“Dan-ah, hurry up or you gonna be late for school.” Soohee yelling from downstairs whilst looking at her watch. Its already thirty minutes past seven. He’s surely already late and Soohee don’t want Dan to be caught into trouble since he’s still new to the school. Her patience is running out because Dan intentionally slowing down his pace, not wanting to go to school. Soohee climbs the stairs 2 at a time and rush to her son’s bedroom. Seeing Dan still in his pajamas, Soohee lets a deep sigh and sit on the corner of his bed. It’s enough for Dan to only see his mother’s facial expression changing to understand that he might get into trouble with her later. “Eomma, can I not go to school today? Please?!” Dan clinging tightly to Soohee’s arm showing his most adorable puppy eyes, pleading cutely so that Soohee will let this slide but the problem is, it’s not the first time he’s been acting like this. He has always love to go to school until they moved back to Daejeon few months ago. This also means that he has to move to a new school and make new friends, which is not to his liking. It has been 3 weeks since he was transferred into his new school and he had already skipped 4 days of classes which worries Soohee the most. “Baby, you used to love going to school. Why are you acting like this?” Soohee scoots closer to Dan and rub his cheek, showing him comfort while hoping that he will find confide in her. Dan averts his eyes to his hand, head low while playing with the hem of his pj’s. Dan seems distressed and he don’t want to tell Soohee the truth, scared that his mom will be extremely worried.

Jimin who is on his way downstairs overheard the mother-and-son conversation while passing through the hallway. Looking at his watch, he is indeed shocked to see that his son has yet leave for school. Out of curiosity he turns back and walk to Dan’s bedroom. Leaning at the door frame, Jimin interrupts, “Buddy, you are not going to school today? I thought today’s Monday”. Jimin gives his son the most comforting smile and then proceed to walk and sit next to Dan on the bed, sandwiching him in the middle, enveloping him in his arm and giving him a slight squeeze. “Hurm, let’s see...” Jimin says then putting his palm onto Dan’s forehead, later retracting his hand quickly and shook his head. “I think he caught fever. He’s burning.” Jimin siding his son and give him a quick wink. Soohee is in great disbelief seeing her husband going along with Dan’s request. Last week, Jimin steadily lied to her saying their son was having a severe stomachache and asked her to let him rest for the day. But this time Soohee can’t just let this slide easily, there was something extremely wrong happened to his son and she wants to know. Jimin then tucked Dan back to his bed, give him a kiss on his plump cheeks and pull Soohee along with him, leaving the room and head to the kitchen downstairs.

“Mind telling me why are you fine with him not going to school?” Soohee stands facing Jimin, hands crossed in front of her while seeing her husband hastily have quick bites of the breakfast prepared on the kitchen counter. You can see her annoyance very clearly. Jimin just brushed off her question and chugged down his coffee while hurriedly grab his briefcase. Setting the plates into the sink Jimin then walk towards Soohee and hold her by her waist, rubbing circles on her hips, “Let’s talk about this after I’m done with the meeting today, okay?” giving her reassurance that it will be fine. Soohee just able to nod slowly and sigh, Jimin chuckling seeing her reaction and then leaning in to place a kiss on her lips. “Don’t think too much, my love. It’s probably just a phase for him to overcome.”

After Jimin has left for work, Soohee take out Dan’s lunchbox and put it on a tray so that she can bring it to his room. After all, Dan needs to have his breakfast or he can be a little bit fussy for the rest of the day. Walking back upstairs, she knocks on the door and put his meal on the side table. Soohee sits next to Dan and gently moves strands of his hairs out of his beautiful face. Park Dan; the child that she and Jimin has been trying to conceive for years. His presence was a miracle for both of them. Seeing how healthy and playful he grew up, makes her heart wrench when he started refusing to go to school or even playing with other kids in the neighbourhood but she knows it’s never a good idea to force Dan to speak if he don’t want to. “Dan-ah, eomma brought your breakfast. Why don’t you eat some?” Dan opens his eyes slowly and give her a nod.

While patting his head, Soohee gives some suggestion for him to fill his void times. “Why don’t after you are done with breakfast, take a shower and probably do some painting at our back lawn. The weather is great today.” Soohee coaxing Dan so that he’ll leave the room to do some things that might help improve and brighten his mood. Dan smiles brightly until his deep dimple is shown and throw himself to his mother to give her a big hug. He hurriedly had his breakfast; a trait he got from his dad, take quick shower, throw some nice warm clothing since its getting chilly these days and took big steps downstairs and walk swiftly to the back lawn with the painting set in his arms. He places his tools on the lawn table and take reside on the bench, facing the woods behind the green fence. Jimin’s house was built on a very secluded hillside, with the view of entire Daejeon city can be seen from the balcony of their 2-story bungalow with a magnificent view of the woods on the backside of his house complex. As Dan starts sketching on the white canvas, he was greeted with a boy of who looks as the same age as him. The boy is wearing white shorts, green sneakers with long white socks and a black and white stripe sweatshirt. The kid looks extremely pale and his locks is wet. Dan who is extremely shocked by his presence fall on his from stumbling down his chair. The boy looks apologetic and offer his hand to help Dan stand on his feet again. Dan then brushed off some of the grass that stick to his pants and hold his hand out for a handshake. “What’s your name? Mine is Park Dan.” The boy shakes his hand “Me? I’m Choi Jingoo. It’s nice knowing you.” Dan is utterly confused by how Jingoo was able to sneak into their house compound so he looks around to where he could have gotten in. Dan who is puzzled ask Jingoo, “How do you get into my house?”. Jingoo scratched his head and lower his stare to the ground while telling Dan that he lives just beyond the green fence and saw the door was open so he just come into the house. Jingoo tell Dan that he has no friends in the neighbourhood and since Dan just moved in, he thought it will be great if he can befriend Dan.

Dan is cool about the idea since he too wanted to make some friends but the kids at his new school was pretty mean to him and no one wanted to befriend him. “Then, come whenever you like. I guess we can be good friends.” Dan tells Jingoo while sharing some of the painting tools with him. Soohee who is preparing lunch in the kitchen heard Dan laughing hysterically at the lawn. Listening how happy he is laughing, Soohee get her hand cleaned and prepare some snacks then walk out the kitchen to the back seeing Dan still laughing and by the look of his gestures, he is seen like he IS talking to somebody. Nevertheless, Sohee just proceed walking to the wooden table with a tray full of fruits and a bottle of banana milk. “Baby, you laugh like crazy. What is so funny?” Soohee sat across the table, smiling feeling relieved that Dan is in his happy state again. “Jingoo was making a very bad joke.” Dan scoff and was about to tell Soohee about the joke Jingoo made but then when Dan turns his head towards Jingoo, he put his index finger in front of his lips, indicating that Dan should not tell his mother about his presence.

“Jingoo? Who’s that, baby? I thought it was just us?” Soohee questions her son. Feeling a bit spooked because it’s just them in the compound and no one else.