“Noona! Noona!” I heard my niece chant beside me. I looked up from my diary and saw a stain on her Hello Kitty dress. I wiped the spill of her soup in a swift motion.

“Noona! Me too!” I looked over to my nephew and seeing that he had found it funny to stick cold cheese on his face. I shook my head smiling and wiped him clean as well. I made sure both of the members of my posse were all right before I turned back to write in my diary. Instead a crisp white BMW caught the corner of my eye and I looked up watching as the car stopped in front of the restaurant for the valet to take. The man coming out of the driver’s seat looked vaguely familiar… I leaned in to take a closer look and realized that it was the man from detention! The one that broke up with my teacher and took the pictures of my backpack!

“What is he doing here??” I whispered under my breath as I bit the top end of my pen, watching Mr. Suit guy hand over his keys to the valet man. He walked around the car to head inside the establishment, heading towards the couple that had been sitting by the window for quite a while. He gave a small bow to the old couple before taking his seat, the lady spoke first. The way her face was formed, she looked as if she didn’t particularly like the fact that he was “late”. 

I kept on staring at the 3 high class people, as if I was watching some kind of a reality show with the “mute” feature on. I had to guess a scenario from the actions and facial expressions being shown. From what I had so far, the couple in front of Mr. Suit was probably his parents that he was having lunch with to keep up “important family time.” Either that, or they were having lunch discussing a business matter because the man slid a black folder across the table. Mr. Suit picked up the folder and opened it; his eyes scanning the papers inside, his eyebrows furrowing the more pages he flipped.

“Looks like he’s upset…” I set aside my pen in the margins of my diary and picked up my chopsticks. I opened the lid of my Ramyun and began slurping the noodles into my mouth. I watched as my gut was correct, and Mr. Suit had closed the black folder with such a force the wind whipped a piece of hair out of his coif. He didn’t put the folder down gently either considering how his parents/business partners got startled. They watched as their son/potential business partner stood up from the table and was turning around to walk out before the food was even served. Oddly enough, the couple sat there acting as if nothing had happened as Mr. Suit fetched his car from the valet.

Huh, I wonder what made him so angry… Maybe he wasn’t getting the numbers he wanted? Not enough money in the deal? Too much money the other side was asking to profit from? Wait, a second, why did I have to think Mr. Suit owned a company? For all I know, he could be the assistant to the real boss and he was just sent there to do the pre-negotiating.

I slurped more noodles into my mouth as I watched his car pull up reminding me how filthy rich he was. As the valet man got out of the driver’s seat to hold the door out for him, Mr. Suit took a leisurely look around his surroundings. His eyes stopped right in my direction and just when I thought the glance was over, he was actually staring at me a little longer then usual… WAIT A SECOND HE’S STARING. STARING AT ME. DOES HE RECOGNIZE ME?? I saw him squinting his eyes, putting a hand over his eyes to block the sunlight in his view.

“!” I cursed under my breath as I stupidly hid behind my cup of noodles. I shut my eyes praying that he would lift his gaze off me and quick.

“Oh look at that guy Hansol Oppa!” Haru pointed out the window, probably catching the attention of Mr. Suit even more. “He’s waving at us!” I cursed Soo Yeon for dressing her children in neon colors today.

“Hello Mister!” Hansol exclaimed as he stood up on his stool and was waving wildly. “Whoaaa… He looks so cool….”

“Hansol! Get down or you’ll fall and hurt yourself!” I commanded without putting my cup of noodles down. “Haru! Yah! Stop looking at the stranger! Get back to eating your food so we can go!” I peeked my eyes over the cup to check if he was still there, but thankfully there was nothing. No sign of the white BMW. No sign of a nicely tailored suit. I let out a sigh as I put my cup down. Just as my nerves were starting to calm down, I heard a chime from the store door and looked to see who it was. As I was half expecting Mr. Suit to be the guy walking in the store to give me a heart attack, someone else stepped in earning another sigh of relief from me.

“Oh… Sulli-ah it’s just you!” I put a hand over my beating heart. Sulli, the convenience store worker, smiled at me as she walked behind the counter. “Have the afternoon shift today?” She nodded her head with a small smile. She wasn’t much of a talker, just a nod/shake her head kind of girl. For as long as Unnie and I have been here in South Korea, Sulli was sort of the first friend I had made. I would stop by the convenience store stocking up on Ramyun, when that was all we could afford at the time, and she would be there greeting me with her eye smile. She would sit there and listen to me ramble about anything and everything giving a nod here and there to signal she was still listening. I’ve never heard her voice before come to think about it...

“All right kids” I announced closing my diary and putting it inside my purse. “Let’s clean up, all right?”

“Yes ma’am” the 4-year-old twins stated together. They both hopped off the barstool grabbing their trash and putting it in its proper place. I turned momentarily out the window to look across the restaurant; maybe he went back inside… I mean, what kind of an image does it give his company if he walked away so rudely like that? I crooked my neck to look, and the couple had left too. 

“Soo Jung-ahhhh… babyyyy…” I looked over at where the voice was coming from and felt a hand slip around my shoulders. Without having to look over at who the person was, I rolled my eye shrugging off the heavy arm.

“What did I tell you about calling me ‘baby’…Kim Jongin.” I put my backpack on pulling down my sweatshirt over my jeans. “As you can see I am a full grown woman, and not a person still crawling on all fours.”

“Okay, okay, fine… Miss Jung.” He put his hands up in defense. “You got me there.”

“Kai Oppa!” Haru ran into Kai’s open arms, lifting her up to his level.

“Hey there Princess.” He gave my niece a kiss on her forehead. “Ready to go to the park?”

“Yes!!!” She squeezed the living life out of Kai, and then placed a small palm on his cheek. “Oppa. I think I found my prince charming. You know? Like the ones Omma reads to me at night.”

“Yah, Haru… He’s too old for you”, Her brother chimed in crossing his arms over his chest. “Besides, he was looking at Noona. Not you. So that mean’s he sees her as his princess.”

I widened my eyes at the statement of my nephew. Kai turned to the boy giving him a confusing look as Haru began to sob at the sudden confrontation her brother had given her. I shook my head quickly taking her in my arms to try and calm her down.

“Just ignore him. Hansol has been...uhm…seeing things lately?” I lied as I shuffled him out the door with a little force. I started to pat Haru on the back as her sniffles started to slow down. Kai offered to carry Haru taking her again in his arms and she immediately stopped her sniffling.

“What exactly has Hansol been…seeing lately?” Kai asked a he took Hansol’s small hand in his own. It was either a way to keep Hansol from running into the busy street or escape his question. Before Hansol could open his mouth to spurt out more nonsense, my voice answered the question.

“Dragons!” I exclaimed as I squeezed the little boy’s hand to keep him writhing in pain instead of saying more. “Unnie has been reading a lot of fairy tales to them and yeah. He’s been seeing—Dragons. Maybe Haru thought she saw a Prince fighting off a dragon and yeah… yupp… yes!” Kai opened his mouth to probably point out how my ideas made no sense, but I cut him off. “Thanks! For…well… taking care of them while I study today. Unnie was working today, and that test Monday is getting on my—“

“Relax Soo Jung…” He softly knuckled my head tipping me a bit to my right. “You know I’ve always got your back, right?”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, yeah what ever… I just have to make sure you aren’t staring at my back for too long, right?” We both took looks at my then each other, laughing. Okay, so Kai had a thing for me, obviously. But, I had nothing for him. I appreciated him as—okay—a friend. Besides, he adored the kids and Unnie had no problem with him taking care of them. Since, he was sort of the only father figure the two kids had… Especially, for Hansol who was the only guy in the household. Sure, Kai had another side of him when it came to—well—nighttime, street time kind of thing. Right now, with the kids and I though, he was the Kai I could handle from time to time. The Kim Jongin who took care of my family without a complaint and could be potentially seen as a maybe…something.