Yewon hurriedly ran to her seat, today she was almost late because her brother forgot to pack his homework before sleeping the night before. Taking her seat, she looked to the front.

"Huh?"

"Good morning, today I am your substitute teacher."

She raised her hand.

"What's the definition of substitute?"

"To take place of, replace. Although I am temporary, your teacher will be back next week. She caught a cold."

Yewon was already disliking this teacher, he was very cold with his explanation, unlike her loving teacher. Today wasn't going to be very interesting.

"Take out your homework, exchange it with the person on your right, last column hand it to the first column."

The children didn't move. They didn't understand his words, some hesitantly holding their papers to their right. Yewon raised her hand again.

"What's a column?"

"All the seats in a vertical line, this way."

He gestured with his arms. Yewon sighed as the kids began to run around trying to find the correct  person to give their homework to.

"The first thing you will do is check their spelling, then we will read them aloud at the front of class."

"Mister are you going to take roll?"

"I'm your teacher, not some ahjussi. Address me as such. I already have taken roll."

"How? You know our names?"

Yewon was curious, how did he do it?

"I counted how many of you are present and then looked at the number of students in this class. As well as observing that no seats are empty, you all a present and I have no need to read your names."

Ouch. That was cold, but it had logic. A weird form of respect grew in Yewon.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Eunbi yah, today I have a substiute teacher."

"Mm? Is that so?"

Yewon noticed that SinB was wearing the same clothes as yesterday, she really didn't get to go home.

"Did you really spend the night at the daycare?"

"Yea, it happens, do I stink?"

"No, you smell just fine."

SinB just hummed and continued to lay with her eyes closed on Yewon's lap. She didn't sleep well on the sleeping mats at the daycare. Yewon didn't say it, but SinB usually smelled faintly of lavendar, a favorite scent of hers,  but today, SinB smelled of baby wipes. She worried for her best friend.

"SinB yah, are you sure you're fine?"

"I'm fine."

Leaving it at that, Yewon patted SinB's stomach for her to rest easier, humming lullabies she knew until the other had passed out. For Hwang Eunbi to fall asleep so easily laying on grass that could potentially be teeming with ants and other creepy crawlies, Yewon was getting more and more worried, but to not increase SinB's worries, she kept to herself, for now.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Eunbi ah, Eunbi?"

SinB grumbled as she felt her shoulders being shaken, her arms went up to cover her face?  Yewon was certain that the way SinB's were positioned weren't meant to continue sleeping.

"Eunbi? SinB yah? You need to wake up, the bell is going to ring."

Upon hearing her nickname called, it was like a switch, she sat up immediately and gave Yewon a hug. Yawning and patting Yewon's back thankfully, SinB stood up and stretched a little, waking her body up to go back through the bushes.

"Thanks Yewon ah, I feel better with that nap."

"You're welcome Eunbi ah. But can I ask you-"

*Ding dong* *ding dong* The recess ending bell rang and cut Yewon off, SinB just smiled and waved at her, later, they'll talk again later. Still a little too much worry was on her mind, so Yewon quickly hugged SinB one more and kissed her cheek. It was rare of Yewon to initiate skinship still, it caught SinB by surprise.

"You-"

"Stay safe okay? I'll see you after school!"

After school it is. SinB grinned and crawled under the bush, her day brightened several more times than it was before.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Your homework today is to describe your room in English, in six sentences. They do no have to relate to each other, thay can be six solo standing sentences, do as you please."

As they wrapped up the school day things, doing warm down excercises like singing the English alphabet and counting to twenty, Yewon's tempo was half a beat faster than everyone else's due to her excitement for school to be over. Almost, almost, almost! She could leave this boring cold teacher who she respected his intelligence but not his attitude, she could leave and go meet up with SinB and the others and they could play together again. Almost!

*DING!*

At once, the door was shoved open by one of her boy classmates as everyone stared after him.

"Greet the teacher good day."

They all bowed and quickly exited the room, Yewon tripped as a foot came unexpectedly in front of her as she exited the classroom, falling face first. Grumpily picking herself up and dusting herself off, she gave the boy a fierce glare and promptly turned away, running as fast as she could to the bus stop, she no longer needed the teacher to walk her to the stop. She knew where, and she doubted the substitute even remembered to take her.

"Hey! Kim loser!"

"Shut up! I'm leaving! Leave me alone!"

Oddly this guy kept chasing her all the way until she jumped into bus's open doors, and ran to the bus driver, grabbing hold of his arm.

"Bus driver ahjussi! He's bullying me!"

"What?"

He immediately stood up and got off the bus, towering over the mean kid.

"You're bullying our little angel?"

"I-...no sir I was just..."

Standing under the glare of the bus driver, he stuttered an apology and ran, Yewon thanked him before going to find a seat.

"Yo! Kim Yewon! I saw the bus driver scaring off a kid?"

"Hey Eunbi, he was chasing me since the hallway."

"Chasing? Wait, why is your chin pink?"

SinB touched Yewon's chin lightly, before noticing that Yewon's little button nose was also pinker than usual, pushing up Yewon's bangs, she frowned deeper.

"Did you fall on your face?"

"How'd you know?"

"Your forehead is bruising."

"That bad?"

SinB nodded and Yewon sighed. How was she going to explain to her mother what happened now? Things were supposed to be better at kindergarten.

"That boy tripped me when I was leaving the classroom."

"Jerk."

"Right? By the way, where's Moon bin?"

"Uhm, he moved schools. His parents moved houses, and so he goes several blocks down, we'll go pick him up on the way to daycare, no worries."

"Oh."

Moving houses? What did that mean? Yewon had never moved houses before, home was home. Right?

====================

man I was gonna be more dramatic, but I didn't want a super sad SinB just yet. rejoice. ah but I guess I just spoiled the future didn't I? oh well. have fun