A Birthday Two Sleeps Away
The day had come to end two days of rest and return to the kindergarten.
I packed my work bag and struck up a conversation with Nabi.
"Nabi."
Still, thanks to the kid chattering nonstop these past two days — except while I was asleep — its speech had gotten noticeably smoother.
Fair enough, after all that racket.
Coaxing and soothing it out of threatening to drag me off to Neverland had drained my soul clean out of my body. On top of that, from day one of the break I'd been laid out with body aches, half-dead and barely crawling back.
Even as my eyes kept drooping shut, I was so worried the kid would pull something that I woke up once an hour to check on it.
And then, finally unable to stand it any longer, I had proposed a few rules to Nabi.
"Now, what were our rules again?"
I'd drilled them in so hard there wasn't a spare second to forget.
I asked as I tucked Nabi into the front pocket of my bag.
"……Fine."
Swallowing everything I actually wanted to say, I fished the white puppy doll back out of the pocket and hooked it onto the zipper pull instead.
"So, what was our first rule?"
"Correct~ Next one."
The Neverland ad fiasco had taught me something. I couldn't explain how, exactly… but this thing moved around with surprising freedom.
It opened the door all by itself and stepped right out.
I was certain the core was inside the doll, yet it didn't seem to take itself out whenever it moved….
And more than once or twice, I'd nearly had a heart attack when it came scampering after me like an Annabelle doll every time I moved around the house.
The one mercy is that since then, it's never once shown its true form.
Was it simply something that couldn't reveal itself easily? Or did it just move however it pleased?
……I hadn't the faintest idea.
Which meant I needed to at least lock in the constraint of talk first, then move before I could sleep easy.
"Next one~?"
This one was purely preventive.
If I left it home and went to work, there'd be no living with the tantrum it would throw about being bored. And honestly, it made me anxious too.
The more dangerous the being, the safer it feels to keep it close where I can watch it.
On the way to the kindergarten, I had deliberately labeled the kids in my class — the ones Nabi would be meeting — as its 'friends.'
Then I'd casually tacked on: 'But I'm your very best friend, so let's keep a little distance from the others.'
When it asked why, I fudged it as me feeling hurt — and since it seemed to like that, it let the whole thing slide.
……Right. This way, I'd minimize its contact with the kids as much as possible, and set up grounds for showing mercy if the worst ever came to pass.
"And the last rule?"
"Correct. Wooo~ A perfect score."
This one mattered the most. The most!
Whatever it decided to do, I needed a system where I was the first filter in line.
Not that whether it would actually listen was any guarantee.
I gave a firm nod and slung my work bag over my shoulder.
Alright. Time for work.
With the monster — no, with my friend Nabi.
"Oh, our protagonist has arrived~"
"Wow, look who's here. And weren't you supposed to be resting, teacher?"
"……! You came…."
"Did the workers' comp go through for your injury, by any chance?"
The moment I stepped into the teachers' lounge — a full thirty minutes before my start time — the whole gang was already gathered.
One after another, Yoo Jinchae, Park Edeun, Kwon Haeseong, and Kang Sagwa greeted me as I walked in.
I smiled awkwardly and put on my apron. So the rumor mill made it all the way here, huh.
"I don't think workers' comp is happening. I was already patched up completely."
I'd woken up to find myself practically rebuilt from scratch, so any thought of filing a claim had evaporated on the spot. Only natural, considering I'd summoned a therapist whose fees were astronomical and put her through hard labor.
"But seriously, what on earth happened?"
When I turned around, Park Edeun was peering at me with unmistakable curiosity.
What happened, indeed.
Everyone except Kwon Haeseong looked ready to die of not knowing.
"Didn't Haeseong tell you?"
You'd think he'd have given me a heads-up by now, coming in early like that.
"Ah~ We wanted to hear it from you rather than from Haeseong, teacher."
"Besides, Haeseong says he doesn't really know what happened either."
"That teacher is just an idiot."
Kang Sagwa's scathing assessment nearly wrung a nod out of me before I could stop myself.
He does have a bit of a dim streak, it's true.
I made my way over to where they were sitting on the sofa, dragging along a chair that had been parked against the wall.
When I looked up, several pairs of eyes were fixed squarely — and only — on me.
Hm?
For people dying of curiosity… something feels off.
For a crowd about to pounce on the freshest gossip from two days ago, there was a distinct absence of their usual buzz. If anything, they looked a little tense.
Since when did they act like this?
Kang Sagwa and Kwon Haeseong were stealthily exchanging glances, while Park Edeun smiled and nudged the plate of cookies on the table toward me. And Yoo Jinchae wore her usual sunny expression… except the corner of her mouth was twitching ever so slightly.
"Before that, there's something I'd like to ask."
Don't tell me she's still being territorial?
I've never been on the receiving end of it — so this is how it feels?
Well, this much is honestly kind of cute.
Completely at ease, I unwrapped a cookie Park Edeun had passed me, popped it in my mouth, and went on.
"Did you all meet here at the kindergarten? You seem very close."
I'd considered asking Haeseong separately, but since the moment had presented itself, might as well. It doubled as a way to steer the conversation somewhere else, too.
How was I supposed to explain all of that? Tired. So tired.
"Wow, is it that obvious we're close?"
Park Edeun covered his mouth in exaggerated surprise. I cracked open another cookie and answered.
"Yeah — the way you keep slipping in and out of casual speech with each other, and you just called Haeseong an idiot a minute ago. Figured you must all be really tight."
Then again, stick anyone together in a place like this for a year and camaraderie is bound to bloom — it can't help itself.
I got close with my own cohort pulling all-nighters through practicum week, after all.
The more miserable the environment, the tighter comrades bond. That's simply the law of nature.
"Ah~ Haeseong and I met at my old job. Sagwa's my cousin. And Edeun, I met here for the first time."
Yoo Jinchae counted them off on her open palm, pointing at each in turn.
Oh, an unusual mix.
An old coworker, family, and a comrade-in-arms, all rolled into one group.
No wonder it had felt like something more than simple workplace solidarity.
So then, Park Edeun was just the type whose good nature lets him fit in anywhere.
"Ah, so that's why you're all so close."
From there I kept the conversation rolling with the right reactions and a bit of light small talk. Before I knew it, the topic had wandered off into the weeds entirely.
I rose from my chair with a satisfied smile, thoroughly enjoying the chat.
"Oh my, look at the time. Cheonji's arriving ten minutes early today, so I'll head over first."
I gave a little wave to the dazed-looking bunch. As I left the room, I caught a glimpse of Kang Sagwa seizing Kwon Haeseong by the collar — and graciously pretended not to see.
Click.
Perfect. Now Haeseong can explain it all over again.
If I let them drain too much out of me here, I won't have the energy left to play with the kids.
Nabi needed attending to, the backlog of paperwork wasn't going to clear itself — there was simply too much to do.
Meanwhile, a heavy silence settled over the teachers' lounge Na Hwiyeon had so breezily abandoned.
Kang Sagwa, utterly at a loss, had seized Kwon Haeseong by the collar and was squaring her shoulders at him anyway.
"……S-Sagwa…"
Kwon Haeseong looked at Yoo Jinchae with the pleading eyes of a condemned man. It was a silent cry for help.
But Yoo Jinchae turned her head away and slowly crossed her legs. Park Edeun just kept munching his cookies.
"What are we supposed to do if he quits?"
At last, Kang Sagwa let the strength drain from her arm and slumped onto the sofa, muttering.
"……Nothing we can do, I suppose."
Fierce glares flew at him from every direction over that perfectly reasonable statement.
What, then? Should all of us go clawing at his sleeves and beg?
Truthfully, no one at this kindergarten wanted to keep Na Hwiyeon more than Kwon Haeseong did.
He was the one who had spent those days attached to the man as the neighboring class, and the one who had slogged through every horror that dungeon had to offer at his side…!
"Wow, but how does he look that calm after going through all that chaos?"
"Maybe he was just working very hard to look calm~"
The truth was, they'd already heard a good deal about that day's events through Kwon Haeseong. And yet they had gone out of their way to wait for Na Hwiyeon to come in and ask him all over again — because….
"He's not an easy man to get close to~"
"But even if we did get close, shallow feelings like these wouldn't stop him from quitting, would they?"
"……Are we just being a bother to him?"
To get closer to him.
And by doing so, to stop Na Hwiyeon from resigning.
Looking at Na Hwiyeon's monk-like smile, Kwon Haeseong had already sensed that none of this was necessary.
He's achieved enlightenment.
That attitude was exactly what Kang Sagwa had described — the bearing of a man with no lingering attachments left.
He's made up his mind to quit.
He simply could not forget the dead-serious face Na Hwiyeon had worn two days ago.
That had been the face of a man feeling the full weight of disillusionment.
"But his way with words is no joke. I snapped out of it and realized I'd told him where I live."
"Right~? I don't tell just anyone about the good restaurants around here, and he milked five of them out of me in the space of one conversation?"
Park Edeun and Yoo Jinchae's innocent admiration never reached the ears of Kang Sagwa and Kwon Haeseong.
The more they talked about how formidable Na Hwiyeon was, the higher the wall between them and him seemed to grow.
…Should he seriously grab the man by the pant leg?
Kwon Haeseong's worry deepened by the day.
Seeing the children after two days away made them all the more dear. I swept my gaze across the roomful of kids reading their picture books.
Each of them was sunk deep into their reading — sprawled on the sofa or leaning back against one another's shoulders.
And of course, Nabi was not to be left out.
……It held its shameless little plush face while I turned the page of the picture book laid out on the floor.
When Nabi saw the children reading during morning hours and announced that it wanted to read too, I deliberated and ultimately granted the request.
It's not like it was difficult.
I pulled the doll out of my bag, set it on the floor, and stacked a few picture books that looked reasonably fun in front of it. And our children, bless them, rewarded the scene with the most adorable misunderstanding.
"Your doll reads books too, teacher?"
"Nabi? Its name is Nabi?"
"Then mine too! My lizard reads books too!"
"Me too! Teacher, Seora does too!"
"I wanna do it too."
And the result was a scene that made anyone who looked at it go soft inside.
One by one, the children's own dolls had arranged themselves in a cozy circle around Nabi.
This side, at least, is supremely satisfied.
Nabi was even checking in on the doll beside it — Noah's.
Yes. Yes.
So flowed the peaceful reading hour, until a small sound pricked at my ears and turned my head.
Coming from that corner, isn't it?
In the cramped nook between the bookshelves, Noah sat curled up, clutching a picture book. I made my way over and crouched down in front of the child.
What could possibly be that funny?
He was trying his best to muffle his giggles, but they kept bursting out anyway.
Let's see, the title is… The Exciting Amusement Park?
A faint sense of foreboding made me turn my head toward Nabi, but that side showed no change — still utterly absorbed in its book.
Swallowing the spit that refused to go down, I whispered so that only Noah could hear.
"Noah, what's so funny?"
The child's two sparkling eyes lifted from the picture book.
"Teacher! Me… after two more sleeps, it's my birthday!"
"……!"
Oh. Right.
I immediately recalled the children's birthdays, which I'd memorized in advance. With only five of them, a few glances at the roster had been enough.
Noah's birthday was April 12th.
Two days from now. He's really telling the truth.
Kindergartens generally have a set way of handling the children's birthdays. Either they pick a day each month and celebrate them all at once, or — when circumstances allow — they throw a party on the actual day….
And I'd been so buried since starting the job that I'd gone and forgotten something this important.
Worse, Noah's birthday fell on a weekend, making a same-day party look difficult.
Which means tomorrow is the only window I've got.
But regardless of my fretting, Noah looked happy enough to float off the floor.
"Teacher! On my birthday, I'm going to Neverland with Mommy!"
"……Oh?"
"Mommy promised this time she'd really go with me! She said we'd play all day long!"
"Lucky Noah."
"Yeah! Not with Nam Taejae — just with Mommy!"
Clunk.
I stopped smiling mid-grin. I could feel a presence behind me.
Hold on. Don't tell me it's right behind me right now.
I fought with everything I had to keep my eyes on Noah and no one else.
I can't hear it.
I can't hear it.
"So Saturday this week, then? Lucky you. Have lots of fun."
"Yeah!"
Well… I did say that.
I said we'd go another time…
Suppressing a sigh, I finally turned my body around, racking my brain for how I was going to placate it this time.
If we blow the amusement park budget now, how am I supposed to refill that dopamine later?!
"Huh? It's teacher's doll. It was over there a minute ago? Now it's here?"
But the moment I came face to face with Nabi, every word I'd prepared evaporated.
What is it when I can't even see its face, yet I feel seen anyway?
……Refuse, and something tells me he'd take me there this very second. Straight up.
In the end, I spat my answer out toward Nabi.
"Fine… let's go. To Neverland."
Goddammit — this is exactly why loans are terrifying. Stretching the payments from this life clear into the afterlife, getting through it one day at a time.
Now THAT is what you call living on credit!