Amelioration || Choi Jiung

11

A few days later, I went to Jiung and Theo's house again right after school ended. This time, I came to study because Theo said that he will be my tutor.

I pressed the doorbell and soon, Theo opened the door for me.

"Hi," he greeted.

"Hi, thank you so much for helping," I smiled a bit.

"Don't thank me yet. I don't know how much I can help you."

We walked to the table. Theo was probably working there just now because his laptop was still laid open on the table.

I tried my best not to look at his stuff because it's rude but the website shown on his laptop was pretty... eye-catching.

Types of poison, huh?

Theo mumbled a "shit" under his breath, before heading towards his laptop and closing the tab, showing another one.

"What does blood taste like?" I quietly read out what was written in his google search.

Theo held up his hand, signaling to stop me from talking and closed the tab with his other hand. I could briefly saw a Wikipedia on the education of Taiwan before the screen showed a blank google docs.

The boy closed his eyes in despair before turning to me. "Look, I can explain—"

"You're a writer?" I decided to trust my gut and went with the answer in my mind.

Theo first widened his eyes in shock, then let out a long sigh.

"Yes, I'm a writer."

I grinned. I knew it.

"Oh, what a coincidence. I write too."

"Really?!" Theo was surprised, "ah, no wonder why you knew."

I pulled out a chair and sat down. "How's your work in progress?"

"Terrible. Might scratch this one and start over," he replied, closing his laptop, "give me a minute, I'll get something from my room."

After a while, he came out from his room with a stack of paper.

"Apparently you take society and culture and economics as subordinate subjects, right?" Theo asked. I nodded in response.

"Okay too bad, I can only help you with the core subjects then." He placed the stack of paper in front of me and put on his glasses. "Maths, specifically, because that's what I teach."

He teaches maths? He's a teacher?

"You are a student, a writer, and a teacher at the same time?" I asked, "you must be very busy."

I looked at the worksheets placed in front of me. Oh my god I already don't want to do them.

"The teaching part is an unofficial part time job. I also have another part time job, mostly at night," Theo replied as he took out some pens from his pencil case and a calculator. "Broke college student things. Well, Keeho takes two jobs too, but for fun."

Before I could ask more, he cut me off while he sat across me at the table, "we'll chat more later. Try to do some questions first. Put your phone on the table if it's going to distract you."

I picked up a pen and started doing the questions which are quite easy because it's probably a warmup.

I stole some glances at Theo. He was only staring at the math questions I'm doing. He looks cute with glasses.

But then handsome guys like him are usually either taken, gay, or they just don't like me in general, or all of the above.

"Your handwriting!" Theo exclaimed, a look of disgust on his face.