Teach You How To Love

Annoyance

I'm going to Disney with the school band! Hopefully it'll be fun!

Also, this is not edited!

***

About two years later

Mark sat in his classroom, watching the kids. They were sulkily working on a sheet of imaginary numbers. No one was happy. He didn't like it either. Nobody liked imaginary numbers, but they had to learn it.

At least the kids are behaving, he reflected. Then he chuckled. It was bad when that was something he rejoiced on; however, this was his worst class. He liked the students, but they were rowdy. He did have a few good kids, though. Like Lillian, who never said a word unless she was answering a question.

As he sat there, he started to think about what to do. He had nothing to do.

After a moment, he sighed and got a book. It was, from the students' point of views, a science book. Straight nonfiction. In reality, it was a fantasy book that was not for the eyes of children--not even high schoolers.

Mark read the book until there was a knock on the door. Someone went to go get it, and he glanced up. He hid a smile when he saw that it was Scott.

"Considering what the kids think of us," he said, "This is a terrible time. They were actually behaving!"

Scott laughed. "I don't have that problem," he said. "My kids are perfectly fine. They're perfect."

Mark rolled his eyes. "Why are you here?" he asked.

"You say it like you have better things to do," Scott teased.

"I do!"

"You were literally reading," Scott said. "Anyway, I need some advice for something. It has to do with measuring. Apparently, not one of the kids in my class can do math."

Mark smiled. "Alright," he said. "You need me to come with you?"

Scott nodded.

"Okay," Mark said. He looked at his class. "Behave yourselves."

They left the room.

_

"So, here's what you wanna do," Mark said. "You have to take this unit, 'cause it's useless. You want something more useful. What unit of measurement do you wanna use?"

"Meter, because it's easy," Scott answered.

"Then you turn this to feet. After you've done that, you divide by three for meters. Why can no one do this?"

"We haven't done this in math," someone said.

"You should have learned this in elementary school," Mark chided.

The person who had said that looked down.

_

"What were you doing with Mr. Hoying?" asked a smug student as Mark returned to class.

"Helping him, because the theatre kids don't know elementary school math," Mark replied.

There were a few snickers. Then, someone said, "When will you and Mr. Hoying get together?"

"We won't," Mark informed that student. "Even if we did, I might not tell you guys."

They had been advised by administration not to tell the students if they dated their co-workers. So, he was right. He hated lying to the kids, so that was good.

_

"I hate their questions," Scott grumbled. "They always want to know if we're dating yet."

"It's too bad we can't tell them," Mark said.

Scott nodded. "We can, but we aren't supposed to," he said. "As in, it would be a bad idea. Parents might get upset. Especially considering that we're a gay couple. They're not really too chill with us both being gay, imagine if they knew we were dating."

"I don't want to," Mark said softly.

"That's right," Scott responded. "But still...I wish we could do something--anything--about the rumors."

"I know," Mark agreed. "I want to tell them, to get them to shut up if not because I hate feeling like I'm lying to my kids. It's such an annoyance!"

***

This was a shorter one, but I think that's fine.