Episode 163. The Company Daycare (3)
After that, we ran every which way around the daycare with the kids, who had bounced back like fully charged cell phones.
I had nothing but respect for daycare teachers across the country. I had no idea how they managed such high-intensity labor every single day. And all while maintaining such a kind and friendly attitude at that.
Just looking after the five Spark guys made my patience fluctuate. As expected, I was still far from becoming a person of good character.
Still, I was relieved the kids had grown used to our faces. Enough that they’d gotten close enough to play jokes on one another, at least.
A few of the bolder kids even got to experience riding on Choi Jeho’s shoulders. Choi Jeho had to bend his knees quite a bit to keep the kids from hitting their heads on the ceiling, but they all succeeded in safely riding the 187-centimeter human horse.
I watched Choi Jeho, who had become a human frame, and the Spark guys surrounding him from all sides in case of an emergency, then turned to Jaeyun, who was sitting next to me.
“Jaeyun, don’t you want to ride the horse?”
Jaeyun shook his head back and forth. Then he stuck right by my side and read a picture book—one that had fewer than ten words per page—with great focus. It was a story about a cat and a child going on an adventure through alleyways.
‘Is he just very shy?’
He did talk with his friends from time to time, so he didn’t seem like the type, but having a bunch of adults suddenly barge in probably wasn’t pleasant. I decided to stay quietly by his side.
As if separated from the noisy commotion, the sound of pages fluttering could be heard.
Then the sound of turning pages stopped.
“Teacher.”
Jaeyun called out to me. The tip of his finger pointed to a spot in the picture book.
Drawn there was a small, black cat that had gone on an adventure all the way to the end of the alley following the protagonist.
“It looks like you.”
Jaeyun broke into a wide grin.
It was an incredibly pure smile.
* * *
At first, I’d worried about when this ordeal would end.
But time for farewell arrived sooner than I thought.
“Teacher, are you coming again tomorrow?”
A friend holding a magic wand in one hand and a transforming car in the other asked.
“You have to say bye-bye to the teachers now.”
At the teacher’s words, the children’s eyebrows began to droop into sad furrows. Some of them even had tears welling up.
“Then are the teachers not coming back anymore?”
At those words, someone started wailing loudly. Choi Jeho picked up a child who was a mess of tears and snot.
“Why are you crying? We promised you’d dance along when you see me on TV next time, didn’t we?”
He’d made that kind of secret promise? Choi Jeho’s fan management was no joke. There was a reason he was the center.
Choi Jeho patted the child’s back a few times, and the child in his arms sniffled back tears but soon stopped crying.
‘Man, this is a terrible thing to do……’
Adults are used to brief encounters, but the kids must have accepted us while giving us their affection. I felt terrible. Guess I’d grown attached to them too in that short time.
As I tried to send the tearful kids home one by one, my pant leg was tugged from below.
Jaeyun was looking up at me.
“It’s time for Jaeyun to go home too. Did you have fun today?”
Jaeyun nodded. His quietness really reminded me of Park Juu back home.
“I’m glad you had fun.”
I smiled as brightly as I could and buttoned up Jaeyun’s outerwear. Then Jaeyun handed me something.
It was a piece of colored paper folded into a crumpled little shape.
“It’s a cat.”
Jaeyun whispered in my ear.
Then he took his guardian’s hand, said goodbye in a small voice, and left the daycare.
I looked back and forth between Jaeyun’s retreating figure and the crumpled piece of colored paper sitting in my palm.
If I hadn’t been told what it was, I never would have recognized the shape, but the black cat kept lingering before my eyes.
Ever since I started this work, I’ve felt like I’m only receiving.
So I keep agonizing over it. How I can possibly repay all of this affection.
* * *
On the way back, I took the time to savor the happy moments I’d spent with the cute children.
“How are everyone’s shoes so tiny? Did you see them lined up in a row in the shoe rack?”
Lee Cheonghyeon, that punk’s hairline is probably in a straighter line than those shoes.
“I seriously thought they were toys. The designs are all so pretty. But we just wear rubber slippers everywhere.”
“Don’t tell me you wore slippers out today?”
When I whipped my head around, Lee Cheonghyeon, who was in the back seat, flinched. Thankfully, bright navy Converse were on his feet.
“Why are you glaring at me like that!”
“I was worried you might have committed the atrocity of forgetting an idol’s duty and shuffling out to the site in flip-flops.”
“Hyung, you check us in front of the full-length mirror before we leave the shop anyway.”
“Because there’s always a chance of an unexpected situation.”
As I turned my head back to the front, my eyes met Choi Jeho’s through the rearview mirror.
Right, I couldn’t leave him out either.
“Choi Jeho, you held your own pretty well today.”
“What?”
“I said you did well. It was unexpected.”
Choi Jeho furrowed his brow. Why was it that this guy never looked pleased even when praised?
“Try being sandwiched from above and below. You wouldn’t get used to it either.”
My casually thrown remark instantly chilled the atmosphere. Wait, had my family history become this much of a forbidden subject?
While Choi Jeho and I, having become inadvertent atmosphere killers, rolled our eyes, Lee Cheonghyeon jumped in at the perfect time.
“Hyung, I have two too.”
A guy with a kind face and a kind head. If the world ended tomorrow, I’d place you atop the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. So that at least your face would remain on a satellite.
“Jeho-hyung, are you close with your younger sibling?”
Kang Giyeon asked. He apparently couldn’t picture it easily.
“Just normal.”
“Come on, for ‘normal’ you looked so comfortable with kids. You were a total veteran drill sergeant!”
Lee Cheonghyeon hyped it up nonstop. Kang Giyeon didn’t try to stop him, but simply nodded in agreement.
“Choi Miho throws a huge tantrum whenever something doesn’t go her way. I indulge her because I don’t want to hear that……”
“Your younger sibling is like that too? Jeong Seongjun also……”
And then Jeong Seongbin suddenly joined in here. Jeong Seongbin began exposing stories about Jeong Seongjun as if nursing a grudge about something. It was to the point that I wondered if this was what K-Brothers were like.
“But still, Seongjun-hyung and Miho are nice. The people in my house…… whew.”
“Have you ever seen Choi Miho?”
“I have. Didn’t Chanyeong-hyung call me to interpret back when hyung didn’t talk to her for three weeks?”
That happened? That bastard really was hopeless.
“Why didn’t he talk to her?”
“Why do you think? Something didn’t click with Kang Gyeon again.”
“Why bring up old stories.”
“Yeah, something I barely even remember.”
Choi Jeho and Kang Giyeon grumbled at the same time. They could be so in sync at times like this.
“But I get how Jeho-hyung and Seongbin-hyung feel. I have a younger brother named Giyeong too, who doesn’t listen and throws tantrums.”
“Why am I your younger brother?”
“Did you forget our birthdays are only eleven months apart? I’m telling you, I’m closer in age to Juu-hyung than to you.”
Lee Cheonghyeon cackled.
“Aww, our Giyeong! Try calling me hyung! Go on!”
“When our team has study time, you’re the first one I’m going to deal with.”
Terrifying remarks started flying out. Jeong Seongbin struggled to smooth things over, telling them to get along.
While that was happening, my eyes met Park Juu’s in the passenger seat. The guy who’d been watching the back seat with interest smiled brightly when his eyes met mine.
* * *
Even though we’d poured our entire souls into the daycare, we still had to practice.
Jeong Seongbin’s attitude of ‘You all took naps at the daycare so you still have energy left, right?’ reminded me of the drill instructor I’d seen in the army.
Only me and Lee Cheonghyeon, who didn’t take naps, were unfairly affected. Thanks to that, we rolled around until the sky turned dark. I needed to regain muscle mass quickly. I’d have to book more PT sessions.
After working out too, most of the members were dead tired. On the way back to the dorm, the phrase “it was a long day” never stopped.
Without anyone saying a word, those who finished getting ready to wash went into the bathroom, and the moment they came out of the shower, they dried their hair, finished their skincare, and flopped face-down onto their beds.
By the time I came out last from washing up, the dorm was as quiet as a dead mouse. Not even the sound of someone straightening their bedding could be heard.
‘They must be exhausted.’
There were tons of events to run going forward. Spark’s schedule had no gaps for the next three months.
Not knowing when else we’d be able to sleep soundly if not now, I turned off the kitchen and living room lights in place of the guys who’d forgotten to, turned on Choi Jeho’s mood lamp, and came back into the room.
When I lay down in bed, I heard deep breathing from above and beside me. It was a peacefulness that made me feel like I could fall asleep at any moment too.
But I couldn’t just sleep like this. My day wasn’t over yet.
I called up the system I’d kept buried for a long time.
+
[SYSTEM] ‘Work’ has been completed.
▷ Reward: Memory Data (1)
+
My eyes stung from the brightness. If it’s this dark around, shouldn’t it automatically adjust to dark mode? It’s bad for the eyes. What an outdated system.
‘But more importantly, memory……’
I tried to guess what kind of memory the system would give me. I knew the system wasn’t outright malicious toward me, but its creed of “as long as you’re alive, nothing else matters” didn’t seem to have changed.
‘First of all, since it’s a reward, it should logically be related to the KPI, right?’
The current KPI was first place on a music show. As long as it didn’t deviate from my expectations, this KPI too should be resolved in the not-too-distant future. So I wished it would give me more big-picture information.
It would be nice if it were information directly related to Noona, but I didn’t expect things to go that smoothly. I didn’t even know how many KPIs were left.
There was also a chance the system would screw me over. That’s why I’d chosen to open the data at a time when everyone was asleep.
‘Or what medicine Lee Cheonghyeon might take, or whether Choi Jeho’s father had caused trouble in the past, or what Jeong Seongbin’s throat condition was like……’
Every step of the way was full of things I needed to know. Next time, I should ask them to sell memory data in packages.
‘But how do I use this?’
I looked at the brightly glowing ‘Memory Data (1)’ and asked inwardly.
Then, in an instant, my vision went pitch-black. As if floating in the air, the feeling in my body faded.