Chapter 2

The bells at the door ring in the shop, indicating a customer entering; that makes Taeyeon look up from her ledger. She sees Seulgi and smiles at the young girl, greeting her with a nod.

“Hello, Taeyeon-ssi, how’s your morning going so far?” Seulgi leans against the counter, and an amicable smile appears on her face.

“Well, besides Yerim trying to convince Taehee not to go to school, everything’s ordinary,” the woman shrugs with a bored expression. “What about you? Why’d do you come here so early in the morning?”

Seulgi stands straighter and tsks, and then takes a piece of paper out of her dark jacket and hands it to Taeyeon.

“Right, I wanted to ask if you can get these until spring comes? I wanted to expand the coup a bit, so the chicks wouldn’t be too tight with each other,” she chuckles and rubs the back of her neck.

The owner of the carpenter’s shop looks at what turns out to be a list of materials and sighs; Seulgi is asking for twenty logs of wood.

“Wow, twenty, what are you planning to build them, a palace?” She gives the other a shocked look.

“Nah, just thought that getting a bit more will come in handy in the future. You know, probably will fix the shed or something.”

Taeyeon shakes her head and writes it into her journal. “That’ll cost you a fortune, kid.”

Seulgi just shakes her off and a look of realization comes to her face as if she remembered something, “Did Yerim tell you about the–well, I wouldn’t call it a party–the dinner? A friendly dinner, yeah.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she chuckles, “she couldn’t stop talking about it last night. Monday, right?”

“Uhuh, 7:30 p.m.”

They go over the purchase details once again, and Seulgi is ready to leave the shop when the elder calls to her attention.

“Hey, Seulgi,” she says, “Would you mind popping up at the school today? There seems to be some problem with the blackboard.”

The monolid girl looks pensive for a few seconds but nods in the end, giggling at Taeyeon’s childish pout and puppy eyes.

“Yah, unnie, aren’t you a little too old for this?” She points at the woman’s face, who only raises her hand as if getting ready for a slap and laughs at her, muttering under her breath, aish, kids these days. “Sure, but can you give me some tools? Didn’t bring mine.”

After Taeyeon gives her the bag with different tools and they say goodbye, Seulgi heads off to the school. She looks around on her way down from the mountain, admiring the beautiful landscape, a cheerful tune playing on her lips as she carefully tries not to slip on the icy trope.

When she steps into the town, Seulgi can see a few people wandering around already. She looks at her watch; it’s only 8:36, and people already leave their houses. She’s glad that after she left the city her sleep schedule became more proper, for she doesn’t have to stay up working on repetitive blanks of paper each and every day. Back then, getting up at even 8 o’clock was difficult enough for her, but here, for some reason, Seulgi has never felt more chipper this early in the morning.

When she reaches the building of the town’s school, she can see that there’s no one there, so that means she has to wait for about twenty minutes, if the teacher doesn’t show up earlier.

The ex-city girl greets whoever passes her shyly, still not used to seeing and being this friendly with so many people at once. As she stands there, the morning chill creeping into her bones, Seulgi can feel her face getting warmer. She stuffs her hands into the pockets and starts bouncing on her feet, trying to produce the warmth.

She doesn’t have to wait twenty minutes because as soon as the clock hits 8:47 Bae Joohyun and her whole 5’2 being shows up.

“Seulgi-ssi,” she says surprised at the visitor, “Good morning. What are you doing here?”

“Hello, J-joohyun-ssi,” her teeth chatter because of the frost, “Taeyeon-unnie asked me to help you with the blackboard?”

“Ah, that lazy unnie,” the teacher unlocks the door and rushes Seulgi in, “Come in, you must be freezing.”

Seulgi walks in behind Joohyun and sighs when she feels the faint warmth in the building. She follows the older woman’s example and takes off her jacket. She examines the place briefly; a narrow hallway that leads to the classroom. Six desks for two people and the teacher’s table, filled with different colored pens and papers.

She watches as Joohyun puts her bag on the table and starts taking out her books and–what Seulgi assumes– children’s copybooks. She scans the place where the blackboard is supposed to be hanging and, to be honest, is a bit surprised to see it standing on the floor, leaning on the wall. Small patches of paint are scratched; that must where the board touched the wall. The rusty nail that was previously holding the board has become bent.

“How in the world did this happen,” she mutters under her breath, coming closer to examine the situation.

“We were warming up,” the woman speaks, making Seulgi jump in place at the surprise, “And the kids were jumping too lively, I suppose.’

Seulgi drags out an understanding sound and takes out the tools needed. A small hammer and a couple of long nails. She places a new nail where its ancestor was and tries not to hit her fingers as she lands the first strike.

“ACK!”

Seulgi looks at the source of noise in surprise; the teacher raised her hands to cover her ears, unprepared for the loud sound.

“Omo, you okay there?” Seulgi asks, trying not to laugh at the way the other woman’s face scrunched. Very cute.

“Yeah,” Joohyun shakes her head trying to bring out some of the dignity she doubts she still has left. She gives the other woman a look, trying to appear authoritative. “You should warn people when you do things like this.”

Seulgi shrugs in confusion, “’ Kay. Get ready,” she teases and breathes out in amusement at the way the elder covers her ears and begins to hit the nail until it’s halfway in. After making sure that it’s sturdy, Seulgi gets another nail and moves to get into a comfortable stance.

Before she manages to get to it, the door opens and the sound of a couple of tiny feet rings out. Joohyun goes to check who came already and Yerim’s loud voice greets her even before she comes close to help her take off her big jacket.

“Seongsannim, hello!” She smiles, her eyes glowing.

“Hello, Yerimie,” she takes her backpack and glances sadly at the mess the snow from the young girl’s shoes make. “How are you today?”

She doesn’t get to hear an answer from the young girl, because as soon as the latter walks into the classroom an excited Seulgi-unnie comes from Yerim. Joohyun watches as the girl runs to embrace the tall woman who is still holding the hammer.

“Hey, be careful,” she reprimands in her teacher’s voice, and Seulgi pats the girl’s head before gently pushing away.

Yerim retreats but stays close to the woman, looking at her in wonder. Joohyun suppresses a chuckle. “Unnie, what are you doing?”

“Fixing the blackboard, kid,” she points at the mentioned object with her free hand, “Now, take a few steps back, I’m still not perfect with this kind of duty. Get ready, ssaem.”

Joohyun rolls her eyes at the chirpy tone but still closes her ears, looking at Yerim and gesturing to do the same. The girl looks confused but still follows the example of the teacher. Seulg,i giggling at the two of them, swings the hammer back and misses, hitting one of her fingers that were holding the nail in place.

“OUCH, SH-”

“Seulgi-ssi!” Joohyun warns.

“Sugar,” Seulgi mutters through gritted teeth, clutching her damaged finger, “I was gonna say sugar.”

Joohyun looks at the painful face the other woman is making and checks the surroundings to see if she can do anything to help. She goes to the closed window and opens it for a moment to grasp the snow from the windowsill. She hisses at the cold on her skin but turns to give it to Seulgi who is frowning her brows following her actions.

“Here,” the teacher passes the slowly melting snow to the woman, who breathes in relief when the pain in her thumb lessens, thankful to the teacher’s quick thinking. 

“Thanks.”

Joohyun shakes her head, a slight frown making its way on her face. Her voice turns soft when she speaks. “Careful.”

Seulgi nods to thank her again and turns to finish her task. Surprisingly, she doesn’t cause any harm to herself when she hammers. She raises the blackboard with some effort, ignoring Joohyun’s offerings of help, and steps back to look at satisfaction at her masterpiece. 

With her hands on her hips, Seulgi says cheerily, “And it only cost me one finger!”

Joohyun rolls her eyes and pushes the younger girl towards the exit after she finishes packing her things up. Before she leaves, however, Yerim catches up and addresses Seulgi.

“Unnie, you’re really weird,” the child says innocently.

“How so?” The woman tilts her head, curious at the child's words. She fastens her jacket.

“Appa just says ,” Yerim shrugs and leaves.

Seulgi throws an amused look at Joohyun and sees how her teacher’s face reddens, opening and closing like a fish, unable to find any words. She doesn’t even try to hide her laughter anymore, sneaking out quickly when the smaller woman turns to glare at her back.

--

After returning the bag of tools to Taeyeon and telling her about the funny situation, that made the woman fall out of reality for whole two minutes, Seulgi went home to clean the trail near her house. The snow kept falling and she decided to get rid of it now, so there’s no piling up later. 

After she’s finished cleaning the yard, Seulgi makes a family of three small snowmen by the wooden sign to greet anyone who decides to show up at her house. She wanders around for a bit, scanning the area and breathing fresh air. Once again, she compares her previous life conditions with the life she has now. 

As she brooded for a while and decided that it’s too cold, Seulgi returns to her house and makes her a nice cup of tea. Nursing the mug, she reads the small paper on her fridge, a list of everything she needs for the birthday dinner. The woman rubs the bridge of her nose when she remembers that she hadn’t invited Joohyun.

She’ll do it later, there’s still time, she decides, getting ready to head out to the store where her new friend, Wendy, works. She needs a cake, and also some other stuff for cooking. That would probably be another problem, how she’s going to cook all of the things she has planned.

When she arrives at the store it’s a little past twelve. She greets the owner, Kyungsoo, who nods his head solemnly, before returning to his book, and goes to the stand with pastry to the woman who’s energetically waving at her, wearing a big smile on her face. 

“Hi, Seul.”

“Hey, Seungwan,” Seulgi grins, glad to see her friend.

“How’s the preparation going?” Wendy asks kindly, grabbing a cup to prepare a cup of te for the customer.

“Ah,” Seulgi mutters a thanks as she grabs the hot liquid, “So-so, didn’t get the chance to invite everyone I wanted yet, sadly.”

“Oh?” Wendy wonders, leaning on her elbow, eyes curious, “And who might it be?”

“Bae-ssaem,” she pouts and grabs her left thumb, the memory of today’s morning bringing her a not so pleasant feeling.

A wolfish glint appears in the baker’s eyes and Seulgi looks at her warningly, “Reaaaaaaally?”

“What?” Seulgi asks briskly.

She shakes her head, feigning ignorance, “Nothing.”

“What,” she pushes further.

Wendy smirks at her, “Just so you know, we’ve all been there, so don’t worry.”

“Been where?” Seulgi asks, confused.

“Oh my god, you idiot, we’ve all been into Joohyun-unnie at some point,” Wendy rolls her eyes, “Right, oppa?”

Kyungsoo looks up from his book at his name being mentioned then nods, focusing on the pages right after. 

Wendy points at him with her shoulder and purses her lips at her friend. Seulgi just rolls her eyes in response.

“Whatever, I’m not into her, you’re being delusional,” Seulgi takes her list out and brings it to her eyes. Her eyesight completely went to hell, she probably needs to visit Hyoyeon at the hospital. “Anyway-”

“Speaking of the devil,” Wendy chirps and winks at Seulgi discreetly, “Boa-unnie, Joohyun-unnie, hi there,” she bows at them.

Seulgi throws a glance at Joohyun, watching as the huge crooked smile turns into a much softer now. The teacher meets her gaze and raises an eyebrow in question. Seulgi grins at her before turning to face Boa.

The woman is glorious, to say the least. Beautiful, well-spoken and very friendly. She was the one who met Seulgi when she first came to the small town and gladly showed her the surroundings and introduced her to people. 

“Hello,” the mayor bows at the girls and meets Seulgi’s eyes next. “How’s are you adapting? Ready for the farming season yet?

“Um,” the younger fiddles with her sleeves. “Just fine, you know. And ready as can be, I guess… Kinda worried, to be honest. I mean I have no idea what to do.”

“I’m sure you will be fine,” Boa gives her a kind smile. “How’s the party preparation?”

Joohyun tilts her head in curiosity, “What party?”

Seulgi clears and hopes her ears aren't beet red right now. “Uh, yeah, my birthday party? It’s this Monday, I wanted to ask you today at school, Joohyun-ssi before, you know…”

The small woman nods, but her brows furrow, “Monday… I’m not promising anything but I’ll try to come.”

Seulgi rubs the back of her head and smiles awkwardly, “It’s okay, you’re busy.”

Boa looks at the both of them with a small smile and pats Joohyun on the back gently, “I’m sure you’ll manage to find time for this, Joohyunie.”

The teacher purses her lips, making her cheeks jut out. 

Seulgi coughs in slight embarrassment and waves the paper in her hand, “Um, I’m gonna pick all the stuff I need, if you excuse me.”

She goes to the shelves to check if everything she needs is there. She strolls mindlessly, grabbing a pack of rice flour, soy sauce, a bunch of different spice packets. She’s glad that even though the store isn’t that big so there aren’t a lot of people and no need to push around to grab what she needs before it’s gone. 

Her shop