What are the odds of seeing a stranger—who is only supposed to be nothing but a stranger—twice in a week? Wait, scratch that, it hasn’t even been a week yet. He was just here yesterday, even when I had vowed to myself to never see him again. When I had woken up this morning, I had long decided to think of yesterday as nothing but a dream. Me storytelling my whole life to someone whose name I don’t even have an idea about never happened to me.

Yet what are the odds of him coming back the very next day, offering to change my life like he’s the fairy godmother of my dull life? Well, if he is, then isn’t he too late already?

“I’m sorry, pardon?” I stared at him, aghast, as I feel my fingers gripped tightly to the glass of water in my hand like it’s my anchor. I can’t believe this.

The rich man, the very stranger yesterday who appeared out of nowhere and proceeded to ask me to tell how this world had cruelly molded me as if he just asked me if the sky is blue, stared at me with the most serious eyes and I felt that I should be intimated—but I feel ridiculed instead. He was as if he expected my reaction already, seeing as he held his expression well. “I want to adopt you, Jung Ah-yah.” he repeated.

My eyes are wide in an almost comical way, and even when I disliked being an open book to people, I was unable to hold myself back from reacting so. Usually, I could hold my expressions well, but this is the first time I had ever encountered such a situation. Well, who wouldn’t be shocked when a stranger you only met yesterday offered you to become his child?

And of course, there was being overwhelmed too. Thoughts flooded my head and my lips drastically dried, making me glance down to the glass of water in my hand and startling myself when I found out that I was so close to breaking it with just my bare hand already. Ironically, it seemed to portray me. Is this man pushing me to break? Is he insane? I barely know him, as he is also with me.

I feel thirsty, but I didn’t make a move to drink from my glass of water. After all, he offered it to me as it was originally his. I refrained my scoff from escaping. So that’s why he asked for a glass of water, it’s not for him but for me instead. He already expected it all, and it bothered me how he’s acting like he knows me so much already when I only told him how I had grown up to be who I am now—but that was just merely my exterior. He knows my life because I had stupidly allowed him to, but he doesn’t know me.

So instead, I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Adopt? As in you want me to be your child, to give me home, to feed me? Is that what you mean, sir?”

The man nodded his head, showing me documents he had taken out of his briefcase and which are all now scattered on the same table we sat on yesterday. I didn’t need to look down and read it—I know what they are already. The feeling of being ridiculed, inferior, increased tenfold. "You just need to sign these papers." I watched as he tugged on his suit and slid his hand to the pocket, and when he pulled his hand back, there was already a thin, small, yet shiny pen between his fingers. With how the small pen twinkled under the lights of the café, I stupidly feel like it costs more than my salary here.

I looked blankly at him, almost snorting in disbelief but held myself back just in time, remembering to stay respectful to people older than me. He’s still a customer too. “But sir, I don’t even know your name.” Though my tone of voice betrayed me from hiding my real overflowing emotions as my words came out a bit harsh— biting.

He didn’t answer. Aiming to distract myself, as the cup within me is already filled to the brim with a myriad of emotions, I turned my head away from him and looked around the café, suddenly wishing that there were more customers. The noise would have helped me this time; the silence is just making it all more deafening.

I looked back at the man. “You aren’t doing this because of sympathy… or pity, are you?” Because honestly? I don’t feel any euphoria right now. I don’t feel the urge to smile or cry in relief because someone finally chose me after all these years. I couldn’t feel any happiness or excitement. I don’t feel alive with this situation or offer. Unlike the children before in the orphanage, I’m not the happiest at the thought of a parental figure in my life. I had survived my life there, and I had also survived when I had gotten out of there. I’m not an orphan anymore. I’m used to living alone without anyone helping or supporting me. There was no hand that I had taken from the few that offered theirs to me—because I felt the same way as I felt now, I only felt ridiculed, like they think I was the child again back at the orphanage who longed days and night for parents to look longer at me than for just a few seconds. I could make my decisions now, and these people just appeared now to help when I don’t feel like I need help anymore.

And besides, I think that I could still endure my lifeless and boring life. This ambiguous rich man told me that I shouldn’t be losing hope in life, but I am not losing hope—I’m losing purpose.

I’m no Cinderella, and my life is no fairytale either. If he wants to act as my fairy godmother, then he probably got the wrong girl. I don’t think I’m fit for the shoe, and I don’t intend to try it on either.

“No, I’m doing this because I genuinely want you to be my child. It’s not out of pity,” he finally answered me, shaking his head firmly. I hate being pitied the most, and he should know it. I know I don’t have any expensive thing in me to have the privilege to be treated highly, but I have my pride. I have my dignity—as like any human out there. “People call me Mr. Kim. My full name is Kim Jong Suk and I can guarantee you that I’m not a bad person. I’m not a part of any bad circle and like I had said yesterday, I do not have any bad intentions and I wouldn’t hurt you. I could even let you talk to my lawyer for this matter.” This time, I was the one who kept my mouth shut. He put down the pen to the table and let out a small smile, and I didn’t understand the small encouraging smile that drew in his face. “You see? We can get to know each other, dear. Besides, I’m not a stranger to you anymore, as you are to me. We have already met and we even talked, which means that we are now at least acquaintances.” At that, his smile turned into a cheery grin.

That still doesn’t change anything, I thought, keeping my steely eyes trained on him, attempting to read him. I furrowed my brows then, letting a certain emotion come out as it was one of the most overwhelming— curiosity. Burning curiosity with a hint of bafflement. “But… why? Why me?”

Back then, at the orphanage, no parents had taken interest in me. They said it’s because I was always at the corner, alone and in my own world, but that’s who I was. I wasn’t the cheerful kid who giggled and loved rainbows. I found solace in being alone, and maybe… maybe that’s why I ended up like this.

In seventeen years of my life, it never failed to hit me just how unjust it is all. Why must society build standards? Why are those people who are already at the top of the chain, of the social ladder, able to stomp on people below them?

Why must I… a seventeen-year-old girl, be deprived of an easy life when I had done nothing ba