Chapter IV: Hanbin & Hayi

Seoul Daycare Center: Hanbin's POV

After his mother dropped him off, Hanbin walked toward the main entrance of his new school. The new school year had already started three weeks ago but Hanbin had only moved here last week. He walked past the entrance and went straight for the principal's office. He went up to the front desk and told the woman who was sitting behind it that he was new and asked where he could find his class.

"Okay just let me find your file." She said while she skimmed through her computer. Hanbin looked around the office for a bit. A large bulletin board was placed right above the couches and right next to the board was another corkboard with different pictures of kids on it.

One of the pictures stood out from the rest. It was a picture of a little girl with short dark brown hair wearing a ballet costume. This picture was not taken in a classroom like the other students, but it looked like it was taken from a dance recital. She was holding a single rose and a little tiara above her head, but what made her stand out were her big hazelnut eyes.

‘They look just like omma's eyes.’ He thought.

"Hanbin, I have your class number." The woman said as she returned "It's Class 1-A. It's down the hall on your left side. Your teacher is Hanbyul-saem. Just give her this note." She instructed while handing him a yellow piece of paper.

Hanbin left the office and walked down the hall towards his classroom. When he reached the door, he could hear the saem talking to the students about what they would be doing today. He opened the door and walked in. The saem stopped talking and the whole class turned to look at him.

"Hello there. Is this your class?" She asked. She had black wavy hair that was let down and black eyes. She was wearing the teacher version of their school uniform. She also wore a teachers badge around her neck that had her picture and name that read Park Hanbyul.

Hanbin went up to her and gave her the note from the office. She looked over it and then turned to the class. She motioned for Hanbin to stand next to her. The rest of the class was sitting around the rug in the center of the classroom.

"Okay class, even though school started not that long ago, we have a new student joining our class today. Everyone say hello to Song Hanbin." She instructed. Hanbin looked around the fairly large class. The class all muttered a hello to him.

"Well Hanbin, why don't you tell us a little about yourself?" Hanbyul suggested.

"…Uh… I just moved here from Busan with my omma. She's a doctor. I like to draw stuff and put them up in my room. Sometimes I paint put most of the time I just like to draw in black." He offered while scanning the room. His eyes landed on one particular girl who was sitting in the middle of the group.

‘That's the girl with the same eyes as omma.’ He thought.

"Oh so we have an artist in our class now. That's great, we paint every week here. You could start hanging your drawings here too if you like." Said Hanbyul-saem. "You can take a seat anywhere you like on the rug and then after words I'll assign you a seat at the desks."

Hanbin sat down towards the side of the rug. Hanbyul-saem talked a little bit more about what they would be doing today. Then she dismissed everyone to his or her seats. Since Hanbin didn't have a seat yet, he had to wait until Hanbyul-saem chose one for him.

"Hmmmm now where could I put you." She mumbled while scanning the room.

"Oh, you sit right by Taehyun." She said pointing to a boy in the backside of the room.

"Taehyun please raise your hand so that Hanbin can see you."

The boy with long brown hair raised his hand without even looking up from his work. Hanbin walked over to him and sat beside him.

"Hi, I'm Choi Taehyun." He said while turning to face Hanbin. Now that he was close up, Hanbin could see that he also had very light brown eyes, unusual eyebrows, and a pretty lazy demeanor.

"Hi…I'm Hanbin." He said while putting his book bag down.

"But I already said that." He added.

"I didn't pay attention…. school is boring." Taehyun confessed while putting his head down on the desk.

"But my sister really likes it. She over there by the front." He said while indicating the direction with his eyes. Hanbin turned his head to see where he was pointing and saw a girl with her hair in a high ponytail and she was sitting next to the dark brown haired girl from the picture in the office.

"How come you and your sister are in the same class? Did you fail?" Hanbin asked. Taehyun's head shot up from the desk with an annoyance in his lazy eyes.

"Nooooo…Seohyun's my twin sister so we're supposed to be in the same grade." He explained while laying his head back down.

"Do you have any brothers or sisters?"

"No, it's just me and my omma." Hanbin answered. "But I wish I had a one, that way it won't just be the two of us."

"I think you're lucky." Taehyun replied. "Sisters are so dumb. My omma always tries to dress us the same and she always makes me take care of Seohyun. Plus people always get all mushy whenever they see us and appa always compares us together." He said while sitting up again.

"I think you're lucky that you have a dad." Hanbin said in a small whisper so that Taehyun couldn't hear him.

He quickly changed his thoughts to something else. "Hey, Taehyun, whose that girl sitting next to your sister?" He asked.

" Hmmmm? Oh that's Hayi. She's my sister's best friend."

 Hayi's POV:

"I'm so excited about our recital next week." Seohyun said to Hayi.

"My omma said that she could make wings for us to put on our backs. That way we could actually look like the swans." She squealed while gathering up her crayons in the crayon box.

"Really? Cool I can't wait to get mine. I want lots of glitter on it so that my appa can see me right away." Hayi exclaimed.

They were currently sitting at their desks and happily drawing whatever they wanted. Hayi was in the middle of drawing her and her appa. Now Hayi, being the five-year-old that she is, was not the best artist so it ended up looking more like stick figures with giant heads and defined hair.

"There!" She said as she finished her drawing. She picked up a black crayon and wrote "Appa and Me" on the bottom as neatly as she could. Then she held it up for inspection.

"What do you think Seohyun?" She asked as she showed her best friend the picture.

Seohyun laughed a little. "Are you sure that's your daddy? He looks more like that new kid sitting with my brother."

She noted while pointing to the back of the class. Hayi turned around to inspect the new kid once again. When she turned, she saw that he was busily drawing something with a black marker and talking to Taehyun at the same time. She saw him show Taehyun the picture and then saw Taehyun's eyes grow wide.

‘That must be a really good drawing.’ She thought since Taehyun rarely showed any interest in anything anyway.

Hayi looked at the new kid one more time. Now that she saw him, he really did look more like the figure in her drawing, or more importantly, he kind of looked like her appa. He had the same dark brown hair she had but his was a little spiky like her appa, only not as much. His eyes looked really dark shade of brown too. Suddenly, this new kid became more interesting.

She must have been staring because Seohyun had to shake her to get her attention.

"Hayi! What's the matter? I called you and you didn't say anything. What were you looking at?" She asked looking slightly annoyed.

"…Nothing." Hayi muttered as she heard the bell signaling lunch go off. She and the rest of the class started packing up their stuff in their little cubicles and started bringing out their lunches. Some kids would get lunch from the cafeteria so the whole class had to walk there together with Hanbyul-saem leading them in two straight lines; one line for boys and the other line for girls.

Hayi was one of the kids that had to buy lunch. So as soon as they entered the cafeteria, she and Seohyun went to the lunch line. Taehyun and Hanbin were a little behind them. Hayi picked out what she wanted from the line: a grilled cheese sandwich with some tomato soup; one of her favorite lunches. She also picked out a carton of apple juice. After she and Seohyun paid for their lunches, they both took their trays to a table in the center of the room.

"My omma said that she's going to pick us up today after school instead of appa." Seohyun announced as she was chewing on her sandwich. "Then we'll go to ballet practice. She even said that we could help make the wings for the recital."

"Okay. I'm so excited. I can't wait." Hayi replied, almost knocking over her soup in her excitement.

"Can't wait for what?" Asked a voice from behind. It was Taehyun and next to him was the new kid. They both sat down on the opposite side of the table across from the girls.

"For the recital." Hayi answered.

"We get to help make the wings!" She said as if it was the most exciting thing in the world. Taehyun sighed.

"That's boring." He said to Hayi before tu