Allie’s POV

When I was younger, Cinderella was my favorite fairy tale character. I would always have my parents read me the story over and over. Just the thought of Cinderella meeting the Prince always amazed me and how they had a lavish wedding and lived happily ever after, but growing up from the childhood times, I’ve learned that Cinderella isn’t all what it may appear to be. There’s another side, a side that no one thinks about. What happens after the happily ever after?

No one ever thinks of what happens after Cinderella and her prince get married. What if they can’t sort out their differences? What if they’re not happy? What if their lives take a turn like a drama and someone from the Prince’s past enters his life and tears them apart? No one ever thinks of that, everyone just wants to believe that they live happily ever after.

I place flowers before my parents’ grave. “Okay, now, Cecelia,” I say patting her head, “time to say goodbye to Mommy and Daddy.”

My parents passed away a year ago today. I was only eighteen then and I promised to look after my younger sister Cecelia. She’s six years old. I was twelve when she was born and everyone in the family adored her to death. Now I’m working various part time jobs to support the two of us. I do have some funds in the bank as emergency backup, though. Some of it is the savings from my parents and what I got from selling the house. The necessities of the household are bought with the money that I make at the part time jobs, although I’ve gotten a full time job at a café recently. I just work behind the counter and give people their order and take it to their table. It’s not the best job in the world, but I know that there are worse ones.

I always wished to go to college when I was younger, but since my parents died before I graduated high school, I gave that dream up because I knew I had to protect my little sister. I wasn’t going to let her get taken away by some strangers; she is my sister after all.

Now I spend my days at the café. I normally bring a textbook with me to catch up on my studies a bit so I don’t lose everything that I’m supposed to do. Thankfully, the café understands my situation; I made it perfectly clear when they said that I had gotten the job. I told them that I can work during the day and never at night because of my little sister. I don’t want her to be home alone in the tiny apartment by herself and I don’t want her to have to find her own dinner, I want to be able to make it for her. After I went through all of the conditions, they agreed saying that they understood and I got hired.

“Unni,” I hear Cecelia say.

“Yeah?” I ask looking in the rearview mirror. I don’t allow her to sit up front when I’m driving because she’s not old enough yet.

“Are we going back home?”

“Only if you want to,” I say. I think about it for a moment. “Hey, Cecelia, why don’t we go to the park?” I put a big smile on my face, which she gladly welcomes.

“Okay,” she says with a huge smile. This day is one of the worst days in our lives. I need to make sure that I make it happy for Cecelia. When our parents first passed away, she didn’t understand the concept that Mommy and Daddy weren’t coming back home and that we needed to find a new home. Slowly, she got used to the idea, but it was still hard for her to understand. I don’t think she’s even fully used to it yet.

Before going to the park, I drive home and explain to Cecelia that we’re going to change our clothes and that I’m going to let her put on clothes that she can get dirty without me getting mad at her, which excites her. Since the park is close to our house, we decide to walk there. I hold her hand the whole way. People passing us probably think that Cecelia’s my daughter and that I’m too young to have a child, but she’s not my child, she’s my younger sister. People just don’t think of possibilities when they look at someone. They only skip to what they believe the story to be, just like the ending with Cinderella. People should consider all possibilities before skipping to a conclusion.

Myungsoo’s POV

I wake up again to an empty house. I look at the clock on my bedside table and see that it reads that it’s almost two in the afternoon, slept in again. Looks like I’m going to have another long and fun night. I spot a note by my bedside table and read it.

Myungsoo,

We have gone on a trip and we don’t know how long we’re going to be away for. Take care of yourself.

Love,

Mom and Dad

“Sure doesn’t feel like love,” I mutter to myself. I take a good stretch and scratch my stomach, finding that I’m shirtless. I don’t remember what time I went to sleep at all. The last thing I remember is hanging out with some strange girl and drinking and coming back to my house. I look around, but I don’t see the girl anywhere, but that’s totally fine by me. I really don’t care whether she stays or not. I look up and see her come out of my bathroom.

“Oppa, were you looking for me?” she asks looking at me. I scratch my head, I can’t remember her name. Did I even learn her name in the first place? I just grunt to her in response. “Oppa,” she says wrapping her arms around my chest, but I just shrug her off. It was only a onetime thing; I don’t plan on doing it again.

“Sorry, you have to leave,” I say getting off of my bed and making my way towards my bathroom. “You probably know where the door is, right? Oh, I’m sorry, what’s your name?”

With that, she storms off. It gets them every time not knowing their name. I may have known it last night, but I was drunk so in the morning I forget it. Sometimes I don’t actually forget the name, but just the fact that I say it gets them mad enough to storm out. Girls never learn sometimes.

After taking a shower, I lie back down on my bed and stare the ceiling. My parents left me alone again. Well, I am an adult; I graduated from high school and am enrolled in college, which I don’t attend too frequently. I’d rather spend my days with my friends rather than learning about something that I don’t really care about. I’m always alone in this big house, there’s no one ever around besides all of the workers, but they’re always too busy doing something else to even pay attention to me. If I need something, they’ll gladly get it, but other than that, they could care less about my existence as much as I care about theirs.

Ever since I was younger, I was always on my own. My parents always went on trips and left me behind with various nannies and other people of the sort. I wasn’t raised by my parents and some were quite surprised that I still recognized who them as a baby. I was told that some nannies would hold up their pictures and teach me that that’s my mom and the other’s my dad. I’ve virtually been alone since I was born.

I hear my phone ring and attempt to find it through the articles of clothing thrown on the floor from last night. Eventually, I find it, thankfully, in the mess.

“Yo,” I hear a voice say, it’s Sungyeol. He’s one of my good friends, some could even call us best friends, but it’s weird for a guy to have a best friend. We’ve been together ever since we were younger. His parents work with my parents, they’re business partners, well at least our mothers are business partners. Our fathers are both deans of colleges, but Sungyeol goes to the college that I attend, which is the college that my father runs. For as long as I can remember, we were next to each other always doing the same thing as one another. Maybe it’s because our parents wished for us to be best friends or maybe not. Maybe some people think that we’re supposed to be rivals with each other, but we’re far from that.

“Good morning,” I say to him.

“Morning?” he questions, “it’s the afternoon, Myungsoo. Did you just wake up?”

“Yup,” I say in between a stretch and a yawn.

“Well that explains it. I was wondering where you were during classes,” he says. Sungyeol is sort of like me, even though he’s much more outgoing than I am, we both don’t have anyone waiting at home for us when we get home and when we stop hanging out with one another. Our parents probably went on their trip together. “Who was it this time?” he asks. If there’s one difference between Sungyeol and me, it’s that he doesn’t party and drink as much as I do. He also doesn’t get together with as many girls as I do.

“Dunno,” I respond. Plain and simple.

“You know, you should really break out of this habit,” Sungyeol advices. “It’s going to hurt you one day.”

“Yeah, one day in the future, but maybe it won’t,” I say with a light laugh. “Anyway, why did you call here?”

“Just wanted to see if you’re alive. I can’t have my best friend kidnapped and killed by some random people now can I?” he asks with a sarcastic tone in his voice.

“Of course not,” I respond. “Do you want to do something?”

“Remember, you have afternoon classes,” Sungyeol says.

“Oh, yeah,” I say.

“You can’t say that you forgot.”

“I did.”

“Your father is going to get you,” Sungyeol advices me.

“Not if he doesn’t know. He and my oh so dear mother went on another trip.”

“Funny,” Sungyeol says, “so did my parents.”

“Well since our parents are both out of town, and probably out of the country, why don’t we do something fun?” I sit up in bed and stare at the other side of the bedroom wall.

“How about we go to class and we can stop at that café on the way home?” Sungyeol suggests. “It’s only one more class. You missed the other three.”

“Sure, sure,” I say as I crawl out of bed. “Wait for me; I’ll be there in a couple of minutes.”

Allie’s POV

I watch Cecelia as she climbs over the staircase and goes down the slide happily. Plenty of other families are at the park on this nice day and occasionally I see them glance at Cecelia and then back at my way. I’ve learned not to mind them anymore. In the beginning, it really bothered me when someone would ask if Cecelia was my child and how young I was when I had her. It really bugs me.

Why can’t people see past what everything appears on the outside? The people have probably never considered that our parents died and now I’m watching over my younger sister by myself.

Sometimes I wish that I were young again, that I were a toddler that still believed in the fairyland of Cinderella and in the magic of the world. I wish that I was someone who only saw the good in everyone instead of reading too much into everything and seeing the bad things that could come out of something. Maybe it’s all the stress that I’ve had on my life, but that’s to be expected, right? Taking care of a six year old is no easy task. I just want something more out of life, but what do I want?

I look over and see Cecelia on the ground crying. I think she fell from the monkey bars. “Cecelia, are you okay?” I ask quickly coming up to her. Some of the other parents have already made their way over and I see the shock in their eyes when I run up to her.

“Unni,” she cries as she wraps her arms around me.

I get up with her in my arms and look at everyone. They probably can’t believe that she just called me unni and are now trying to think about to cover the fact that they thought Cecelia is my child. “Thank you,” I say to everyone before taking off with a crying Cecelia in my arms. “Hey, hey,” I say nudging her a little bit. “Why don’t I go treat you to something good? You can go see where I’m going to work now, how about that?” I ask her. I feel her nod her head against my chest. “Okay, let’s get going.”

What’s also nice about the job at the café is that it’s close to the apartment, so it’s a walking distance away. I’m glad for that much, just in case I’m running late and I have to quickly run home to get the car to pick up Cecelia from school.

We walk through the door and some of the workers there greet me. “Hello,” I say greeting them back. “This is my little sister that you’ve all heard so much about, Cecelia.” They all greet her with a happy face. “What do you want?” I ask. I read her the menu; or rather the things that she would like off of the menu, and she tells me the thing that she wants to eat the most. I order whatever she tells me along with chocolate milk for her and a regular coffee for me.

We make our way through the café to a booth by the window because Cecelia likes looking out the window at all of the people passing by. I kind of enjoy it, too. I hand her the food and she starts eating it immediately. I look at her and smile as I put a straw in her chocolate milk. In the café people probably think that we’re mother and daughter. If they just think it to themselves and don’t say anything that I can hear, I’m perfectly fine with them thinking what they want. Why should I bother with it if I don’t know about it? However, I do kind of feel like a second mother to Cecelia because I am taking care of her like a mother would, if only our mother were still here. I guess that that’s the big difference. I’m simply her older sister, nothing more, yet now since the death, there isn’t a clear line differencing me from a mother to an older sister.

“Unni, are you unhappy?” Cecelia suddenly asks me.

I look at her. “Why?” I ask.

“Well, you were looking out the window and your face was all scrunched up,” she says trying to imitate the face that I was making.

“It was not,” I say with a smile across my face at her attempt of making a funny face. I reach over the table and mess up her hair a little.

“Unni!” she yells.

“Sorry Cecelia,” I tell her with a smile as I drink some of my coffee. “But you’re the one that started it.” Cecelia does nothing but stick her tongue out at me, another action at which I can’t help but laugh at. Sometimes this girl is just so cute.

We sit there for a while just enjoying ourselves. Thankfully I brought along one of the textbooks that I’ve been reading and pull it out to catch up a bit on my studies. Cecelia watches me for a little bit until she starts to fall asleep on my lap. I look down at her and can’t help but smile. I guess I am like a mother to her, she probably doesn’t even remember our parents very well. I’m probably the only parental guidance that she may remember. Seeing that she’s asleep, I pick Cecelia up and hold her, readying myself for carrying her home when someone knocks into me.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” I say turning around to face the person who knocked into me.

“Why are you apologizing?” he asks. “It should be me apologizing. Oh look,” he says pointing at my clothes. “It got all over you.”

“It’s alright,” I say looking at my now slightly wet clothes. Thankfully it was just some water, nothing too serious and nothing that will leave a stain.

I look at the person and see that he’s standing there with another person who is just looking on. They both have bags or backpacks, so they must have just come from the neighborhood college. Apparently it’s a big university, but I’ve never been there myself. I’ve always wanted to see it, though, but I’ve never had any time to.

“Here, I’ll help you,” he says handing his water to his friend and bending down to pick up a sleeping Cecelia.

“No, you don’t have to,” I say attempting to stop him, but he’s much stronger than I am.

“Let me,” he says. “It’s the least that I can do for getting you wet. Plus you don’t want her to get wet, too,” he says gesturing at the sleeping Cecelia.

“I guess,” I say looking at him.

“Where do you live? I’ll help,” he says securing Cecelia on his back. The only thing I can do is stare at him. I shouldn’t accept help from a stranger, but then again, I don’t want Cecelia’s clothes to get wet and for her to get sick.

“Okay, follow me, I guess,” I say with a sigh as we make our way out of the café.

“Sungyeol,” he calls back to his friend who is still holding the water and just standing there dumbfounded. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

Myungsoo’s POV

I follow this woman to her house while holding the sleeping child. Is this child hers? Is she a babysitter? She doesn’t look too old, so there is a possibility that the girl is her daughter. Thankfully, she doesn’t live too far away from the café. She lives in a small apartment room. I walk in with her and drop off the child in her room before walking out into the living room. The apartment isn’t too bad, there’s a living room, two bedrooms, and a kitchen. Is she living here alone?

“Thank you,” she says. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“No problem,” I say looking at her. “It is my fault that you had water spilled all over you.”

“Yeah, but I could’ve handled her by myself. It was only a little spill, there’s nothing to be worried about.”

“Of course not, but I just like to take precautions,” I tell her. “Plus, it’s not good for a woman to be walking home alone, right, especially alone with a young child.”

She just stares at me for a moment before snapping back, whatever force decided to overcome her for a minute. “I’ve been doing it for a long time, though. I know how to handle people, don’t worry.”

“Ah, okay,” I say feeling as though I just said something wrong, something that I shouldn’t have said. I walk towards the door with her following me. “It was nice meeting you. My name is Kim Myungsoo,” I say extending my hand.

“I’m Allie,” she says hesitantly shaking it.

“Nice to meet you, Allie. I hope we see more of each other in the future.” We both bow to each other before I leave the room to go back to the café to meet Sungyeol there once again.

Without a child on my back, it takes me less time to get to the café and see Sungyeol sitting in the same booth that Allie and the child were sitting in. “Hey,” I say sitting opposite of him.

“Hey, how was walking her home?” he asks interested.

“It was okay, I guess,” I say. “The child was heavier than expected, but that was no problem.”

“So are you going to see her later tonight?” Sungyeol asks. I give him a puzzled look. “You know, you normally only meet women to get with them later that night, so are you going to meet her?” I shake my head. “Myungsoo, what has gotten into you? Did you just do a good deed of your own accord?”

I think about his words. Normally whenever I do meet someone for the first time, especially a woman, it’s only with the intentions of getting with them and nothing more. I don’t want anything else, but this time it wasn’t anything to do with getting together with Allie, I have no intention of getting together with her. I just happened to bump into her and spilled some water on her clothes. Could it be considered a good deed?

“Nah,” I say shaking my head. “It was only the right thing to do, it’s not a good deed, it’s called taking responsibility.”

“Whatever you say,” Sungyeol says looking down at the table and smiling to himself. “Oh, look at this.” I look at him and he pulls up a textbook. “Do you think this is hers?”

I shake my head and take the textbook from him. “I don’t know, possibly?”

“Looks like you have a second reason to meet her. Maybe you should try harder this time,” Sungyeol says giving me the suggestive look. I can only stare at him and think about how crazy he is.

Allie’s POV

I start searching around the house for my textbook; it’s normally what I do after dinnertime. I haven’t realized that I lost it up until now. I attempt to remember the last time I had it and it suddenly hits me. The last time I had my textbook was at the café, when that Myungsoo guy bumped into me. Could I have left it there?

I look at the clock and see that it’s dark and I don’t want to leave Cecelia here alone, I figure that I have to get it tomorrow when I go to work and ask if they saw a textbook or if anyone said anything about it. Then again, why would anyone turn in a textbook, wouldn’t they just take it with them? I really hope that I didn’t lose it because I’m not done with it yet. And it was one of my favorite subjects, too, math. I can never get bored with it, but now I lost it. Looks like I’ll just have to move onto the next subject for tonight.

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My second fanfic has started :D

If you want to check out the first one, follow the link: http://www.asianfanfics.com/story/view/156270/the-beautiful-mistake-b1a4-infinite-jinyoung-myungsoo-sandeul-sungyeol

Hope you enjoy this story