Get Rich, Dad
The moment the pub opened, people began to stream in.
The stage was narrower than the rooftop, so Greg, seated a little ahead of me, turned around and said,
"Let's start once a few more people come in. The folks performing after us are running a little late, too."
I nodded, propped my phone on the drum beside me, and video-called the nun.
Reni and his friends were clustered in front of the phone. When I told them I would mute my end of the call, they all nodded earnestly.
It was adorable how excited they looked over something so small.
I waved one last goodbye to the kids and launched into the set.
After the first song ended, I glanced over and saw Luca nodding off, his head tipping forward. The baby was fighting a losing battle against eyelids that kept sliding shut.
He had already taken a nap earlier, yet the second I started playing guitar he seemed to get sleepy on reflex.
When I looked back at the phone, I found Reni resting his little chin in his hands, watching me with sparkling eyes.
Unlike the other kids who drifted in and out of the frame, already losing interest, Reni stayed locked on me.
I smiled softly at the child on the other side of the screen and moved into the next song.
I had thought it would not feel all that different, but an indoor performance carried a completely different atmosphere from an outdoor one.
For one thing, being indoors meant the audience seating was relatively darker than the stage, so the people beyond the lights were hard to make out.
Outside, more people had treated our music as background noise while focusing on their meals and conversations. Inside, I could feel their gazes naturally drawn toward us.
Even with the volume turned down, the reverb was strong enough to give me a mild rush of exhilaration.
All of it seemed to create a quiet synergy with the gentle, deeply resonant autumn songs we were playing.
The set, which I poured more focus into than usual, flew by in a blink, and when the final song ended we received louder applause and cheers than ever before.
Cassandra, who had been filming the performance from up close, flashed me an okay sign that said she was thoroughly satisfied.
I was a little disappointed that Reni, who had been watching his dad's show with those bright eyes, had left midway to go party with his friends, but a text from the nun saying he was playing happily put my mind at ease.
Our good little Luca, who had slept like a rock through the entire set, woke up to the sound of the audience's applause and cheers.
Once we finished packing up the stage and came down, Dimitri called us into a private room.
Wondering what was going on, I followed him in—and found a full feast laid out.
No one had said anything about eating dinner here tonight. When I looked at him questioningly, Dimitri apologized with a truly mortified expression.
"I heard about what happened earlier. I'm apologizing on my mother's behalf."
"Ah…"
Honestly, once I started performing I had completely forgotten about the earlier incident. Feeling awkward for no good reason, I ran a hand through my hair.
"It's fine, Dimitri. I've already forgotten about it. It's not like that was the first time something like that has happened."
"Just because it wasn't the first time doesn't make it okay. My mother asked me to pass on her apology as well—she said she was careless. Of course, it would have been better if she had said it herself…"
Dimitri trailed off as Cassandra came in behind him, shrugging as she picked up the thread.
"She was probably too embarrassed to face you right away."
I nodded in agreement.
"Yeah, I get it. And I'm really fine now."
At this point, running into her again would have been more uncomfortable. Cassandra and Dimitri were not the type to lie, so treating the apology as received put my mind at ease.
"Anyway, so tonight's on the house, right?"
Greg grinned shamelessly and was the first to take a seat.
"Hey, why are you sitting down first?"
With Greg leading the charge, everyone found their places and the meal began.
Dimitri poured me some apple cider and apologized once more.
"Jun. I'm really sorry. This might just sound like an excuse, but my mother wasn't originally a racist…"
Then he told me a story that was a little shocking.
When he was young, his father had an affair with the Vietnamese housekeeper who worked in their home, and his parents divorced because of it.
"If it had ended there, maybe…"
Ten years ago, when his father died of illness, he somehow left a significant portion of his estate to Dimitri and Jane. The other woman contested the inheritance, filing a lawsuit over the division of assets, and the family was in an uproar for a while.
"I know this isn't the kind of story you go around advertising, and I'm not asking you to understand because of it. But Jun, you're a good friend I want to keep seeing for a long time, so I felt you should know the reason. And Cassandra, of course, too."
Cassandra seemed to be hearing this for the first time as well; she muttered things like "Oh my God" and "Lord have mercy" while clutching her head with both hands.
Dimitri took her hands, lowered them gently, and patted them as he added,
"Of course, having circumstances doesn't justify what my mother said. But it's family business now, so I thought you should know. Just please don't mention it to her. She's a proud woman."
"Okay…"
It was a relief Charlie was not here today. Luca was busy eating a milk-bread studded with fruit, his eyes saying I know nothing, but if Charlie had overheard this story…
"Come to think of it, is Charlie at the neighbors' place right now?"
I changed the subject. Dimitri had wanted to apologize on his mother's behalf, and I was genuinely fine now.
"…Yes. Yeah."
Cassandra seemed to feel there was no more point in dwelling on it either, and steered the conversation toward the neighbors.
"I think Charlie's really sad about leaving the neighbors he's known since he was born. He keeps going over to their house whenever he gets the chance."
Once they got married, Cassandra planned to move into Dimitri's house with Charlie. It was about an hour's drive from the place the two of them had been living.
In this day and age you could stay in touch over social media, and it was close enough that they could visit whenever they wanted—but it would inevitably feel more distant than living right next door.
"I can't help feeling a little sad about leaving the neighbors I've known for so long either. Thinking about finally escaping that damn house is great, but…"
Cassandra gazed off into the distance for a moment, as if recalling the past, then smiled faintly.
"Anyway, it's the place Charlie was born and raised, so my feelings are all mixed up. And everything's already chaotic enough as it is."
Wedding preparations were one thing, but leaving a house she had lived in for so long was bound to weigh on her mind.
Cassandra was facing a major turning point in her life, yet having Dimitri there beside her, holding her hand, looked so steadying that I felt a real sense of relief.
On top of that, she was the kind of person who embraced change rather than fearing it, so she seemed to feel more excitement than pressure about the shifts that had naturally come her way.
She was definitely different from me, who never particularly welcomed change.
The thought that I, too, would leave my current house someday already left me feeling hollow.
Once the kids got bigger things would be different, but for now it was simply too comfortable a nest.
From Reni's kindergarten to my workplace right downstairs—it was as if the place had been custom-built for our family as it was now.
If it had not been for the kids, I might have stayed in the place I originally lived for another ten or twenty years.
"…"
Ugh. Just thinking about it was horrifying now.
I was shaking my head without realizing it when Luca waved his hands and called for me.
"Daddy? Dada!"
"Hm? Ah, you're thirsty."
By now I could read Luca's gestures like a book. I stood up the straw on his baby bottle and put it in both his hands, and he gulped it down eagerly.
Watching him with a warm feeling, I found myself thinking that as long as I had the kids with me, I would be ready to accept whatever changes the future brought.
The next morning.
It was Sunday, the one day of the week I had decided to devote entirely to rest, so even after waking up I just rolled around in bed with Luca, letting time drift by.
Then, as I slowly blinked like I might doze off again, Luca launched a palm assault demanding breakfast at once.
Like a cat kneading a cushion, he started pressing his little hands all over my face.
When I squeezed my eyes shut as if I felt nothing, Luca's palms turned into fists. He pummeled my face the way you knead dough.
"Mph, Luca, okay, okay—cough."
I spat out the fist that had shoved its way into my mouth and got up.
I sat him in the high chair and was wondering what to make when the whole loaf of bread I had baked two days earlier caught my eye.
I sliced the loaf in half, hollowed out the insides, and poured a simple soup I whipped up into the bread bowls.
Looking at Luca, who was staring at it with sparkling eyes, I said teasingly,
"This one's Daddy's."
"Aww-wah."
"Oh, my boy. That little frown makes me think you actually understood what Daddy said."
I laughed at the child bouncing his feet as he looked at me, then tore the bread I had scooped out into small pieces, sprinkled them over the slightly cooled soup, and set it in front of him.
"This is easier to eat, so cheer up, my lord."
I soaked a spoonful of bread in the soup and fed it to him, and Luca ate it with gusto.
Then he took the spoon from my hand and started diligently spooning it himself.
He still spilled a considerable amount here and there, but thanks to that I could enjoy my own breakfast in peace while checking the YouTube channel on my phone.
Greg's playlist had been up for two days now, and far more viewers had poured in than when I last checked.
And as always, most people clicked on the channel's most popular video—the one with Luca and Reni—and shared it like crazy.
Relieved that I probably would not have to worry about the staff's salaries for the next few months, I scrolled through the new comments and discovered something unexpected: Korean comments.
Until now, 99 percent of the comments had been in English. What was going on?
But I soon understood, thanks to the word that appeared in common across those comments—Hwatu.
Checking the analytics more carefully with that hunch in mind, I saw that the Hwatu scene near the end of the playlist video was being shared rapidly among Koreans.
Now that was interesting.
Until now I had neither hidden nor advertised my background, but the fact that I was Korean-American was drawing attention and getting a pretty decent response.
There were even random comments about K-pop. The funny part was that those commenters themselves were not Korean but foreigners.
Either way, the most important thing was that subscriber growth was finally picking up speed.
Just a few months ago the count had hovered around three hundred thousand; now it was racing toward five hundred thousand.
I knew by now that subscriber count was not an absolute measure of video revenue.
Still, more was better than less. That way even people who might have scrolled past would at least hit subscribe and leave.
I had been quietly worried because the growth curve had seemed to plateau a little…
"At this rate we're going to get seriously rich. Right, Luca?"
"Yeah."
Luca, spoon still in his mouth, answered with a bright smile.
It was a peaceful Sunday morning.