Myungsoo’s POV

“Yah,” I hear Sungyeol saying and hitting me. “Wake up, we have to go to class.”

“No we don’t,” I say turning over. I barely remember anything that happened last night, again. That’s normal, though. Yesterday I woke up with a girl in my bathroom, today I wake up with Sungyeol in my bed.

“Yes we do,” he says attempting to roll me out of bed. “Our fathers are going to have both of our butts.”

“No he won’t.”

“Ya!” Sungyeol yells. “Kim Myungsoo, why are you so gosh darn difficult?”

“Because I am.”

“Just go to class already. We can stop at the café afterwards and you can see if that girl is in there from yesterday. What’s her name?” he asks.

“Allie,” I respond.

“Ok?” he asks. I forgot, he wasn’t around when she introduced herself. “Anyway, let’s get going, we have an hour. You don’t want to smell like you’re drunk, do you? The teachers will surely tell your dad.”

“Fine, fine,” I say slowly sitting up. “Happy now? I’ll go take a shower.”

I get out of bed and head towards the shower. I can’t remember the last time that I woke up in time for my morning classes. I only have one class in the morning, though. My father changed my schedule because he knows how much I normally like to sleep in. The remainder of my classes start at ten o’clock, the normal time of my waking up, when I don’t party hard. This particular class happens to be at eight in the morning.

On the other hand, Sungyeol is more of a morning person, I would say. Or at least he adjusts well to the mornings. He doesn’t seem grumpy or anything. It makes me wonder what time he goes to bed at night. Half of the time he doesn’t go out partying with me. He probably stays at home and studies and then goes to bed at a reasonable time. We’re complete opposites, yet somehow we make this strange friendship work.

“Happy now?” I ask as I dry my hair in my room. Sungyeol’s sitting on my bed observing me. I swear that my father must pay him to try and keep me on track otherwise I would’ve been Sungyeol’s demise years ago.

“C’mon, let’s go to the café,” Sungyeol suddenly says.

“The café? Why do you want to go there?” I ask looking at him with one eyebrow raised.

“No reason, we have time, that’s why. Do you want to grab breakfast?”

“Do you want to see Allie again?” I ask suspiciously.

“Of course not,” Sungyeol says attempting to deny with every bone in his body.

“Do you like her?” I question him.

“No, I simply want to return the book to her.”

“Then doesn’t that mean that you like her?”

“How could I like someone that I just met yesterday?” Sungyeol asks trying to bring reason into this.

“Fine, I’ll rephrase the question. Did you find her attractive, Lee Sungyeol?” I ask.

He just stares at me for a moment. “I’ll admit that she wasn’t that bad looking…”

Allie’s POV

I wake up first and go to the kitchen to prepare Cecelia’s breakfast before waking her up to go to school. Normally, Cecelia wakes up perfectly fine giving me no hassle and today’s no different. “Cecelia,” I say as I gently shake her. “It’s time to go to school.” I see her slowly open her eyes and rub the sleep away. “I’ll be making your breakfast, tell me if you need anything okay?” I watch her stretch her little body out and nod her head. “That’s a good girl,” I say rubbing her already messed up bed head.

After eating her breakfast and making sure that we have everything ready to go, I drop Cecelia off at school and make my way towards the café. “Hello,” I say entering. Again I’m greeted with typical ‘hellos’ and all of that jazz when just walking into the workplace. I go to the back counter and put on my apron when I suddenly remember about my textbook. “Hey,” I say looking at one of the managers, “did someone drop off a textbook here?”

“Not that I know of,” she says shaking her head. “Sorry.”

“That’s alright,” I say turning away to go do my job at the counter. I guess I won’t know where that book ended up, I’ll just have to find another one, but work will be boring today without one. During my breaks and when the café isn’t exactly at its busiest, I always catch up on my studies.

“Are you looking for this?” I hear a voice say. I look up and see that it’s the guy from yesterday, what’s his name? Myungsoo, I believe. He’s handing me something, and I see that it’s my textbook. “I found it yesterday, or more like Sungyeol found it in the booth over there.”

“Well, thanks,” I say taking the book.

“You work here?” he asks looking at the uniform. I just nod my head yes. “You weren’t working here yesterday. You were with that little girl, is she your daughter or something?”

“She’s not my daughter,” I correct him. “She’s my younger sister.”

“Oh,” he says nodding his head. “Okay. Hey, would you like to come over to my house tonight?”

“So what, you can get with me?” I ask him crossing my arms in front of my chest. Guys like him are too predictable, they only want one thing in life. I’ve met plenty of guys with the same personality, who after they get what they want, they simply ditch the girl and never see them again. The only instance where they’ll see them again is if the girl shows up five years later claiming that the young child she has now is his. Yeah, I’ve met plenty and I’m not about to waste my time on this one, let alone any one of those guys.

He looks kind of taken aback by the statement. “You really think that I’m that type of person?” he asks pretending to be shocked.

“Yes,” I say flatly. “Your personality says it all, your mannerisms.”

“My mannerisms?” he asks.

“Look, you found my book after you came back to the café, you obviously knew where my house was, so why didn’t you drop it off then? Did you keep it just so you could talk to me again? Think again, or rather, don’t. I’m not going over to your house tonight.”

“Okay then,” he says looking at me. “Here, why don’t you give me a call whenever you’re feeling lonely?” He grabs a nearby napkin, writes his number on it, and hands it to me. I look at it, but leave it at the place where he slid it. “I guess I’ll get going then.”

With that, he leaves the counter and the café altogether, his friend closely following behind, but not before he turns back to come to where I’m standing. “Don’t think too much into things,” he says. “That’s just his personality, he’s used to getting whatever he wants.”

“Oh believe me, I won’t,” I tell him. We both do a short bow to each other before he leaves as well.

I can only look at my math textbook while thinking about what exactly that guy wanted and why he was just suddenly deciding to talk to me. Our relationship could’ve been done with yesterday after he dropped Cecelia off. There’s no need for us to ever speak to each other again, so does this mean that we’ll be seeing a lot of each other now?

Myungsoo’s POV

“Wow, she actually rejected me,” I tell Sungyeol as we’re sitting in on another boring class.

“I think you asked too bluntly,” Sungyeol says.

“What?” I ask.

“I mean, you just don’t ask a girl if she wants to come over to your house tonight. You have to word it differently.”

“But that’s the way I always say it,” I tell him. “Girls always agree. Why didn’t she?”

“She’s different,” Sungyeol says. “She has that little girl; she has to think of her before she thinks of herself.”

“Do you think that that’s her daughter?” I ask. Sungyeol is somewhat of an expert when it comes to these types of things.

“She told you today that it's her younger sister," he says without even looking up at me.

"Oh yeah," I say acting as though I never said the question. "How would I remember? I'm probably never going to see her again."

“We are going to the café after school and she does work there, it is a possibility that you’ll see her again.”

I just roll my eyes at the statement, I don’t want to think about that now, I’d rather think about what club I want to go to tonight, it’s a Friday, so it can be nonstop clubbing and drinking for me. “Anyway,” I say attempting to change the subject. “Where do you want to hit up tonight?”

“I think I’ll pass,” Sungyeol says.

“Why?”

“Just don’t feel like doing anything, somehow,” he admits. “Exams are coming up and I’d rather be prepared for those. If I flunk the tests, my father will surely have my behind and so will yours.”

I just look at him, true my dad will probably have a fit about me failing classes, but he can’t really do anything about it and neither can my mother. They’re never home, they probably wouldn’t even care that I was failing, they’d just tell me to do better. It’s not even like they take an appreciation in me doing anything for them, which is probably why I’ve never done anything for them.

Sungyeol goes back to paying attention to the class. I can’t pull myself to care about the lesson and somehow my mind ends up wandering to Allie. It’s strange, how one girl that I just met yesterday can already be in control of my thoughts. True, she’s not a bad looking woman, but if she’s my style, I’d say no. Sungyeol would describe my style as naïve, very naïve, who normally doesn’t really know anything and just goes along with what I say purely based on the fact that I said it. That’s my type of girl. Allie’s nothing like that. She was able to tell my motives by one simple question. Allie is totally not my type.

“Kim Myungsoo!” Sungyeol yells in front of my face. I get knocked out of my trace. I notice that the whole classroom is now empty. “Do you want to spend more time here? Class has ended.”

“Oh, okay,” I say gathering my backpack and hurrying myself out the door. I can’t believe that I just spent the remainder of the class thinking about that woman. I shake and scratch my head, this can’t be happening to me. I don’t fall for girls, girls fall for me. I have to go out tonight to get my mind off of it whether Sungyeol decides to come with me or not.

Upon Sungyeol’s request, we stop at the café. Thankfully, I see that Allie’s not there. “Hmm, I wonder where she is,” Sungyeol says. “I wanted to ask her about her textbook.”

“She probably has her child duties,” I respond as we sit in the same booth as yesterday after ordering the same things as yesterday. “Or maybe her shift is just done.”

“True, it’s probably one of those,” Sungyeol says as he drinks some of his coffee.

Allie’s POV

“Hey, Cecelia, how was school today?” I ask her as she gets into the back of the car. She begins to tell me all about her day at school, but somehow I can’t pay attention to it, although I say some sounds so she at least knows that I’m attempting to listen to her. For some reason, my mind is on that Myungsoo guy. I don’t know why I’m thinking about him, though, he’s totally not my style. I like someone who doesn’t try to get with girls and then ditch them, a classic guy who has a nice personality and would treat a woman right, not use them as some toy. Yes, that Myungsoo is totally nowhere near my style.

“Unni, can we go play in the park again today?” Cecelia asks. I look in the rearview mirror and see her hopeful eyes. It’s hard to say no to this child.

I think about it and I don’t see why we wouldn’t be able to, there’s not much that I have to do at home since I was at work all day and Cecelia was at school. Since we don’t spend that much time in the apartment, it’s normally clean and tidy. I also did all of the dishes right away after last night’s dinner. There’s no reason to use for not going to the park. “Sure,” I finally say. I see her face light up in a smile and it makes me automatically smile. “Let’s just go home first and change your clothes, okay?”

“Okay,” she says happily.

Sometimes I wish that I were that young and innocent again. I think of the story of Cinderella once again. How I wish to believe the good side of it again, that one day I’ll find my Prince and he’ll come sweep me up off of my feet, but now the chances of that are slim. The world is a cruel place. I just hope that Cecelia doesn’t find that out until later in her life.

We make our way home while I wait for Cecelia to change, I grab the math textbook to take so I can read it while I’m sitting there watching Cecelia play, it’s another way to occupy my time.

Finally, Cecelia and I are on our way to go to the park. Cecelia is bouncing happily at the thought of being able to play in the park for the second day in a row. I’m glad that she’s happy. While she runs around and plays with some of the friends that she’s made by visiting the playground so much, I sit on a nearby bench and take out the textbook.

I start brushing up on my derivatives and integrals when there’s a shadow suddenly cast on my book. I’m about to say something when I see the stranger standing there. “Miss, you must be one smart person,” he begins. I attempt to ignore him, but he reaches out to grab my arm. “What’s a nice looking lady like you sitting on a park bench in the middle of the day reading a math textbook?” The man smells of alcohol, he must be drunk.

I attempt  to not make a scene. “Sir,” I start, “you’re drunk, you don’t know what you’re doing.”

“Yes I do,” he says objecting. “I know fully well what I’m doing. You’re the one who doesn’t know what you’re doing.” Suddenly he yanks me up off of my seat and the math book falls to the ground.

“What are you doing?” I object attempting to pull my wrist away from his grasp, but despite being drunk, he’s still very strong.

“Why don’t you come with me?”

“No,” I object.

One minute his other hand is up, probably to either slap me or grab my other arm, and the next minute I know, he’s down on the ground. What just happened?

Myungsoo’s POV

“Why are you messing with an innocent woman?” I demand. I look at the guy who I just punched across the face.

“Yah, you’re going to get it, kid,” he says. His words are slurred. I could smell alcohol off of him a mile away. Going to bars must be his hobby, so he either just separated from his wife or got fired from his job.

“Sir, just go home,” I say. After one look at me, and after wiping the blood away from his lip, he finally leaves. I turn around and look at Allie. “Are you okay?” I ask her.

“There was no need to help me,” she states. “I could’ve taken him.”

“Of course, I saw what happened,” I say smugly at her. “I saw how you attempted, but his grip was too strong for someone like you.” I reach down and pick up the book off of the ground and get some of the dirt off of the cover.

“Look, if you’re trying to get me to sleep with you, I’d pick another woman, that’d be much easier.”

“Unni, are you okay?” the little girl from yesterday comes up and asks. So Allie is the girl’s older sister, at least that means that she’s not a young mother, she’s just caring for her younger sister. So then where are her parents?

“I’m okay, Cecelia,” Allie says looking at her. “You can go and play now.”

“Mister,” the girl, apparently named Cecelia, says looking at me. “Thank you for helping my sister.” She bows to me before running off and playing once again.

“That’s a cute kid,” I say sitting down next to Allie, her face already buried in the textbook. “You must like to study.”

“Like it? Hate it? Who knows, I just do it,” she responds. She doesn’t even look at me.

“Do you go to college?”

“Nope.”

“Then why do you study?”

“I feel like it.”

I just look at her, she doesn’t look like she’s interested in me at all. Maybe I shouldn’t have come out of my way to visit her. Why was I visiting here again? It just felt like my feet were commanding on their own. I don’t normally do this, what has gotten into me?

I look over her shoulder and attempt to read some of the things in the book, but it just sounds like a different language to me. I don’t understand any of it. She must see my confused face. “Do you not understand taking derivatives?” she asks. I look at her hesitantly, should I answer the question or not? “You probably don’t know. This stuff is just review for me.” It’s review for her? Then she must be super smart, why doesn’t she go to university? “If you want me to, I can teach you,” she offers.

“Teach me? I don’t need a teacher,” I say looking away from her.

“But you don’t know any of this stuff. You should know this by now, right?” She is true, I should know it by now, but because I’ve always slacked off in my studies, and because my parents always paid my way out of everything, I never felt the need to ever really apply myself to anything. “Look,” she says. “How about I tutor you in school because you helped me twice, then we’ll be even, okay?”

I think about it. It doesn’t sound like a bad deal; I did help her twice, once with carrying Cecelia home and the other just now against the drunk guy. She does owe me something, so why not help me in school so my dad will let me have more freedom? I’d say that it’s a win-win situation on my hands here.

“Sure,” I say extending my hand for her to shake. “It’s a deal.”

Allie’s POV

I stare at Myungsoo’s hand and hesitantly shake it. He actually agreed to the deal? I thought that he would have too much pride to admit that he needs help in school. Looks like he’s failing more than I thought.

“So, what time is good for you for tutoring?” I ask.

“Any time,” he says, “except when I’m in classes.”

“Well, then that would mean that you have to give me a time,” I tell him. “And I work when you have classes. Plus I have to pick Cecelia up from school.”

“Well how about we do it at your house at three thirty?” he suggests. “That way you don’t have to worry about finding different arrangements for Cecelia.”

I think about it in my head, I don’t do anything during those times and neither does Cecelia, most of the time. “Sure,” I say. “That seems like it’ll work.”

“Okay,” he says getting up off of the bench. “You have my phone number, right? I gave it to you earlier. Call me when something urgent comes up and we’re unable to tutor. Just tell me.” He starts walking away down the road, probably going home or to hang out with that Sungyeol guy, or maybe he’s going to go do something else, I really do know. Why am I concerning myself with him anyway?

I stare at him as he walks away. Have I pegged his personality wrong? No guy with his personality would ever agree to get tutored and let alone help the same person twice unless they were going to get something out of it. Well Myungsoo’s not going to get something out of me except knowledge.

Something seems off about him, though. It always looks like he’s trying to think of something but he can’t. He always looks like he’s trying to run away from something, but he doesn’t know what the something is. There I go again, why do I keep thinking about him? I read some more of my math textbook while Cecelia plays until I see the sun move and determine that we should get home soon since it’s getting late.

Myungsoo’s POV

“You sure you’re not coming?” I ask Sungyeol over the phone.

“I’m positive,” Sungyeol says for the umpteenth time. I just don’t want to believe that he’s not grabbing the perfect opportunity to meet some ready hot and y girls. “I have to study and so do you.”

“No I don’t,” I comment.

“Your father’s going to get you if you fail.”

“I’m not going to fail,” I assure him as I look at myself in the mirror. I look good. I fix my jacket a bit and straighten my hair and girls will fall all over me once I enter the place.

“Do you have some potion that’s suddenly going to make you smarter?”

“Yeah, I do,” I comment. “The name is Allie.”

“Allie? Allie from yesterday?” Sungyeol inquires.

“Yes, what other Allie do you know?” I ask.

“Why would she help you?”

“Let’s just say that I rescued her from this drunk guy, so as a repayment, she’s going to tutor me.”

“Just because you’re getting tutored doesn’t mean that you’ll pass,” Sungyeol points out.

“Oh it doesn’t matter,” I say as I make my way towards the front door.

“And Kim Myungsoo, why would you ever decide to get tutored? You’ve never cared about school before.” True… Why did I decide to get tutored? “Don’t tell me, you have a crush on Allie, right?” I hear the happiness in Sungyeol’s voice.

“Dream on,” I tell him as I go into my car. “Girls fall for me, I don’t fall for girls.” I hang up the phone and throw it into the passenger’s seat. Tonight’s going to be a fun night.

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Second chapter is finished :)

Hope you enjoyed it :D

So Myungsoo and Allie are now student and teacher, what is their relationship going to be like now? Does Sungyeol have a little crush on Allie? Does Myungsoo have a little crush on Allie? Who's going to get to her first?