Chapter Text
Nevertheless, the enjoyed one-on-one time with her daughter on this Friday morning, sitting on the couch in the living room and listening to her daughter’s silly ideas.
“But why mom? Don’t you want to experience love again? Real love, like you fall in love with someone you like?”, her precious daughter answered while she moved her fingers over the screens of Jinas phone.
Love? Jina remembered when she fell in love back then. the feeling of butterflies flattering against your stomach and your knees getting soft and weak - she experienced this only twice in her life and none of them had something to to with Yuri’s father.
The first one was Daniel. Daniel Lee. High School Love. And still professor at her school that the leads every day. Since the divorce, she really expected him to take the chance to make a second first step, but she lost her hope since he ended up being too busy with Alex. Which also deeply concerned Jina. But Daniel and her both agreed on Alex idea to get to know each other individually since they weren’t a couple nor experienced in the relationship of co-parenting a child.
The second one… well, it’s a long story no one knows about. Neither Yuri, nor Mr. Han, nor Daniel, nor Kitty, who seemed to know everything except this.
“Okay, your profile is ready! Let’s swipe a bit for you!”, Yuri smiled and started the dating. The first man she saw was a very fine one. He looked like a model and it seemed like he really desired to display the perfect first impression.
“So… what about Ji-ho? He looks handsome, don’t you think?”, Yuri asked and Jina couldn’t help but frowning her forehead. Yes. He looked handsome. But how should they get in contact? Jina never used dating apps, obviously, and totally forgot how to flirt.
“Sure, he looks great. But what’s next? Can he see my pictures?” “Yes, we can give him a like, if you want to.” A last critical gaze flew over the phone in Yuri’s hands before slightly nodding her head. Another stranger popped up.
“Okay, this is Woon. 45. He looks like a very nice guy. And he got a cat”, Yuri explained while swiping the photos. “I don’t know Yuri.”
God, dating like this was so exhausting, Jina thought. Swiping and swiping and swiping and getting tons of messages. How could she ever keep up with this? When the next one came up, Jina choked on her tea and sat straight. Then, a strict and warning look strived Yuri’s eyes.
“Why the hell is someone like Min Ho on a platform like this? And why do I get people shown who are much more younger than me? Is Min Ho even allowed to have - “
“Relax, okay?”, Yuri quickly interrupted her mom, before another scandal is going to surround the school yard on Monday.
“You better be joking!”, Jina hissed and grabbed for the phone, which ended in a short fight between mother and daughter. Between the fighting and the harsh words, an unknown sound lightens the room. Yuri let go of the phone and looked at her mother, eyes big and exited. “What was that?”, Jina murmured while fixing her hair and picking her phone up. On the screen, a big “You’ve got a match!” - sticker appeared. It was colorful and led to the profile that Jina just accidentally matched. “Great job mom.
Now you matched any random psycho without pictures”, Yuri said ironically.
“What? Why? How do I see the pictures?”, she asked and swiped the photos. The front picture portrayed a person, whose head wasn’t shown. It might have been a man, clothed in an elegant, grey suit with a black tie. But there was no head, it was a cropped picture. She went on. Another picture showed a book shelf with some very boring titles.
“Why would anyone post a book shelf? This is not very original”, Jina asked.
“As I said - psycho.” A third picture showed the crown of a tree, through which the sun let it rays shine. It was a Japanese blossom tree which surrounding remained unknown for Jina and she payed attention to the additional information.
“Dong-wook”, she spoke, “at least a name, huh?”, she smiled at her daughter and suddenly forgot about the mysterious man online after seeing the time.
“Yuri, we gotta go! Otherwise we’re gonna be late!”, Jina stressed and quickly grabbed her purse before chasing her daughter to the apartments door.
-
Someone knocked on the glass door of her office.
“Come in”, Jina said, deeply busy with emails of annoying parents complaining about the new online registration system. After her divorce, Jina started focusing on developing her school. More digitalization and the small renewals here and there.
“Good morning principal Lim”, a man said after entering her office. “My name is Hyung and I am the electrician who will install the new system for the doors. The electronically keys are on the way and they are to be expected next week. I wanted to let you know that I will come back on Thursday morning to make a last check on them. Are you okay with that?”
In passing, Jina nodded and said: “Yes, sure. Thank you very much, Hyung.”
The man seemed to be gone as Jina recognized another knocking against her door.
“Come in”, she shouted. As the door got opened and closed again, she expected the guest to be one of the workers.
“Do you need anything for the installation?” After she got no response, she looked up and saw Daniel and Alex, standing in her office. As always when they did, Jina smiled and greeted them heartily.
“Daniel, Alex. Good morning you two. Sit down a bit”, she offered.
“Oh, I didn’t want to stay this long. I only wanted to report a group of students who cheated on the test about literary history last week. Including”, Daniel started to breathe deeply, “Yuri.”
“How do you know?”, Jina asked, not surprised that her own daughter is part of the mischief.
“I found conversations written on small pieces of paper and the handwriting are pretty clear to identify”, he said, without smiling and with a very intensive stare to the ground, while handing Jina the folder in his hands. Shaking hands.
Jina stared at him with a confused face, as she never experienced him like that. He seemed very odd this morning. It wasn’t new to her that he reported students all day long, but something in his behavior was strange. She looked into the folder and read the names of Yuri, Kitty, Juliana and Min Ho, and Madison, which didn’t surprise her.
Which an annoyed frowning, the whispered: “Thank you Daniel, I will handle that.”
Professor Lee left the office and Alex stayed alone with his mother. He refused to say “Mom”, so he called her by her name.
“Sorry to hear that. But it’s also not that big of a surprise”, he laughed, rubbing the back of his head. “It is not, indeed”, Jina smiled, but deeply embarrassed about Yuri’s misbehavior.
It frustrated her that Yuri let herself go like that, even if she really enjoyed seeing her happy girl living the best time of her life right now.
“How are you doing then?”
“Well”, Alex started, but stumbled over some words he couldn’t find.
“Is everything okay?”
Alex took a deep breath before saying: “So, Professor Lee - Daniel, was really unnormal this morning.”
“What do you mean?”, Jina asked.
“I don’t know, usually, we go on a run on Friday mornings. But today, he didn’t want to and when I picked him up, he look horrible. As if he was super stressed and there was a kind of tension. Not between him and I, I rather mean in general”, Alex summed up and left Jina with a curious face.
Her first thought told her that it might be something about his mom. She lived in a home for old people and lost her hearing last year. Maybe it was that. I must have been that.
“Alex, why don’t you and I have a nice lunch together. I don’t see myself in the position to tell you anything about Daniel’s family, but since it’s yours too, I would like to share some ideas. Does that sound good?”, Jina suggested and Alex nodded happily.
“Thank you, Jina. It’s not always easy for me to look through his mind. He is very…”
“Special.”
“Yeah, he is someone special”, Alex repeated and thanked his mother for her help. Jina knew it wasn’t always easy for Alex to know how to react when Daniel had a bad day or didn’t feel like talking.
Thirty minutes later, Jina found herself back in the hard work. She had a few calls, did a lot of administrative tasks before she finally had a couple of minutes to rest.
Her phone made a noise she never heard before why she immediately looked on the screen.
“Dong-Wook sent a message!”
Oh, Jina thought. Was this the handsome lawyer? She had better to do than keeping up with names.
Indeed it was the mysterious man with the bookshelf. But nevertheless she opened the message. It was short and quick and she rolled her eyes.
“Men”, she murmured.
The message said: “Hello. How are you?”
Jina typed: “Hello. I am fine, how about you?”
They started to have a little chat, to have a small talk about this and that. It was nice, but nothing that Jina ever thought she would got sticked to.
“Would you like to send me a picture of you maybe? I only see a well-dressed man without a face, a bookshelf and a tree”, Jina sent before getting interrupted by some students who came to get their phones back.
-
At the end of the day, Jina totally forgot about her dating life online and focused on her daughter, who decided to have a sleepover behind her back.
She was still pissed about the cheating in Lees test, but these consequences would have to wait til after the weekend.
So she thought about what to do now. Six girls were occupying her living room and so loud that she couldn’t work either. She thought about the talk with Alex this mornings and Lee’s strange behavior. What if his mother really got sick and he had a hard time accepting this? In any case, Jina was still a friend for Lee and that’s why she decided to call Daniel.
The phone rang and Jina smiled when his dark voice sounded through the phone.
“Jina.”
“Daniel, hi. Am I disturbing you?”
“No. Why do you call me?”
Jinas voice stumbled. “Because I thought we could talk.”
The tensed silence was almost killing her as she awaited a response from her friend.
“I don’t want to talk.”
“Why? What’s wrong Daniel?”, Jina asked, almost a bit disappointed about his rejection. She could hear a deep breathing and then she just broke the silence, saying: “Is it because of your mom?”
“What?!”
“Your mom, is she okay? I know she lost her hearing last summer, so…”, Jina started carefully to start the conversation.
“Jina my mother is fine. Everything is okay”, Daniel explained, his voice raising.
“Then why are you acting so strangely? Even Alex noticed it.”
“Alex?”
“Yeah, he told me you weren’t yourself this morning. Daniel, whenever you need to talk, I am here for you”, Jina tried to assure.
Daniel got his mind back and calmed down. Slowly and deeply, he said: “Jina, let go. I don’t need to talk.”
Jina sighed and bit her lip. She really knew that Daniel means a lot to her, but he wasn’t easy to reach the last couple months.
“Is that all?”, Daniel asked and Jina agreed. He just hang off and ended the call.
He lefts Jina with a feeling of unknown thoughts, but suddenly, she got really distracted about that when she got another message of Dong-wook.
“What does a man has to fulfill to may call himself yours?”
Jina smirked. The man on the other side of the chat seemed smart. With a smile on her lips, she responded: “He gotta have a heart and a brain…”