Expensive Beef and Baby Teeth
The moment those words left her mouth, the press conference room, as anyone might have expected, descended into utter chaos.
A magical girl dropping a full-blown parent insult right in the reporters' faces—an unprecedented scandal of the first order.
Fleeing the barrage of questions, I slipped out of the hall and took a breather in the waiting room with the Minister and the two uncles.
Well. I'd said everything I needed to say.
I'd considered smashing the podium to pieces, but since I hadn't actually inflicted any physical damage, I managed to hold myself back.
"Okay, now you do it like—this."
"Whoa!"
And so there we were, parked in the waiting room. Watching two burly middle-aged men teach Siyeon how to play cat's cradle made the whole interrogation I'd just endured feel like a lie.
"Those goddamn vulture bastards… hah."
Leaving the people who were actually having fun alone, I grabbed a bottle of water.
A little moisture for my hardworking, highly accomplished mouth—then a short, burp-adjacent sigh.
The reporters I'd just verbally eviscerated would no doubt flood the internet with spiteful articles, but at least my insides felt peaceful, so I didn't care.
It wasn't like any of them were going to go out there and be a magical girl in my place.
Anyway—the press conference, after a minor uproar, had come to an abrupt end.
In the waiting room, the Minister drifted over toward me, gave my shoulder a few encouraging pats, and beamed.
"Results weren't ideal, but you did well too, Sun."
"Hmm. Just with words?"
I rubbed the tips of my thumb and middle finger together at her, my expression distinctly unimpressed.
There's an old saying: don't spit in a smiling face. Meaning you don't treat someone who approaches you warmly like some lowlife scumbag.
But in a relationship bound by money and labor, sometimes you do, in fact, need to become a lowlife scumbag.
This seasoned political auntie had long since caught the subtext.
"What is it you want, then?"
"As a little encouragement to keep working hard—buy me a meal. High-end beef."
They'd dragged me all the way to Seoul on a precious weekend, so I figured I was entitled to one free dinner. I demanded the kind of beef that, even when you have money, feels too precious to spend your own cash on.
The Minister auntie, thinking something along the lines of how much can kids even eat, nodded readily.
"Sure, that much I can do…"
"And include the two uncles who got dragged out here on a weekend."
I held up two fingers from a closed fist, adding the pair of them—and the Minister auntie's face darkened in an instant.
Having already said "all right," she could hardly backpedal with some greasy excuse like I only agreed because I thought you two wouldn't eat much.
The eyes of the two civil-servant uncles teaching Siyeon cat's cradle went wide at my thoughtfulness.
"My, your granddaughters are so pretty!"
"Ah—yes, uh…"
To the grill attendant's perfectly innocent question, the Minister's face grew steadily more like someone chewing on a bug.
A high-end barbecue place—the interior alone made it obvious this was nothing like your average meat joint.
A barbecue dinner that had originally been planned for one adult woman and two elementary schoolers, now suddenly joined by two adult men. Naturally, far more money was vanishing into the void.
And those two civil-servant uncles were something else, by the way…
"One more order of flower sirloin here."
They have zero reading of the room.
Their boss was sitting right there looking sour, and still they ordered without a shred of hesitation, like they'd walked into a buffet.
Maybe it was just men in their thirties and forties starting to get self-centered. Or maybe they were working out their weekend-overtime resentment through meat.
Either way, the uncles insisted they were eating well thanks to us, and kept piling properly grilled slices onto Siyeon's plate and mine the moment they came off the grill.
Well-cooked beef, lightly dipped in sesame oil mixed with just the right amount of salt and pepper.
Feeling that flesh melt helplessly even under a child's teeth, I squeezed my eyes shut.
Flower sirloin just melts awaay.
A meal that should have wrapped up under a hundred thousand won.
In the blink of an eye the leading digit became a three, and the sum drained out of someone's account.
The result of two adult men joining the dinner was, for one person at least, nothing short of catastrophic.
One person unhappy. Four people happy.
The greatest happiness for the greatest number—wasn't that enough?
Even though we'd come all the way to Seoul, two little girls had nothing particular to do hanging around a neighborhood that wasn't even near home.
After the press conference and the free meal, we climbed straight into the car and headed back to our place.
"Thanks to you, we ate well. See you next time."
Even with weekend duty, their bellies were lacquered in beef fat, and their complexions looked better for it—the uncles' voices were bright and cheerful.
I saw them off in equally good spirits, bowing from the waist.
"Goodbye."
"Bye-bye!"
"Ugh, I'm stuffed."
The moment the two of them left, I clutched my stomach and exhaled a heavy, uncomfortable breath.
A belly packed tight with nothing but meat—I hadn't even ordered a single bowl of rice.
Of course it felt awful. I scrubbed the lingering meat smell out of my mouth with toothpaste and a toothbrush.
In the middle of that vigorous brushing, as the bristles worked between my teeth, I felt something off.
…Huh?
I looked into the bathroom mirror and brought a finger to the tooth where that strange sensation was coming from.
Wiggle, wiggle. Wiggle, wiggle.
A loose wobble starting from a front tooth.
Apparently one of those baby teeth I'd never paid any attention to had finally reached the stage of falling out.
Once I noticed it, the tip of my tongue kept finding its way there.
It wasn't swinging wildly just yet, so yanking it out all at once would probably leave me with nothing but pain.
I'd been through that pain before, and I wasn't particularly eager to rush it.
I covered the last traces of beef with toothpaste, then called over to Siyeon, who was already parked in front of the computer.
"Siyeon, go brush your teeth."
"Just a minute—"
Apparently it was a crucial part of her anime; she yelled for just a second more.
Immediately the speakers blasted a heroic explosion, the phlegmy scream of something that was probably a monster, and a young, self-congratulatory voice roughly preaching love and friendship.
For the record, love and friendship do not put food on the table.
Once the important bit passed, she paused the video and headed for the bathroom.
The second she came back out, I called her over and stepped in close.
"Siyeon, open wide and say ah."
"Aaaah—"
I carefully slipped an index finger into her small open mouth and poked at her teeth one by one.
Unlike mine, a front tooth was wobbling hard—if you tied a string to it and pulled, it looked ready to pop right out with a tock.
Siyeon's front tooth was going to go before mine. Without thinking, I muttered,
"Guess we should go to the dentist…?"
"Den…tist?"
The moment the word left her half-open mouth, her voice filled with pure terror.
Big mistake.
In a flash Siyeon jerked her face back, snapped her mouth shut, and—like a frightened hamster—vanished under the bed covers.
To children, the dentist is a symbol of pure dread.
Even kids who've never been once somehow know the terrifying drill sound that scrapes away tartar.
Never mind that it has nothing to do with pulling a baby tooth.
Where's the nearest dentist around here…
Setting aside Siyeon's panic for the moment—the fact that it was nearly time to pull it was real—I pulled up a map on my phone.
Sure, we could yank it at home, but for long-term health, a hospital with no complications was best.
You can't always just do what you want in life; sometimes you have to learn that the hard way, even if someone has to drag you there.
But if I simply hauled her by force, I'd only leave her with a worse impression.
So I decided to persuade her by giving her an escape hatch from an even greater fear—leaving her at least half a sense of choice.
"Siyeon, if we don't go now, they might have to drill into your tooth for real later."
"!"
Whether we went now or later, the result was the same: the tooth was coming out.
That spine-chilling drill sound was for cavities and tartar removal.
The drill horror wasn't going to happen either way—but by borrowing a phantom fear, I was essentially offering her the "before they start drilling" option.
A small fear is ruled by a greater one.
Historically speaking, that had always been the answer.
"…Okay. I'll go."
In a tiny voice, Siyeon peeked her head out of the blanket, looking grim.
"Then we'll go Monday."
Even if I wanted to get it done soon, Saturday clinic hours were short.
Car to Seoul, press conference, a thoroughly satisfying lunch, car ride home again.
That schedule, which could be summarized in a single line of a diary, had already eaten far past Saturday hospital hours.
And hospitals almost never saw patients on Sundays, so the appointment naturally slid past the weekend into a weekday.
And so arrived the fateful Monday.
We reached the dental clinic with Siyeon, who was pale with a brand-new kind of terror.
"We're here to get a tooth pulled."
"Didn't your parents come with you?"
"No, but they gave us a card."
With a well-practiced lie, I sat us down in the waiting room.
Farther inside, a person sat in one of those chairs you only ever see at the dentist.
A nurse in a sanitary cap and mask was, of all things, operating the tool that made the single most terrifying sound in Siyeon's world right now.
The sound of metal grinding against tooth, something being scraped away—Siyeon's face only grew paler.
"It's okay. That's not for us."
I patted the shoulder of the terrified Siyeon, trying to ease her anxiety.
"Really…?"
She looked up at me with eyes that seemed ready to spill tears at any second.
I'd never once lied to Siyeon before—but apparently the dentist was a place that could make even pure, spotless me look suspicious.
"Yeah. Really really. Pinky promise."
"Mm… pinky."
Our soft little pinkies overlapped and tangled into a knot.
A little while later, our turn finally arrived—Siyeon's and mine.
Siyeon's tooth had been on the absolute brink of falling out, so that was fine, but…
"Aaagh!"
"Oh dear…! Sorry about that—this one just won't come out in one go."
A sharp force slamming into the gum, and the dentist's brief apology.
My own tooth—the one I hadn't thought twice about—refused to come free at once, and delivered a world of pain.
I should have put my own appointment off until it was a little looser.