XOXO, Miss Minnie || 002

[Episode 2]

‘This person, who looks nothing more than a teenager, is a teacher?’

Tae-joon flusteredly stood up from his seat and captured Min-hee’s face with his eyes.

On her chubby, flawless cheeks was a pink hue similar to that of Rose after she sprinted. Her black, rich hair fluttered over her shoulder. The large eyes which felt his piercing gaze looked down in embarrassment, and her glossy red lips parted slightly.

[Miss Minnie looks like Snow White.]

Rose's words made perfect sense now. The young and innocent Snow White, who was dragged into the woods by the hunter's lure, would have seemed just like this.

Looking at her face alone, it was difficult not to perceive this person as a high school student. Even an assistant teacher must have a certificate, so she must have graduated from college. Twenty-two, or maybe twenty-three?

[…Pardon my rudeness. I am Baek Tae-joon.]

[Oh, not at all! It’s alright! When I mix with the children, teachers sometimes mistake me for a student. Besides, today, I wore something that resembled the high school uniform attire…]

Tae-joon watched in admiration as her glistening cherry-like lips moved without pause. The whisper reminiscent of sweet and melted cotton candy tickled his ear. He swallowed his saliva unconsciously, and his hand made its way to his ear in embarrassment.

[Ah, you don't know yet! At Aster School, every Valentine's Day, both students and teachers have a tradition of wearing a Valentine's Day theme.]

Min-hee slightly stretched out one of her legs to show him what she meant. There was a purple bruise the size of a twenty-five-cent coin on the inside of her sleek thigh that stretched over her knee-high, heart-patterned socks.

[…]

Min-hee glanced up at Tae-joon when he remained silent and moved her books to the side. She then spread her palms to hide the pattern of her T-shirt.

[Ah, I… This is a special promise with children because preschoolers like rainbows and unicorns so much… ah!]

The books, which had been inserted obliquely on Min-hee's side, fell to the floor with a thud. Tae-joon lowered his upper body and reached out to a book that had fallen to his feet.

[Oh, I…!]

Min-hee suddenly knelt on her floor and also reached out towards the same book that had fallen at Tae-joon's feet. At that moment, a sparkling heart hit Tae-joon's forehead.

The heart bounced against Tae-joon’s forehead a couple more times before stopping. At a distance close enough for the two to feel each other’s breath, he met her eyes which fluttered incessantly in response.

[Hik…! I'm sorry! I forgot that I was wearing this…]

Min-hee, her face ripe red, ripped off the heart that was stuck to her head.

[Aww!]

Min-hee rubbed the ripped area with her hand. Tae-joon couldn’t help but smile at her sulky lips and scrunched forehead.

Startled by the loosening of muscles on his face, Tae-joon quickly bit his lip. After one heart disappeared from the pair of two, the other flashed sadly.

[There’s one more.]

[Yes?]

Tae-joon pointed to the other with his finger. Min-hee, red to her ears, ended up pulling the whole heart ornament from her hair.

[I bought it last summer when I went to an amusement park in Korea. I prepared it ambitiously for today, but for it to be such a dangerous weapon…]

This hectic 'Miss Minnie’ didn’t seem much different from Rose in the way she spoke, the way she dressed, and the way she looked. Maybe that was why Rose liked this teacher.

Even the pounding headache that seemed to split Tae-joon's head in two dispersed like a mist the moment the heart struck his forehead. As soon as he realized that, a ray of bright sunlight suddenly seemed to shine over Min-hee's head.

The person who could save him from this swamp of helplessness may be ‘Miss Minnie’, who was currently kneeling in front of him.

Tae-joon gathered up the rest of the scattered books, placed them on the table, and stood up. Min-hee's lost gaze followed Tae-joon.

Her cheeks, which were at first a light pink, flushed a darker hue by the series of unexpected events and were now ripe like a red apple. Tae-joon held out his hand involuntarily while thinking of smelling her to see if the scent was similar to apples. It was purely impulsive.

Min-hee's gaze fell to Tae-joon's palm. She placed her soft hand on his firm arm and stood up.

Tae-joon thought she would break if he squeezed too hard, so he carefully wrapped his finger around hers and pulled her up very swiftly. The small hands that he felt between his palms were so creamy that he wondered if she had bones.

The irises of the large eyes looking up at Tae-joon from the side of his chest were dark gray. Suddenly, he felt uncomfortable near his stomach and removed his gaze.

[Please sit down.]

He let go of Min-hee's hand and pulled out a chair near his. She trotted awkwardly and sat down. As Tae-joon sat across from her, Min-hee avoided his gaze. Then she pulled the books onto the table and piled them in front of her as if she was creating a wall.

It was like a small animal building a fence to avoid predators.

‘Is she scared of me?’

Tae-joon leaned back into the chair, tilted his head, and stared at Min-hee.

[Th-thank you for picking up the books.]

[I heard from Mr. Anderson. You will be Rose's full-time teacher this semester.]

Min-hee's hardened expression softened a bit at his words, and her lips rose softly.

[Yes, that’s right. I have a few things to show and tell you. Could you give me ten minutes?]

[Of course.]

Min-hee pulled out the alphabet, arithmetic, sketchbook, and picture diary notebooks from her pile of books and laid them out in front of Tae-joon in order.

[This is the data presented at the parental interview. There was a regular parent meeting last week, but Rose… Rose’s conference was delayed. With Mr. Baek coming, I stopped by because I thought it might be helpful to show you last semester's notes.]

While Tae-joon turned the notebook pages one by one and looked at Rose's crooked letters and colorful pictures, Min-hee carefully observed the man sitting in front of her.

‘Even though they are brothers, there is not much resemblance.’

Rose's father remained in Min-hee's memory, with his smiling eyes and soft impression. In contrast, the moment she opened the door and made eye contact with Tae-joon, her instinctive response to survival exclaimed.

‘Let’s close the door and run away!!’

To Min-hee, who was accustomed to being surrounded by small and cute children, the presence of a large man with a rough impression was not familiar and even aroused her fear.

It seemed like he was wearing a neat suit and tie to fit his body cleanly, but whenever he flipped a page, the jacket concealing his broad shoulders and forearms stretched, and his muscles swelled.

The scar that stood just above his thick eyebrows and crossed diagonally to the corners of his eyes made Tae-joon seem like the villain in a movie. However, as he read the notes, his long, dark eyelashes felt somehow delicate, and his high, sharp nose bridge and clear lips were perfectly symmetrical.

‘Holy Macaroni! Aren't you too handsome?!'

Min-hee flusteredly gazed at him.

'Why was I so scared? Was it because he was too big?’

It seemed like he was about 6”3. When she stood face to face with the quarterback of the football team which she had a crush on during high school, she remembered that he was just about that height. Min-hee shook her head slightly to get rid of the afterimage of her first crush that suddenly came to mind.

Yesterday morning, as soon as she went to work, news spread at the speed of light among the faculty that Rose's uncle had donated a million dollars.

In the afternoon, Min-hee suddenly received a call from the principal, and she was asked to take care of Rose this semester.

She had no reason to turn the offer down, as she could finally work full-time. In addition, her resume was close to perfect.

When Min-hee thought of Rose, her heart throbbed.

‘I know what it means to lose her parents at such a young age.’

Rose lost both her parents when she was only six years old. At the age of six, the sky of her small world would have collapsed. Her nose sniffled at the thought of Rose sitting alone in the wreckage, helpless.

After she received instructions from the headteacher to come and greet Rose's uncle this morning, she could not even sit down. In her rush to gather her materials, she forgot her attire.

As soon as she met him, she revealed to him all kinds of embarrassing things. Whenever her face heated up, because of her exceptionally white skin, anyone would notice that she was embarrassed, and that made her even more flustered.

'How incredible I am.’

Min-hee knew all too well about the first impressions that she made with her youthful appearance. Young children were friendly around her, but in everyday life, she was very uncomfortable around others.

‘Rose’s uncle too. Looking at how he thought I was a student and tried kicking me out.’

Now she had to stop fooling around and act like a teacher. When she saw his gaze linger on the last page of the picture diary, she carefully asked a question.

[Does Rose know exactly what happened to her parents?]

[…]

Tae-joon raised her head and stared at Min-hee. Min-hee then realized why she wanted to run away.

‘It’s because of those eyes…'

His eyes were so intense that it was hard to face them for a long time. They were somehow filled with emptiness, sadness, and angriness, but they were strangely fiery and pitiful.

His contradictory eyes, like sparks of blue splashing against ice, harmonized with the scars across his eyebrows, giving him the impression of a sharply double-edged sword.

Min-hee could not hold her gaze any longer and lowered her eyes to the last page of the picture diary. A moment of heavy silence fell between them.

[…Yesterday, Rose bit Emily's arm. I asked why she acted that way, and she kept quiet for a while and then told me. Her mom and dad haven't come back from Hawaii yet. In her painting diary, she drew pictures of her mom and dad in Hawaii, but Emily told Rose that her mom and dad were dead and that they wouldn't come back. So she said that she bit Emily and fought her.]

Tae-joon lowered his gaze and looked intently at the painting Rose drew.

[Because we watched the funeral process together… I never said anything about the death of her parents.]

[Mr. Baek, Rose is still six years old. She is just starting to understand abstract concepts properly. Even if she is verbally aware of the deaths of her parents, she may not fully understand the concept that they are no longer in the world.]

Min-hee pushed some of the picture books she had piled up in front of her chest toward Tae-joon.

[This book is written in an easy-to-understand method from the perspective of children about the death and loss of a family member. It would be helpful if Mr. Baek could read this to Rose.]

He looked at the pile of books for a moment, then lifted his head and caught Min-hee's gaze. Min-hee blinked her eyes a few times with her slightly pale face, but she did not avoid Tae-joon's gaze.

[Miss Minnie? Miss Seol?]

[Oh, you can call me Miss Minnie. Everyone calls me that way here.]

[Miss Minnie. Does Aster School allow teachers to hold concurrent positions?]

Min-hee, embarrassed by the sudden change of topic, gazed at Tae-joon blankly for a moment.

[… Erm, as far as I know, if you are a part-time contract worker, you can take a concurrent position like that of a tutor.]

[Do you have any other work besides school work?]

[…Not this semester. I'm studying for a master's degree in education, so I have classes twice a week.]

[That’s a relief.]

‘What’s a relief?’

Min-hee blinked her eyes and stared at Tae-joon with a puzzled expression. Tae-joon, who had been silently staring at Min-hee with the eyes of a bird eyeing down its prey, suddenly leaned his upper body and approached her. Min-hee shrugged her shoulders and clung to the back of her chair.

[Will you be Rose's resident tutor until the end of this semester?]

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