Chapter 132: Even the Absolute Being Is a First-Time Dad
Absolute Beginner Dad Episode 132
Clunk, clunk.
The family van moved forward, carrying them all.
Kang-jun was acutely aware that this was all a dream.
Fragments of buried memories, surfacing from the depths of his subconscious...
Nothing more than an illusion woven together from fleeting moments.
His older sister, seated beside him in the back, chattered excitedly.
"I'm so excited."
The young Kang-jun in the dream couldn't bring himself to respond.
His heart ached every time he saw her bright, carefree smile—so different from the one he remembered.
What kind of person had his sister been?
Someone who forced smiles just because she was a few years older.
Even through childhoods stained with the greasy scent of hardship...
She had always comforted him, whispering, "It's okay."
She wasn't the type with an unbreakable will.
But like a clam, she knew how to hide her fragile heart beneath a tough shell.
And yet, here she was, laughing without a single worry in the world.
A smile as fresh as summer grass.
"I'm gonna ride the sled a thousand times today!"
She kept chattering away, oblivious.
Unaware of how her life would change after today...
Unaware of how fiercely she would have to fight to survive.
Smiling brightly, knowing nothing.
Clunk, clunk.
The old van carried them steadily toward tragedy.
Stopping and starting at traffic lights, over and over...
Yet always moving forward, toward the inevitable.
Haaah, haaah.
Was it because of the drowsy afternoon?
Or...
Because the car was moving so slowly?
"Huh?"
The sister who had been talking nonstop suddenly fell silent. When he glanced over, she was already fast asleep.
His mother in the passenger seat wasn't much different, nodding off as she fought sleep.
Then, abruptly, the car pulled over to the side of the road.
Screech.
"Kang-jun, can you wait in the car for a bit?"
His father's voice.
He remembered.
He must have promised to wait.
"That's my boy, so brave."
His father picked up the toy car his mother had been clutching in her sleep.
"I'll be right back."
A gift from Santa Claus—broken, refusing to move.
After his father stepped out with the toy, young Kang-jun...
As if possessed, he quietly opened the door and followed.
Tracing his father's footprints through the thick snow.
—Toy Kingdom.
The place his father headed to, leaving the sleeping family behind, was a toy store.
Little Kang-jun must have assumed Santa Claus was waiting inside.
'He's going to tell Santa my toy is broken and get me a new one.'
Just as he reached for the tightly shut door to thank Santa...
"Sir, what do you do when a toy breaks?"
"Oh dear..."
"You almost ruined my son's Christmas."
Young Kang-jun witnessed the truth.
Santa Claus.
A word made of six syllables.
"Dad..."
But the real word was just three syllables.
Father.
Suddenly, the bell above the door jingled.
Ding-dong.
A heavy silence fell.
"Kang-jun, how did you—?"
His father smiled awkwardly.
"You found out too soon."
Then added:
"Keep it a secret from your sister, okay?"
"Okay..."
"Man-to-man promise."
They linked pinkies, sealing the secret.
At the time, young Kang-jun had felt a strange thrill—like he'd uncovered a great truth.
And then came the sweetest reward.
He got to pick any toy he wanted from the shelves.
After some thought, he chose a Gundam robot.
"Dad, I want this one."
As they stepped outside after paying...
"Kang-jun, you're a grown-up now."
His father's face blurred as he spoke softly.
"Realizing Santa isn't real is the first step to becoming an adult."
"Then..."
"So from now on, you're an adult too. You know what adults are like, right?"
Young Kang-jun nodded.
He didn't really understand, but his father must have been...
A very warm person.
"Yeah, I know."
Adults don't pick at their food.
Adults don't cry...
Adults are strong, like Dad.
"I'm an adult now."
His father nodded once and opened the back door.
Even though he knew what tragedy awaited...
Kang-jun obediently climbed in and buckled his seatbelt.
Just as he knew this was a dream, he also knew nothing could be changed.
Memories of his parents, long suppressed, came flooding back.
"Alright, let's get going..."
Young Kang-jun responded.
"Dad."
No answer came.
Only silence filled the car.
"He polished my shoes, though they were beyond saving, and still slipped me a few coins. On weekends, we always went to the bathhouse together."
The words scattered into the air.
"Sitting me on his lap, scrubbing me so thoroughly—how boring it felt back then."
Forgotten memories surged like a tidal wave.
"On the way back, he'd always stop at a diner to buy me machine-made udon."
Memories that, when they surfaced, brought unbearable pain.
His father would sit at his desk late into the night, wearing glasses he rarely used, poring over thick books.
"He said he couldn't go to college because of money. Mom loved books so much, I thought all adults read every day."
On weekends, he'd read endlessly, day and night.
"Mom and Dad met in a writing club in high school. They bonded over books, talking every day."
He remembered every detail.
"I remember everything."
But he had lived trying to forget.
"I pretended not to."
Kang-jun gripped his father's sleeve tightly.
"But I managed."
A blatant lie.
"Luckily, they left after I grew up."
Back when he could barely read.
"Unni must have had it hard."
Young Kang-jun smiled bitterly.
"I never picked at my food again."
He had firmly believed adults didn't do that.
After that day, he never did.
Or rather, he couldn't afford to.
Too hungry to be picky.
"I never cried either."
Waiting for his sister while watching cartoons all day...
Whenever fear crept in, he'd turn up the TV volume.
Then burrow under the blankets and sob.
Afraid his father might be watching.
"I got a lot stronger too."
That much was true.
"Strong enough to protect my family, no matter what."
Young Kang-jun added, his voice trembling slightly.
"You know... I'm a dad now too."
His voice grew wet.
"My daughter's four. Her name is Seol. Now I understand what you and Mom used to say."
He understood "I'd hold you even if it hurt my eyes."
He understood the desperate wish for her to just grow up healthy.
The feeling of wanting to give more, even after giving everything.
"Yesterday, she gave me a paper carnation. Even though I'm clumsy at this dad thing, she follows along—I'm so grateful..."
Only Kang-jun's voice continued in the silence.
"How did it feel?"
He asked his fading father.
"I can't even imagine."
Still, no answer came.
"Just imagining leaving that tiny thing behind tears my heart apart. How did you feel?"
The car entered the highway.
Kang-jun's blurred consciousness sharpened.
Finally snapping to, he spoke urgently.
"If only you hadn't gone..."
Young Kang-jun's words scattered into the air.
"You could have been happy..."
Like actors in a cheap melodrama, his family replayed their words and actions from that day.
"Please stop..."
In this world, Kang-jun was just a stranger.
No one responded to him.
Nothing could change the past.
"Please..."
The car merged onto the highway.
Shattered memories reassembled.
Now, the "calamity" would strike.
"H-Honey!"
His mother's scream was the beginning.
"W-What's that?!"
A dump truck swerved erratically from the opposite lane...
Shattered the median barrier and barreled toward their tiny car.
SCREEEEEECH—!
Tires screeched...
CRAAAAASH—!
A head-on collision.
A high-pitched "Beeeeep!" rang in his ears.
His insides lurched; his vision spun.
Amid the chaos, he saw his mother in the passenger seat.
Limp as a broken marionette.
Unable to face it, he squeezed his eyes shut.
Then came his father's labored voice.
"Kang-jun... Soo-bin..."
Covered in blood, gasping for air.
Click.
With weak hands, he unbuckled and crawled to the back seat.
"K-Kids..."
He lied.
"I-It's okay..."
Gasping, he pulled his unconscious daughter and barely conscious son into a tight embrace.
"Kang-jun."
He locked eyes with his dying father.
"If Mom and I are late..."
Kang-jun nodded.
"Take care of your sister."
He fought back tears.
Because...
He was an adult now.
"Be responsible."
His father used his last ounce of strength to hug them tighter, murmuring:
"Don't be scared."
"I'm not scared at all."
Kang-jun lied too.
His father nodded.
Then weakly recited:
"A crab... in soy sauce..."
A poem his father had read to him every night.
His favorite...
Recited with Kang-jun on his lap.
"The Permeating Thing" by Ahn Do-hyun.
"Half-submerged, lying face down..."
Young Kang-jun, fighting tears, began reciting it with him, line by line.
When soy sauce floods its shell,
the crab must clutch its eggs tighter,
wriggling lower,
curling toward the bottom.
It must have struggled,
struggled until,
helpless,
it let the darkness seep into its flesh,
accepting the twilight slowly.
Before its shell grew dull,
it must have whispered to its eggs:
"It's evening."
"Time to turn off the lights and sleep."
What had they been feeling?
Even after witnessing their final moments...
Kang-jun couldn't fathom it.
Whoosh—
The world shifted.
A funeral dirge played.
His parents' funeral.
"Heartless brat, not even crying..."
"Both parents gone, and he's just..."
"Doesn't understand a thing..."
Relatives scolded him.
For not crying.
Kang-jun never cried.
"Vrrrm! Mobilize!"
Frantically pressing the buttons on his Gundam toy, he choked back sobs, enduring.
"We're struggling too..."
"An orphanage..."
"How can you say that?!"
While his sister, who had cried herself unconscious, lay on a bench...
The adults argued, shouting and pointing fingers.
He didn't cry.
Because he was an adult.
The world shifted again.
"Kang-jun, let's survive..."
In a tiny basement room, his sister hugged him and wept.
He buried his face in her chest and sobbed silently.
Afraid his father might be watching.
His consciousness faded again.
A teacher asking children from single-parent homes to raise their hands...
Him squinting, gauging reactions before hesitantly lifting his.
The day he beat up a classmate who mocked him for being an orphan.
His sister begging in the principal's office.
All those hard years flashing by.
"Abba."
A soothing voice reached his ears.
"Abba, why?"
The world trembled.
"Abba, don't cry..."
And then, he woke up.
Seol was peering down at him.
"Abbaa..."
Coming to his senses, he realized he must have cried in his sleep.
He quickly wiped his tears, but Seol asked again:
"Bad dream? Scawy?"
Then patted his back with her tiny hands.
"It's okay, it's okay..."
Dawn hadn't even broken yet.
She must have woken up hearing him cry.
Kang-jun pulled her into a light hug.
"Just a dream from when I was little."
"Then why cwy?"
He dodged the question.
"Guess I cried because I didn't have toys."
Seol looked up at him with sad eyes.
"Seowi sawy."
What was she sorry for?
"If Seowi was there, would share toys... Now Seowi hewe, so sawy..."
Kang-jun lost his words and cried again.
"It's okay, it's okay."
She kept patting his back, reassuring him.
Just like...
His father had in his final moments.
"Evewything okay..."
Even the days when his only refuge from the world was a thin blanket...
Melted away in her tiny hands.
He sobbed in her arms for a long time.
"Adults aren't supposed to cry..."
Seol replied:
"Adults cwy too."
Then whispered:
"Gomo say before Abba come, she cwy every night. Seowi pretend sweep, but see evewything."
She kept patting him.
"But adults cwy in secret."
"......"
"So kids pretend not to see."
She patted him again.
"Seowi keep secwet, so cwy if wan."
Outside the window, a purple dawn shimmered.
Morning came, just like always.