"Sunny! You're finally awake! Principal Lee and Rai are here!" I opened my eyes.
"Where are we?" I asked groggily.
"Hospital. Don't you remember what happened? We got hit by a car yesterday."
"I don't remember."
"they did say you hit your head." I tried sitting up, and my ribs hurt.
"Ow! Ow! Ow!"
"You had a few broken ribs too. It'll hurt for a while."
"That's just great. Anyway. Hi Mr. Frankenstein, Rai, New person. Who's the new guy?" I asked.
"He's a coworker." Mr. Frankenstein said.
"At the school or …."
"Yes."
"Oh! Awesome! That means you're my coworker too. I'm Mi-Sun. Twenty-two. Not a high school student and I look much better than this every day. Really nice to meet you." I flashed my most flirtatious smile then tried extending my hand for a handshake, but the movement hurt my ribs. "Ow! I guess no handshake. Regardless. It was nice to meet you." I waved, and he nodded.
"Did you have to say your age?" Shin-Woo asked.
"Yes, I did. I'm in a room with the three high school kids. I feel I have to state that I am an adult, not one of you."
"We'll be leaving now."
"Already?! How about if Rai stays?" Shin-Woo asked. Rai turned and walked towards the door.
"Bye, Mr. Frankenstein! Bye, new guy! Feel free to come back for the next visit!" I beamed.
"What was that about, Sunny?" Shin-Woo asked.
"What? Oh…you mean me talking to the ruggedly handsome man? That was me talking to the quiet, ruggedly handsome guy."
"He's not that handsome."
"To you. I think Yuna would disagree." We both looked at Yuna, and she was blushing. "Point made. I wonder where he'll be working."
I called Haru and told her what happened and why I didn't come back. She offered to come to visit, and I asked her to bring my stuff from her place. She stayed for a while, chatting before she left.
That next day, I had plenty of time to work on my assignments. However, Shin-Woo spent most of the morning complaining about how boring it was.
"I should call Rai and tell him to come to hang out."
"Why? So you can make him bored too?"
He ended up calling Rai and inviting him for a visit. A few hours later, Rai showed up in the room. He was holding a banana.
"Is the banana important?" I asked them. They all shrugged. Roughly ten minutes after that, Mr. Frankenstein and the new guy showed up in the room.
"Principal Lee! Did you come with Rai?" Shin-Woo asked.
"No. He left the house five hours ago." I tried to contain my laughter while the rest of them were surprised.
"He's still new here, so getting lost isn't such a big deal. I used to get lost all the time when I moved here."
"Anyway, Principal Lee! We're bored. When can we go back to school?"
"You want to go back to school, Shin?" I took out my phone and turned the camera on. "I need you to say that again. I need your mom to know I'm a good influence."
"You should be able to go back to school next week."
"Does this mean the murderer has been caught?" Ik-Han asked.
"Yes. It was a murder/suicide. It's safe now." Mr. Frankenstein said.
"The who?" I asked.
"Someone murdered a whole bunch of people in a hospital close to home."
"Yikes."
"Since school restarts next week, you should be able to start tutoring, Mi-Sun. So far, we've had ten students sign up."
"That's great! Where will you be working, new guy?"
"He'll be working security."
"Cool! Wait. Is it safe to go back home now? I don't want to keep sleeping on a couch."
"Yes. Once you leave here, you can go back to your home."
"Great! Can't wait to leave."
We spent another three days in the hospital before we could go back home.
After settling down, we got back into our groove. Ye Ran finally opened up, and I had my first day of tutoring. I made sure to look my very best in case I ran into the new guy. Since I was supposed to meet with Mr. Frankenstein right before school let out, I trekked to the school.
"Hi, new guy. Is this your first day?"
"It is."
"How do you like it? Besides having a bunch of high school kids ogling at you, I'm assuming."
"It's just fine."
"You're not much of a talker, are you?"
"Not necessarily."
"Well, gotta go. I've got to teach English to a bunch of high school kids. See you around, new guy! I'm sure I'll get more out of you eventually." I waved and gave him a flirtatious smile.
"Good luck on your first day." He said in English.
"Nice! An English speaker. We'll need to have a conversation sometime. I'll see you around."
My tutoring session lasted about two hours before I had to end it. I made sure all the students had left before I walked out of the school. I walked to the front of the school and spotted the new guy again.
"Where'd you learn English from?"
"Work."
"I'm guessing that's where you learned Korean too?"
"How did you know?"
"After three-plus years in Korea, I ended up learning the difference between native speakers and non-native speakers. Mostly because people pointed it out about me all the time."
"Where are you from?"
"California. Born and raised. You?"
"Japan."
"Nice! Are you going to keep your name a mystery? Or if you're in witness protection, I can just give you a name."
"What name would you give me?"
"Hmmm…" I looked at him. "Japanese, English, or Korean? Think carefully because that'll be your name for a while. Or maybe I should keep changing it when I find a better one. I think I'll do that. Ok. Today, I'll go with Gray. That's only temporary, although I feel it goes with that whole, ruggedly handsome and mysterious guy demeanor you have going on."
"That's fine, I guess."
"Do you mind if I see your phone? Don't worry. I won't look at your messages or anything." He hesitantly handed his phone to me. I put in my number and texted myself, then handed it back to him. "There you go. Now, if I change my mind on the name, I'll let you know. Or if you need to text me anything."
"Sunny?"
"That's what my friends call me. Mi-Sun is fine too. Anyway, I have to head out. I don't want to walk in the dark. Since my ribs are still recovering, I can't ride my bike, so it'll take me a while. I'll see you around, Gray!" I waved at him and began my walk home.
"That new guy lives in Principal Lee's house."
"Does he now? What's his name?"
"I don't know. No one mentioned it. I think Yuna likes him."
"I can see why. I got his number, though."
"How did you manage that? You don't know his name."
"You're not the only one who knows how to talk to people. And no one saves people by their names. I have you saved in my phone as the redhead emoji and the karate one. And it's a conversation starter. The whole trying to get his name thing."
"Whatever."
"You should be happy. If I end up dating him, Yuna can't like him, right?"
"Oh, yeah! Good point."
On my second day of tutoring, I had about six additional students show up. Mr. Frankenstein extended the session for another hour and a half and added extra pay for me. By the time I left the tutoring session, I was exhausted, and my voice was hoarse. I hadn't seen Gray when I came in, but he was by the building when I left.
"Hey, Gray." I sleepily greeted him with a raspy voice.
"Hello, Mi-Sun. You sound a bit tired."
"I had sixteen students today. I have a feeling some of them did not come for the tutoring. I'd love to stay and talk, but it's getting dark, and I need to grab some food on my way home."
"Would you like me to walk you home?"
"If you have the time, I wouldn't mind."
"I just have to let the boss know."
"Sure. I'll wait here."
He went into the building then came back out a few minutes later. We walked to the grocery store, and I picked up ingredients for ramyun.
"Thanks for walking me home, Gray. You're welcome to stay for dinner if you want. It should take me about thirty minutes to cook. Shin-Woo probably won't be back until later. I'm guessing he's either at Mr. Frankenstein's house or Ik-Han's, thank goodness."
"Sure."
We had dinner, and somehow, I ended up talking his ears off despite my hoarse voice until it was time for him to go.
"Thank you for sticking around. I'll see you tomorrow."
"Thank you for dinner."
"Not a problem. You're more than welcome back for another dinner. Hope I didn't talk your ears off."
"I didn't mind it. Have a good night."
"Good Night!"
I kept up my routine with my classes and the tutoring, noticing that the number of students I had changed from week to week. I had twelve consistent students, and others just showed up occasionally. I learned from Shin-Woo and Ik-Han that some of the senior guys were showing up because they were hoping for a chance to ask me for my number.