Of course, it was a joke.
However, her friends gave her a dollar despite complaining and she just couldn’t not take them. She fidgeted with her wallet trying to give 50 cents back for the change but that was when one of them irritatedly gave a shout.
“Aoh! I don’t need the change so hurry up and tell us!”
At the centre of all their attention, Gyeoul deeply contemplated before opening her mouth.
“…Uum, what du you want to kno?”
“Like, like, does he have a good body?”
Gyeoul gave a confident nod, and pointed at her small shoulders before pushing her palms out wide, gesturing the width of his body. “Wahh…!” “Hul…” exclaimed the kids as more details were added to their imagination.
“What about his personality? What’s he like?”
“What do you do at home? Are you close to your dad?”
“Did you do something fun together? What do you do when you’re playing with him?”
They flooded her with questions.
“…”
Gyeoul quietly thought to herself.
Yu Jitae’s personality?
She remembered his worried voice right when she was about to shed her skin; his awkward jokes, his hand reaching out, as well as the shiritori they did… Gyeoul summarised her memories and gave a rough explanation.
“Hul… He must be super kind…”
“Wow, that sounds so nice…”
“What do you do at home?”
At home?
They didn’t do much, and they just played together. Playing a game together, watching movies… Sometimes they went fishing to catch fish to put into the fish tank inside Gyeoul’s room.
Gyeoul explained everything at a slow and relaxed pace. There wasn’t anything special about her explanation this time and it was just how a nice dad would play around with his daughter. However, the mere thought of a blue-haired super-handsome ahjussi doing such things with Gyeoul created a scene straight out of a movie in their minds.
On the other hand, there was something else that caught their attention.
‘Wahh, look at her expression.’
‘I’ve never seen her smile like that…’
Her face was a painting in itself. Her usually bored and gloomy blue eyes that gave off the impression that she wasn’t in a good mood was now bent into a curve that put its onlookers in a good mood.
Even apart from that, Gyeoul continued talking about sledding together, how they went shopping together and what happened when she got caught by a teacher when selling umbrellas. Her speech was so slow that it got slightly boring in the middle but the kids couldn’t stop her because she appeared to be enjoying herself a lot.
That was when they suddenly realised something very important.
“Huh wait?!”
“Nn? Why?”
“Tomorrow’s that thing, the parent attendance day…!”
“Huh? Hul! Hul! You’re right!”
The kids decided to ask Gyeoul.
However, most of the parents of the elementary kids worked during the weekdays. Besides, the attendance classes were also once a month and were very common, so parents didn’t attend the classes that often.
“Is your dad coming?”
“…Uum.”
“Is he? Is he coming?”
Gyeoul shook her head with an awkward smile.
“Ah, hul…”
“Such a shame…”
“Hope he can come one day.”
They were sincerely sad about it.
Seeing that, Gyeoul felt slightly strange.
She wanted to show him to them and brag about him but at the same time, she didn’t really feel like having them see him.
“…”
In any case, they wouldn’t be able to see him.
It was because she intentionally didn’t tell him about the attendance day. Gyeoul knew how busy Yu Jitae was – he was always busy but he seemed even busier these days.
They often couldn’t even have a meal together during the day and Bom was the only one helping her with homeworks. He was almost impossible to find at night. Sometimes, Gyeoul would knock on his door at night while rubbing her eyes but he was never there.
If he’s busy, she shouldn’t disturb him.
Sometimes when she missed him so much at night, she wanted to send a message but would soon decide against it, because he would definitely be there by the next morning.
Yu Jitae was always there in the morning.
That was like the truth of some sort. After all, it was extremely rare for him to not be present in the morning.
Therefore when Yu Jitae told her, ‘See you at school tomorrow’ that night, Gyeoul was shocked. She had no idea that the school newspapers were being sent to the parents and caregivers.
***
The next morning, Gyeoul dropped an outrageous announcement to the kids at school.
“Hukk? He’s coming today?”
“…Nn.”
“Really? Yesterday you said he wasn’t coming though?”
Gyeoul slowly shook her head before giggling, ‘Kuhihihi’. Realising that she wasn’t joking, her friends started jumping up and down in excitement.
“Uwah. I’m so curious…!”
“Me too me too. Gyeoul and her dad appeared in my dream yesterday you know!”
While they were chuckling to themselves, there were others staring at them. To be exact, there were gazes on Gyeoul who was among the group of kids.
Dragons had a different status.
Others with a comparatively lower status couldn’t even dare hold deep emotions for dragons, no matter what type of emotion that may be.
If a dragon was in a bad mood, a mere human would have trouble meeting eyes with that dragon and a large difference in status would make it difficult to even breathe, and they might even die on the spot.
Because of that, there were a lot of children watching Gyeoul with fluttering hearts from a distance but not a single one of them crossed the line and approached her.
And thus, what happened a few minutes after that was a fairly rare sight.
A boy walked into the classroom carrying a bouquet of flowers.
4th grade of elementary school – girls of the same age tended to be taller than boys of their age but that boy was a lot taller than other girls, and had a very beautiful and handsome face.
“Isn’t he the piano genius from Class 3?”
“Huk. You’re right you’re right… Why is he here?”
“Wait? He’s going towards Gyeoul…”
Some of the kids recognised him.
The boy awkwardly stood about 5 metres away from Gyeoul with a face full of nervousness. His well-adorned appearance, his clothes and the bouquet of flowers in his hand… All of those things gave away what was going to happen from now.
…No.
That thing in his hand – those weren’t flowers.
“Wait, what’s that? Those are not flowers? Were they folded with paper?”
“Paper…? Dude wait, that looks like money.”
“Did he fold flowers with real money? Wow…”
His target however was Gyeoul, who happened to be in love with money. Gyeoul’s friends stood in front of her to block him and the boy, who seemingly wanted a 1-on-1 conversation with her was slightly intimidated.
“Let me talk to Gyeoul for a bit,” he said.
“Why?”
“I have something to confess.”
The boy was nonetheless like a bulldozer. “What?” “Confess?” asked other kids but he pushed his way through without sparing them a glance.
Another obstacle then revealed itself – it was the status of the blue dragon. Strangely enough for him, his hands and legs trembled the closer he got and he couldn’t open his mouth properly.
However, it was okay. That was why he had prepared something beforehand. The boy handed her the letter he had prepared alongside the flowers.
“T, t, this…”
Gyeoul’s friends glanced at her.
Is she going to accept it?
There’s no way right? Gyeoul having a boyfriend? It was hard to imagine but for her to refuse it, the amount of money that was weaved into creating the flowers was way too enormous…
But they realised that Gyeoul had an extremely uninterested look on her face.
“…What’s this?”
“A p, present.”
“…Don’t, need it.”
“J, j, just t, take it.”
She still had an indifferent look on her face and her lips were as usual, in the shape of a ㅅ. When she turned her head away from him, the boy immediately dropped the bouquet of flowers on her table and said, “I’ll be waiting,” before running away.
Staring at the bouquet of money on her table, Gyeoul frowned as if she was seeing something detestable…
That made her friends surprised yet again.
Why isn’t she happy? How much money is that in total…?
A rough estimate told them that it amounted to about a thousand dollars. There were countless rich parents in Lair and quite a few of the kids received a similar amount as an allowance so it wasn’t anything mindblowing. However, Gyeoul only earned a few dollars at most by selling goods everyday.
“Why? Gyeoul. Are you in a bad mood?”
“Don’t you like money…?”
The one who asked that question then received reproachful gazes from her other friends for being too straightforward.
Gyeoul shook her head.
“…I didn’t work for this money.”
“Nn?”
“…This, is not my money.”
Saying that, she pushed the flowers away with the same apathetic look on her face.
While thinking about her strange logic, her friends soon felt curious about something else. The only thing Gyeoul really liked was money and yet she didn’t even smile in front of a large amount of money.
It was a stark contrast to how she was smiling brightly while talking about her daddy yesterday.
How awesome and cool must her daddy be for her to show such a different attitude?
Their curiosities would soon be answered.
At last at 3pm, it was time for the parent attendance day.
“Quiet, guys.”
The first attendance class was PE. Before going outside to play together, their homeroom teacher opened her mouth.
“Parents, please come into the room.”
Gyeoul’s friends immediately turned towards the rear door of the classroom. Several adults started entering the room in a row. They were dads and mums of their classmates.
At the same time, they glanced at Gyeoul because none of the parents had blue hair.
But the moment a man came into the room, Gyeoul’s expression rapidly turned bright.
Who is it!?
With sparkling eyes, the kids looked at the man.
As Gyeoul had told them before, the man was very tall and had a cool body that they could immediately tell through the clothes. And to top it all off, his face that should be more handsome than a popstar’s…
His face…?
“Hukk…!”
“Aht…?”
Shocked, the kids immediately turned their heads away. The kid wearing glasses was so immersed that she almost let out a shriek.
“W, what…”
“Huuhh…?”
Amidst their shock, Gyeoul gave a bright smile and suddenly started running to the back of the room unlike how other kids were sitting still in their chairs.
There’s no way. Right? There’s no way it’s that scary person…
However, as if she had been waiting all day for this, Gyeoul ran up to the extremely scary adult and reached her arms out. With a natural movement, the man hugged Gyeoul and carried her in his arms.
At this point it was not only her friends and it was the whole class that had their eyes fixed on them.
“Were you studying well.”
“…Yes.”
His face looked as if he would chuck her into the wall if she wasn’t studying well so the kids became nervous.
“Good girl.”
“…Nn.”
“You should go down now.”
‘If you don’t want to die’ … It looked natural for such words to leave his mouth afterwards but Gyeoul merely returned a bright smile in response to his words.
In the end, she only returned to her seat after the adult put her down.
Meanwhile, her friends whispered to each other.
‘My eyes are fine right…?’
‘I think so? So scary…’
‘Me too me too. I think I saw his face in a wanted poster in front of the police station…’
‘Ey what’s happening. You were the one that said stuff about DNA and stuff…’
The two other friends glared at the girl wearing glasses but the glasses-girl was also confused herself.
‘How am I supposed to know…?’
That was how much of a shock Yu Jitae’s appearance was to them. It was their first time seeing such a scary-looking person in their life.
“Parents, please sit next to the students in the empty chairs.”
Yu Jitae slowly started walking towards Gyeoul as soon as the homeroom teacher said that and sat next to her. Some of the kids were glaring at him but looked away with a flinch when their eyes met. They would then see Gyeoul next to him wearing a wide smile.
‘Why in the world is she smiling…?’
Gyeoul thought for a bit before handing the bouquet of money to Yu Jitae.
This was a fairly shocking scene in itself as well.
Whether she was interested in the money or not, it was still a fair amount of money and she was the owner of that money. Gyeoul being so willing to give her money away to someone else was a shocking sight for her friends.
“…Here. Present.”
“What’s this.”
“…A flower bouquet, made of money.”
“Is it yours?”
“…Yes.”
“That’s a lot of money. Where did you get it from.”
“…Someone gave it to me.”
“Why.”
“…Dunno.”
“If you don’t know, you should return it. It’s a large amount of money.”
“…Should I?”
He returned the flowers back to her. Receiving the bouquet blankly with her two hands, Gyeoul appeared sincerely dejected for not being able to give him the money. Despite that, she soon smiled again and agreed with his words.
Why is she agreeing with him…
More like, what was there to smile about just then…?
Glancing at them, her friends got more and more confused.
“So first off for the parent attendance class will be PE. Should we head outside together now?”
In the midst of their confusion, the first lesson began.