A Peaceful Day (2)
A Peaceful Day (2)
The shoes I'd changed into were sneakers that wrapped up to my ankles.
Dad checked that I'd put on a different pair, sighed with relief, and spoke.
These were also in the domestic midsize sedan price range, so I'd worn them with extreme caution, and I tilted my head because I didn't get Dad's reaction.
But Dad looked at my face and laughed.
"Those show up on the market sometimes, so you can get 'em if you've got the money. Wear 'em rough, it's fine."
"...Huh."
The ones I'd worn before had been a release of a hundred pairs before Dad was even born, and supposedly there were only twelve left in the whole world right now.
A grail piece so rare that the names of the owners were registered—and I'd been grinding the soles into the ground like hell...
I understood Dad's expression and feelings.
Dad looked at the shoes with the same glee as if he were looking at a toy, then showed me all sorts of other pairs.
"These are ones Si-yoon's mom bought me ages ago, and I've never worn 'em once. You know the price has jumped sixty times?!"
Dad wouldn't look that happy even if the land he owned had jumped a hundred and twenty times.
About money, his attitude was just, oh, it went up~ that level.
I sat on the sofa and humored Dad while he chattered half the night, and at some point he ran out of steam too and sat down next to me.
"You can at least only wear the ones I said you could wear, right?"
"If I grabbed some random passerby and told them, 'Go ahead and pick out which ones I spent three hours explaining were okay to wear,' would even ten percent of people get it right?"
"......"
I laughed when I saw Dad's expression deflate.
"But still~ I remembered, didn't I."
"Ahah."
Dad seemed to finally notice what I was wearing and began nagging me.
The buttons of my dress shirt were undone, and my abs showed under the black Under Armour.
After enduring a lengthy lecture, I changed into pajamas, came back out to the living room, and sat on the sofa.
"Sweetie, are you gonna get married?"
"Hmm... I don't think I will. Why?"
"...Obviously I'd rather you didn't."
"And?"
"If you don't, our Kim family line cuts off..."
"Ahah, well, you should've had a son then. It gets cut off anyway since I'm a daughter, you know?"
"Is that so?"
"Marriage... if there's someone who's better than me at absolutely everything, I'll think about it once."
"So nobody."
"Right. Nobody."
JSM headquarters.
Having relocated their headquarters, the newly built JSM was even bigger and more majestic.
They'd long since toppled the #1 agency in the country and had become one of the top agencies in the world.
I was currently at the newly constructed JSM headquarters, in the practice room reserved for Dreaming.
I danced pretty well.
The dancing started as a way to play with Dad, but while I was fooling around with the Dreaming members, my skills naturally improved.
I was a little shorter than them, but when I danced a goofy meme dance with a haughty expression and my long, lanky arms and legs, the others burst out cackling.
These were the same members who, when they first saw my proportions, had gasped and been envious.
Yua had been athletic since she was young and had incredible proportions, but even though I was short, I had proportions that were even better.
"How's this?"
It was an upgraded version of the old corny dance.
The dance, where you lift one leg at a time while shimmying it off in the ugliest possible way, was more than enough to make the others laugh.
Rije and Yua came over asking how to do it.
"Can we do it on variety shows?!"
"Sure, as long as you make it clear it's my trademark."
""Of course!""
We were dancing and messing around when Dad walked into the practice room.
When Dad spotted me, he got mad.
"Kim Si-yoon!!!"
Upon seeing Dad like that, I naturally turned right around and started making a fast getaway.
My outfit was skin-tight and revealed the lines of my body pretty explicitly.
Ultimately, I had no choice but to let Dad catch me anyway since I'd have to face him at home, and the Dreaming members got scolded by him.
Saying I was still fifteen...
Yua put on an indignant expression; she'd worn even more revealing outfits when she was younger than me.
"Change your clothes. Now."
"Tch."
"Excuse me? What kind of a reaction is that."
"Dad, honestly, what's racy about this? Long pants, check-pattern tee, everything that needs covering's covered. I'm not even showing bare skin."
"...You're saying that when there are mirrors everywhere?"
My skinny jeans were practically eating my butt, and my top wasn't much better.
"Haha. Sorry."
"Change. Now."
"Yep."
After I changed into something I normally wore and headed toward Dad, I did the dance I'd just taught Yua and Rije, and everyone cracked up.
Dad came charging at me again, so I turned right back around and ran for it.
Kim Ji-ho failed to catch Si-yoon, and as he was looking for the vanished Si-yoon, he ran into Jang Seong-man in the hallway.
"Huff... huff..."
"Ji-ho, what's wrong?"
"Seong-man, have you seen Si-yoon?"
"Si-yoon? I thought I saw her heading to the restroom on the twelfth floor earlier."
"Ah, so that's where she went. Thanks."
"Quit chasing the kid around. She's all grown up now."
"She needs to get scolded a little more... Hey, are you free today?"
"Wanna grab some soju?"
"I'll call you~"
In the end, Dad found himself standing in front of the women's restroom on the twelfth floor.
"Kim Si-yoon! I know you're in there! Come out!"
"Why don't you just come in, Dad?!"
"Hey!!"
The moment I opened the women's restroom door, Dad averted his eyes even though no one else was in there.
When Dad tried to grab me, I hopped backwards.
"Hohohoho. Come and catch me~"
"You... if I come in there, you're gonna regret it today, you know that. Come out, now."
Right then, some female trainees spotted Dad and panicked.
"Oh! Hello!!!!"
People bowing their heads almost ninety degrees.
Even at a glance, they looked about my age or maybe a tiny bit older.
They greeted me too, so I bowed my head along with them.
"Heh, why don't you come in?"
I let my guard down.
I should've picked up on it when I saw Dad's smile.
I'd assumed about eight trainees had come into the restroom because they had business to take care of,
but they suddenly got behind me, grabbed my arms and waist, and started pushing.
"Ah! What are you doing!!!"
I was more than capable of breaking their grip, but using force against people who looked so frail felt awkward,
and I couldn't exactly cuss them out and tell them to let go.
And... Dad also knew about that personality trait of mine where I can't bring myself to use force against women.
"Stop it!!!"
Dad grabbed my arm and grinned.
"Come with me."
I ended up being dragged along limply by Dad, and every time we passed people I looked at them with pitiful eyes and pleaded for rescue, but they just laughed.
People ought to believe what you tell them...
Though, to be fair, even if they had believed me, there probably wasn't anyone who could've talked back to Dad anyway...
Dad shoved me into his studio and slammed the door shut.
"D...Dad?"
"What."
"Wouldn't it be better to talk this out? Honestly, yelling at me out there was overkill, don't you think?"
"Sure... we'll talk, obviously."
"......"
Dad's endless nagging commenced.
What's so painful about having a good memory is... I remember exactly which repetition we're on.
"Enough! I was wrong! Ugh, fine! I'll think about it again when I'm sixteen, okay? Dad, that's exactly the twenty-first time you've said that."
"Ho ho... nobody knows my daughter's memory better than me..."
I clung to Dad.
"Okay, stop... Let's table the clothes-that-show-off-your-figure discussion until I'm seventeen."
"Haa... so two years from now?"
"Okay."
"Pull something like that before then and just see what happens. I'll make you stand with your hands up right where everyone walks by."
"I'm fifteen...?"
"Yeah."
In the end, I was deposited back into the care of the Dreaming members.
"Where've you been?"
"Got chewed out by Dad."
"...This whole time?"
"Yep."
It was gross to fool around in street clothes and get all sweaty,
so I just went into the locker room and put on a training outfit.
Yua was apparently doing a livestream in the distance.
I put on a mask and did the thing I'd planned.
Dreaming had five members, but there were six people dancing.
One person was wearing a hat, a mask, and even glasses.
Whether this person was a new trainee or what, they danced like absolute ass compared to Dreaming.
Even so, what drew the eye was probably their proportions and physique.
Defined abs visible when they lifted their arms.
The tacky-looking light-purple Adios track suit looked charming on them.
When I caught a glimpse of the woman in the training outfit—masked and all—handing drinks to the members during a break, yep, it was obvious everyone took her for a trainee.
- Who's that?
- Trainee?
- Dreaming takes new members?
- Is that even a question? Would Dreaming, who reached the peak, take in a newbie?
- Honestly, even if they dropped a song now their fanbase is so thick that first place is already a foregone conclusion. Everyone's just not doing it because of scheduling.
"Oh, look at the reactions, everyone's asking if they're a trainee."
As promised, I didn't speak and used body language instead.
On screen, only the frame of my glasses was barely visible or occasionally a tiny glimpse of my eyes, so nobody could guess who I was.
The reason nobody could figure it out was because this was the first time my ridiculously good proportions had appeared accurately on screen.
Even when I was on Next-Door Hyungnim, full-body shots only appeared briefly during the main broadcast; on Neotube, it was mostly just my upper body.
And a lot of Dreaming fans still saw me as a little kid.
Anyway, I slipped out naturally and was fooling around with the other members.
Yua, who was doing the stream, played it off by saying I was a new trainee.
The reason I didn't reveal my identity was because of the contract with Next-Door Hyungnim—if I appeared on their show without showing my face anywhere else, they'd multiply my appearance fee by five.
The footage that revealed that the trainee in the purple Adios training outfit was me would be shown on Next-Door Hyungnim.
Dad didn't leave for drinks with Jang Seong-man until after he'd dropped me off at home.
"Eat lots, have a good time, and don't come home drunk and torment me."
"Got it, I'll only drink a little."
"Have a good time."
"Got it~ take care of the house."
"Yeah."
Now that Dad was in his late thirties, he no longer acted cute toward me when he was sober the way he used to.
Even if he did act cute, it never felt awkward considering his image, but....
Dad's baby face was famous worldwide.
To the point that a stereotype was developing that Asians don't age.
I mean, the foreign guy, a diehard fan of Dad's who'd just done a collab, was twenty-four and looked more weathered than Dad.
That had also played a part in making Dad even more famous.
Regardless of looks, Dad, the composer and rapper, had been in the legend bracket ever since he won first place at the Craemy Awards.
The anti-Asian sentiment that had been rampant not just in America but in Europe was said to have practically vanished because of Dad alone...
'Fuck, Black and White'
At first glance the title seemed inflammatory, but the rap that secured Dad's legendary status from that one song alone had stayed in the Billboard charts for a long while.
Seeing a dad like that just shut himself up at home... it was true that nobody knew a thing about someone's family life.
If you read the comments, people talked about Dad as if he was out there throwing money around left and right, but as if he was trying to build a dragon's hoard, the balance in his bank account was terrifying.
Far beyond what anyone would predict.
If he kept raking it in at that speed, he probably wouldn't be able to spend it all... even if he dropped nine figures a day for the rest of his life.
When I said that everyone else's earning power was small-time compared to Dad's, and that even the money I had was just chump change next to his, I wasn't saying it for nothing.
Because it was just facts...
Even Jang Seong-man couldn't hold a candle to Dad in terms of moneymaking.
Lee Jin-seok, the successor of Hanseong, couldn't even step to Dad anymore either, at least not in a straight cash brawl.
And yet despite hauling in all that staggering money, he had no intention of spending any of it, just locked himself in his studio and cranked out beats...
Dad was practically a 'factory goose' that lived on dew and laid golden eggs—no, that mass-produced golden eggs.