Chapter 36
My mother is, in my eyes, an ideal homemaker.
Because even while holding down a side job, she was exceptionally skilled at running the household.
It was hard to find even a single bug in this spacious two-story house.
I'd tried to buy her a dishwasher or a robot vacuum, but she said she was fine without them.
And seeing her happily sing hymns while running the vacuum, she seems to actually enjoy housework itself.
She always air-dried the laundry in the sunlight and never failed to prepare breakfast for Aseong or Dad, among other things.
There was one routine my mother, who spent half her day busy with housework, never skipped.
“Are you going to early-morning prayer?”
“Of course~”
She went to early-morning prayer without fail.
So it wasn't particularly strange to run into Mom at this hour.
Looking closely, her hair was braided to one side, and she looked just about ready to go out.
For reference, beans don't grow red beans where beans are planted,
just as beans don't grow beans where red beans are planted.
Mom was also the one who provided the base for Ahyeon's facial features.
Or not? Hmm, honestly, Ahyeon is more like a mutation, so I suppose I should say she was Aseong's base.
I got my height from my father.
He has surprisingly good physical specs for a math professor.
Though he'd shrunk a bit with age and spending all his time researching now,
I remember him being quite solid when I was young.
If he'd exercised instead of studying, might he have made a name for himself?
Well, seeing Aseong, the archetype of ambiguous talent, makes me think maybe not.
Anyway….
“Want to come with me too, Ahyeon?”
My mother narrowed her eyes sweetly and said something horrifying.
“Oh dear, no, thank you.”
I answered reflexively before I could even think of a reason for refusing that chilling proposal.
Early-morning prayer? Go to that legendary bore-fest?
As a child, church was among the top five most boring places in the world.
Early-morning prayer was the worst of them.
Church early-morning prayer was basically hell with hymns playing.
“Why~? You were humming a hymn just now.”
But at my immediate reply, Mother asked with a gentle smile,
“I….”
I was about to say, “Me?” when I remembered what I'd been humming just moments ago.
Damn, after playing a priest in Last Exit….
“As I thought, there's still some of the Lord's word left in my daughter….”
I was about to say something in response to her needless misunderstanding, but.
“...Hmm.”
Hmm, did I really need to argue?
Come to think of it, who was more devout than me?
Even if I knew nothing about other religions, wasn't faith the most important thing in Protestantism?
In that sense, as someone who believed in God more than anyone, I had to be considered a faithful follower of His word.
“That is true, isn't it…?”
“Right? Then how about going to early-morning prayer with Mom now….”
But early-morning prayer was definitely out.
No, church itself was out.
“Mom, you don't have to pray at church, do you?”
And did faith necessarily come from church?
No, true faith came from within.
“Is that so?”
“I naturally concentrate better at home.”
This Ahyeon felt most alive when playing games, and that in turn confirmed my belief in reincarnation, so.
Playing games was essentially prayer that strengthened my faith.
“Still, gathering in the Lord's name….”
“Mom, won't you be late?”
“Oh, right.”
But perhaps because she really wanted to go to church hand in hand with her daughter,
Mom tried to persuade me, then made an “Oops” face at my words.
She'd run into me just as she was about to leave for early-morning prayer.
So we wouldn't have time for a long conversation.
“It would've been nice if you came with me….”
Ignoring that wistful look was a little difficult, but.
Who was I?
Wasn't I the emotionless psychopath VTuber Wayo?
“I'll go sometime later.”
“Really?”
“Of course. I'll tell you on a day when I don't have a schedule and aren't streaming.”
Thus, I made a promise as vague as “Let's have a meal sometime” and hurriedly escaped.
-When the fuck is this bastard coming back?
-Did he go to a spring to fetch the water?;;
-Did this person go to bed??
When I returned to my room, I saw the viewers' chat.
Right, hmm, I'd left the stream running.
I'd forgotten because of the crisis of nearly being dragged to church.
I could've just said I was in the middle of a broadcast.
“Did you all wait long?”
-Why the fuck are you only back now
-What, did you boil the water??
-Thought you went the fuck to sleepㅋㅋ
More importantly. There's something strangely hard to refuse about Mom's words.
Maybe it was because I'd caused a bit of trouble as a child?
I had, after all, possessed the mind of a vigorous man in his late twenties.
Young Ahyeon had occasionally caused some astonishing incidents.
Establishing discipline in kindergarten, conquering elementary school, and so on….
Because there'd been incidents too long to explain, Mother had suffered quite a bit.
Was that why she'd become so devout?
Our daughter seems to be possessed by Satan, Lord—hmm.
…That couldn't be it, right?
Anyway, I felt both sorry and grateful toward Mom.
Wasn't it thanks to Mom that I could make a living as a model without doing anything difficult now?
She was the one who took me to the department store where I was cast.
She was also the one who put me on the child-model path after seeing her daughter's extraordinary looks.
On top of that, Mom was the one who quit her perfectly good job and became my manager, Number One.
So even if I flipped the table at Dad's suggestion that we go to a math conference,
when Mom suggested going to church, all I could do was turn her down obliquely.
This is why you have to treat your children well when they're young.
Just look at Aseong. I changed his diapers and fed him baby food when he was little, so isn't he utterly devoted to me?
-So what are we doing now??
-What's Part 3??
-Rell go?
Anyway, maybe because of the emotional expenditure,
“Um… aren't you all sleepy?”
-?
-??
-What the fuck;
-Are you saying you're ending the stream?
No, I mean, I'm just a little sleepy.
**
If there is a liberal-arts, fire-element dutiful daughter who turned down Dad's request for a father-daughter date at a conference
and Mom's request to go to church and pray together,
then there is also the opposite in this world.
“Aseong, this bit's sticking up here.”
“Ah, thank you.”
A leisurely weekday.
As I lounged on the sofa in a comfortable white T-shirt and shorts, I could see Aseong having Mom fix his shirt collar.
“Where are you going, Aseong?”
“To a conference with Dad.”
Aseong was getting ready to go out in dress pants and a shirt.
The clothes looked familiar, and when I thought about it, they were clothes I'd given him.
The little bastard wears it well.
I wanted a fit like that once….
Wistful….
My eyes grew wistful at a dream achievable only by altering my chromosomes from the ground up.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“It's none of your business.”
Since it truly was none of his business, I dismissed it and looked beyond the living room.
“Where's Dad?”
If he's going to a conference with you, shouldn't Dad be getting ready too?
When I asked, puzzled by that, Aseong pointed outside.
“Dad's coming from school.”
“Ah-ha.”
The school where Dad worked was commonly called a prestigious university.
Apparently he had gone in because he had something to do in the morning and was coming now.
“But aren't you coming, Noona?”
“Me? Why would I?”
“Dad seemed disappointed.”
“Tsk tsk, you foolish child.”
“What?”
At my sudden diss,
Aseong furrowed his brow, and I wiggled a finger while lying on the sofa.
“Everything from the watch you're wearing to the clothes on your back came from me. If this isn't coming along with me, what is it?”
“....”
Nothing to say, huh? Right?
And normally, the eldest son is supposed to attend outside family events.
The eldest daughter should stay planted firmly at home and help with the housework.
“Isn't that right, Mother?”
“That's right. Ahyeon, shall we go pray with Mom later?”
“Oh, it's streaming time.”
I sprang to my feet.
Right, hmm, it was about time to start the stream.
“You're streaming already?”
“...Noona streams at this hour?”
Mom looked puzzled, and Aseong looked suspicious.
The little punk, are you suspicious of your own sister?
“Aseong, your eyes aren't very kind.”
“...I'm not.”
For reference, there was a reason Aseong reacted like that.
Because, after all.
Unlike me, a second-lifer with cold rationality,
wasn't Aseong a fresh and foolish first-time-around person?
He didn't study math, but unable to resist his parents' constant urging, he attended church during his school years.
Perhaps the reason Aseong knew so little about computers and games was also largely because he'd once even served as head of the church's young adults' group.
Anyway.
“There's a game I want to watch today.”
Ordinarily, I would've lied and gone to stream,
but today I had a real reason.
An important sports match was scheduled for early afternoon.
“I'm not late, am I?”
-You're late, you bastard;;
-You should've been here 30 minutes ago
Our Jijijik, in order to attract viewers to the streaming platform and improve streamers' content,
borrowed broadcasting rights for sports matches and various anime so viewers could watch them together.
Because of that, the viewers practically had to grab me by the collar to make me stream.
“As long as I got here before it started, right?”
Still, sports had been a genre I liked since my days as Han Seongwon,
especially soccer.
Soccer was the same in this world as over there.
As expected, is the ball round?
It was unfortunate that the European team I'd supported had disintegrated the moment I reincarnated, though.
-Do you have a team you support??
-What team are we supporting here?
“Ah, the stronger team.”
-Tsk tsk
-You strong-team bandwagoner;;
-Which of these two is the strong team?
“They're both more or less evenly matched.”
-What's this ‘evenly matched’ shit;;
-This bastard knows nothing
Come to think of it, was the World Cup this year?
They said this World Cup was being held in France; I wondered if I could get tickets somehow.
Watching the World Cup in person had been my dream since my previous life.
I'd been too busy and preoccupied with getting settled for the last World Cup to pay attention,
but wasn't it different now?
Roselia and Aseong liked soccer too,
so it would be nice if the three of us could go watch it.
Anyway… I turned my gaze to the match that was just about to begin and took it in.
-Suwon seems to have won the draft
-Isn't Seoul the strong team?
-One, two, three, go Suwon~
Oh, for reference.
[Starting~!]
The game we're watching now is a Rell match.
Well, esports is a sport too, right?