“Of course, I know that there are specialized teachers for each subject. My role is to help with any difficulties or inconveniences in school life while teaching.”
Though, it was more like monitoring to prevent accidents.
“I need a mother, not a teacher.”
“What?”
“You said you would help if there were any inconveniences in school life? Then, I need a mother, not a teacher. Can you become a mother?”
Hyo Jin looked into the eyes of the child staring at her with wideopen eyes, as if she was being sucked in.
Would Antoine de SaintExupéry, who first met the little prince in the middle of the desert, have felt this way?
Just as if he had received the little prince’s request to draw a sheep.
“Why do you need a mother?”
Although Hyo Jin knew it was an absurd request, she was terribly curious about the reason.
“The mothers at school are holding a charity art exhibition, and I told my friends that my mom would come too.”
“Kid, what will you do if you lie like that?”
The fact that he came from a singleparent household was already detailed in the home environment survey.
“You shouldn’t lie if you are easily going to be caught.”
Of course, it’s not that she didn’t understand his feelings.
Was he being teased at school for not having a mom?
“Anyway, since dad really has a woman he’s going to marry, no one will think it’s strange.”
“What. He has a woman he’s going to marry?”
Upon hearing something she had never considered, Hyo Jin unknowingly raised her voice.
“Hey, why are you only telling me this important thing now?”
Indeed. In a household like this, there would naturally be a woman arranged for him?
Ah, but why does my heart feel so empty? It’s like hearing the news of the wedding of a male celebrity I liked?
“Is that the important thing?”
Seung Yul couldn’t understand at all.
He had just met her for the first time, and now she was asking this.
“How is the woman he’s going to marry? Is she pretty?”
Suddenly asking such questions made the already frowning Seung Yul’s forehead wrinkle even more.
“Why? Why are you looking at me like that? You should answer when a teacher asks.”
Hyo Jin, who asked a question filled with her personal feelings, felt her conscience pricked by the gaze of the child looking straight at her.
“Why are women curious about such things?”
“Look at this. Look at this. Women, huh. It wasn’t just me who was curious about his dad.
I wonder how many women have asked him.
“Well, it’s natural to be curious!”
With a bright smile, Hyo Jin shamelessly fortified her face, having decided to ask anyway.
“You seem to not know well since you lived abroad, but in Korea, people tend to get close by asking these personal questions. How is her face? Is she pretty? How tall is she? Is she taller than me? How old is she? What does she do?”
Seung Yul, seemingly tired, sighed.
“Well, a bit.”
What, a bit?
“Hey, why don’t you ask your pretty stepmother?”
Why ask me, a contract home tutor who has nothing to do with your dad?
“Well, I have to keep it a secret from dad.”
Seung Yul asked as if questioning why she was making such a fuss.
“What about me? If the real woman my dad is going to marry shows up at school?”
I’d be utterly embarrassed in front of the parents who think I’m your mother.
“Then you can just say you broke up?”
No one knows what will happen in a relationship until you hold hands and enter the wedding hall.
Seung Yul, who was responding nonchalantly as if it was someone else’s story, stopped flipping the pages of the book and looked at Hyo Jin.
“But you absolutely can’t tell dad.”
“Why?”
“Dad will never understand.”
“Gosh. What if dad finds out?”
Sighing as if exhausted, Seung Yul put down the book he was looking at and crawled out of the tent.
As if to say, ‘do I really have to explain this?’, he looked annoyed.
“Do you see the forsythia tree in the garden?”
“Forsythia? That’s a forsythia tree?”
How could anyone know if it’s not blooming?
Hyo Jin stretched out her neck and drooped her head against the fence, staring at the thin tree branch that was awkwardly stretching out.
“That is my switch.”
“What?”
“My greatgrandfather wanted to plant bamboo, but he said that a forsythia switch hurts more and doesn’t break easily, so he planted forsythia instead.”
“Huh, who said that?”
“Dad did.”
Your dad?
“When did your dad?”
“When I got expelled from Singapore.”
When he was deported to Korea and had to take a plane ride over six hours, instead of a warm and comforting hug, his dad held a switch.
Until now, he had been lenient because there was no mom, but from now on, he wouldn’t be lenient even for mom’s sake.
“Huh, this is a complete twist.”
He used to say that if a child doesn’t listen, it’s because of the adults who couldn’t guide them properly. Did he force his child to listen by beating him?
“But how much would you be scolded if you deceive your dad?”
“So you’re saying you won’t do it?”
Seung Yul, who thought she had agreed to help and had been explaining his longwinded story, ended his sentence annoyed and narrowed his eyes.
“If you don’t help, you won’t be needed as a teacher.”
Oh, now he’s even threatening the teacher.
“Fine.”
Hyo Jin, who saw the corners of the boy’s mouth rise in triumph, bit her lower lip as if to warn him.
“Just so you know, I’m not agreeing to your request because you said you don’t need me as a teacher.”
“Then why are you agreeing to the request?”
“You don’t need to know that.”
Tch. Seung Yul snorted as if she was being stingy.
“Just this once.”
Of course, lying was wrong, but there was no reason not to understand the feelings of Hyo Jin, who had raised her younger brother in place of her mother who passed away early in her middle school years.
Every time her friends teased her about not having a mom, I, her elder sister, had to go and scold them instead.
“You’re not going to do that at school, are you?”
As soon as she said she would act as his mother, Seung Yul tilted his gaze and scanned Hyo Jin from top to bottom as if to evaluate her.
“Why? What’s the problem now?”
She thought it would be over if she agreed to be his mom.
Hyo Jin swallowed dryly, feeling a sense of ominousness at the end of the child’s gaze that had moved from her clothes to her face and then to her hair.
“Follow me.”
When scheming men desperately battle for her favor in the male harem
This one’s also on my reread list! The rivalry, scheming between the men in the imperial harem are just as intense and thrilling as in classic palace drama novels, where concubines fight to the death. Give it a read, girls! I promise you won’t be disappointed.
Synopsis:
“I am not worthy of her… but I still want to be by her side, even if only as a loyal dog…”
Those were the painful whispers of Yue Guanyi – the proud Crown Prince of the Great Qi, who was torn between deep love and a guilty conscience. Despite holding the supreme power of the Imperial Guard, he still could not forget the dark past when he was sold into a brothel.
Fate played a cruel twist when Qiu Shuzhi – a young female official who had just passed the imperial examinations with top honors – stepped into his life. She did not know that she was the one who had saved him from a tragic fate many years ago. And now, her heart was the target of pursuit for both Yue Guanyi and the powerful Empress Dowager Qin Qing.
While Yue Guanyi only dared to silently care for and protect the one he loved from afar, the Empress Dowager Qin Qing openly expressed his feelings and did not hesitate to take advantage of his power to approach Qiu Shuzhi. The covert struggle between the two most powerful forces in the imperial court began…
Trigger warning: All men in this novel are yandere style.
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