True Mates Book One: The Setlist

Chapter Two: Naptime Quotes

"Your kids are great," Jimin tells me.

It's lunch time, and we had just walked them down to eat. Now we were back in my room.

"Thanks. I like them," I said as I started cleaning up the mess from them painting earlier. "I'm gonna cry when they go to Kindergarten. I've had them for two years."

"I think that they're going to have a hard time, too," he says, giving me a soft smile. "They really love you."

"More than one of them has told me that they don't want to go to Kindergarten, they just want to stay with me forever," I say with a shrug. "You can sit in my chair to eat if you want, I'll sit on the floor." I sit down with my back against the wall behind my desk.

"You think that'd I'd let you sit on the floor by yourself?" He carries his lunch tray over and sits down beside me. "What kind of guy do you think I am?"

"I was just trying to be nice," I tell him. "You're the guest here. Besides, I usually sit back here on the floor."

Jimin takes in our surroundings, then leans to the side to see around my desk, then back at me. "Because it's a good place to hide?"

"Exactly!" I tell him with a giggle. "If you don't hide, then other teachers will come in and ask you for favors. And they know that I will pretty much do anything for anyone, so they rarely leave me alone if they see me sitting at my desk alone."

"That's pretty smart of you to hide, then," he says with a laugh.

"Too bad that it took me six months to figure it out."

"Uh-oh," he said, as he stirred his spaghetti around on his plate. "What kind of things did they ask for?"

"Umm...me to take their recess duty, or morning drop-off duty, me to draw them something, because I was an Art teacher before switching to PreK, so of course, they think that I'm just dying to draw them a huge sketch the size of my car. For free," I say. I can't help but laugh. Really, some of this stuff is ridiculous. "One of them once asked me to bake cookies for the bake sale for their child, because they just didn't have the time. And I get asked to grade papers for them or make copies for them all of the time."

"And you did some of that?" he asks after swallowing the bite in his mouth. "This spaghetti is really good, by-the-way."

"Oh I did all of that. I hate telling people no," I say. I shrug again. "I'm not a push-over or anything, I just hate seeing that look of disappointment on someone's face. It'll keep me awake for a week." I look down at the remaining spaghetti on his tray. "This was a good day to come. Not everything here should be consumed by actual humans, but spaghetti day is good."

"I'll remember that for the future," he says. He holds up one finger, then the other. Spaghetti day, good. Non-spaghetti day, bad."

"Why would you need to know that for the future?" I ask. I watch his face as I put a fork of green beans in my mouth.

He shrugs. "In case I want to come and visit again."

"Why in the hell would you want to do that?" I ask him with a laugh. I can't help it. What person in his position would want to come back to a PreK class again?

"I don't know," he says, shrugging again, then giving me a crooked smile. "The cute teachers?"

"Your ability to flirt with anything that walks proceeds you, Park Jimin," I say. I lean over and bump his shoulder with mine.

He laughs. "Damn. I sometimes forget how much people know about me."

"It's kinda easy to forget that you're an idol," I tell him. "You're so...normal. And kind. You've been amazing with my kiddos. Thank you."