YOUR POV

“Jinnie!”

I was eating my meal in Korean restaurant when my cousin, Krystal, called me from across the restaurant.  “Kryssie!” I stood up and hugged her tight. “Yaaaaaa.. I missed you!! How have you been?”

“I’m great as ever. I missed you too,  Jinnie!” Yeah, that’s how she calls me- Jinnie. Oh wait. There’s was someone else who called me Jinnie. I forgot his name though. Taeyang oppa? Minkyung oppa? Jaemin oppa? Gaaah!! I’ve been trying to remember his name for years now and I still can’t remember. He’s kind of cute, I admit. I knew him because of Krystal. He was Krystal’s classmate and he often came over to our house and because of that, I came to a conclusion that maybe he likes Krystal. I was living with Krystal way back in US before she left for Korea but when she returned to Korea, I never saw him again.

“Yaaaah! Haejin-ah! Why are you so silent? We have so many things to talk about! We didn’t see each other for years and we sure missed a lot on each other.” Krystal said, cutting off my thoughts about that guy.

“Oh yeah! I’m sorry about that. I just remembered something.” I said and grinned, causing Krystal to be more curious.

“Yah! Tell me. What is it about?” She asked me with her face full of curiosity and mocking at the same time. Aigoo! She’s always like this! But mind you, even if she’s looking curious, she’s already reading what’s going on in your mind. Sometimes I think she’s a mind reader or maybe a psycho. Ah! Whatever!

“You can’t really hide anything from me, Cho Haejin.” She said and laughed. Eotteoke? The tone of her voice scared me. Good thing mom and dad didn’t hear our conversation or else they’d be asking me like crazy too. I just switched the topic and continued talking to her about the past happenings in my life.

TAEMIN’S POV

“Neh Appa, Bye.” I said then hung up the call. That call was weird though. How can he act so caring when I’m far away from him now? He’s weird. He called me just to ask if I’ve arrived safely when before he can’t even ask me if I already ate dinner or something. But anyway, because of that call, I wasn’t able to see who that was, the female voice who shouted ‘Jinnie’ behind me. When I looked around and checked, everything was back to normal like nobody shouted a minute ago.

“Anything wrong, oppa?” Jieun wondered as I was looking around like I was looking for something.

“A-aah.. nothing” I lied and continued eating. “I really missed this!” Jieun just laughed at me.

“Yaa! Stop laughing. Just eat now. I want to go home and sleep. I’m so tired Jieun-ah.” I said and shot her a straight face.

“Arasseo.” She replied and continued eating.

As soon as we finished eating, we paid for our food and went straight home. When we reached home, umma was not there. Jieun said she’s busy managing her pastry shop. Neh, my mom owned a pastry shop. She had it right after they got divorced with my dad. It was her passion and my dad was against it. He would always say she’d rather look over us, me and Jieun. So when she got her freedom, she immediately opened a small pastry shop and named it Sweets and Pastries.

“Umma left some cheese cakes on the table for you. It’s your favorite right?”

“Jinjja? Yeah.”  I was surprised they still remembered that. I loved anything that had cheese. I checked the table and there were indeed three slices of cheese cake.  I ate them all in just 1 minute and felt like I needed more so I decided to go to my umma’s pastry shop and buy more and to meet my umma also.

“Jieun-ah, I wanna go  to umma now. Can you give me the directions to her shop?”

“I thought you wanted to sleep. But anyway... Just go straight ahead and when you reach Daejeon High School, just look across it and whoalah! That’s it. Umma’s pastry shop.”

“Gomawo neh?” I thanked her and messed her hair as I passed by her. It’s not that hard to locate the shop because I still remembered that road along Daejeon High School. When I was a kid, I used to tell myself that I would enter that school when I grow up. It was my dream school. Nothing is really special about that school. It was just my dream school but I don’t know why. Now that I’m back, I’ll finally get the chance to study there even just for my senior year. I just laughed at the thought. The shop wasn’t far from home so I just walked until I finally reached it.

“Annyeonghaseyo!” A girl in pink apron greeted me as I entered the shop. She was also waiting for another customer’s order who was looking at the cakes at the counter. “Is there anything you want to order, sir?” She asked.

“Ah, ne. Cheese cake.” “I want to buy the cheese cake.” Me and the other customer said in unison which caused the other customer to look back at me.

“Oh! Taemin ssi.” She said.

“Haejin, right? Hi!”  I replied.

“You’re right.” She smiled. She looks really familiar. Who is she? Did I meet her somewhere before I met her in the airport? Lots of questions were running in my mind about her.

“You can have the cheese cake” I managed to tell her. I can have lots of them next time anyway.

“Are you sure?” She asked me in her perfect English. This girl speaks perfect English.

“Yes. I’m sure about that.”

“Thanks Taemin ssi.”

“So, how did you find this place anyway? You came here before?”

“Oh! No. Actually, it’s my first time here in Korea.”

“But you’re Korean…”

“Yes Yes.. I’m Korean. It’s just that I grew up in New York and never had a chance to come here.”

“I came from New York too. NYC to be exact.”

“Oh really? Me too. It’s a small world after all.”

“Yeah. Maybe that’s the reason why you look so familiar.”

“I do?” She laughed.

“So you still didn’t answer my question earlier.”

“Oh yea, I was checking on my new school when I saw this cute shop here so I decided to check it out too.”

“So you’ll be studying in Daejeon High School, am I right?”

“Yess.” She nodded.

“See you around then.”

“We’ll be schoolmates? That’s great! See ya around!” She flashed a bright smile and we were just conversing in pure English when suddenly she had to leave. “Thanks for letting me have the cheese cake taemin ssi. Bye!”

“You’re welcome. Bye” Then she left.

There’s really something with that girl. Now, I have to find umma so I’ll just figure that out later. “Is Mrs. Kim Taeyeon around?” I asked that girl in pink apron. Suzy. I read her name tag.

“Yes sir. Wait a minute. I’ll just call her.” Then she went inside the kitchen.

“Taemin?”

“Umma…” My mom was walking towards me now and I can see her eyes became teary all of a sudden. She pulled me into a hug and all I could do is hug her back.

“My son, I missed you… I’m really sorry!!”

“It’s okay umma. You didn’t have to say sorry. I understand everything” I smiled at her then she smiled at me. I was happy to see her. Very happy. I missed my umma. I missed her more than anything I left in Korea.

“Did you eat the cheese cakes I left for you?”

“Neh. Actually, I came to ask for more.”

“Aigoo! Too bad there’s no more left. But don’t worry, I’ll cook more for you tomorrow.”

“Gomawo!” I hugged her like a kid being treated with cheese cakes. As a kid, I would always hug umma like this everytime she would bake cheese cakes for me. I really love cheese cakes! They’re my weakness. I don’t even know why I just let go of those cheese cakes earlier. Well anyway, I was with my umma now so I should make the most of our time together.

Heyy!!

So this is the second chapter. The parents of Taemin and Jieun here are Donghae and Taeyeon and Haejin's parents? you'll find out soon! HAHA! I hope you guys like it. Kekeke..

I'll be updating next time. Please comment and keep the subscriptions coming! ^^ Thank you!!