English Education

CHAPTER THE FOURTH

Every question I asked him was met with a smooth, albeit accented response. A real conversation and not a Frankenstein creation of jumbled word parts. With every answer he gave, his smirk only grew, and I became more and more confused.

"Okay, Min Yoongi. What's going on?" I asked, tired, irritated, and definitely not in the mood for any kind of game.

"Nothing. We're having a conversation."

"Yes. In English. With zero problems."

"Yes."

"How?!" I threw my hands up and huffed at him.

"I speak English." He was as nonchalant as ever.

"But I'm here to teach you English. I thought you didn't speak any of it. Everyone thought you didn't speak any of it." 

"Uh-huh."

"After all that talking and now you decide it's a good time for one-word answers?" My irritation level was only rising the more time I spent talking to him. All the videos were right. Yoongi had chaotic energy through the roof.

"Yep." Again with the monosyllabic answers!

"Okay, if you speak English so well, and have no problems with it whatsoever, then why the hell does no one know?" 

He leaned forward, trying to loom intimidatingly despite still looking like a perfectly perched cat. "Do you really think I want to work as hard as Namjoon does every time we leave the country?"

"What do you mean?" As confused as I was, I was just glad we were actually getting somewhere.

"Do you have any idea how much work goes into one interview? Joon is one of only the people that travels with us that speaks English well enough to actually get us anywhere. He talks to the interviewers, the hotel concierge, the waiters at all the restaurants we go to. Everyone. It's all him. He translates everything both ways. It's a lot of work, and as much as I love that man, I barely have enough in me to make music, let alone act as face, name, and Rosetta Stone." He got more and more animated as he talked, and the amount of effort it took not grin like loon was immense.

I heaved a sigh, reigning in the side of me that want to freak and fan over him. "Well, I guess I get that. I have as much to learn about you guys as you do about English."

He grimaced, quirking up the corner of his lip and scrunching his nose. "Do I really have to take lessons? I speak English just fine."

"Dude, if Namjoon has things to work on, you do too."

"Yes, but I don't want to." 

"Yes, but you need to."

"But I don't want to."

"But you need to."

"No."

"Are we really doing this?" I was more exasperated with him than any and all of my kindergarteners combined.

"But I really don't want to!" He whined.

"Fine," I sighed. "I'll cut you deal. Last lesson of the day, fifteen minutes. You can pretend your progressing slowly in interviews and whip out a word here and there to keep up your sleepy but crazy image."

He smiled like the Cheshire cat. "Ten minutes and it's a deal."

I rolled my eyes at him. "Fine."

And then it was just like a YouTube video. The excited little squeal, the way he jumped around, the smile that showed more gum than teeth. For the first time today, I was truly starstruck.

"Well," he slumped back down into his chair, patting my leg as he did so. "Both of us are exhausted, what do you say we call it a night? Besides, I'm sure if I stay in here any longer, Mother Jin will accuse me of scandalizing the staff."

And he was out of there before I could even be offended. Huffing out a breath, I spun in my chair trying to clear the fog from my head. This was already shaping up to be the most interesting thing I would ever do in my life. All these amazing, gorgeous, talented people looking up to small, ordinary, average me. I decided to box up that thought, and put it away until I was caffeinated enough to deal with it.

Sighing yet again, I grabbed everything I had when I came in, called Jae-Woo, and deflated into a chair in the lobby to wait. It felt like half a century before my phone dinged with a message saying the chauffeur was here and ready to take me home. It had been a hot twenty-four hours since I'd slept and even longer since I'd showered, and I was beyond ready to do both.

The complex Jae-Woo pulled up to was way beyond what I'd imagined. A few people I knew had gone to Korea and Japan to teach English for a year and all complained about the shoe boxes they lived in. This was luxury at it's finest. Never in my life had I set foot in a high-rise and here I was, about to live in one. Jae-Woo gave me the apartment number and sent me on my way, clicking my heels in delirious joy. 

The floors were a smooth, shiny wood, a warm accent compared to the grays of the modern furniture. Everything from the white of the walls to the light let in from the windows worked together to create a clean, fresh atmosphere. I might be one to lean a little more towards clutter and knick-knacks, but this place definitely had me tempted to change my ways. Dragging my bags into the bedroom, I threw everything I could into a corner, face planted onto the bed, marveled at its plushness for a split second, and promptly passed out.

Figuring out Min Yoongi was going to have to wait until tomorrow.