The first thing I noticed about Chiyo unni’s mother was that she looked less like her daughter than I had expected.
[Hello, I’m Chiyo’s mother.]
It wasn’t just her appearance. Her manner of speaking was so gentle and pleasant, greeting us in Japanese honorifics the moment we met.
[Thank you all for always helping Chiyo...]
She gave off the sort of feeling you might see in a Japanese animated film.
Come to think of it, Chiyo unni would occasionally make the absurd claim that she had been a very demure young lady in Japan.
‘Hmm... When I look at her mother, it somehow sounds like it might be true...’
Maybe it was just the Korean-language patch that was the problem.
‘But Chiyo unni already knew enough Korean to speak pretty well when she first came here, didn’t she...?’
The question still remained, but it would have been rude to ask Chiyo’s mother whether it was true the moment we met her.
So I offered the usual formal response.
[No, not at all. We receive a lot of help from Chiyo unni too, you know?]
Chiyo unni’s mother’s face lit up as she spoke in a high-pitched voice.
[Oh my, really...? That’s such a relief. My child has been such a mischievous and restless girl ever since she was very young...]
So that had been her mother’s biggest worry...
There hadn’t even been any need to ask...
Aside from that, it seemed her mother was a fan of mine.
[Back when you were in Seven, I watched every Japanese program that Dohee and Seoyun appeared on. At first, I watched because they were Chiyo’s friends, but they were both so cute, pretty, and entertaining~ I was truly, truly happy that they were Chiyo’s friends~]
The unnies grew curious about my conversation with her mother and asked what she had said.
Especially Seoyun unni.
“What did your mother just say? It sounded like something good.”
“Ah, well... She said she was a huge fan of me back in the Seven days. She said I was cute and pretty.”
“No, she called my name too. I heard her. Seoyun-jjang.”
I hesitated for a moment before opening my mouth.
“Ah... To be precise, she was more of a fan of me than of Seoyun unni...”
“Really?”
“Yeah... I can’t lie.”
At the same time, Naeun unni and Ua unni tried to stop Seoyun unni, who had started to bristle.
“Hey, hey. If you were her, would you believe that?”
“Unni, calm down.”
“Come on, she’s just joking, Seoyun.”
“Do you really think Chiyo’s mother would say something rude like, ‘I don’t really like Seoyun-jjang~ but I really love Dohee-jjang~’ all sweetly on the very first day she met us? Come on.”
“Oh...”
Seoyun unni was clever.
“Maybe she developed some resistance after being tricked once before...”
The lie she had told on a Japanese program back in the Seven days must have made quite an impression.
“You’re seriously going to die.”
A fond memory.
Honestly, being wrapped up in a mat at the dorm back then had been pretty fun...
“Too bad. Actually, she was a fan of both you and me. She watched all the Japanese programs, too, and said you were incredibly cute and incredibly pretty.”
Seoyun unni softened a little when I called her cute again.
“Ah, man... I really need to study Japanese harder.”
Thanks to this, Seoyun unni’s motivation to study foreign languages had increased, so it was a good thing.
Of course, she ought to work harder on her English first.
English appeared in Korean song lyrics, after all.
Anyway, after exchanging a brief greeting with Chiyo’s mother,
while Chiyo unni and her mother had their emotional reunion at the dorm,
the unnies and I prepared to leave the dorm once again.
We had only stopped by to surprise Chiyo unni. We still had vacation plans to meet our own families.
In the meantime, Seoyun unni carefully picked up the whiskey and placed it in the cupboard.
She wasn’t even going to drink it, so she was being overly fussy for no reason.
That whiskey had been bought nearly a year ago, anyway.
It was liquor she had purchased at a duty-free shop at the beginning of the year,
after being manipulated by Harang unni, who had become an adult first at twenty-one.
—No, I’m telling you, once you become an adult, you need to own at least one bottle of liquor like this!
There had been three Seven members who became adults this year:
Chaerin, Seoyun, and Sera unni.
Chaerin unni, of course, had ignored her as usual and gone on her way.
—What are you talking about? Don’t say such weird things, unni.
And Sera unni hadn’t even heard her because she had been clinging to me.
—Dohee...! I’m an adult now, too...!
—Oh. Good for you.
The only person who had fallen for Harang’s campaign was Seoyun unni.
—Hmm... This isn’t bad.
At this rate, that whiskey would still be around until I became an adult, so I decided I would drink it as a commemorative toast then.
* * *
On the way to pick up my sister.
Click, click—the car’s turn signal sounded.
It was strangely addictive and strangely sleepy.
Sleepiness came rushing in, and Doa’s head began to nod.
“Doa, get some sleep~ Dad will wake you up in a little while.”
“Mm-hm...”
Doa lay straight across the back seat.
Her eyes closed.
And when she opened them again, still half-asleep, she found herself thoroughly annoyed.
“Look who it is.”
A teasing voice.
“Your sister’s here, and you’re sleepy?”
Her sister climbed on top of her just as she lay there and hugged her tightly with her whole body.
“Ahhh, don’t do thaaat.”
At Doa’s habitual, childish whining,
her sister only grew happier and covered her face with kisses.
Doa realized her mistake.
Steeling her voice, she spoke again, this time rather firmly.
“Stop. I said stop.”
In a few hours, she would be fourteen.
She wasn’t a child anymore.
“Oh, is that so?”
Of course, Doa’s defiance only made her sister’s displays of affection grow more intense.
“Let’s see how much our Doa has grown! Hee hee.”
That didn’t mean Doa could push Dohee away.
Her sister would sulk if Doa so much as pushed her a little.
It was a habit she had learned from childhood.
“Dohee, aren’t you going to hug Dad, too?”
“Ah, wait your turn. There’s an order to these things.”
More than anything, if her sister sulked, Dad sulked too.
The youngest had no choice but to adapt to the family order that had already been established by the time she was born.
And she had to work for the sake of peace.
Of course, this arrangement was only possible because her sister gave her things, such as the birthday present Dohee had prepared for Doa a few days earlier.
* * *
The bell rang in celebration of the New Year.
“Happy New Year!”
“Our princesses~ You’ve gained another year~? Our baby is fourteen, and our star is eighteen~”
Our family exchanged New Year’s greetings while clinking glasses of soda together.
“Congratulations on turning forty-two, Mom~”
“Can’t you be quiet?”
Even when someone congratulated her, Mom was violent enough to raise a finger as though she were about to flick me on the forehead.
Dad, on the other hand, happily accepted my congratulations.
“Happy New Year to my daughter, too~? Dad’s so happy that we’re all spending the New Year together like this. Thanks for congratulating me~”
“Right? It’s not easy to receive congratulations from Korea’s most famous teenager, Lee Dohee.”
I suppose that balance was what made Mom and Dad such a good match.
A sweet dad and a spicy mom.
Come to think of it, Mom had been very affectionate when I was a baby, too. But these days, whenever she saw me, she only seemed interested in flicking me on the forehead...
How had things turned out like this?
Sigh... Was it postpartum depression after having Doa, after all?
She had started acting that way around then.
I had been five years old.
It didn’t seem like I had done anything wrong...
Meanwhile, Dad tapped my cheek with his finger.
“Dad would be even happier if Dohee kissed him on the cheek...”
It was rather cute, seeing Dad wanting some affection.
“Confirmed.”
Dad’s face lit up.
Of course, I didn’t get up from my seat.
I tapped Doa, who was sitting beside me.
“Doa, Dad says he wants a kiss.”
“Good grief...”
Doa let out a deep sigh despite being the baby of the family.
“Hey, I told you sighing makes your luck run away.”
“You sigh all the time, too, unni. You even make those sad noises on the phone.”
Doa’s analysis was rather cold-blooded.
“Unni does that because the weight of the world is on her shoulders. If you keep talking back, you’ll turn into Mom.”
In the end, Mom smacked me on the head again.
“Damn it... This is the brain of a composing, studying, piano-playing genius...”
“You’re practically begging to get hit.”
I felt like I would get hit again if I stayed quiet, so I spoke to Doa again.
“Oh... Lee Doa, since you mentioned phone calls. You’ve been deliberately ignoring my calls lately, haven’t you? Even if you didn’t see the call come in, you should call back when you find a missed call. Your sister calls whenever she gets a chance because she wants to see our Doa.”
“Even if I had a boyfriend, I wouldn’t call three times a day.”
“You—you have a boyfriend...?”
Seriously...?
Doa... had a boyfriend?
This was hell... It was hell.
“I said even if I did. I absolutely don’t!”
Doa sighed primly, then stood up and hugged Dad as though fleeing to safety.
At Dad’s gesture, she kissed him on the cheek.
No matter what she said, our Doa still kissed Dad just as I had asked.
She had grown so tall, too. How could a fourteen-year-old, twelve by international age, be this cute?
“Mom, how tall is Doa now?”
“Our baby... Doa, how tall are you now? 158~?”
“No, I’m 159.”
Though Doa spoke coldly,
158 or 159 was practically the same thing.
‘Was I around 165 by the time I graduated elementary school?’
Doa was born in December, so there was almost a one-year age difference between us...
Even so, she seemed shorter than me.
Thank goodness, but... it was also sad.
Before my eyes was Doa’s face, already a little more mature than before.
Her plump cheeks had slimmed down a little, and her face had become sharper... Her eyes, which had once been perpetually smiling and puppy-like, were now changing to resemble a cat’s.
“My adorable 140-centimeter and 150-centimeter Doa. The sorrow of not being able to witness her growth with my own two eyes, and having to check it through the pictures Mom leaves behind... It’s my one and only regret as an idol... It’s truly hell...”
I buried my face in Mom’s arms and began to sob for no particular reason.
Mom patted me, then spoke in a sorrowful tone.
“You think Mom doesn’t feel the same?”
“You get to see Doa grow every single day...”
Mom gently clasped my hand.
“Goodness... Mom also checks the news every day to see if anything happened to our firstborn, or if she got hurt somewhere...”
“I call Mom and Dad once each every day.”
I was such a dutiful daughter.
Unlike cold-hearted Doa.
“You never tell us when you get hurt, though... Good grief, when did our fool grow up this much...”
I had been separated from Mom
ever since I joined the debut team at fifteen...
“Mom...”
I slowly raised my head from Mom’s arms.
“It’s been three years since we last spent New Year’s Day together like this... Goodness, when did you grow up so well...”
Mom tightly squeezed each of my fingers one by one.
“Mom...”
Mom looked deeply into my eyes.
“Yes, tell me... What is it, my daughter?”
Even so, I had to say what needed to be said...
“When I was fifteen... I started living in the dorm, remember...”
“Yes, you did when you were fifteen...”
“But back then...”
“Yes...”
“Back then... I was already taller than you... I was 168 centimeters... And honestly, my chest was bigger, too...”
“Aaah, don’t hit my head...! It really hurts...!”
South Korea is a country where even stating facts can constitute defamation.