Window to freedom °•Minsung•°

9)

"....pleeeaaase Jisung" cooed Julia, surrounded by her small friend group.

Since they were the ones who contribuited to class the most and asked questions more frequently than others, Jisung had subconsciously learned all their names.

"Yeah, it'll be fun" added Beomseok.

"I don't know-" he tried.

"Oh come on" Nagyung, Julia's best friend batted her eyelashes:
"Your friends from the bar will be hosting it, you know"

"Lix and Hyune are hosting the start-of-year party?? Still??"

Apparently his friends hadn't let go of their old habits either.

"Wait-" the realisation hit him then:
"How do you know we're friends?"

"We saw you guys laugh togheter one morning and just...assumed" Matt explained cheerfully.

"Oh, ok" Jisung hoped with all of his heart that they hadn't been stalking him:
"Fine...I'll come"

"Yay!" jumped Julia:
"See you there, then!"

Jisung watched the students walk away, giggling between themselves. He hadn't anticipated this weird popularity he seemed to have with the students... he had always assumed Mr Lee would be the loved one. Not that he wasn't...he was just a bit...controversial.

"What was that?" asked the upper mentioned professor then, sounding genuinely curious.

"They want me to come to a party, apparently" he shrugged.

Minho raised an eyebrow:
"Is that ok here?"

"Yeah" Jisung answered simply as they both started following in the students' steps towards the exit:

"The start-of-year party is kind of a campus wide event. The professors usually get the invite by mail too...I guess they don't have mine thought, 'cause I'm not exactly a professor"

Minho seemed surprised by this:
"Huh. Wouldn't you look at that."

"It's Saturday evening I think" Jisung informed him.

But Minho didn't seem to hear him: he had spotted a professor who was walking quickly to the exit.

"Gotcha" he hummed:
"Jisung could you hold this stuff one sec"

And out of nowhere Jisung found himself holding a leather bag, a pile of books and a phone as Minho ran after that one professor.

"Uhm allright. So this happened"

he told himself. He was standing in the middle of the corridor, unable to move, weighted down by all that stuff. It was extremely embarassing.

And on top of it all, of course Mr Lee's phone started ringing. Jisung groaned then walked very slowly, trying not to trip to the next bench and placed down the books. Then he picked up the device.

Somehow, what he saw made him feel even worse.

A contact named:
"Wife<3" was calling.

Something in Jisung seemed to break as he stared blankly at the screen.

"Of course" he told himself:
"Of course he has a partner. Why...why would I assume he was single? How stupid of me...stupid..."

He let out a choked laugh. He couldn't believe he had let himself hope... Hope for what even? For this insanely talented, insanely clever, insanely handsome older guy to notice him? Really??

He placed the phone back on the books and sat down, letting it ring.
After a few seconds it stopped.

Jisung felt nauseous.

Right that moment Minho came jogging back to him:

"Sorry, needed to clear some things up for our laboratory classroom. Are you ok?"

"Someone called" Jisung said in a monotone.

"Oh. " Minho frowned:
"Did you see who?"

"No" lied Jisung.

"It's allright" Minho conceded:
"I'll call them back. Come on, let's go...you look exhausted. Teaching for the first time really drained you, huh?"

Jisung wanted to slam his head into the wall or throw himself into moving traffic. Instead, he went along with it.

It was all so much more frustrating because he wasn't supposed to be hurt. But he was. He was.

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