Persuade ― Kim Jongdae

t w e n t y s i x

As soon as they walked into the room, the children all clapped and cheered at the sight of her. Like an automated response, she smiled as a couple of them ran towards her, quickly having her in their quite small, but warm embrace.

Not even given a moment to talk to her, he could see her being pulled away from him and sat in the middle of the circle of children. A cute tee-hee came out of his mouth and he slowly made his way next to her.

So, their usual routine of story-telling began. Even when they have been doing this for awhile now, he couldn't move on from the thought that the children are absolutely willing to listen to life stories she told.

The stories she told wasn't even sugar-coated to be like any fairytale. She conveyed on the true and shocking reality. The struggles of life and the untold stories behind the familiar faces and names.

But that couldn't compare to the shock of what would come afterwards. The children didn't once ask on why happy endings didn't happen in the story of those people, yet they gave out responses that were better than any adult could. Heck, most of them were the words growing adults wanted to hear to be assured they're doing alright with life!

A boy (probably at the age of 6, maybe 7, Jongdae didn't know because he's a bit bad at guessing one's age) went up and sat on his crossed legs. Jongdae let out a laugh and caressed the boy's hair as the boy fell into Jongdae's embrace.

"Aww, it's not fair that Hunnie's the only one being hugged by Jongdae hyung!" a whine came out of one of the other kids, making Jongdae and her laugh.

"Life's unfair like that, just like what our beloved princess here has said," using his other hand, Jongdae caressed her hair. She stared at him from the shock that he's being cheesy in from of the kids.

"You two look so good together!"

"Kyaaa, I would want a boyfriend like Jongdae oppa as well."

"I exist like why would you want a boyfriend like Jongdae hyung? His laugh is funny!"

Thus, the room began to fill with arguments. She couldn't help but smile as she let out a sigh, "You just had to be like this huh?"

"To show you that even in disagreements, it makes you push out your emotions, like what we both have been doing all this time. You say something, I disagree and it makes you vent out what you need to make you feel lighter. Or something like that. I don't think I have that much intelligence as they have."