The Cameras Come to Cheongdam-dong
People say that a day drags on forever when you don't work. Jaein's week, by contrast, had flown by in the blink of an eye.
The weekend had come around again — Saturday morning. When she came to her senses, Jaein was standing at the front gate of the Cheongdam-dong mansion, her in-laws' home. She drew a long, deep breath, and finally pressed the doorbell.
The melodious chime died away, and a familiar voice answered. It was Kim-ssi, the woman who ran the entire household at Cheongdam-dong.
“Ma'am, it's me.”
The heavy front door swung open with a ponderous groan. “Oh my, if it isn't the young madam!”
Greeted by Kim-ssi, Jaein stepped inside — and stopped in her tracks at the sound of another voice.
“I was starting to think you'd stopped coming altogether.”
At the piercing tone ringing in her ears, Jaein lifted her head to find Junhee standing a short distance away, watching her.
“So you do still show your face, after all?” Her arms were crossed, and her eyes brimmed with open displeasure.
Jaein blinked at her, once, twice. In five years as a daughter-in-law of the Woo family she had come to Cheongdam-dong countless times, but Junhee had come out to greet her like this — without question, this was the first.
“Oh, Mother. Did you come out to welcome me?”
Jaein sidled up sweetly to Junhee's scowling face. Granted, this "welcome" carried a somewhat different flavor from what the word usually implied.
But then, they say you can't spit on a smiling face.
Just keep smiling. That's the game.
“……What?”
“This is the first time since I got married that you've come to greet me. And really, how could a daughter-in-law skip her mother-in-law's birthday? Of course I had to come.”
“Ha?”
Jaein flashed the most innocent smile imaginable, and Junhee barely held back an incredulous laugh. Her lips, twitching, were just beginning to part—
“Honestly. And this is what shows up, when it's already past the mealtime?”
At the sound of yet another voice, Jaein's gaze slid past Junhee to the figure looming behind her.
Taeha's father, Woo Seokmin, had three younger sisters. His full sisters, Miyeon and Junghwa — and then there was Woo Ah-ra, who shared no blood with him at all. Three in total.
“You didn't come, so Kim-ssi had to make all that food by herself, I hear! A daughter-in-law is supposed to show up and—”
The woman glaring daggers at Jaein right now was Taeha's eldest aunt, Miyeon.
“—do the work, obviously—”
She never got to finish.
The half-open front door swung wide, and Taeha stepped inside.
“Hello there! We're the production team from KBC's variety show, Sesame Couple!”
“Pardon the intrusion, just for a moment!”
“Good day! I'm Cho Minseob, PD in charge of Couple No. 3 on Sesame Couple. You're Madam Park Junhee, I presume? Here's my card.”
In an instant, the camera crew flooded through the entrance like a breaking tide. Minseob, sensing his moment, darted in ahead of the rest and thrust a business card toward Junhee.
Cameras everywhere. Lights everywhere.
Junhee could only stare, her mind gone utterly blank.
“Ta-Taeha! What is all this?”
It was Miyeon who asked, on Junhee's behalf.
“As you can see — it's a camera crew.”
Taeha, who had arrived with Jaein, had waited briefly in the parking lot. His job was to escort the arriving crew into the house.
“I-I'm asking what it all IS! What is this, I saaaay. Hm?”
True to her nature, Miyeon started to bark — then caught sight of the camera pointed her way and hastily dropped her voice, plastering on a strained smile for good measure.
That was when the commotion drew footsteps.
“What on earth is going on here?”
Seokmin appeared behind them, his eyes stretched wide enough to split. Barely concealed bewilderment was written plain across his face.
“What's this, PD Seo? You didn't tell the family yet?”
Flustered by their frantic reactions in turn, Minseob spun toward Jaein. “You didn't get the cast's permission?” he murmured under his breath, the question half-swallowed.
Amid everyone's panic, Jaein remained perfectly composed.
She had come precisely expecting this reaction. But she couldn't let her satisfaction show — so facing Minseob, she let the corners of her eyes droop pitifully and said,
“Mother, did you not hear about it from Taeha?”
At Jaein's question, the haze in Junhee's eyes sharpened into focus. She seemed, at last, to have come back to herself.
“You didn't mention it, perhaps?”
Jaein turned to Taeha and asked, brazen as anything.
“Oh no. I completely forgot.”
Taeha even smiled faintly and played along.
“Do as you like,” he said, apparently.
So he'd meant it. And now his eyes gleamed with interest, as if daring her to go further, so Jaein turned back around. Then she approached Junhee and said,
“Mother, Father — we're going to be on a variety show. It's a twenty-four-hour observation program!”
“……”
“It's your birthday, so neither Taeha nor I could very well be absent. We had no choice but to come together.”
With that, Jaein folded her hands demurely and widened her eyes.
“That's all right, isn't it?”
At that hammer-to-the-nail of a question, Junhee's composure finally crumbled.
Once Junghwa — the last to arrive — had joined them, the meal began in earnest.
“What? I thought there was no one to cook today, but look at all this. Did you have it catered?”
“Kim-ssi made it all, apparently. Got up before dawn to set it out.”
It was Miyeon who answered Junghwa's question as she entered the dining room, speaking for Junhee.
“All by herself? Goodness. Shouldn't Kim-ssi be taking a vacation or something?”
Jaein could feel the aunts' eyes flicking toward her as they filed into the dining room. Because she had gone on strike from her daughter-in-law duties, Kim-ssi had been left to make everything alone.
Inside, a table bowed under the weight of the spread. On any ordinary occasion, this overflow of side dishes — every dish, every morsel — would have been Jaein's burden to produce.
The memory of waking at two in the morning to prep ingredients settled over her, and her gaze darkened.
I do feel bad for Kim-ssi, truly. But I'm not an employee of this house.
She raised her eyes and swept them across the dining room. At the far end of the long fourteen-seater table sat her mother-in-law Junhee and her father-in-law Seokmin. Then, in order, the aunts — Miyeon and Junghwa.
Ordinarily the aunts' children would have swelled the numbers considerably, but they'd apparently decided to keep things modest. It felt sparse.
“Sit here.”
Taeha drew her naturally toward the seat beside his. The outermost seat.
“L-Let's all eat.”
With those words, Seokmin found himself glancing nervously around without meaning to.
Cameras had been positioned on both sides of the table. The sprawling dining room had never once looked so crowded.
The meal proceeded through a silence so stiff it bordered on absurd. Nothing could be heard but the clink of dishes.
“Cut! Let's pause for a moment.”
Minseob, who had been quietly observing, finally stepped forward.
“Just think of the cameras as a bunch of rocks, and act however you like. Hahaha, I can tell it's your first time — the whole family looks so tense!”
“……”
“Relax. Do exactly what you'd normally do. We'll leave and just leave the cameras running. Got it?”
With that, Minseob took drastic measures and led the entire crew outside. Once the extra bodies vanished, the suffocating air loosened, if only a little.
“Whew, honestly, I can't tell if the rice is going into my mouth or my nose.”
“What are you complaining about. Ha, haha.”
At Junghwa's grumbling, Miyeon patted her arm and smoothed things over.
“Well, it's just not the same unless it's made by someone who does it for a living. Like a daughter-in-law making it herself is some kind of guarantee?”
Then she shot Jaein a sidelong glance. Her true colors were starting to leak out, it seemed.
The food's actually good, though.
Jaein let the aunts' glances roll right off her and carried on eating.
“Oh my! What is wrong with the kimchi all of a sudden?”
At Junghwa's retching voice, Kim-ssi came rushing over at a sprint.
“Is something the matter?”
“Kim-ssi. Here — try this kimchi.”
“Oh — yes. We made a fresh batch this time…… Is something off about the taste?”
Kim-ssi asked, her face pinched with worry.
“It's not that it's *bad*…… but it's just so different from how it usually is? It's always been delicious. Why would it change all of a sudden?”
Junghwa, who would ordinarily have been shrieking the roof down, forced a smile as she asked. Kim-ssi stood frozen, caught between answers, her face a mask of misery —
and every eye in the room swung toward Jaein.
“Oh, that's because I don't do the kimjang anymore.”
“What? You're not even making kimchi now? My husband won't eat anything but your kimchi, you know.”
“Hey. Your father loves your kimchi so much! You can't do this.”
Cameras entirely forgotten, Miyeon and Junghwa's voices spiked at once.
Well, of course.
Cameras or no cameras, as if their nature would change. This was going to make excellent footage.
Jaein swallowed an incredulous laugh. Even in the middle of all this, she was already thinking about how to cut it for maximum entertainment.
She could feel just how much she'd changed — the woman who would once have been trembling in her boots. Honestly, maybe this was what happened when her senior was sitting right beside her.
Jaein stole a brief glance at Taeha, then lifted her head again and took in the whole scene.
Kimjang. I really did forget about kimjang.
Beyond the ancestral rites and birthday tables, the kimchi-making itself changed with every season. Baechu kimchi, mustard-leaf kimchi, kkakdugi, dongchimi…… Thinking back on it now, her entire year had been nothing short of an iron-woman training regimen, three hundred and sixty-five days a year.
And she had done it for five years. No wonder she'd worn herself down to the bone.
This daughter-in-law is exhausted now.
And so — this is where it ends.
Jaein drew a long, deep breath, and opened her mouth.