The slight squeaking was mildly irritating, but strangely addicting so Minjun pushed back in the chair once more, before he looked around the classroom and once again came to the same conclusion. This was a mistake.

Sure, this evening school was highly recommended (and it certainly was expensive enough), but Minjun was starting to think that his second choice would have been better, another school that specialized in English courses for business. In theory, a more general course had sounded great, but in practice it meant that it was filled with college students, making him feel wildly out of place.

Had college kids always been this young? They hadn’t felt this young when he was in college, which hadn’t been that long ago. Or maybe it had. Minjun felt old.

Sighing, he looked around again, and noticed at least one woman that was possibly over twenty five, but at least one third of the students were high school kids, probably preparing for their college entrance exam.

The classroom door was opened up and Minjun sighed again, this time in relief. If the teacher would come and start the lesson, hopefully it would end this terrible awkwardness. But he had to hold back a groan when it was just another student.

The newcomer was a rather short guy, wearing casual jeans and a sky blue hoodie, and his hair was brown and styled in a way that definitely required a significant amount of hair product. For no particular reason, Minjun’s eyes followed him as he casually walked between the neat rows of tables. Instead of sitting down like a normal person, he went straight to the front and picked up a pen, preparing to write something on the board. An uncomfortable feeling settled in Minjun’s stomach. If this kid was going to try to be funny by drawing male-anatomy-pictures on the board or do something equally stupid, that was it. Minjun was out of there. He was too old for this crap.

This kid then did something even more ridiculous, and wrote a name on the board, first normally and then the same name with English letters. Before Minjun could even think about how to react to that, this guy turned around, dropped his side bag on the table and said, in English:

“Hello, everyone. My name is Lim Changkyun and I will be your teacher in this class.” Then he pointed to the students with both index fingers, “You can also call me I.M,” smiling, like this was some sort of a joke.

Unable to help himself, Minjun’s jaw dropped to his chest and he stared at this teacher baby open-mouthed. This couldn’t be. What was this guy, like twenty-three years old maybe? What happened to Minjun’s serious learning experience? He did not just spend half his paycheck to watch some teenager goof around.

Apparently, Minjun was not the only one who was taken back by the teacher’s appearance, because waves of giggles spread over the class until one girl raised her hand.

“Teacher, can I ask you something?”

“Sure,” the boy said with an easy smile, “...you can ask me anything,” but then he switched from Korean: “...As long as you ask in English.”

The girl became flustered but still stuttered up: “How old are you?”

“I am 20 years old.”

Twenty? This was worse than Minjun had thought. How was he going to be taught by someone who was eight years younger than him. That made no sense. In complete shock, he shut his mouth closed, which had been hanging open do to the craziness of the situation.

Quickly another girl raised her hand.

“Do you have girlfriend?”

“Why do you want to know that?” The teacher snickered, and the entire class laughed, except for Minjun because nothing about this was funny.

“Just… qurious.”

Oh Minjun bet she was. That girl had no shame. Still he stared closely at the teacher like everyone else, holding his breath, waiting for the answer.

“Curious.” He first corrected her pronunciation automatically. “...And no, I don’t have a girlfriend. I’m single.”

Minjun felt himself blushing. That was too personal to know about his teacher, and his face got even hotter when one of the college girls shouted from the back:

“Noona can be your girlfriend,” making the entire class laugh.

Minjun put up an awkward smile, but honestly, this was a bit too much. Just because he was young and kind of cute (okay, very cute), he was still the teacher, and should be shown some respect.

Girls these days.

The atmosphere in the class was relaxed, and more asked questions, so Minjun found out that the teacher was in college, studying English literature, and had spent some time in the United States as a kid.

Before more questions could be asked, the teacher said:

“Enough about me. Now we should get to know the rest of you.”

Sitting right at the front of the class had seemed like a good idea in the beginning, but now, when the cute baby teacher stopped right in front of his desk, Minjun was very sure it was not.

“Please tell us about yourself.”

Sweat formed at the back of Minjun's neck as the young teacher and all the rest of the class stared at him intensively.

“M-My name is Kim Minjun,” he started but wasn't sure if he should tell his age or not. He was a lot older than almost everyone there, so it would be awkward.

“And where are you from mister Kim Minjun?”

Where he was from? Did that mean his accent came through? And mister? Did that mean it was obvious how old he was? Minjun started to sweat even more.

“I'm from Daegu...” an then he randomly added: “I am a business man.”

“Very good.” A big smile spread over the teacher's face, making Minjun blush at the compliment. “Wait. I have something for you.”

Surprised, Minjun stared at his teacher as he dug into his pocket while staring up to the ceiling, his tongue cutely peaking over his upper lip.

“Minjun-haksaeng, jjang!”

Another wave of giggles spread across the classroom and Minjun's heart stopped completely as the teacher made his thumb and index finger form a tiny little heart in front of him, the teacher's tongue still cheekily sticking out at the corner of his mouth.

What was that? How the hell could this boy be sending grown men hearts? In what twisted universe did that make sense? Minjun's heart started pounding uncomfortably. Was he teasing him? Did he perhaps know? About those times in college where boys had ended up in his bed? That he had those type of inclinations, those types of thoughts?

Calming down, Minjun reminded himself that the teacher had been only been in high school when he was in college, so he couldn't know. Not even. Middle school. God, middle school. Or worse. This teacher was just a kid! Why was he freaking out about a kid sending him a heart. Kids did all sorts of silly things so there was no need to panic. That was right. And he wasn't panicking, really, he had only been surprised was all. After taking a couple of deep breaths, Minjun was calm enough to turn his attention back to class.

Already, teacher Lim Changkyun had gone through almost half of the students. Now he was talking to one of the girls in the back and Minjun had to hold back not to snort over how obviously she was flirting. But since the teacher was standing in the middle of the room, Minjun also noticed his backside, and how nicely it filled out his jeans. Maybe he wasn't such a kid after all.

Blushing, when realizing how completely inappropriate his thoughts were, Minjun quickly looked away, and stared down to the desk in front of him during the rest of the introductions. But when they were done, the teacher boy came back to the front and smiled, and it was cute. So intolerably cute that Minjun couldn't even pretend that it wasn't.

A quiet: “Oh, boy...” escaped from under his breath.

Maybe these English classes weren't such a great idea after all.

Hello everyone!

Happy Minjun day ❤ I hope you liked our old daegu grandpa paired up with Monsta X's I.M!!!

The next chapter of this story is more or less ready, so it will be posted before long (hopefully within a week or so).

In the mean time, please check out the other stories of Minjun-day! Either via the 2pmdays tag or the festival.

Thank you so much for reading and supporting the festival!

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