Chapter 10

The Star of the Babies (4)

It was the day of the cultural center class.

For some reason, Min Seung-yeon’s steps felt heavy as she headed toward the large supermarket.

Whether she knew how her mother was feeling or not, Kang Yera was full of energy from the morning. She was biting and sucking on the long-necked dinosaur doll that Min Seung-yeon had given her to play with.

Watching Kang Yera move around so actively, Min Seung-yeon thought that perhaps her daughter was excited about the cultural center class.

Maybe that was why.

Her heart felt even heavier.

“Yera. Do you like going to the cultural center class?”

At Min Seung-yeon’s call, Kang Yera lifted her head.

After staring at her mother, Kang Yera soon nodded her head up and down and made a short sound.

“Ung!”

Min Seung-yeon honestly could not tell whether Kang Yera was really responding that way because she understood what her mother had said.

After all, it was almost impossible for a baby who was still at the babbling stage to completely understand what her mother was saying.

Even so, Min Seung-yeon kept feeling as if her daughter was capable of communicating.

Because of this, she could not easily tell her that they might not be able to go to the cultural center anymore.

If her daughter really understood what she was saying, how sad would she be?

Just imagining her disappointed daughter made Min Seung-yeon’s heart hurt.

But she also did not want to make Kang Dae-oh work as a designated driver at night.

Her husband was already working hard in his own way to make money. She did not want to force him to push himself even harder.

“Haah…”

A deep sigh escaped Min Seung-yeon’s lips.

What should she do?

All kinds of thoughts crossed her mind.

Before she knew it, Min Seung-yeon and Kang Yera had arrived at the entrance of the large supermarket.

The two went up to the second floor using the escalator and walked toward the end of the hallway where the cultural center was located.

As soon as they arrived in front of the cultural center, many mothers who had come with their babies and were waiting for the morning class greeted Min Seung-yeon and her daughter, especially Kang Yera, with great excitement.

“Oh! Yera is here!”

“Hello, Yera!”

“Are you going to play with my daughter a lot today too? Okay?”

“Oh my! My son has been bothering me for the past three days because he wanted to play with Yera.”

“Only three days? My daughters have been waiting since the moment last week’s class ended. They practiced the butt-patting game Yera taught them all evening.”

Kang Yera’s popularity had reached its peak among both the babies and their parents.

Because the mothers welcomed her and Kang Yera so warmly, Min Seung-yeon could not bring herself to say,

‘Actually, I’m thinking about only attending the cultural center until the end of this month.’

The moment she said something like that out loud, she could not even imagine what kind of reaction would follow.

Thanks to Kang Yera, the number of teams attending the morning class had reached twenty.

If Kang Yera stopped coming, the morning class might once again be in danger of being canceled.

All kinds of thoughts began becoming tangled together in Min Seung-yeon’s mind.

What should she do?

Just as her worries were growing, Min Seung-yeon belatedly realized that Kang Yera had disappeared.

“Y-Yera? Kang Yera!”

Before the class started, she had put Kang Yera down in the small play area prepared for the babies.

But in that short time, she had disappeared.

Just as Min Seung-yeon was about to urgently search for her—

“Au-u!”

Her daughter’s voice came from somewhere.

Kang Yera was very close by, only a few steps away. She was holding something in her hand and waving her short arms.

“Yera. What are you holding? …Oh my!”

It was a flyer for an event being held by the cultural center.

At the top of the flyer were the words:

[23rd I’m a Baby Model! Photo Event]

Starting at 9 p.m., Kang Dae-oh began cleaning up the store.

With the strap of his backpack over his shoulder, he hurried toward his car to go home.

Before getting into the car and starting the engine, he looked through all the pictures of his daughter that Min Seung-yeon had sent him that day.

The store had been so busy that he had not even had time to slowly look at the pictures she sent him.

Only now could he finally take his time and enjoy the cute 모습 of Kang Yera in the photos.

‘Looks like she played with beans today.’

Different kinds of beans were spread across the floor.

The pictures clearly showed the babies sitting on the beans and taking part in a play class together.

As always, Kang Yera had taken it upon herself to be the leader of the babies’ play.

Seeing his young daughter always standing at the center wherever she went made Kang Dae-oh forget about the tiredness he had built up during the day.

She loved going to the cultural center and playing this much.

‘Just as I thought. It makes no sense to stop her from going.’

Today, Kang Dae-oh planned to persuade his wife once again when he got home.

Just as baby clothes quickly became too small to wear as time passed, play classes suited to a child’s age would also disappear with time and become memories that could never be experienced again.

Kang Dae-oh did not mind missing out on things himself, but he did not want his daughter to have that kind of regret.

Having made up his mind, Kang Dae-oh started the engine and took hold of the steering wheel.

Not long after—

He parked near their home and opened the front door.

Min Seung-yeon was waiting for him and urgently waved her hand.

“Honey. Come here.”

“Hm? Why?”

“I have something to tell you.”

That worked out well.

Kang Dae-oh also had something he wanted to say to his wife.

Thinking that the timing was not bad, he sat across from his wife at the dining table.

Before Kang Dae-oh could speak—

“Look at this.”

Min Seung-yeon held something out in front of him.

“What is this…?”

“You’ll know when you look.”

“…”

Kang Dae-oh quickly looked over the flyer.

It was a photo event held by the cultural center.

Parents of babies attending the classes could take pictures and submit them. The best photo would be selected, and the winner would receive prize money.

The amount was—

“Five million… won? The prize is bigger than I expected.”

“Right?”

“But why? Don’t tell me. You want us to enter?”

If they entered the event and won, their cultural center expenses could be solved very quickly.

No, five million won would be more than enough to cover the cultural center fees.

If they had that much extra money, they could buy all the clothes, toys, and picture books they had not been able to buy for Kang Yera because they were short on money.

But unless they won, it would mean nothing.

That was because there was not even a prize for second place.

All the rewards went to only one person—the first-place winner.

Perhaps that was better.

If they could win.

“Wait. The deadline is this Wednesday?”

Excluding today, they had only two days left.

After checking the date, Kang Dae-oh pointed at Min Seung-yeon’s smartphone.

“Honey. You took a lot of pictures while Yera was taking the class, right? Let’s choose the best one and send it. It says we can apply by email, so send the file to me. I’ll send it directly to the cultural center.”

“But… are you really sure this is okay?”

“Hm? What?”

“There seem to be quite a lot of people entering. Even if we submit a photo, I honestly don’t know what our chances of winning would be…”

Perhaps because she thought it might all turn out to be meaningless effort, Min Seung-yeon was skeptical about entering the photo event.

There was some truth in what she said.

The prize was five million won.

There was no way other people would not enter.

The competition would probably be very strong.

And the stronger the competition, the lower the Kang family’s chances of winning would be.

Even so, Kang Dae-oh insisted that they should at least try.

“At least the chances are better than winning the lottery. Don’t you think?”

“That’s true, but…”

He needed a way to convince his worried wife for sure.

“Honey. You didn’t bring this flyer yourself, did you?”

“No. Yera brought it.”

As he thought.

He had already felt that Min Seung-yeon, who was against entering the photo event, would not have brought the flyer to show Kang Dae-oh herself.

So he had wondered if Kang Yera had brought it instead.

His guess had been exactly right.

There was no way Kang Yera had picked up the flyer without a reason.

If Kang Dae-oh’s guess was correct and Kang Yera really was a special existence—

‘She must have had a reason for bringing this flyer.’

Perhaps Kang Yera had seen it.

The secret way to definitely win this photo event.

Kang Dae-oh looked more carefully at the contents of the flyer.

Then his eyes suddenly narrowed.

“Honey.”

“Why?”

Kang Dae-oh pointed at the words containing the secret he had found—the secret he believed Kang Yera had also noticed.

“If it really works the way it says here, we can definitely win.”

Min Seung-yeon once again took Kang Yera to the supermarket to attend what might be their last cultural center class.

The mothers who had arrived earlier were busy talking excitedly about the photo event.

Min Seung-yeon put Kang Yera down for a moment near the other babies and walked over to the group of mothers.

“Ah, hello.”

Min Seung-yeon greeted them awkwardly.

As soon as they saw her, the mothers smiled brightly.

“Oh! Yera’s mother is here?”

“We were just talking about the photo event.”

“Ah… really?”

As soon as the photo event came up, Min Seung-yeon’s expression became even more awkward.

Her husband was absolutely certain that they could win.

But Min Seung-yeon still was not confident.

However, just as Kang Dae-oh had predicted—or rather, just as Kang Yera had intended—her anxiety slowly began to disappear.

It started with the conversation among the mothers.

“I checked the website.”

“Yera entered the photo event too, right?”

“Ah. Y-You saw it?”

The photos submitted by the participants were uploaded to the cultural center’s website.

There was a reason they put the photos on the website.

The winner would be chosen through an online vote.

“I voted for Yera.”

“Me too!”

“Yera always takes such good care of our babies.”

“That too, but the photo came out really pretty, too.”

The mothers once again talked about how much help they had received from Kang Yera.

They quietly told Min Seung-yeon that they had decided to give their votes to Kang Yera to repay her kindness.

“I even asked people I know to vote for Yera, so I think Yera will probably win the event easily.”

“That’s right.”

“Congratulations in advance, Yera’s mother.”

Min Seung-yeon could only stare in confusion as the congratulations poured in before the result had even been announced.

Kang Dae-oh had pointed to the voting method written on the flyer and confidently said that Kang Yera would naturally receive many votes.

His words had become reality.

Kang Yera quietly watched her confused mother from nearby.

Then she gave a meaningful smile.

It was a perfect team effort between a daughter who had noticed the photo event at exactly the right time and a father who had correctly understood her plan.

Min Seung-yeon, unintentionally left as the only person out of the plan, could do nothing but keep wearing an awkward smile for a while.