Saturday, July 24th, 2021.

7:15 am.

"Y/n," my step-mother places her purse down on the kitchen island as I am eating breakfast, so I peek up but come across her putting her earrings on. "Do you still have the dress I bought you for your birthday?"

"That dad bought, you mean?" I glance down at my fruit to not have to see her anymore, and she heaves a loud sigh to make her annoyance obvious. "Yeah. Whatever. Do you still have it?"

"I do, but I can't fit in it anymore," I scroll through the notifications on my phone, barely giving her my attention. "Are you kidding me? It's only been two years."

I ignore her words that are meant to hurt me, and I chew on the piece of banana that I put in my mouth.

"Anyway," she understands I am not interested in this matter, and she steps towards her purse. "We're having guests for dinner today, so wear something decent and elegant, understood?"

"Who?" I chew on the piece of banana that I put in my mouth, and she fixes her hair. "My colleague, Jungkook, and his son,"  she pronounces one of the names my body always gets excited at the sound of, and I suddenly raise my eyes up again. "Jungkook?"

"Yes, but don't ever call him by his name," she points out what I cannot forget given the number of times she repeated it already. "He's your colleague, and we've already seen each other many times. Are you serious?"

"I am serious," she stands on her spot to stare at me with her irritating authority, and I chuckle but end my snack. "This is ridiculous," I leave the stool and grab my phone to walk to the trash and throw the peel out but hear her high heels hit the parquet floor.

I gaze up at her to check where she is going, but she heads to the front glass doors, where the coat rack is, so I walk up to the sofa since I do not work before nine o'clock.

I wonder if she knows that I have Mister Jeon's number, and his son's one. She is probably not aware of it since she only focuses on herself and how much she gets this man's attention on her.

"By the way," she turns around when I dived in my phone to continue writing my book. "Since you don't fit in that dress anymore, you're going to be on a diet again."

"No," I let out with no second thought, not even considering the thought of drinking tasteless soup only every day. "I have enough things to deal with in my life to give a shit about my body again. I'm healthy, that's all that matters."

"You're healthy but can't even fit in a—"

"I said I don't give a shit," I do not speak with respect, hating her for the words she never muses on. "Stop talking to me that way. I'm just trying to help," she tells a falsehood, faking her kindness and care when I know that she never showed me any until my dad was gone. "No, you're not. You're constantly judging me and putting me down. If that's what you call 'help', then you can keep it to yourself."

A nervous sneer escapes her mouth, her hand clutching her expensive purse. "Whatever you want to believe," she gives up on arguing, knowing I will never give up.

Once she grabs her jacket, walks out of the house, and closes the door, I stand up and walk up the case of stairs that is between the kitchen and living room, which are open to make one enclosed area with the dining room that is on the left of the kitchen.

I step to the right to enter my bedroom, and I move to my closet to open it, check my dresses and see where my favorite one is.

A white babydoll one, with small strawberries on it.

As soon as I catch sight of it, I get it out and drop it on my king-size bed but make sure to lay it properly over the blanket.

I cannot wait for tonight to come. Mister Jeon is probably going to wear his usual, chic blue suit and tie, with no tie, but some buttons of his shirt unfastened.

It has been five months. Five months since I met him and his son. He is so kind, attentive, respectful, and mature, and on top of that, he is an attractive man who knows he is. 

I am twenty-one, and I never felt that way for a man of such an age. I know his son is only one year younger than me which makes him a thirty-nine years old man, but I cannot help it, I have no control over how I feel whenever I see him, hear him, or think about him.

The worst about this is that my stepmother wants him, and I know for sure that she will get him to be his, but I do not care. I hate her, so I will not hold back from behaving the way I want to with him just because she has a thing for him.

I would not be surprised if one day, we all get to know that she has been attracted to his money only. That is what she did to my dad until he left us, so I will not let her ruin a man like Mister Jeon too.

I quickly get rid of those thoughts to not torture myself, and I text Joonha, Mister Jeon's son.

[ you're coming for dinner tonight? >

Once this is sent, I leave my messages but receive an answer as if he was already focused on his phone.

< yeah, I'm gonna see your face, unfortunately ]

[ thanks, I appreciate it -_- >

< I know you do;) ]

I smile but lock my phone to head down the stairs. I have some time to chill and watch some episodes of the drama I have been following these days.

'JUNGKOOK'S P.O.V'

I enter the classroom after speaking to a friend and being greeted by all my co-workers in this school. I close the door behind me to head to my desk, sit down on the chair, and leave my briefcase on my lap.

I have a lot of work to do today, and I cannot cancel dinner at Miss Kim's house, so I am probably not going to leave this school before six.

Needing my stuff to work properly, I open my briefcase and get my laptop out, as well as my agenda, and my glasses that I need in every situation. Now that I have everything, I bring my chair closer to the desk and open my laptop to switch it on, and I put my glasses on but take my suit jacket off to hang it on the back of my chair and be more comfortable.

No time to even check the last notes I wrote in my agenda, my phone rings to disturb me, so I take it out of my pocket and check what this is.

Joonha.

< when do we have to be at the snake's house? ]

[ Joonha. Don't say that. We have to be there for 7, so I'll come and pick you up >

< ok ]

[ Y/n will be there, so why are you complaining? >

< I'm not complaining, but this woman is just fake as hell ]

I sigh without saying anything more to him. I guess it will take time for him to adjust to this, he does not know her well enough to be comfortable with the thought of seeing a new woman near me.

[ whatever, work well today. I'm pretty sure we'll have a good time over there. Love you, see you later >

< love you too, see you ]

I put it down and breathe out. I understand him, so I try not to be mad or scold him for feeling the way he does. He is young, he still sees his mother from time to time, it will be hard for him to accept to see another woman getting close to me.

I reassured him multiple times by being clear about not wanting to be in a relationship, so he does not have to worry about anything.

Speak of the devil, Harin knocks on my door. I raise my voice so that she can hear me and come in, and once she steps inside, I smile at her but see her do the same action as she does whenever she is close to me. She runs her fingers through her hair, bows to me, and beams. "Good morning, Mister Jeon. I hope I'm not bothering, but the other day, you talked about a certain author that one of your students mentioned, so I made some researches about him and found some stuff that you could find interesting," she holds a file in her hands, so I gesture her to step closer but wonder why she did this when she is just a colleague. "Sure, come here."

She walks towards me while opening her file, so I roll my chair back and turn it in her direction, and once she stands before me, I grab the stapled pages that she hands me and take a look at what she worked on.

"I hope this will help you," she states. I nod, reading and focusing on the paragraphs she wrote. I do not have any idea how much time this took her, but I do appreciate it a lot. "Thank you so much, Harin. This will be of some use for sure," I bring it next to my laptop since I do not have time to read everything now. "I'll check everything once I'm home."

"My pleasure. I'm aware of how busy you are, and all the work you have to do every day. I just wanted to make myself useful," she holds her hands behind her back, and my attention land on her red lips. "You are always useful, do not think otherwise. Without you, all our colleagues would have a harder time in this college," I speak highly of her with the truth only and see the effect my words have on her. "It means a lot to me to know that you think so, Mister Jeon. I'll leave you alone now. Make sure to not overwork and take a break when you need," she bows to me, being understanding, and I bend my head to return this respectful gesture. "The same goes to you."

After hearing me, she turns around and goes out of my office. I do not waste a minute, I quickly take a look at my agenda to see which class I have after this break.

•••

1 pm.

I sit down on the chair of the teachers' office. Feeling mentally tired after those five hours, I check my phone to see if I received a text from my son.

Nothing.

I get it down on the desk and turn my laptop on. Since I have to wait for Harin to be here, I get up and look for my money, then once I find my wallet, I walk out and head towards the cafeteria to have lunch. My stomach has been growling since earlier, I should have eaten something more nourishing this morning, but I had to hurry.

Out of pure coincidence, I stumble upon Harin, who seems to have left her classroom, and she instantly notices me. "Oh, Mister Jeon. I'll wait for you in the office. I also brought some food for you to eat, it's in the fridge," she tells me, kindly, so I thank her and continue my way.

I make it quick to not take too long here and open the fridge that contains all the food that my co-workers bring from home. I check the names written on each of them to find the one that Harin made for me, and I take it out but check what is inside before getting a fork.

Rice with dried seaweed, kimchi, rolled eggs, and some pieces of sausage. She is an amazing woman. This is going to be delicious.

I remove the top to put it in the microwave and warm it up, and while this is rotating inside, I go and get a spoon with chopsticks, then once this is read, I take the food out and go back to my office.

In short seconds, I am back there. I enter the room and see her sitting in front of my spot, so I close the door and get on my chair. "Thank you so much for the food, you're amazing," I show my gratitude once again, feeling pleased by so much attention and care. "No need to, Mister Jeon," she responds with shyness and gazes down at her notebook, so I dig in to not starve anymore and open the agenda on my computer at the same time to be ready to do some paperwork with her and also listen to what she wanted to talk about with me.

"So, go ahead," I speak after swallowing and let her start, eating and working simultaneously out of obligation. "Alright, so the thing I wanted to talk about with you regards one of your students, who is also mine," she tells me as I am typing along. "Hm. Who is it?" I enter the words to complete my work. "Hyunae."

I lay my eyes on her at the sound of this name that I know very well, and I stop typing. "What happened with her?" I take a bite of my food and chew on it as quietly as I can. "While I was giving my lesson, I noticed that she was laughing with her friend in the back, so I interrupted them but grabbed the note she gave her, and I saw a whole page full of inappropriate stuff about you."

"What do you mean by that?" I frown at her, but with no surprise or shock, so I go back to writing. "Here," she slides the piece of paper that was above a file before her towards me, so I stop for a moment and check it. "When I asked her what was that, she got mad but never told me anything. She even tried to snatch it out of my hands, but I know her handwriting, so I know she is the one who wrote this," she answers as I cannot take my eyes off of the paper.