Idyllic Lover || Markmin

Renai Circulation

Jaemin should've seen it coming. It comes as no surprise when Jaemin hurries over to the board displaying their grades to see that he was sixth, a whole three ranks lower than what he got the last term. Dread fills him when he sees the teacher handling his scholarship appear to his left with a frown on his face. Surely getting called into the staff room with a tight smile wasn't a bad thing, right?

"Your grades have been dropping," is the first thing his teacher, Jung Jaehyun, says, gently pulling down his glasses to stare up at Jaemin from below his bangs. It's a little intimidating, the look his teacher was giving him. His nerves were already on edge from imagining what his parents were going to say to him when he got home, seeing Mr Jung practically glare was causing his stomach to twist in multiple directions.

"It's just two ranks," he tries to reason with a faint smile, which is soon wiped off when Mr Jung places his glasses to the side. Why did he put his glasses to the side, Jaemin thinks, unnaturally hiding his hands behind his back and unconsciously crossing his fingers every time Mr Jung makes the smallest move.

"Two ranks is a lot when it comes to a scholarship student, no?" Mr Jung replies with a grin, but it isn't just a normal grin, it's the one where he has his eyes shut and his veins popping from his temples. He's about to burst soon if Jaemin says another stupid thing and he really isn't looking forward to that. It's happened once before when he refused to go on a school trip that contributed to class credits and he ended up on the verge of tears because of how terrifying Mr Jung had become. He had pulled his hair back and looked down at Jaemin with his chin up high in the air and only at that moment did Jaemin get flashbacks to the time his friend told him about how Mr Jung used to be a popular delinquent in their area until he got into a relationship and fixed his life.

"I'll try harder," Jaemin swallows the rest of his sentence when Mr Jung turns to him in annoyance.

Jaemin braces himself as his teacher opens his mouth. "You said that last time when you got fourth and the time before that when you came second." He pauses and takes a deep breath, trying to calm himself down. "Look, Jaemin. I'm just worried for you, okay? Your parents will come for my throat if you fall below our standards and I really can't handle getting shouted at by them again. It's embarrassing enough that everyone knows about how I behaved when I was in high school, but it's worse when parents come in and yell about it in corridors."

To be honest, Jaemin does feel pretty bad about that, It was his fault that his grades were falling but Mr Jung had to take the blame for it because he was his supervising teacher. Mr Jung already had dark circles from the many students he handled and Jaemin just wanted to lessen his burden.

"I asked someone to tutor you." Mr Jung's words resonate through Jaemin before he snaps out of it and looks at his teacher with a face of surprise. "Oh, don't look so surprised. The kid I spoke to was more than happy to take you on."

"Is this person in my year?" Jaemin would be lying if he said it didn't hurt his pride to be tutored by someone the same age as him. Getting told that he got something wrong by them felt embarrassing, sort of insulting. Jaemin didn't have a big ego - he didn't think he was the smartest or anything - however, it still hurt his pride.

"No," Mr Jung says and Jaemin lets out a sigh of relief. "His name is Mark Lee, he's a year older, also a scholarship student who's currently ranked number one in our school."

Now that's pretty impressive. In all honesty, Jaemin found it pretty difficult balancing his daily life with studies. He didn't have a job or anything but had three younger siblings who required a lot of his attention since his parents often left home at random times for work.

"I'll give you his contact details, so just work out something with him yourself," Mr Jung reaches for his pen and scribbles some numbers onto the paper before handing it to him. "Remember, if you don't get your grades back on track before the end of the year, we'll have no choice but to drop you from our course."