Persistant

The Swan and the Baby Beast
Please Subscribe to read the full chapter

Thank you, Erika1987 for the prompt: the teachers. This was the first thing I could come up with. Enjoy :)

--

“Bye bye Miss Mina,” Dahyun chirped. The four-year-old's chubby pale hand clutched onto her aunt while the other was wrapped tightly around that of her younger sister, Tzuyu. The latter was much shyer than her sister and opted to give a little wave to her teacher instead.

Mina smiled down at the two girls before turning her attention to their guardian.

“Sorry for being so late, Mina,” Jihyo apologized as she lightly nudged Dahyun to stop pulling at the shiny diamond ring on her left hand. “Jeongyeon and Nayeon are caught up at work and they only just remembered to call me to pick up the girls.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Mina said dismissively, “You aren’t that late.” She looked pointedly over towards Sana who was busy entertaining Son Jeonghoon. The boy was huddled on the bench all alone with his stuffed tiger clutched tightly to his chest.

Momo came over with two slips of paper in her hand. “Don’t forget your paintings, girls. They’ve dried up nicely.”

“Ooh thanks!” Dahyun reached up to grab her work with her chubby hands. “Jihyo imo, doesn’t my eagle look cool?"

“It’s very nice, Dahyunnie,” Jihyo said with a gentle smile.

Of course, the eagle wasn’t anything impressive, as most drawings tend to be when you’re four years old. At most, the brown and white splotch might be able to pass for a disfigured potato with wings.

But as Sana had reminded them many times, small white lies are necessary for the children's growth. It was to that statement that Mina had always rolled her eyes and retorted, "I'm not that mean."

That would only trigger Sana to give Mina "the look", and Mina knew exactly what was going to come out of the older girl's mouth afterwards.

"How long are you going to keep rejecting that poor girl?" Sana had asked. "Just give her a chance. She is kind of cute, don't you think?"

Sana was talking about Son Chaeyoung, Jeonghoon's older sister. The girl was in her senior year at university, but instead of studying after school like a good student or hanging out with her friends like a normal person, she insisted on coming into the daycare an hour before dismissal everyday to teach the kids how to paint.

"Think of it as volunteer work," Chaeyoung had grinned at the three Japanese. "I'm contributing to educating the great minds of the future generation."

All three of the girls knew that it was utter bull. But despite Mina's loud protests, Momo and Sana readily agreed, seeing it as free help with the kids.

Sana had originally opened the daycare with the intent of teaching alone and hiring some aids to help out. But seeing as her two friends who were fresh out of college were struggling to find jobs, she took them under her wing and allowed them to work with her as teacher assistants.

Being an introvert, Mina was never good with a large group of people. Kids she was fine with because she could just let them ramble on by themselves and could pass the conversation with a gentle smile or nod. It was the parents that she was worried about.

Part of the job was to update each parent on how their kids were doing and what went on during the day. To be frank, it was exhausting. The first time she had tried it, she had gone home afterwards feeling like an empty trash can. After that, Mina had let Momo and Sana do the bulk of the interactions while she settled on tidying up the place for closing.

And that worked well for the first few weeks, until Jeonghoon's parents couldn't make it one day to pick the boy up. And that's where Chaeyoung came in.

"Excuse me, I'm here to pick up Jeonghoon?" Someone tapped Mina's shoulder as she was cleaning the tables with chorlax wipes. Mina had been spacing out and the unexpected tap caused her to jerk backwards.

The girl in front of her was also startled by her dramatic reaction and took a step back. Mina stared at the short girl in front of her before looking around to see if Momo and Sana were available to assist her. To her dismay, both were occupied with a crowd of parents on the other side of the room. Mina sighed and wiped her hands on her apron. She supposed that she could handle one human interaction.

"I'm sorry if I scared you," the girl said unsurely. "My parents were caught up at work so I came to pick Jeonghoon up on their behalf."

"That's alright," Mina finally said. "You'll just need to sign your name on the form and you should be good to go."

Mina watched as the girl wrote her name on the clipbord she had given her. Son Chaeyoung. She had pretty eyes, Mina thought as she observed how the girl's eyelashes perfectly framed her round cat-like eyes. The girl suddenly looked up at her, causing Mina to blink in surprise.

"I'm done," Chaeyoung flashed her a dimpled smile and handed her the clipboard.

If Jeonghoon was going to look anything like his sister when he grew up, he'd be a heartbreaker.

"Noona," Jeonghoon called, racing over towards the girl, the tiger doll tucked under his arm. 

"How was your day, Hoonie?" Chaeyoung ruffled his hair.

"It was great! Mina-noona helped me paint a tiger today." He flashed a smile at Mina. Ah, there was the resemblance.

"Mina, huh?" Their smiles were identical.

Chaeyoung was looking at her for longer than she was comfortable with, so Mina coughed. "Uh- enjoy the rest of your evening."

That was usually effective in ending conversations right? Apparently not for Chaeyoung. 

"Are you a teacher here?" The girl asked curiously. Mina sighed internally but forced herself to comply to the conversation.

"Just an assistant," Mina answered politely. Momo, Sana... ANYONE. Save me, please.

Was there something on her face? Chaeyoung's eye contact didn't seem waver as she gazed steadily at the Japanese girl. 

"You're really pretty."

Excuse me? Mina blinked. That was out of the blue. And very straightforward.

"Do you want to go have some coffee with me sometime, Mina-ssi?" Chaeyoung cocked her head slightly, smiling at the Japanese.

Mina studied the girl's face. With her round friendly eyes, perfect nose, and heart shaped lips, she was pretty cute. 

"No."

The girl's face fell. "No?"

"No," Mina repeated.

"Why not?" Chaeyoung looked hurt.

"I don't d

Please Subscribe to read the full chapter
Like this story? Give it an Upvote!
Thank you!

Comments

You must be logged in to comment
K_1807
#1
Chapter 1: This was lovely uwu~
delulume
#2
Chapter 3: Omg the prompt is mine hahahah i didnt realize until i reached the end. it’s been more than a year ig?? Thanks for writing it for me!
lucyheartfilia___
#3
Chapter 2: Part 2 pls!!
lucyheartfilia___
#4
Chapter 1: Yesssss yesss I need more fluff!
scysachi
#5
Chapter 2: I hope there's a Part 2 hehe

I love the way you narrate!
magnavox
#6
Chapter 1: This ks so cute uwu
soonasbabe #7
Chapter 2: Part 2
jiyeonkimtaetae #8
Chapter 2: oh i love this so much
boogeyman19 #9
Chapter 2: got this prompt from twitter : rivals/enemies-to-lovers but they keep playing the whole “we still very much despise each other” charade in front of everyone else even after they get together........ for the drama of it all
delulume
#10
Ahh since I want this to continue but we need prompt (i wish more people will share their prompt here!), so here’s another one from me, but a simpler and more general one so you can explore more to your liking:

Mina and Chaeyoung went to the same high school. One was ambitious high-achiever and the other was laid-back, so they were uninterested with each other. They unknowingly have the same hobby/passion though (so we can have connecting thread with the next sentence idea). They met again years later in a reunion in which the situation is kinda reversed. The once ambitious is kinda losing passion and unexpectedly, the once laid back friend is now the one offering her light.