“Aargh!”

If Hyukjae stretched his neck any further as he tries to keep his face away from his mommy’s attempts of kissing every inch of it goodbye, he’d probably going to lose his head and live as nothing but a body-less head for the rest of his life.

He squirms, trying to rid himself free, but those lips still find a way to leave their—their print on his eye’s door. Unbelievable!

“Let me go, let me go, let me goooo!”

Sandara sighs. That last cry for freedom has sure attracted a lot of eyes on them. She cannot but comply and let the little pest jog away from her.

She doesn’t whine and doesn’t pout. Okay, maybe a little. She turns to look at the children around them first before settling her stare on the very familiar mother and son next to them.

With envy, she watches Donghae let Bom bombard him with kisses as many as she wants, actually giggling cutely at each of them.

Now, Sandara knows better than to compare her son to others’, and she wouldn’t change him even if offered something in return, but every once in a blue moon, she wished Hyukjae could accept her love openly. And not only when he wanted to postpone his bedtime or had other requests.

To think that Hyukjae is only seven and already so opposed to display of affection saddens her.

The teacher for the first grade—a young woman with long wavy hair named Victoria—is already standing near the class, just waiting for the students to greet for the last hundred times their parents before they walk inside the room.

Sandara watches her son look around him. Waits to see Bom give her final little speech to Donghae to do the same. She takes a stride. Slowly, crouching down to Hyukjae, she tells him, “mommy’s got to go now, okay?”

Hyukjae looks at her. He is utterly and undeniably adorable in his strawberry cake designed backpack.

“Listen to your teacher, Hyukjae-ah, okay?” She tells him. “I’ll see you in four hours. Be good.”

They stare into each other’s eyes for some instants.

Her heart clenches as, as Hyukjae digests the words being said to him, he widens and she recognizes fear in those big pupils.

Sandara expects him to start tearing up, but is surprised when Hyukjae blinks and the previous reaction gets replaced by a set of determined eyes.

“See you in four hours, mommy,” Hyukjae replies, “I’ll be good.”

A surge of pride for her son invades her then. It tugs stronger at her heart, making her hands tremble a little as she guides her right up to hide her matching trembling mouth. Her vision starts to blur, but she quickly intervenes on that.

She watches her boy, her little man, turn on his heel and stand behind a girl with braided hair, in a line Victoria is making in front of the door’s classroom.

Donghae rushes behind Hyukjae soon after, hugging Hyukjae’s backpack and giggling madly.

“Here.”

Sandara finds a pack of tissues offered to her. She looks to whom they belong and finds Bom smiling softly at her.

She’s learned through the years that Park Bom, CEO of the Lee company, is one strong woman. Her friend has never been as emotional as her, but even she has limits.

There’s one shaky sigh and that prompts Sandara to bump her and Bom’s shoulders together.

They wait for the children to wave one last time before they one by one walk in the classroom. The last kid enters and Victoria smiles at the parents before closing the door.

“They grow up so fast.”

Bom hums. A couple of seconds pass. “I have the day off. Shopping?”

°°°°°

Victoria says her name to the 20 children. She gives them a nice smile and tell them to call her ‘teacher Victoria,” or, if that’s too long to pronounce, simply ‘teacher Vic’.

“Now, we’ll play a little game to get to know each other and then I’ll assign you to your desks, okay?” She asks.

Donghae thinks she’s very friendly and looks very nice with her pearly white rows of teeth, even if her lips are the same color of his mommy when she has a congo, one of those things where her mom has to talk to a lot of people for work. He still wonders every time he sees it how that mini-red tube how works. How is it possible for his mommy to just make her lips so red with that.

“Tell your name and then say something about yourself.” Teacher Victoria instructs. “For example, my name’s Song Victoria, I am your teacher. I love cats. I have three cats, one is orange and the others are black. I like chocolate. I like chocolate so much that once I ate too much and I felt like my tummy was about to go ‘boom!’”

That earns her a collective laugh.

Teacher Victoria beams at them. She tilts her head. “What about, mmm.” She says in thought. “Let’s divide you into two lines and you’ll introduce yourselves in pairs, okay?”

The children get put in messy lines of 10, with each of the kids behind peering to see and listen to what’s going on.

Donghae doesn’t have Hyukjae in front of him anymore. That would make him sad if it wasn’t that Hyukjae’s now next to him, and, as he sees the first boy from his line and the other from the second line get called by teacher Victoria, he realizes that he and Hyukjae are a pair.

He wants to refer his discovery to Hyukjae immediately.

And so cupping half of his mouth with a hand, he whispers conspiratorially, “psst, Hyukkie!”

His friend doesn’t turn to look at him, too intent on trying to understand the activity.

Donghae tries again, “pssst, pssst, Hyukkie,” but again, nothing. He jots his lower lip out in a pout, feeling the sadness coming, but for the second time in the day he’s just about to cry.

He hears the boy at the front—the one with Harry Potter glasses and funny pants with big circles that his mommy taught him are all called “pois”—start making his introduction.

“My name is Park Jungsoo. I’m seven years old and two months. My mama calls me ‘Leeteuk’. It means special because I’m her special boy. I like the Little Prince, it’s a book my granddad gave me two Christmases ago. I also like playing chess with my granddad and going to play mini-golf with my whole family”.

Donghae doesn’t know many of the words Jungsoo, the special Leeteuk, has just uttered, but teacher Victoria says that it was a really good introduction. She is clapping her hands very loud and encouraging the rest of the class to do the same. Jungsoo, the special Leeteuk must be really smart.

Weird, because Donghae sees the special bow—something only adults do after a congo—but really smart.

The next kid is tall. He’s like fourty-seven centimeters taller than Jungsoo, the special Leeteuk, and bigger. His body is bigger. Not chubby and full like a marshmallow. Bigger. Larger.

“I’m Kim Youngwoon. My friends call me Kangin and you can call me that too if you want,” he grins wide. He puffs his chest, hands on his side, as he continues, “and I’m strong. I beat my daddy in arm wrestling!”

“Wooo,” Donghae can’t help, but say.

Some classmates mirror the sentiment, making noises of astonishment themselves.

Donghae moves his gaze to Hyukjae. To see what his friend’s reaction is at the strong boy. He finds Hyukjae’s mouth open, his eyes dilated.

“Did you hear that?” He asks Hyukjae.

Hyukjae turns to look at him and nods. “That’s cool.”

“Yes, cool!” Donghae echoes. “I’ve never beat my dad. How big is his dad? Kangin’s big, his dad must be bigger!”

“Yes!” Hyukjae keeps nodding. “The biggest!”

Victoria thanks Kangin for his introduction as well, telling him that he too did a good job. Somehow, the clap for him is louder than the one for Leeteuk’s who, thankfully, does not look bothered, but instead is looking at Kangin quizzically as if trying to decipher if he likes him or not. She assigns the two children to their desks, basing her choice on their heights.

The next two pairs finish their tasks beautifully.

It’s after Yoona’s done with her concise, but effective introduction, that Victoria has to stop for a moment.

The next boy hasn’t come forward yet, too preoccupied with playing with a console. Needless to say that he’s unaware of the audience watching him.

She remembers catching a glimpse of the mentioned boy—brownish hair curled on the edges—with his father earlier and seeing him discuss about the electronic device that she’s pretty sure was taken away before the father and son departure. She’s either mistaken or this kiddo had somehow managed to steal it back.

It’s no the first time she has to deal with something like this.

Victoria walks towards the busy boy and gently touches his wrist, making him acknowledge her. “You can play with that at home.” She says with a smile.

The boy doesn’t look surprised. Nor does he show any sign that he’s affected by the remark.

“My mom says I can only play one hour and half per day or my eyes will hurt.” He informs her.

Victoria bobs her head. “Your mom is right.” She circles the game with her hand. When she meets no resistance at all when she takes it, she returns it immediately to the boy, but not after telling him to,

“put it in your pocket, or in your backpack, please.”

“I will,” the boy promises and slips the device in his pocket.

Victoria smiles approvingly. “Thank you.” She offers her hand. “Now, can you introduce yourself to your classmates?”

“Sure can,” is the reply. The boy holds hand with the teacher and lets go when he’s on the right spot. “My name is Cho Kyuhyun. I like videogames. I like playing with my PS4 the most, but I can’t take that everywhere. That’s why I have my PSP,” he says, patting his full pocket, “my mom and my sisters call me Game Kyu because they say I have an obsession with games. When I’m not playing because I can’t, I ask one of my sisters to play the game I want and I tell them where to move and how to win the levels.”

Victoria squints a little. Interesting child.

She’s always thought that she should never show favoritism of any kind. So if she finds Ryeowook (“Call me Wookie, this is my childhood friend, Yesung-hyung!”), Yesung (“Why are you introducing me? Don’t introduce me! I have to introduce on my own!”) hilarious, and finds Sungmin with his small rabbit stuffed toy adorable, and Heechul with his long hair beautiful, even if he does show a bit of an attitude, she keeps it to herself.

With his hair perfectly styled with gel, and an elegant bow-tie around his neck, the polite Choi Siwon bows and then grins in the middle of his introduction before keeping on, “my daddy is a politician. We travel a lot. Mostly by airplane—”

Donghae perks at that information because he flies a lot too. He and his family go to vacation in other places to meet people from other parts of the world. He’s been to Europe, and Italy to eat pasta, and Tokyo to see the pandas. Once he and his papa watched the finale of soccer. It was fun until everyone started crying because their team lost and even though Donghae liked the goal of the rivals, he cried too.

He realizes once Siwon is done talking that there’s only one person before him and one before Hyukjae, meaning that after them, it would be their turn to talk. He knows he can’t stop listening now because it would be rude. Plus, he’s trying to remember everyone’s name, but right after hearing “Kibum” and “Donghee,” Donghae whispers excitedly to Hyukjae.

“It’s almost our turn!”

Hyukjae does not seem to share his same feeling. In fact, his chest is rising and falling fast.

Donghae tilts his head towards Hyukjae. “Hyukkie?”

The latter looks scared.

“Hyukkie,” Donghae drawls weakly, taking in his friend’s state. “You okay?” No answer, but he can see that the other’s troubled. He links his and Hyukjae’s hands together and frowns. “Hyukkie, your hand is sweating.”

Hyukjae is super nervous. His heartbeat is crazy. He can feel the thumping of his heart in his ears, and he feels hot.

He opens his mouth to tell Donghae about these symptoms, but Victoria says, “next!” and he finds his legs move then stop on their own.

Having all the stares of his classmates on him makes him feel uneasy. Dizzy. He doesn’t like being put under their scrutiny like this.

His breathing becomes even more erratic, the beating in his ears louder.

“M-my name is,” Hyukjae trails off. Too many eyes. “I-it’s.” Some of them are laughing at him. Kim Heechul is laughing at him. Kangin too. “I-I.” They’re laughing at him. But he doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t have anything in his head. He doesn’t know how to say his name anymore. He knows his name. It’s Lee Hyukjae, but he can’t say it.

His eyes sting.

He’s bringing his arm up to wipe his face when Donghae tug his other hand as he takes a step forward, back as straight as a ruler and head up.

“Hello, everyone!” Donghae intones, his voice big and loud. “My name is Lee Donghae and this is my best friend, Lee Hyukjae.” He looks behind him to throw his friend, his best friend, a reassuring smile.

Hyukjae is just staring at this point, a mixture of grateful for being saved and shocked at the other and at himself. Because Donghae, of all people—who’s younger than him—is the one who is being brave.

“I like fish. Not to eat, no. I eat fish too, though, because mommy says it’s got omigu, and it’s good for me. I like singing with my hyung Donghwa and watching TV and playing with my best friend, Lee Hyukkie. Lee Hyukkie and me always play together. He likes strawberries. Milk strawberry is his favorite. He likes the Blue Ranger, the Batman and the Iron Man. And he likes hugging Aunt Sandara’s scarf when he’s sleeping over because he misses his mom—”

Hyukjae gasps. The other’s not supposed to reveal private stuff. He tries to yank at Donghae’s hand to let him know that he’s crossing some lines there, but Donghae just keeps going.

“—he likes cookies a lot. We share my mommy’s cookies when she bakes them. Hyukkie likes my mommy’s cookies so much that he cried when he came to my house and found out that my daddy ate them all. Hyukkie likes sitting with his legs up when we’re watching TV. Hyukkie always says he doesn't like watching Teletubbies anymore, but he does! He likes Twinky Winky the most and he walks like him, and he also likes when we chase the monster under his bed away because he’s scared of impf—”

Donghae glances at the palm on his mouth then at Hyukjae glaring daggers at him. He’s red in the cheeks, maybe he has a fever?

“I am not scared of monsters under my bed anymore!” Hyukjae denies firmly. “You are the one who's still scared of them! And I don't walk like Tinky Winky, take it back!”