Sunny slows in front of Mr. Kim's classroom during lunch. Ever since the passing of his grandmother, he sits alone at his desk with a meek expression. Sunny witnessed it many times as she passes. It was no secret that he spoke to her nearly every day during his lunch break to pass the time, but now he has nothing to do. Or rather, no one to talk to. Sometimes, he eats in the teacher's lounges, but most days he locks himself away in solitude, and it breaks Sunny's heart to see it.

One day, she finally knocks on his door and opens it enough to peek her head in. She feels awkward immediately, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth. Well, it was a good idea when she first thought of it.

"I notice you eating lunch by yourself all the time now. Why don't you come eat with me? That salad can't be all that interesting."

Mr. Kim looks down at his food then up at Sunny again, "I'd... like that a lot actually. It's kind of lonely now. I'm stuck in my old ways. Do you mind? Aren't you busy?"

"I'm only eating. Come on over. You know, we have almost an hour for lunch. We can always grab something. Nothing tells us we need to stay. I don't usually bring my lunch anyway. I'm not a fan of leftovers."

"You don't cook a lot?" Mr. Kim stands, lifting his salad.

"I do, but not a lot. Just enough for me to eat."

"I hate cooking. I'm not too great. I mean, I know some dishes that I'm good at, but trying anything new is just going to end in disaster for me. My, uh, my grandmother would always make these huge portions of food and send it to me frozen. I was always spoiled that way. I'm still... getting used to her not being here, and it's already been a couple weeks."

Sunny sets a hand on Mr. Kim's shoulder, "There is no rule telling  you that you have to get over a loss in a certain amount of time, Mr. Kim."

"Why don't you call me Kibum, Sunkyu?"

"Only if you call me Sunny. My dad is the only person who calls me Sunkyu anymore. It's such an old-sounding name."

"I think it's pretty."

"You do?"

"I do."

Sunny blushes, "Thank you."

{{{:::}}}

"So did you see the roster for the teachers for faculty king and queen?" Mrs. Choi stops by Sunny's room, poking her head into the classroom, "Because you're on it, Sunny," she smiles, "And so is Mr. Kim across the hall there. All the students are freaking out about the two of you being on the list."

Sunny shakes her head in exasperation, "I kind of assumed we were the getting the brunt of the students secret matchmaking this year. They're been leaving us little gifts from the other for the past few weeks," she stands and hurries over to the door, "I can't believe it. Chocolate, huge slices of cake, all this stuff from that bakery that I love. He gets the same. Apparently twice, there's been a coffee on his desk in the morning. I didn't put it there, but it was from me. These kids are crazy, Jinri."

"I'll say. I think it's even worse when you know you'll be the next victim."

"Ah, it's not so bad. I mean, you just get a nice, plastic crown and everyone claps for you. By lunch, everyone will be over it. The faculty will have a good laugh about it, and that will be that."

"If you say so, Miss Lee," Jinri teases.

"Don't you have a class to teach or something?"

"Giving you a hard time is more fun though," she giggles and turns, bowing her head when Mr. Kim walks by her in the hall to his classroom, "Mr. Kim! How are you?"

"Good, Jinri. Have a nice day."

Jinri glances over shoulder and winks at Sunny when the two women meet eyes. Sunny tries to make a face without Mr. Kim seeing her, but he does. He gives Sunny an incredulous look before walking into his classroom and pushing the door shut behind him.

Sunny runs for safety in her classroom.

{{{:::}}}

Sunny stands with Jinri off to the side of the gymnasium during the pep rally. The students are wild, excited for the start of the fall sports season, but they're rather well behaved. Still, all the teachers are piled near the doors to cheer right along with the students. Sunny can barely see over the physics teacher standing ahead of her though. The mascot offers to pick her up, but she declines with an embarrassed wave of her hands. That's something that doesn't need to happen.

"And now the moment that everyone has been waiting for! Faculty king and queen. It was a landslide win this year! Almost the entire student body filled out the ballots," Principal Lee pauses when the room bursts into a roar of cheers, "I'm going to call out the teachers who won. Please step forward to receive your crown and tiara. Drum roll!" The drum line of the marching band goes off, "Our King for this school year is Mr. Kim! English teacher extraordinaire."

Half the room cheers as Mr. Kim steps forward, using Principal Lee's shoulder for support as he laughs. The noise is drowned out by the students' yells. One of the girls in student government sets the crown on his head when he bends down just enough for her to do so. When he straightens back up, Sunny hones in on just how good her co-worker looks today. He has his crisp white dress shirt and black slacks. His tie is thin and black, just like his shoes. He isn't wearing his contacts today; his glasses are the nerdy, thick frames that young adults would purchase, but Mr. Kim looks absolutely endearing in them, especially when he's smiling shyly and waving. He could get up on stage and be Ken with no regrets, but when he's just plain, old Mr. Kim, he's shy. Imagine that.

"And what would a king be without his Queen? This year's faculty queen goes to... Miss Lee, our L.A. born English expert."

Sunny giggles when she's pushed forward by Jinri. She prepared herself for this moment this morning. The gossip in the halls made her overly confident, and she made sure to wear her highest heels to get close to matching Mr. Kim's height (and not to make her legs look amazing, of course). She's wearing a red knit blouse (only because it matched her faint red lips) and black pants. Her hair is done in soft curls, bouncing off her shoulders as she strides across the gym floor to meet Mr. Kim in the center. She doesn't know how the kids aren't passing out from screaming like they are.

Mr. Kim smiles at Sunny when the crown is nestled on her hair. He hooks arms with her and smiles for a candidate photo from the yearbook committee. Sunny sees his dimples and has to force her eyes away when a second round of photos are snapped. Once they're finished, they're led out into the hallway to take a few pictures with Principal Lee. Sunny is basically deaf from the commotion in the gymnasium ans barely makes out anything that he's saying to them. Mr. Kim is nodding along, so she makes a mental note to ask him for the rundown later. 

Sunny pulls herself back into the moment when Mr. Kim fixes the tiara on her head. It was slipping off the top of her head; she didn't feel it yanking on her curls until he had to unwind her hair from the prongs. He smiles when their eyes meet, combing his fingers through her curls to smooth out the hairs. It's the first time in a long time that a man took care to fix her appearance so tenderly for her. 

"We're certainly never going to hear the end of this from our students. I have a feeling it's going to be a running joke for a long time."

She finds her voice, "They're just having their fun. It happens every year. I guess we were just the lucky ones this time around, huh?"

"I'd say this calls for another celebratory dinner."

Sunny swallows and bites her lip (even though it's probably going to leave a red stain on her front teeth), setting her hand on Mr. Kim's chest to give him a tiny shove and create some room between them, "I'm not going to start playing this game with you, Kibum," she lowers her voice when Principal Lee passes by to return to the gym, "I'm not. It's in our contracts. There's no dating amongst the faculty. This push and pull is going to lead to us losing our jobs."

"We're not dating, so I'll pick you up at six."

"No, you won't, Kibum. Please don't start this. Let's just go back to aggravating each other, yeah? You teach your way, and I'll teach mine, and that's all that there is between us. That's so much easier."

"I'm spoiled now. Come on."

Sunny is disgusted. She pivots on her heel and stalks back off to the double doors of the gym. There's a voice in her head that tells her that there isn't a bad bone in Mr. Kim's body, for whatever reason, but that isn't to say he can't overstep his boundaries. Sunny doesn't find it attractive that he's completely disregarding her feelings, trying to force her on a date that (she's telling herself) she doesn't want to go on. Typical. What a guy. The thought makes her ridiculously furious and garners attention from a few teachers when she makes her entrance.

{{{:::}}}

Sunny sulks at her desk. She holds up her head with two hands balled into fists, and she's fairly sure she's pouting at this point. Her students have long gone home, and she was intending to take time to grade Monday's quiz for her classes, but she can't focus. All because of stupid Mr. Kim. She never thought he would be the man to become the bane of her existence.

"Stupid Mr. Kim... stupid boys. Stupid school dating rules," she violently crumbles up a sheet of paper and tosses it into the waste basket beneath her desk, "What's the big stupid deal anyway? Who even thought of that rule? They must like to torture me. Put me across the hall from probably one of the three most attractive teachers in the school when it's painfully obvious that I'm single..."

Mr. Kim pokes his head into Sunny's room, nearly scaring her out of her skin, "Sorry to interrupt your monologue, but--"

"You heard that?"

"Just your voice, nothing you were saying. Anyway, sorry to interrupt, but my last red pen kicked the bucket just now. The office is out. How can a school actually be out of red pens? Anyway, I was wondering if you had any that you could spare a poor, old faculty king. I thought the queen would be the best person to ask."

Sunny doesn't hide the roll of her eyes as she opens a drawer of her desk and tosses a pack to Mr. Kim, "You can have the box. I have another one in my bag. Is that all you needed?"

"I was going to bring up the date again, but I was worried it'd be unprofessional."

"That didn't stop you before."

"Well--"

"Look, I have a lot to get done before I can go home tonight, so if that's all you need, please leave me alone. And close the door on your way out. The janitor banging around down the hall is distracting me.

"I made you upset."

"Yeah, kind of. Look, Mr. K--"

"Kibum."

"Fine. Kibum, we both know how against dating Principal Lee is. Yes, we can call it whatever we want, but if he finds out, it's not going to be pretty. He's going to fire both of us. Actually, probably only one of us. And it'd be me. You're the better teacher. You're better at English. You're probably smarter than me. Everyone else thinks that. Even you probably. So I'm not about to put my job on the line for something that isn't going to go anyway but down the drain. So, if that's all that you needed, those pens, then please take your leave. I have a lot to do tonight."

"Sunkyu--"

"Don't Sunkyu me. Please. Just go already. Why are you so stubborn?"

"I'm stubborn because I know what I want."

"No, you don't. You just think you do, but you don't. You just don't, okay?"

Sunny forces her eyes back onto her quizzes. She can see Kibum standing there for a few more seconds, but she ignores him until he leaves. The door swings shut behind him, but it doesn't slam closed like she braces herself for. It's a cushioned banging, telling her that he held the knob so it clicked shut softly. She doesn't allow herself to rethink what she told him. She can't now. It would only cause more of a hassle.

After two quizzes, she throws down her pen and runs her hands through her hair. She tanks out the curls and knows that her hair is going to frizz up from the static. Her hair would match her mindset: a mess. Without another thought, she shoves her papers into her travel bag and slams her laptop shut, throwing that in without a care also. Sunny can't stay here; she can't sit in this room with the knowledge what Kibum is literally only a few feet away and probably plotting another scheme to get her to go along with a date. She doesn't want to be around when he finally does.

Sunny ducks out of her classroom and doesn't even bother to take the time to lock the door behind her.

{{{:::}}}

Sunkyu sits with Eunkyu and Jinkyu in her apartment. She sits on the couch between her two older sisters as they squeal over the prospect of their sister having a not-so-secret admirer. Both women are already married, Jinkyu with a little boy of her own. Sunny was the last one out of the nest and is the only one to still be single be twenty-six. Jinkyu was pregnant at her age. Sunny's parents are about ready to set her up with someone because they're itching for more grandchildren.

"Is he cute?" Eunkyu demands, pinching Sunny's cheek.

"Of course he is!" Jinkyu cuts in, "He has to be if he's crushing on our little Sunny bunny."

"Guys, you're embarrassing me. I'm not twelve anymore."

"You could have fooled me," her eldest sister giggles and presses her lips to Sunny's cheek, "You're about as short as one."

Sunny groans.

"Ah, don't be like that, sis," Jinkyu giggles, "I'd get a different job if it meant having a cutie as a boyfriend. Is he nice?"

"I mean, I guess. We went out to dinner once. He's harmless enough. He's funny. He's good with the students. He's as stubborn as they come though, so that's a little annoying. But he hasn't... He hasn't done anything to make me think that he isn't a good person."

"How old is he?"

"Twenty-six. He's a couple months younger than I am."

"Our sister is a cougar!" Eunkyu squeals.

Sunny rolls her eyes, "He's not one of my students, gosh."

"Does he call you noona?"

"No."

"Ah, that's a shame. I don't know, Sunny. I think this perfect man is too good to pass up. Mom and Dad don't think you're ever going to get married. You're going to be thirty in the blink of an eye, baby sister, and then you'll be thirty five and before you know it, you won't be able to have kids anymore. All because you dragged your feet."

"I think that's kind of a stretch."

"It's happened to people before."

"I'm sure that me not dating the teacher across the hall won't result in me dying as an old maid. There's millions of other guys in the world for me to fall in love with it. It doesn't have to be Mr. Kim, guys."

"I'm still not convinced."

"Me neither, sis."

Sunny covers her face, "You two are impossible."

"You are! You're the one who won't date a cutie because your stuffy old boss told you not to."

"Yeah, well, my stuffy old boss can also take my job away, and good teaching jobs aren't easy to come by anymore. That's not worth the risk."

"Well, look at it this way," Jinkyu holds her hands up, "You don't get a boyfriend soon, we'll never get to know if you're actually going to look like you shoved a beach ball up under your shirt when you're pregnant."

"You're one to talk, Jinkyu. My nephew was one of the biggest babies I've ever seen. I'm still trying to figure out how you stretched that much."

Jinkyu pouts, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I at least looked proportional. I'm not a hundred and fifty-five centimeters like someone I know," she sighs as she tugs her phone out of her purse, "Speaking of your nephew, he's getting tired of daddy time, so I better get going before he gets too fussy for Jae to handle. Text me and let me know how your boyfriend troubles are going."

"I don't have boyfriend troubles!"

{{{:::}}}

Sunny bumps into Mr. Kim in the office while she's punching in before heading to her homeroom. She panics, attempting to wriggle past behind him before he can catch sight of her. He sets his hand on her shoulder before she can make it past the secretary. She curses to herself.

"Sunkyu, can I--"

"I'm sorry. I can't talk right now. I have a lot to do before my homeroom."

"No, it's just-- This worksheet I found is really--"

Sunny shakes head, "I need to go."

She's being childish; she knows that. Sunny isn't particularly good at fending off boys. It's not something she ever needed to do. Sunny graduated from an all girls academy and, while she did have her flings with the boys from their sister academy, she never had to deal with any extended romantic relationships. If a boy was bothering her, then she just didn't sneak him into her dorm room. Sunny can't do that with Mr. Kim. She isn't able to just shut him out like she wants to. They're co-workers, and she can't ignore him twice in a row. 

Sunny rushes down the hallway toward her classroom, leaving Mr. Kim speechless with his coffee in his hands. She struggles to pat her hair down as she hurries into her classroom, pouting when her hair is sticking up. She dumps her coffee on her desk when she hits it with her purse.

It's going to be one of those days.