**this fic own mine and my brother's. we worked this story together.

She was surprised when Mrs. Anderson called her office and asked for the meeting, but knew she couldn’t avoid it. Taeyeon waits nervously outside the classroom, hoping this meeting will go better than the last one, when the girls’ teacher told her that Bella and Sophia were emotionally disturbed and needed to see a child psychologist. She’d been angry at the time; considered taking them out of the school and getting them a private tutor. But once she’d calmed down and had a good cry, she realized the teacher was right, and that they all needed some therapy. She’s brought a wine and cheese basket as a ‘thank you and sorry I yelled in your face last time’ offering.

Her leg is shaking and she’s biting her fingernail when she gets the text.

‘I can’t wait

to see you!’

Taeyeon sighs and reads it over and over again. Saves it with all the others in the file she created, called ‘Sunny’. She touches her stomach when it feels like she’s being tickled from the inside. Hates that Sunny makes her feel this way. Loves that Sunny makes her feel this way. She puts away her phone when the classroom door opens and Mrs. Anderson steps out, greeting her with a curt smile. She takes a deep breath as she stands and follows her inside.

“Have a seat, Ms. Taeyeon Kim”

“Thanks” Taeyeon sits, her knees hitting the underside of the short chair-desk.

“How are you?”

“I’m very well, thank you”

“Let’s get right to it then”

Taeyeon swallows the lump in when Mrs. Anderson looks at her over the tops of her glasses, remembering what Bella and Sophia had told her about ‘that look’.

“We didn’t have the most successful meeting in October”

“No, we didn’t” ungracefully slides out and picks up the basket, placing it on the teacher’s desk, “this is for you… to apologize for my rather irrational behavior last time”

Mrs. Anderson waves her hand, “No apologies necessary, I know you’ve been through a lot. Isabella and Sophia have been opening up in class and sharing stories of when they lived in Seoul”

“Oh?”

“Yes, they’ve made some great leaps forward. I’m particularly proud of Sophia; she’s come a long way since September. She’s my star pupil, you know”

Taeyeon feels the tears fill her eyes, breathes a sigh of relief, “I thought you called me here to ask me to take them out of your class”

“Actually, that is the reason, Ms. Taeyeon” takes off her glasses.

“I don’t understand…”

“I think Isabella and Sophia should be placed in our class for gifted children”

Another sigh of relief, “I see. And as a professional, do you think that would best for them?”

“I do, yes. They need to be challenged more often; I don’t want to see them bored when they have the opportunity to excel”

“Are they bored? They haven’t complained to me”

Mrs. Anderson picks up two papers off her desk and holds them up side by side, “One of these is Sophia’s, and one of these belongs to an average third grader. The assignment was to write a paragraph each about one thing that makes you sad and one thing that makes you happy”

Taeyeon’s eyes move back and forth between the two papers, noticing the obvious differences.

Mrs. Anderson flips Sophia’s paper to the next page, and then the next, “Sophia wrote three organized pages with perfect grammar and punctuation in the time it took this child to write about fifteen sentences” puts the papers back down on her desk and picks up two more, “this math sheet has fifty various problems; one was finished in five minutes, and as you can see, one has not yet been finished”

Taeyeon sees Bella’s first name on the top corner of the paper, “Point taken” Taeyeon says.

Mrs. Anderson folds her hands on the desk, “If it were up to me, I’d skip them ahead two grades, but our policies regarding acceleration have changed because of emotional and physical maturity issues, so the gifted class is the best we can offer them”

Taeyeon bites her lip. Looks up at the ceiling as if it holds the answers, “Can I… can I speak to the girls first and see what they’d like to do? I know they’ve made some new friends recently; they were invited to a sleepover party for tonight and they’re very excited. I would hate to remove them from this class if they’re happy here” Taeyeon shifts uncomfortably in the small seat, “since they’ve been through so many changes in the last year… if they feel safe here, I’d rather not disturb that just yet. But I’ll talk to them”

Mrs. Anderson blinks gently and smiles, “That sounds fine. You let me know”

Taeyeon nods and stands up, laughing as her stiff body stumbles a bit, “I’ll be in touch”

Mrs. Anderson walks Taeyeon to the door, places a hand on her shoulder, “You’re a good mother, Ms. Taeyeon; Isabella and Sophia are lucky to have you” smiles and pats Taeyeon’s shoulder, “have a nice evening”

…

…

…

…

Taeyeon switches the bouquet from left hand to right, from right hand to left, and back again. She stares at Sunny’s brown, paint-chipped door, all at once too nervous and excited to knock. She thinks back to the weekend before when she last saw Sunny, the morning after their date. They’d parted with a weird and awkward handholding-handshake type thing as three curious pairs of eyes looked on. She remembers Sunny laughing like it was ridiculous. Remembers herself wanting nothing more than to grab Sunny and kiss the laugh right out of her. Go on, you coward.

Taeyeon knocks quickly and steps back. Hears the lock being turned and switches the bouquet once more. Sunny’s gorgeous smile greets her.

“Hi”

“Hello”

After a long pause, “Those for me?”

“Uh… yeah. Here”

“They’re beautiful; thanks” Sunny walks away from the door and Taeyeon follows her inside.

“Smells good”

“I hope it tastes good” Sunny laughs, pulling a vase out from under the kitchen sink. Taeyeon stands in Sunny’s living room and watches her. “You look nervous”

“What? No… I’m not” shakes her head and crosses her arms.

Sunny puts the vase of flowers in the center of her small dining table, “You can sit down, you know” motions to the sofa.

“Thanks” Taeyeon pulls her phone out of her purse and checks it.

“How did dropping off the girls go?” Sunny asks, pulling out some dishes from a cupboard.

“Fine… for them. They ran off with all the other squealing little girls and didn’t look back”

Sunny sets the dishes on the table and walks over to Taeyeon, “Aw” sits down next to her, “was it hard for you to leave them?” tucks some strands of Taeyeon’s hair behind her ear.

Taeyeon leans over and pecks Sunny’s lips, pulls back wide-eyed, “Sorry, I…”

“Don’t be sorry” Sunny smiles, taking Taeyeon’s hand.

“Sorry… ”

“Why are you so nervous, Taeyeon? It’s just me… same old Sunny”

Taeyeon shakes her head, “You’ll never be same old Sunny…”

“Mama, can I come out yet?” they suddenly hear Jamie call from the bedroom.

Taeyeon looks at Sunny questioningly.

“He’s sitting on the naughty chair” Sunny tells her.

Taeyeon laughs, “What for?”

“I told him to clean up his toys while I made dinner, and when I went to check on him he’d taken everything out of his toy chest and spread it all over the room”

“Poor kid”

“I knew you’d take his side”

“I’ll go and see to him if you want”

“Sure, yeah, I need to finish dinner” Sunny points a knowing finger at her, “don’t you clean up for him”

“I won’t, I won’t. Go on, make my dinner, woman”

…

…

“… then she said I was a good mother” Taeyeon shrugs and takes a bite of potatoes.

“You are a good mother” sips her water, “so what did you decide to do?”

“Haven’t talked to the girls yet; they were far too excited about the sleepover.” Checks her phone as she says it.

“You’re worried about them”

“I’m… I don’t know what I am. It’s the first time they’ve been away from home for an entire night without me”

“Hoping they’ll call and ask you to pick them up?”

“Maybe a little”

“Mama, I’m not hungry anymore” Jamie taps at the food on his plate with his fork.

“But you’ve hardly eaten anything; roast and potatoes is your favorite”

Jamie shrugs.

“Two more bites of meat, one more bite of potatoes, one bite of the greens and you can be done, sweetheart”

“Ok…”

“Good man, James” Taeyeon says as she stuffs a piece of roast into .

…

…

“Scoot down, love” Sunny covers up Jamie and kisses his forehead.

“Mama, why did Taeyeon kiss you on your mouth?”

Sunny looks behind her at Taeyeon who’s standing in the doorway, “You want to take this one?”

Taeyeon shakes her head quickly, “No”

Sunny smiles, turns back to her son and runs her fingers through his brown hair, “Sounds like you were spying instead of sitting in the naughty chair like you were supposed to be” Sunny says to him.

Jamie turns his head and gives Sunny a sideways glance, “Sorry Mama”

Sunny picks up his hand and kisses it, “Sweetheart, sometimes when you like someone very much and you can’t hold your feelings inside you kiss them, because it makes you feel good”

“I like my friends at school, I want to kiss them on the mouth too”

Taeyeon looks on in horror and wonders how Sunny will get out of this one.

“When you grow up you can, but for now a great big hug is good enough, alright?”

Jamie furrows his brow, looks back and forth between Taeyeon and his mother, shrugs quickly, “Alright” turns over and closes his eyes.

“Goodnight sweetheart, I love you”

“Night Mama, night Taeyeon, I love you”

…

…

Taeyeon’s not sure how it happened, but hours after putting Jamie to bed, she and Sunny have ended up sitting on the sofa with their legs tangled together. She feels content as Sunny lightly traces shapes across the palm of her hand and they talk about the culture shock they didn’t think would happen when they moved to LA.

“… yeah. And then Jamie got sick and we spent months in hospital. Being in a different country with a sick child, alone, it was scary. I lost the great job I had moved here for and we had to move into this place” Sunny sighs.

Taeyeon nods, “I don’t think I thought it through either, being here alone, without a support system. Not that I was surrounded with people in Seoul, but I had my mum at least, and a few mutual friends of mine and Tiffany’s. I was so relieved when I found Emma; the girls really love her”

Sunny shifts her body so she can lay her head on Taeyeon’s shoulder, “Tell me something I don’t know about you” she says quietly.

“You mean, everything?”

Sunny swats at the hand she’s been tickling, “Tell me about… what you were like in college”

Taeyeon laughs out loud, “College-Taeyeon? Hmm… she was… ambitious, proud, stubborn, in the closet, activist extraordinaire – or so she thought – and rude to her mother”

“So, other than the closet and activist thing, exactly as you are now?”

“Hey!” Taeyeon pinches Sunny’s thigh that’s hanging over her knee.

“Ouch!” Sunny erupts into giggles, “ok… ok… sorry” Sunny tips her head back and looks at Taeyeon who scowls playfully at her, “And what about friends? Do you still keep in touch with anyone?”

Sunny’s head rises and falls as Taeyeon takes a deep breath, “I was a bit of a loner” she admits, “but I did have one very good friend. Yoona was her name. Im Yoona”

“Was?”

Taeyeon clears , “Yeah, she uh… she killed herself, year after college”

“Oh god, Taeyeon, I’m so sorry”

Taeyeon pats her thigh, “It’s fine. It was a long time ago and, honestly, I think she’s better off… wherever she is. Yoona was never meant for this world”

It’s silent for a while as Sunny threads and unthreads their fingers. “My dad died while I was in college; he was only thirty-eight. Had a heart-attack, of all things”

“That must’ve been difficult”

“Yeah, it was. It tore our family apart for a while; took us a few years to reconnect and forgive each other”

“Forgive each other for what?”

Sunny cuddles her head under Taeyeon’s chin, “I had just come out, and my mum told me it was my fault that he died. My sister sided with her… I think that hurt me more than anything”

Taeyeon wraps an arm around Sunny’s shoulders.

“I told my mum it was her fault and we argued all the time. I finally moved out, and that’s when I met Hyomin” Sunny looks at the wall in front of them at all the photographs, “I guess you could say she rescued me. She was my age but she had a job and a flat, and she helped me through some really hard times. Eventually we fell in love and…”

“No happily ever after though”

Taeyeon feels the tickle under her chin as Sunny shakes her head, “Not yet”

Silence fills the room again. Taeyeon rubs Sunny’s shoulder and kisses the top of her head. This is nice. Sunny’s body starts to shake and Taeyeon leans forward quickly, concerned, causing Sunny to shake more.

“Are you… laughing?”

Sunny waves a hand, “Sorry… I just… we’re a couple of sad sods, we are”

“You are so strange, Sunny”

…

…

“Mm… that’s good”

“Well I know how you are about your coffee, so I bought whole beans and ground them myself” Sunny folds a leg under herself and sits back down on the sofa.

“I have good taste, what can I say” Taeyeon winks.

“So… no calls from the girls” Sunny smiles, “it’s well past midnight; they should be asleep by now” rubs Taeyeon’s jean clad thigh, “congratulations on not calling every hour to check on them”

“You’re a great distraction”

“I think you’re just easy to distract”

“Oh…?”

“Mm… very easy”

Taeyeon looks at Sunny’s hand on her thigh. You should stop that. She sips her coffee to try and distract herself from it, but it doesn’t work. Especially when she catches Sunny openly staring at her with expectant eyes.

“We should plan a trip to the snow” Taeyeon says out of nowhere. She watches Sunny blink a few times and remove her hand.

“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea, Taeyeon”

“Why not?”

“I don’t want you paying for another weekend away; it’s not right”

“Sunny, what I do with my money is my business” puts down her cup, “and what I want is to have an excuse to wear the scarf and hat you made me” grins at her own cleverness.

“I’ll think about it”

“Think all you like, but I won’t take no for an answer” she says arrogantly, scooting closer to Sunny.

“Oh really”

“Yes, really”

It’s Sunny’s pink tongue moistening her lower lip that settles it. Taeyeon leans in and kisses her softly. At first it’s reminiscent of their first kiss, but eventually she starts moving her lips, in response to Sunny’s.

She’s surprised at how at ease she feels doing it; kissing Sunny. Surprised at how in sync they are; that she doesn’t feel awkward and that they’ve set a nice slow pace so effortlessly. You could ruin me so easily.

When she feels the tip of Sunny’s tongue she pulls back for a moment, breathless. Eyes closed, mouth parted, she leans her forehead on Sunny’s. Feels Sunny’s hand on her cheek.

“I can get carried away very quickly” Sunny says between breaths.

“Apparently” Taeyeon tries to laugh but only ends up more breathless. She finally opens her eyes to see Sunny’s eyes are hooded, dark, and the sight of them makes her swallow slowly. “Maybe I should go” she says, barely above a whisper.

“If that’s what you want” Sunny says, sliding her hand around Taeyeon’s neck into her hair. She tugs gently and it’s all Taeyeon needs to lean back in.

This time the kisses are faster, deeper, and Taeyeon doesn’t want to stop. She tries to shift the uncomfortable position her body is in, and Sunny must take it as something else because she soon feels herself being pushed down onto the sofa.

Taeyeon allows it to happen. And before she knows it, Sunny’s body is pressed flush against hers. Oh , you feel good on top of me. Sunny’s hands tangle in her hair and their kisses become sloppy, wet, and Taeyeon can feel the heat between her legs growing damp.

“Mama, I’m thirsty”

“!” Taeyeon throws Sunny off and watches her go tumbling over onto the floor between the sofa and coffee table, “… Sunny…”

Sunny laughs silently, rubbing on the back of her head where it hit the table. “You are so smooth, Taeyeon” she says through whiney laughter, “…my head”

“I’m so sorry” Taeyeon stands up and pulls Sunny up off the floor, “Are you alright?” she tries to catch her breath and remembers Jamie. Glances at his little body standing at the end of the sofa, a confused expression on his face.

“Why was Mama on top of you?” he asks.

“Oh my god” Taeyeon mumbles through a face palm.

Sunny’s laughter subsides a bit and she shakes her head at Taeyeon’s embarrassment. “Come on, sweetheart, I’ll get you some water”

Taeyeon can’t bear to look at either of them as they interact in the kitchen. Sunny holds Jamie’s hand and leads him back to the bedroom.

“Why did Taeyeon have her hands on your bum, Mama?”

Taeyeon hears his voice trail off as they disappear into the bedroom. “”

…

…

“You going to run away then?”

Taeyeon leans back against the front door where she’s been waiting and bites her lip as Sunny walks over to her. “He’s probably scarred for life, Sunny”

“He’s fine, calm down” Sunny slides her hand around Taeyeon’s waist.

“I keep picturing his little face looking up at me like I’m a ert”

“He doesn’t even know what a ert is”

“Nice”

Sunny laughs and leans up on her tiptoes, kissing Taeyeon gently. “I don’t want you to go” she whispers against her lips.

Don’t tempt me. “It’s probably best. This isn’t the time or the place…”

Sunny steps back, “Taeyeon, we have kids. At some point, if this continues between us, they’re going to see us kissing”

Taeyeon sighs, “I know, I know” leans down and kisses Sunny once, twice, “but maybe things got a little out of hand?” Taeyeon squints and tilts her head, hoping that wasn’t the wrong thing to say.

Sunny purses her lips, shrugs, “Maybe”

Taeyeon kisses her again. “I mean, if he hadn’t walked in…”

“Yeah…”

Taeyeon drops her purse on the floor and wraps her arms around Sunny’s back, “This is all so new. You and me” kisses her softly. “I love being able to touch you and kiss you now but… I don’t want to do too much too soon…”

“Felt like you wanted it to me” Sunny smirks.

Taeyeon’s face turns serious, “Sunny, I could shag you right here, right now, but it wouldn’t mean what it should. I want to be able to give myself to you completely, without second thoughts and emotional bull. You deserve that”

“Have you had second thoughts about tonight?”

“These are my second thoughts”

Sunny nods and slides her hand up the back of Taeyeon’s sweater and rubs her hand suggestively over Taeyeon’s shirt, “Ok. But I can’t promise that I’ll be able to keep my hands to myself” she shrugs.

“I expect nothing less”

**this fic own mine and my brother's. we worked this story together.