, won’t we?”
Both the babies and the mothers. It seemed like this was everyone’s first experience of this kind, as awkwardness and tension were palpable.
Among them, the only person not nervous, besides the instructor, was just one.
It was only Kang Yera.
“Yera! Shall we play with the banana with teacher?”
“Kyaaa—!”
Kang Yera, holding a fake banana made of silicone, began to shake it wildly.
However, the shaking direction was fixed to left and right.
Usually, babies at this age don’t have a clearly formed self-awareness, so their movements and behavioral patterns are not familiar.
There are a lot of unexpected behaviors, yet Kang Yera showed a very mechanical aspect.
It was as if she was thinking and then moving exactly as she thought.
Going one step further.
Min Seung-yeon got this feeling from Kang Yera’s actions.
“Rather, it feels like Yera is adjusting her actions to the teacher…”
‘Class is class. I have to do it, so here you go, I’ll play along!’ This was the feeling.
The instructor seemed to feel similarly, opting to create a situation where the baby could do as she pleased, rather than trying to do something with Kang Yera.
Meanwhile, the instructor moved to go see another baby.
It was at this moment.
Uwaaaah—!!!
A familiar baby’s cry came from somewhere.
The baby, Hong Yiseo, who had exchanged greetings with Kang Yera and Min Seung-yeon once before the class started, finally burst into tears that she had been holding back.
“Y-Yiseo. It’s okay, it’s okay. Don’t cry.”
Hong Yiseo’s flustered mother tried hard to soothe her baby.
However, perhaps because she was in an unfamiliar environment with unfamiliar people, her crying didn’t subside easily.
It was the same even when the instructor, a professional at handling babies, joined in to soothe her.
At that moment, a helping hand reached out from an unexpected place.
“Ma-aaa.”
Kang Yera crawled steadily towards them and then tapped Hong Yiseo’s mother “tuk-tuk.”
She, who hadn’t even noticed Kang Yera coming towards them because she was busy soothing her baby, looked greatly flustered.
“Y-Yera. Why?”
“Mya!”
Kang Yera pointed to the pacifier that had fallen in the corner.
Hong Yiseo’s mother had deliberately taken it out, fearing it would disrupt the class.
Kang Yera pointed to it and made a gesture as if putting it in her own mouth.
From behind, Min Seung-yeon interpreted Kang Yera’s baby language (?) for her.
“She’s saying to give Yiseo the pacifier.”
“I don’t think that will stop her crying…”
“You never know, so give it a try.”
Since there was no suitable alternative, Hong Yiseo’s mother picked up the pacifier again as they said and put it in Hong Yiseo’s mouth.
And then.
“Oh my goodness!”
“Sh-she quieted down?”
She stopped crying as if nothing had happened.
Kang Yera nodded, as if she had known it would happen.
Do babies understand other babies’ minds better?
Kang Yera gently tapped Hong Yiseo’s bottom, then gestured for her to follow.
It was the same for the other baby.
The two babies soon followed Kang Yera like a leader and began to play with the toys the instructor had prepared, together with the other babies.
The instructor and mothers, who witnessed the amazing sight, were speechless.
The instructor, finally regaining her composure, slowly opened her mouth.
“It seems Yera is conducting the class better than me, doesn’t she?”
It wasn’t a joke meant to be funny.
It was a sincere remark.
That evening.
Kang Dae-oh, who got off work in the evening when Kang Yera was asleep, soothed the day’s fatigue with chicken and beer his wife had prepared beforehand.
Chicken and beer are good, but.
Kang Dae-oh wanted to hear about today’s first cultural center class.
“How was it today?”
Min Seung-yeon, who quenched her thirst with a sip of water instead of beer, took a moment to consider how to answer Kang Dae-oh’s question.
Her answer, at the end of her conclusion, was this:
“It was just as you said.”
“So Yera adapted well, it seems.”
“It wasn’t just ‘adapted well’. Rather, she was leading the class in place of the instructor?”
“Is that… so?”
He had said Kang Yera would adapt well, but.
Kang Dae-oh had no idea it would be to that extent.
“The instructor was also extremely surprised. She said she’s been doing this for nearly 10 years, and she’s never seen a baby like this.”
Of course, it was said with good intentions.
Kang Dae-oh also felt a deep sense of empathy at the word ‘first’.
Min Seung-yeon put down her glass and continued.
“Our Yera, don’t you think there’s definitely something special about her? I’m not just saying this because she’s our daughter. You feel it too, don’t you?”
“I’ve felt it for a long time already. Remember what I said at the postnatal care center? That our daughter seemed ‘suspicious’.”
“What could be the reason?”
“…Well.”
Kang Dae-oh did have a rough guess.
However.
It was also too preposterous a story, and he wasn’t yet certain, so he decided to hold his tongue for now.
For the time being, he planned to observe Kang Yera’s unfolding genius and slowly gather evidence for his hypothesis.
Two weeks after the first cultural center class.
To attend the 3rd week’s class, Min Seung-yeon and her daughter visited the cultural center located inside a large supermarket today as well.
At that moment.
“Yera’s mother—!”
The instructor called out to her with a very joyful expression.
Because of the instructor’s excessively bright expression, Min Seung-yeon initially thought she had won the lottery.
However, the words that came out of the instructor’s mouth had nothing to do with the lottery.
“Thank you so much! Thanks to you and Yera, I think the class will go even better!”
“What? The class…?”
The instructor nodded and began to explain in detail how this came to be.
“It seems word got around that Yera takes care of babies so well, because the night before last, someone contacted us saying they wanted to apply for the morning cultural center class here!”
“Oh my, really? So the morning class won’t be canceled?”
“Yes!”
The morning class, which could have been canceled with refund procedures if it fell below 3 teams.
However, due to the appearance of a small star named Kang Yera, word-of-mouth about the morning class began to spread among mothers.
Thanks to this, it escaped the crisis of cancellation.
But Kang Yera, herself, was unconcerned.
This phenomenon of people flocking to see her seemed, to Kang Yera, like a perfectly natural everyday occurrence.
