ODWT 13

Chapter 13

Baby Model (3)

Early in the morning, Kang Dae-oh came to the café. After doing only a little cleaning and organizing, he immediately began gathering his things.

The dry-cleaning shop owner noticed him a little late and tilted his head with an “Huh?”

“Mr. Kang. What’s going on? Didn’t you open the shop?”

However, Kang Dae-oh looked exactly like someone who was about to leave work.

Kang Dae-oh gave an awkward smile.

“I left my portable battery at the shop, so I came here to get it. I’m just going to tidy up a little and then close the shop again.”

“Are you closed today?”

Kang Dae-oh changed the sign hanging on the door from ‘OPEN’ to ‘CLOSE’ and answered.

“I have something to do.”

“What kind of thing?”

“You remember that diaper company came to us before and said they wanted to hire Yera as a baby model? Today is the filming day.”

“Ah······! So today was the day! Then you should hurry! I was going to order a drink as soon as I saw you open the shop.”

“Then should I quickly prepare something for you?”

“No, no! You have somewhere important to be. You shouldn’t be late because of me. Hurry and go.”

Kang Dae-oh thanked the dry-cleaning shop owner for being considerate and got into his car, which he had parked nearby.

He turned the steering wheel and headed back home.

Because he had called Min Seung-yeon five minutes before arriving and asked her to get ready, he was able to pick up the mother and daughter right away.

Min Seung-yeon got into the back seat beside Kang Yera and asked Kang Dae-oh,

“How long will it take to get there?”

“It says 50 minutes. But if we consider traffic······ maybe about an hour and ten minutes, just to be safe?”

“I hope Yera stays quiet during that time.”

Whenever Min Seung-yeon got into a car, there was one thing she feared the most.

It was her baby suddenly doing something unexpected at any time and anywhere.

The baby might suddenly cry because she wanted food, fuss because she had pooped and needed her diaper changed, or cry again because she was uncomfortable in her seat.

At home, none of those things were a big problem, but in a car, it was difficult to deal with all of those situations properly.

A moving car had many limitations.

Even so, Kang Dae-oh reassured Min Seung-yeon by telling her not to worry.

“Yera won’t make things difficult for us, so you don’t have to worry too much.”

“You always say things like that. Aren’t you too easy on Yera? Yera hasn’t even turned one yet.

She probably can’t even properly understand what Mom and Dad are saying.”

Expecting such a baby to behave in a controlled way simply made no sense.

Of course, from a common-sense point of view, Min Seung-yeon was obviously right.

However.

“Our Yera is different. Very different.”

Kang Dae-oh said it in a tone that sounded as if he knew something.

Perhaps because of her husband’s suspicious behavior, Min Seung-yeon’s head filled with question marks.

When they arrived at the filming location, a person whom Kang Dae-oh and Min Seung-yeon had not seen during the meeting greeted the couple with a bright expression.

“Hello! Nice to meet you. My name is Yoon Seong-hye. I work as a child education specialist.”

At the words ‘child education specialist,’ Min Seung-yeon looked puzzled.

“Aren’t you from BekiN?”

Before Yoon Seong-hye could explain why she was there,

Team Leader Han Woo-sun heard that the couple had arrived and appeared. He answered for Yoon Seong-hye.

“Adults will usually follow instructions if we ask them to make a certain pose or expression. But babies don’t always act the way we want them to. The biggest concern is crying. Some babies, once they start crying, have cried continuously for two or three hours. Because of that, there have been times when filming took almost the entire day. So, to reduce that risk as much as possible, we brought in a specialist who works in the field of child education.”

Being a child education specialist did not mean that she could control a baby however she wanted.

However, Yoon Seong-hye showed strong confidence from the very beginning.

“My nickname is ‘Teacher Ttuk.’”

“Teacher Ttuk? What does that mean?”

“Parents gave me that nickname because I can make even crying children stop crying with a ‘Ttuk.’”

“Ah······.”

Team Leader Han Woo-sun laughed loudly and then spoke to Yoon Seong-hye.

“Please take good care of us. Yera is a very mature baby from what I’ve seen. But there are so many unfamiliar people at the filming location, so she might be very scared. Teacher Yoon······ no, Teacher Ttuk, we’re counting on you.”

“Don’t worry.”

Yoon Seong-hye laughed softly and showed strong confidence.

However, Kang Dae-oh thought to himself.

‘Team Leader Han went through all this trouble for nothing.’

Kang Yera did not need help from experts like Teacher Ttuk.

Meanwhile, Yoon Seong-hye carefully approached Kang Yera, who was lying quietly in a baby stroller.

She smiled brightly and slowly made eye contact with Kang Yera.

“Yera. Let’s have fun together with Teacher today, okay?”

“······.”

Kang Yera simply stared blankly at her.

Then she lifted one corner of her mouth and gave a small smile.

Yoon Seong-hye, who was known as Teacher Ttuk, was greatly flustered by Kang Yera’s unexpected reaction.

Usually, when a stranger spoke to a baby for the first time, the baby would become frightened or cry while looking for their mother.

But Kang Yera showed no such reaction at all.

Meanwhile, Kang Dae-oh thought he knew why Kang Yera had smiled like that.

‘It seems Yera had the same thought as me.’

Kang Dae-oh quietly called Team Leader Han Woo-sun.

“Team Leader Han. What time did you say we were expected to finish?”

“Just a moment. Director!”

Han Woo-sun asked the filming director and then answered Kang Dae-oh’s question.

“Considering the time the baby needs to get used to the location, I think we’ll finish around 3 p.m.”

“Really? Then it’s 10:30 now······ We’ll be finished before lunch.”

“What? Th-that quickly?”

“We just take a few pictures, and then we’re done, right?”

“Yes, that’s true. But babies always cry, so we have to wait until they calm down······.”

“It’s okay. Yera is always in her best condition.”

The trust and confidence Kang Dae-oh had in Kang Yera.

Han Woo-sun could not understand at all what made Kang Dae-oh so confident.

Perhaps because the advertising model they were going to film was a baby who had not even turned one yet.

Not only the costume team that would change her clothes, but also the lighting team, filming team, and everyone else involved were doing their very best to make sure Kang Yera was not even slightly uncomfortable.

However, contrary to everyone’s expectations, Kang Yera did not cry at all.

Instead.

Tap, tap.

She even playfully tapped the arm of the young costume team member who had changed her clothes, smiling at her first.

Every time she did that, the staff became frightened.

Not because they were surprised.

‘They’re probably afraid that they might accidentally upset Yera and make her cry.’

Kang Dae-oh’s guess was correct.

Even so, Kang Yera continued smiling brightly.

The filming director, looking completely stunned, asked Team Leader Han Woo-sun and Yoon Seong-hye,

“Can we······ start filming?”

Team Leader Han Woo-sun turned his head toward Yoon Seong-hye.

But Yoon Seong-hye was just as confused.

How should she put it?

“When I look at Yera, it feels like she’s someone who is extremely experienced at this.”

All the staff nodded as if they agreed with her.

At that moment, Kang Dae-oh gave his opinion.

“I think you can start. In fact, Yera seems to be urging us to hurry up.”

Kang Yera enthusiastically waved her short arms and legs as if agreeing with her father.

Just as Kang Dae-oh said, they decided to start filming.

“Yera, over here!”

The staff and Yoon Seong-hye waved toys around and called Kang Yera.

But Kang Yera did not look at them.

Her eyes were fixed on the camera.

And that was not all.

She slightly raised the corners of her mouth and maintained a mischievous smile.

Perfect eye contact, and even more perfect facial expressions.

The filming director did not want to miss the moment and kept pressing the shutter.

Then the filming director asked Kang Dae-oh and Min Seung-yeon,

“Could you change the baby into a position as if she were crawling?”

As soon as he said that, Kang Yera changed her position by herself, as if saying, ‘Got it.’

The filming director was greatly surprised.

“Oh my······ There’s no way Yera actually understood what I said, right?”

Yoon Seong-hye shook her head, saying that there was no way.

“A baby this age shouldn’t be able to understand what adults are saying······.”

Kang Dae-oh left a meaningful comment.

“Who knows? Maybe she really can understand.”

Team Leader Han Woo-sun, who had been quietly watching everything from a short distance away, finally understood.

He finally understood why Kang Dae-oh had been so confident.

Just as Kang Dae-oh had confidently claimed that Kang Yera would finish all the filming before lunch—

“We really finished before lunchtime.”

Han Woo-sun slowly spoke, still unable to believe the small miracle Kang Yera had shown.

Meanwhile, Kang Dae-oh spoke as if this was exactly what he had expected.

“I told you I was right, didn’t I?”

“You really were. Anyway, thank you so much for today. If we need Yera for another shoot next time, I hope we can work with you again. It was so easy working with Yera. Would that be okay next time too?”

“Of course. Yera will be very happy too.”

Standing in front of the camera, Kang Yera had looked like a fish that had finally found water.

After finishing all the filming, Kang Dae-oh took his wife and daughter back to the car.

As soon as Kang Yera lay down in her baby seat, she seemed tired and immediately fell asleep.

Min Seung-yeon carefully stroked her daughter’s head.

“What a good girl. We were saved by Yera today, weren’t we?”

Kang Dae-oh gave a short nod.

Before leaving, he seemed to have something to say, so he spoke to his wife.

“Honey. About Yera······ maybe······.”

“Hm? What about Yera?”

“······Nothing.”

He soon closed his mouth and held the steering wheel.

As if it was not yet time to step on the accelerator,

he drove slowly.

Because Min Seung-yeon had gone out to have fun with her friends, Kang Dae-oh had to take care of Kang Yera by himself today.

He quickly looked through the photos from Kang Yera’s first-birthday celebration a few days earlier on his smartphone.

“I really like this picture the most.”

While he was choosing pictures to send to his parents,

Kang Dae-oh’s eyes turned toward Kang Yera.

His daughter was currently listening to a song sung by an idol playing on a smartphone instead of a children’s song, while playing with word cards containing English words such as ‘apple’ and ‘banana.’

Kang Yera had shown far too many things that were different from ordinary babies.

Through all of this, Kang Dae-oh was able to come up with a certain theory.

It was such an unbelievable theory that

he wanted to check it himself.

“Yera.”

“Au?”

“I was wondering······.”

Kang Dae-oh asked his daughter with doubt in his heart,

“Do you know about reincarnation, or······ regression?”

It was a question meant to test Kang Yera.

At that moment, Kang Dae-oh saw it.

The expression on his daughter’s face had suddenly become completely serious.

It was not an expression a baby could make.

Kang Dae-oh was flustered by this unfamiliar reaction from his daughter, which he had never seen before.

But it was still too early for him to be surprised.

Kang Yera picked up one of the English word cards herself.

The English word card she showed him said:

[YES]