Begin: A Jungkook Story ✔

Chapter Six: Mr. Jeon the Math Tutor

Mr. Jeon:

"Jungkookah?" Jungkook was listening to music on his headphones while he played a video game. He bounced with the music while he moved his body with the video game controller. Mr. Jeon touched his shoulder, making Jungkook jump, and then laugh, when he saw it was just his Dad. He pulled down the headphones and paused his game.

"Jungkookah, I am going to start helping you with your math homework," Mr. Jeon said.

Jungkook's eyes widened and he looked nervous. He looked miserably back at his video game.

"Do you want to show me your game and finish this level before we start on your homework?" Mr. Jeon asked his conflicted son, with an understanding smile.

Jungkook's face broke out into a huge smile. "Sure! Okay! So you have to kill all these monsters," he said, unpausing the game and starting to shoot right away, "and then find your way through this maze and then you get the crystal and beat the level!" He continued to prattle on to Mr. Jeon as he played. Mr. Jeon wasn't watching the screen but watched his son, the joy on his face, the focus, the dedication.

"You are such a good boy, Jungkookah," he said suddenly as Jungkook paused speaking, with focus on the boss battle at the end. "Don't ever forget it."

Jungkook:

Too soon he had beat the level and his Dad was pulling his math book and homework out of his backpack and sitting down on the bed next to Jungkook's desk. Jungkook reluctantly pushed himself to his feet and slid into the chair at his desk.

"Show me what you've been working on in class, son," his Dad said, kindly.

Jungkook was ashamed suddenly. His parents didn't really know how stupid he was, how behind he was. It had been a long time since he understood math class well enough to even try at his homework. He had pretty much given up and yet the idea of failing and having to go to summer school, or worse, be made to repeat a grade, was unbearable. The anxiety about all of it had been too much to deal with, and he had just shoved it down and ignored it as much as he could. But here was his Dad, about to find out how stupid his son was. Jungkook swallowed in shame.

"Well... this is the homework for tonight," Jungkook said, laying his head down on the desk and shoving the paper at his Dad.

Mr. Jeon studied it for a minute. "What chapter is this from?" Jungkook opened the book.

Mr. Jeon met Jungkook's eyes and, Jungkook realized, he also looked nervous, and chuckled with embarrassment.

"It's been a while since I did geometry! I have to remind myself!" He picked up the book and skimmed through the chapter. "Okay, I think I remember this! Let's look at this first problem, how would you start?"

Jungkook looked at him helplessly, and Mr. Jeon pointed out the part of the text that broke the math down into steps. "It says right here, can you do these steps?" Jungkook tried, but eventually he wasn't sure what came next and threw down his pencil, tears coming hot to his eyes.

"This is stupid, I will never need to know this." It had been a long time since he had really tried at math, and this was why, he didn't get it no matter how hard he tried, it seemed stupid to even bother, he was awful at this.

"Not true at all, Jungkookah! Geometry is actually one of the most important math skills for an artist to have."

"What? That's not true," Jungkook said, skeptically.

"Yeah? How about this, let's both draw city scenes, and I will use geometry to draw mine and you won't and we will compare."

Jungkook couldn't help but smile. Only his Dad would help him with his Math homework by drawing. "Okay," he chuckled.