Sunny frowned at Taeyeon from across the dinner table and placed her spoon down in her bowl of rice, “What’s with the frown?” she asked the older one. Taeyeon glanced up from her bowl of rice to Sunny, “Oh nothing,” she lied, going back to stab her spoon into the rice.

“I know it’s nothing when you’re frowning and then in a few seconds, pouting,” Sunny stated. Taeyeon let out a heavy sigh and dropped her spoon into the bowl, “It’s just…I feel like my students don’t have any trust in me as their teacher assistant,” she said.

“Well, considering that you do look younger than your age, yeah it’s going to be a bit hard for your students to take you seriously,” Sunny pointed out, sticking a spoonful of rice into . “No it’s not that,” Taeyeon argued, “it’s…gosh Sunny it’s hard to explain what’s going on at school okay?” she said frustratingly. Sunny nodded and placed the arced side of the spoon against her lips, “Mind telling me?” she asked.

Taeyeon’s shoulders dropped and her head falls down on the table, causing a loud thud to echo through the dining room, “It’s too complicated Sunny,” she muttered.

“Sorry I can’t hear you if you decide to talk to the ground instead of my face,” Sunny shouted. Taeyeon lifted her head up and pouts, “It’s too complicated,” she repeated, “it’s like…they think I’m contaminated or something.” Sunny snickered and swallow the chewed up food in , “Maybe you are,” she joked. Taeyeon shot her a glare before throwing a small piece of rice at Sunny, “Shut up, you’re not helping the situation here.”

“Well you’re not telling me what’s going on,” Sunny said. Taeyeon let out an annoyed grunt and shot up from her chair, knocking the chair over while in the process of doing so, “I’m going to bed,” she said angrily and marched her way to the hallway.

“You didn’t even touch your food,” Sunny shouted after her.

“Screw my food!” Taeyeon yelled back before slamming her bedroom door shut. Once inside her room, Taeyeon leaned against the door and screamed the living lights out of her and pulled her hair. She breathed heavily as she slide down the door onto her , “All I wanted to do was help Kyungsoo,” she said, sniffling as the memory of what happened at school with Kyungsoo and Sehun came rushing back to her.

Later that night as Taeyeon was sitting on her chair, hovering over her laptop and typing away, the door to her room opens. Sunny enters the room with a tray of snacks and a cup of tea in her hands and walked over to where Taeyeon was sitting at, “Here you go unnie,” she said, placing the still warm cup of tea and plate of snacks down on an empty area of Taeyeon’s desk. Taeyeon glanced at the newly placed things on her desk first before averting her attention to Sunny and smiled, “Thanks Sunny,” she said.

“No problem,” Sunny replied to her, “hey,” she then placed a hand on Taeyeon’s shoulder and squeezed it, “about earlier.”

“Yeah?” Taeyeon asked, squinting her eyes and leaning forward a bit to read what was on the screen.

“I may not know what’s going on between you and your students and why they feel the need to disrespect you but,” by the time Sunny said that, Taeyeon had already spun around to face the younger one. She gave Taeyeon a smile and squeezed her shoulder again, “Don’t give up,” Sunny said, “because the Kim Taeyeon I know, never gives up even when times are tough. Keep on showing them who’s the teacher, who’s the bigger one, and then one day they’ll come to recognize you as their teacher.”

Taeyeon smiled hugely and hugged the younger one around the waist, the right side of her cheek digging into Sunny’s stomach, “Thank you for those encouraging words Sunny.” Sunny chuckled at how even though Taeyeon was older than her and Seohyun by months and years, Taeyeon still acted like the youngest one at times, “You’re welcome unnie,” she said while patting Taeyeon’s head.

---

The next day came by and after getting dropped off by the city bus this time, Taeyeon carefully made her way to the campus ground since her ankle was still bandaged up. She made her way past the gate and decided to drop by Mrs. Jung’s office to give her the box of donuts on for helping her out the other day. Taeyeon entered the building and walked down the familiar hallway to the nurse’s office, opened the door and made her way inside. She came to a stop and scanned the waiting room as it was empty, “Mrs. Jung?!” Taeyeon called, making her way over to the window of Mrs. Jung’s office. She peeked inside to see that Mrs. Jung’s computer was , the desk filled with papers spread randomly about but Mrs. Jung wasn’t present in there. She let out a sigh and was just about to enter the room to place the box of donut on the desk of papers when she heard some muffling voices down the hallway to her left. Thinking that Mrs. Jung might be with another student right now, Taeyeon decided to walk towards the direction. She rounded the hallway to the right and came to a stop at the opened door of a room. Sure enough Mrs. Jung was with another student but this student happened had to be Kyungsoo, the very person she wanted to see right now.

Kyungsoo was lying on the patient bed shirtless while Mrs. Jung helped apply some cream on his back. Every time the cream came in contact with his skin, he would hiss through his teeth and clutched his first tightly, this knuckles turning pale. Taeyeon bit on her bottom lip and was about to enter when she caught a glance of who else was in there, Oh Sehun. She stopped in tracks and remembered the threatening words Sehun had told her before leaving with Kyungsoo to class that afternoon day.

‘But I really need to talk to him’ Taeyeon thought to herself and debated if she should enter or leave the room. Whilst she was lost in her thoughts, Mrs. Jung had already complete her task with Kyungsoo and by now noticed that Taeyeon was standing there staring out into the randomness. Mrs. Jung smiled before wiping her wet hands on a piece of towel, “Taeyeon shi,” she called. Taeyeon snapped out of her trance and glanced at Mrs. Jung, “What brought you here today?” the elderly lady asked, making her way over to Taeyeon.

“Um…,” Taeyeon bit the insides of and clutched tighter onto the box in her head. Her eyes roamed behind Mrs. Jung to Kyungsoo who was putting on his shirt with the help of Sehun, “I came here to give you this,” she said, holding the box up to Mrs. Jung.

“What for?” Mrs. Jung asked and took the box from Taeyeon.

“It’s to say thank you for helping me yesterday with my ankle,” Taeyeon told her. Mrs. Jung chuckled lightly and patted her on the head, “Why thank you dear, I’ll be sure to eat these whenever I have the chance to,” she said and her eyes wandered down to Taeyeon’s ankle, “how is your ankle? Does it still hurt?”

“Not that much anymore,” Taeyeon told her with a shook of her head, “and plus, the swelling has gone down as compare to yesterday.”

“Perfect, just make sure you keep that bandage on for another couple of days even after it has fully healed, just to stay on the safe side okay?” Mrs. Jung instructed and Taeyeon nodded. Mrs. Jung then spun back around to face Sehun and Kyungsoo, “Kyungsoo shi, I’m not sure how in the world or what in the world you did in order to get those marks on your back but next time, please be more careful,” she scolded the shorter one. Kyungsoo nodded and slipped on his shoes, “Now, if it starts hurting again, please come immediately so that I can re-apply on those cream you got that?”

Kyungsoo nodded once more. Mrs. Jung gave them one last look before leaving the two boys alone in the room and Taeyeon to stand by the doorway. She watched as Sehun helped Kyungsoo to get into his blazer uniform and helped the man down from the bed carefully, “Kyungsoo,” Taeyeon called. Kyungsoo glanced up from where he was standing and looked away immediately. Sehun glanced at Taeyeon as well and frowned, “I thought I told you to stay away from Kyungsoo?” he asked.

“About two nights ago,” Taeyeon said, ignoring Sehun’s words. She quickly walked into the room and approached Kyungsoo but Sehun pushed her away.

“I said stay away from…”

“Shut up Sehun,” Taeyeon scolded him, “this has nothing to do with you.”

“Whatever happens to hyung has something to do with me, I’m his friend after all,” Sehun told her. Taeyeon glared at Sehun before facing the old of the two, “I know that working is prohibited for students here at this school and just because I saw you at the restaurant doesn’t mean that I’m going to report you in. Maybe you have a good reason to work even though you come from a rich family and when I see that, I’m happy to see that from a rich boy, because usually when someone’s parents are already rich they don’t work because they know that they will inherit their parent’s business in the future. But seeing how you are, I’m happy to see such a different person so…,” Taeyeon reached out and placed a reassuring hand on Kyungsoo’s shoulder, “you working and not letting the school know is safely kept with me.”

Kyungsoo finally glanced at Taeyeon for a good minute before looking away and didn’t say anything back, “That’s all I wanted to say to you,” Taeyeon softly murmured before turning on her heels and slightly limped her way out of the room after the push that Sehun gave her. Kyungsoo turned to watch Taeyeon limp her way out and disappeared, “She’s limping,” Kyungsoo said softly.

“And so?” Sehun asked, obviously not caring about Taeyeon’s injury. Kyungsoo glanced at Sehun once before running out the room and down the hallway after Taeyeon. He reached the waiting room expecting to see Taeyeon but saw nobody, “Mrs. Jung, where did Taeyeon go?”

Mrs. Jung looked up from her box of donut and pointed to the door, “She left,” she answered him. Kyungsoo ran out of the nurse’s room and look to his left but saw no one then to his right and saw Taeyeon walking slowly. Without thinking what he was doing at the moment, Kyungsoo ran up to Taeyeon and grabbed onto her left arm. She stopped walking in the middle of the hallway and turned her head to the side to see who was holding her, “Kyungsoo?” she asked.

“Here, I’ll help you,” he said while forcing her hands to clutch around his arm. Instead of protesting, Taeyeon let Kyungsoo do whatever he wanted and slowly walked with him towards the exit, “Kyungsoo,” she called for him.

“Hm?” he hummed. Taeyeon shook her head and mewled out a ‘mm’ and smiled, “Nothing.”