english teacher - Kim Taehyung

part three

i want him so bad, so i've been getting detention slips.

***

While not listening the whole time class was going on, the end was much worse. I had quickly packed up, hoping Mr Kim had forgotten about me. That was hard to do of course with sitting right at the front. Damn my thinking.

Before I could even take a whole step out the door once the bell rang, he called out for me by last name in his deep voice. For some reason, I got chills down my spine from hearing him. Slowly turning around on my one foot, I can see he wasn't even looking my way. I put my foot down and shuffle to the side, letting everyone else go by to leave school. Some people threw lingering glances behind them and I could already tell gossip and rumours would spread even more now about me.

Once everyone was out of the room, Mr Kim spoke again, "Close the door." I turned around and shut the door. The sound of the door shutting completely made it seem like my fate was sealed, he was probably going to ask so many questions about why I failed in English even though I had taken it the year before. He'd probably also yell at me for it, seeing as how he had tattoos and looked pretty intimidating. I knew Jimin couldn't save me from this like usual since he was the class president of his class and had duties to attend to.

Turning around finally, I see that Mr Kim has placed a piece of paper on my desk and he was now standing next to it. I walked over to him and saw it was a paper with English words on it. Glancing up at him, he motioned to it. I picked it up and read over it. The directions were simple, just translate the words. They were easy words, just the basics, nothing like what we were supposed to learn this year. Before I could ask Mr Kim about it, he beat me to it and said, "I want you to finish this paper by the end of the week. Memorize each word and I'll quiz you on Friday."

I nodded my head quickly at him and then he waved me off, telling me to leave the classroom. I quickly obliged, nearly running out of the room and the building to go home. Something was starting to feel off inside of me, and I did not want to find out what it was.

~

For the whole week, I surprisingly took the English paper seriously. I would just hole up in my room, studying the words and memorizing the meanings. I even used a dictionary for once in my life!

On Friday, I got pretty nervous. The last class had come and I could barely listen to Mr Kim. He had to scold me twice to keep listening and not zone off. Finally, the end had come with the ringing of the school bell. Everyone rushed out, but some noticed that I wasn't rushing out like normal too, they noticed me lagging behind. 

When everyone left, Mr Kim told me to shut the door again. He then said, "Give me the paper." I obliged and handed it to him, waiting for him to do something now. He read it over for a few moments, clearly seeing if I actually tried or not. When he was finally done, he looked up at me, startling me a bit. I fidgeted a bit, not used to feeling this way with a teacher, to say the least, I was uncomfortable.

I was usually cool-headed and could hold my own when talking to teachers, especially my math teacher from last year, he was a really scary old guy. But for some reason, I was just different being with Mr Kim.

"I can see you tried, now let's see if you tried enough to actually learn it," Mr Kim said while getting out of his seat and going around to the front of the desk, leaning against it facing me.

He started asking questions about the paper, spellings, definitions, how to put it into a sentence. He didn't show any emotion or hints if I was getting it right or not which left me on edge. All I could see him doing was making marks on my paper.

After I had answered the last question to the last word, Mr Kim moved from his spot and walked up to me. He handed me the paper which I saw was covered in ink. My mood immediately went down, until I saw what was at the top. A 1 and two zero's. A perfect score. I went back to the ink and saw how he had praised me in the way I pronounced words and how I used them in sentences. A feeling of pride arose in me. When I looked back at Mr Kim, he was actually smiling. He had a very nice smile, it was boxish in a way and really didn't make him seem like a bad person. In a way, I liked it, maybe more than I should.

After staring at him for a bit too long, Mr Kim finally spoke, "You did a good job, I'm really proud of you, now we just have to work building you up to speed as your peers."

I quickly looked away from him, feeling myself heat up a bit from my staring. Why was this happening to me?

I barely listened to the rest of what he said, thinking to myself instead. 

All of a sudden, I saw a piece of paper in my line of vision. It was another English paper, but clearly harder. I snapped out of my dazed state and looked at him again. He had a smirk on and said, "What? Are you that surprised you got a good score?"

He laughed after that sentence. Hearing his laugh was music to my ears.

What are you thinking? That's not right!

Shaking my head from both my thoughts and what he said I just sheepishly laughed, sounding very forced.

"Well, I have another piece of paper here, now it's your choice if you want this now to do over the weekend, or I can just give it to you on Monday," he said, looking straight into my eyes.

Clearing my throat, I thought about it. I wanted to hang out with Jimin this weekend and have some fun with him now that the school week was over finally. I was sure about my decision to just get the paper on Monday.

But I did something that surprised myself.

I said I would take it today.

***