Chapter 5

The Second Daughter Is Too Famous (2)

Was it really okay to take Seonhye with me?

I kept worrying about it more and more in my mind.

From what I had roughly heard from my hyung, it seemed that my second daughter was a very famous person.

“Wouldn’t people start talking about this, and then post things about it all over the internet? Image is important for celebrities, isn’t it?”

I had seen several cases where misunderstandings piled up and caused serious damage to a celebrity’s image.

Once a rumor gets twisted, it can create a huge misunderstanding.

As her father, I was worried that Seonhye might become involved in something like that for no reason.

Even so, Seonhye still looked very confident.

“It’s okay, Dad. Nothing will happen.”

My second daughter walked confidently into the elevator.

Even while going upstairs, she kept looking in the mirror and checking her appearance several times.

Seeing her like that, I could not help but smile like a proud father.

It naturally reminded me of Seonhye when she was younger.

‘Seonhye always loved looking in the mirror.’

All three sisters were beautiful, but when it came to popularity, Seonhye had always been at the top.

People of all ages and both men and women loved Seonhye.

And now, hearing that she had become someone loved by most people in South Korea, I found it amazing and, at the same time, felt very proud of her.

While I was distracted by Seonhye,

Ding!

The elevator announced that we had reached the floor.

Seonhye and I stood side by side in front of the apartment door where the illegally parked car’s owner lived.

“Seonhye. Just in case, stay behind the door.”

No matter how much I thought about it, I did not want to put Seonhye in a difficult situation.

But Seonhye shook her head.

“Actually, things will probably be easier to solve if I’m there.”

Once again, she said something that was difficult for me to understand.

What made her so sure?

Since she was so determined, I decided to do as Seonhye said.

Ding-dong!

After the doorbell rang, the front door opened with a “Who is it?”

A man in his early thirties with a huge build frowned the moment he saw me wearing my security guard uniform.

I spoke first in the gentlest voice I could.

“Hello. I’m the person who called you earlier……”

“You came all the way to my house at this hour because of some parking problem. Is this really what an apartment security guard is supposed to do? Huh?”

“……”

What a temper.

It was the reaction I had expected, but even so, he was being so rude that I was speechless.

Still, I could not keep putting up with this troublesome resident forever.

I was about to raise my voice, determined not to let this go today for the safety of the apartment residents.

“Hello!”

Seonhye, who had been quietly standing behind me, suddenly appeared.

At that moment.

Something unbelievable happened.

The moment the troublesome resident saw Seonhye, he started stammering.

And that was not all.

Thump!

He stepped backward and fell hard on his butt.

What was going on?

Seonhye smiled gently and said,

“I saw the blue birds in front of your car earlier. You’re one of my fans, right?”

Blue birds?

What was she talking about?

I could not understand what Seonhye was saying at all.

But the man immediately reacted to the words ‘blue birds.’

“Yes, that’s right! But are you really SL?”

“That’s right.”

I knew that SL was my daughter’s stage name.

Only then did Seonhye explain why she had stepped forward.

She also explained why she had been so confident.

“There were lots of blue bird dolls displayed in front of your car earlier. Those are mascot characters that my fans made for me.”

Those dolls!

I finally remembered them.

“That’s why I call my fans ‘Blue Birds’ too.”

“Then this man is…… one of those ‘Blue Birds’?”

“Probably. But judging from his reaction, I think so. Right?”

When Seonhye asked, the man kept nodding up and down like a toy whose head moved automatically.

“This is my dad.”

“I-I see! I’m terribly sorry that I didn’t recognize you!”

He even bowed at a ninety-degree angle.

It was hard to believe that this was the same man who had been so irritated with me just moments ago.

“You keep parking in the no-parking area, and it seems like my dad and many other people have been having a lot of trouble because of it. Could you please stop doing that from now on?”

“Oh, of course! I’m really sorry! I wasn’t supposed to park there in the first place…… I was being thoughtless. I have committed a terrible mistake!”

It was not exactly a crime worthy of death.

But the troublesome apartment resident bowed deeply again and apologized to me.

Watching him, I barely held back a laugh.

Meanwhile,

Wink.

Seonhye gave me another cute wink.

‘It would have been nice if you had told me about this earlier.’

My second daughter was wonderful in every way.

The only problem was that she loved surprising her dad far too much.

“Hyung, here it is.”

I handed him a sheet of paper, and my hyung tilted his head and asked,

“What’s this?”

“I got that troublesome resident to write a promise that he won’t park in the no-parking area again.”

For the record, I did not force him to write it.

He wrote it himself to promise that he would not do it again.

“A written promise? How did you manage that?”

“That…….”

I quietly turned my head toward Seonhye.

Seonhye put her index finger against her sparkling pink lips and made a ‘Shh!’ gesture.

Seeing that, I gave my hyung a vague answer.

“It just happened somehow.”

For once, I decided to play along with my second daughter.

The moment I got into the car Seonhye had arrived in, it suddenly became time for introductions.

“Dad. The person driving over there is my road manager, Kim Miyeong, and the short-haired girl sitting in the back is my stylist, Hwang Chaerin. Say hello.”

“Hello, Father. I’m Kim Miyeong.”

“I’m Hwang Chaerin. I’ve heard so much about you from unni. Just like I heard, you’re very handsome!”

Hearing such a compliment from a woman in her twenties, I could not help but give an embarrassed smile.

From what I heard, Miyeong and Chaerin were planning to return to Seoul right away today.

“Why don’t you stay the night before going back? Won’t you be tired from driving?”

Miyeong shook her head slightly.

“We have some work at the company. Father, when you come up to Seoul later, I’ll make sure to greet you properly then.”

Today was only a preview.

The real meeting would happen when I went up to Seoul.

Maybe because Seoul had come up in our conversation,

my second daughter turned toward me and asked,

“Dad. You’re going to move to Seoul, right? You told unni that you would seriously think about it, didn’t you?”

I had thought about it a lot myself.

My daughters wanted me to be with them.

And I was always worried that something bad might happen to my daughters while I was far away in Cheongju.

So I thought it might not be a bad idea for me to move up there and live with them.

However—

“I can’t suddenly quit my job as a security guard. So I don’t think I can move right away. I’ll need some time to get everything settled first, and then I’ll go.”

“Really? You promise?”

“Yes. I promise.”

Thinking about it, I had always been easily won over by my second daughter’s charm.

When such a pretty daughter acted so sweetly,

what father could possibly refuse her?

The car driven by Miyeong soon arrived near my house, and Seonhye and I decided to get out there.

“Miyeong, drive safely going back. Chaerin too.”

“Yes, unni.”

“See you tomorrow!”

After seeing the two of them off,

I decided to stop by a nearby supermarket before going home.

I wanted to make something delicious for Seonhye.

“What do you want to eat?”

“Make me saury stew. I’ve been thinking about it since this morning.”

Dad’s saury stew.

It was Seonhye’s favorite dish among all the food I used to make.

“Okay, I understand. Let’s see, then we need the ingredients……”

The moment we entered the supermarket,

the middle-aged women who were shopping all turned to look at us at the same time.

There was a reason.

“Oh my goodness! A celebrity actually came to our neighborhood!”

“Are you really SL? My son is a huge fan of yours!”

She was so famous that whenever we went to a supermarket, passed a convenience store, or even waited at a traffic light, people kept coming up to talk to her.

Even so, my second daughter never showed the slightest sign of being tired and patiently talked to everyone.

As soon as we returned home, I asked my second daughter,

“Aren’t you very tired?”

“I’m fine. This is just part of my daily life now. Besides……”

Seonhye smacked her lips slightly and said,

“Once I eat the saury stew Dad made, all my tiredness will disappear.”

“Okay. I’ll make it for you soon.”

I put on an apron for the first time in a long while.

Even when I lived alone, I often cooked.

But I did not usually make dishes that required so much work and took such a long time that I needed to wear an apron.

Since I lived alone, I mostly cooked simple dishes that were easy to make.

Even so, it seemed that my cooking skills had not disappeared, because my hands naturally moved on their own.

Meanwhile,

my second daughter’s smartphone rang.

“Seonhye, you have a call.”

“Yes, I’ll be right there!”

Seonhye, who had been washing her face and removing her makeup in the bathroom, came into the living room with her hair tied up.

The moment she checked her smartphone,

“Ugh……”

She made a disgusted expression.

“Why? Who’s calling you?”

Could there be someone who was troubling my second daughter?

Or maybe a stalker?

Celebrities sometimes had to deal with things like that, after all.

But the identity of the person I suspected might be a stalker was incredibly ridiculous.

“It’s Jinhye unni.”

It was my eldest daughter.

“Why are you making that face when it’s Jinhye calling? Did you two have a fight?”

“Because unni nags me too much.”

I could not help but laugh quietly.

Come to think of it, Jinhye had always been like that.

Still, I could understand Jinhye’s feelings.

Even when she was young, Jinhye always acted responsibly because she believed she had to be like a mother to her younger sisters.

Because of that, it was natural for her to nag her younger sisters more often.

“Your sister does it because she loves all of you, so try to understand her. You know that, right?”

“I know. I do know, but…… anyway, I’ll answer the phone first.”

“Go ahead.”

I watched my second daughter head toward the balcony and smiled warmly.

‘That little girl has grown up so much already.’

Now, Seonhye had the brightest personality of the three sisters.

But—

‘She wasn’t like that before.’

When she first became part of my family,

Seonhye had been the child with the darkest expression.

It was the same when I first met Seonhye at the fire.

I could still clearly hear my second daughter’s crying voice.

There had even been a time when I promised myself that someday, I would bring a smile back to this child’s face.

‘So much time has passed.’

Now, Seonhye had become brighter than anyone.

And these days, she was sharing the love she had received with other people.

Other people might say that Seonhye looked brightest when she was standing on a stage.

But.

To me, the ordinary sight of her talking to her sister while waiting for Dad’s cooking was the brightest and most lovable sight of all.