Blue Hour 2: A New Beginning || Yeonbin

ten: dinner

Yeonjun's POV:

"Appa, this is hard." Jochan said, pouting at his homework.

I turned my head from the sink, washing dishes from dinner. I saw him rest his head in his hand, dropping his pencil out of frustration. I sighed, his homework isn't supposed to take him this long, "Stuck again, bud?"

Jochan nodded as I grabbed a towel, drying my hands before walking over to him. I took the seat next to him, seeing how he was only halfway through his worksheet, "Which question?"

He pointed to his paper, the question reading: 9 – 6 = ?. He looked so sad as he said, "I get confused counting on my fingers."

I pursed my lips, trying to think of a way to explain it to him. I mean, for me this is a simple problem, but for him, it's challenging. Even though I'm a teacher, I don't teach math, so I don't know how to simplify this for him, "Which part of this is getting you stuck?"

"I don't get it. You can't see numbers; they're just written on the paper. How do I know how much it is?"

I thought of an idea as soon as he said that, quickly standing up and going to the fridge. I grabbed all the tangerines we had, struggling to carry them back to the table. I counted them quickly when I put them down, thanking everything we had exactly nine left. I turned to Jochan, softly saying, "How many tangerines do we have?"

He took a moment to count them, "Nine."

"Ok, so for the question, you'll always start with the first number, which is nine. Think of the minus sign as taking something away and the plus sign as getting something. Does that make sense?"

Jochan nodded, letting me continue, but before I could reply, I heard Soobin coming down the stairs. I looked over at him, seeing his hair still wet from taking a shower. He smiled at me and Channie, and I quickly gestured for him to come over to us. He raised an eyebrow but still walked over, "What's with the tangerines?"

"Math homework... Sit, sit..." I said, motioning for him to sit in the seat across from me. I turned to Jochan as he sat down, pointing to the problem as I said, "Let's say you and I have nine tangerines and then dad takes away six of them."

I looked over at Soobin, nodding my head so he would take them away. He understood and pushed away six of them, turning back to Jochan as I asked, "How many do we have now?"

Jochan counted them out, "Three."

I smiled and nodded, "Yeah, that's your answer."

"Ohhh..." He said, writing down his answer.

I looked at his paper, "What's the next one?"

"Four plus three."

"Ok, so how many tangerines are we starting with?"

"Ummm... Four?"

"Yes..." I said, grabbing a tangerine from Soobin so we would have four, "And then what does the plus sign mean?"

"Ummm... Daddy will give us tangerines?"

I smiled and nodded, "And how many is he gonna give to us?"

He paused for a moment, "Three?"

I nodded and Soobin quickly put three more tangerines in front of us, "And how many do we have now?"

Jochan counted them, "Seven?"

I nodded, "Yeah, Channie. Good job."

He smiled as he wrote down the answer, telling him, "Just imagine the tangerines in your head, ok?" I said, not wanting him to struggle when he doesn't have tangerines in school.