The second I saw his face I choked on my tea. Her introduction of her son as Super Junior’s Kyuhyun could not have surprised me more.

                “YOU!” I called out once I managed to swallow, pointing at him.

                “Yes, yes, I’m Super Junior’s Kyuhyun,” he rolled his eyes. “Nice job, mom, you picked a fangirl,” he muttered. “Now I’ll never learn English.”

                “I’m not a fangirl,” I told him, restraining the urge to fly across the open bar and strangle him. “I’m just a girl who was trying to get to class one day before your crazy fangirls blocked the way. You are the reason I was tormented for days after the incident because girls were jealous. You are the reason that I received death threats and had paint thrown at me. You are the reason I can’t go out in public without being paranoid. You, who pulled me out of the crowd trying to do something ‘kind’ to boost your image. Well guess what? YOU RUINED MY LIFE. You! You! You!” I got up. “Thank you for the tea, Mrs. Cho, but I can’t do this. Goodbye,” I told her, bowing as I left.

                “Wait! Wait, Yoonhi-ah! Please don’t go!” However I was already out the door and halfway down the stairs.  I took a few deep breaths to calm down. Suddenly, logic smacked me upside the head and I realized I had just walked away from a job that I desperately needed.

                “Dammit!” I swore in English, kicking the wall. “Good job, Teagan, you just lost the only job you’ve ever been offered by the lady who practically raised you.” I wondered what to do, and I figured I at least needed to apologize, but I was so embarrassed. I then realized I wasn’t wearing my ninja turtle hat, and groaned. Yet another reason why I should go back, I thought. “Ok, God, I get it!” I called out. Slowly, I made my way up the stairs, practically stomping on each stair as I went up. I hesitantly rang the bell. Kyuhyun answered this time.

                “Are you done yelling at me?” Just hearing his annoying voice made me want to come in and do more than just yell. I heard Kyuhyun’s mom scold him in the background.

                “Don’t tempt me,” I huffed. “Look, I’m sorry I yelled at you just…let me in? Please?” The door unlocked and I came in. Kyuhyun was standing just inside, a smirk on his face, wearing my hat. As much as I wanted to smack that smirk off his face and grab my hat from his head, I knew that I quite literally couldn’t afford to lose this job, and I silently prayed for restraint, and also for forgiveness from Mrs. Cho. “I’m very sorry,” I bowed to him and Mrs. Cho, “Please forgive my outburst. There was an…incident… some time ago that caused a scandal to form and I’ve been a little bitter about it.”

                “What scandal?” Mrs. Cho looked from me to him, puzzled, then back to Kyuhyun. “Kyuhyun take that off! That is hers!” She snatched the hat off his head and handed it to me. “It seems that your interactions with each other haven’t changed a bit,” she shook her head. “Come back in; all is forgiven. Please, do explain.”

                I finished my story (but left out the rude comment I left him before running away) for Mrs. Cho.  “…And people just made assumptions and my life was made miserable for a while,” I explained.

                “Oh, dear, I’m very sorry,” Mrs. Cho said. “But please don’t be mad at Kyu, he was only trying to help.”

                “Yes, I know,” I looked down apologetically. “I’m sorry,” I sighed, clenching my hands around my still unfinished mug of hot tea.  He was smirking. I could see it on his face out of the corner of my eye. Evil maknae, indeed.

                “What about what you said to me after I tried to help?” he reminded me. I took a deep breath, You need this job; you need this money. Calm down! I told myself before opening my mouth,

                “I’m very sorry,” I bowed to him slightly. “I was ungrateful.  But please understand, I was running late and because of the crazy girls and the guard I couldn’t get by. I was impatient and late. I am sorry for my rudeness.”

                He didn’t respond. “Ok!” Mrs. Cho clapped her hands together. “Now that that’s over with, I’ll leave you two to talk about why Yoonhi is here in the first place,” and then she gracefully walked into her bedroom.

                “Yoonhi?” Kyuhyun looked at me. “You’re that annoying little girl my mom used to babysit?”

                “Well, my name is Teagan, actually. Your mom is the only one who can call me Yoonhi,” I corrected him.

                “I don’t remember calling you anything but Yoonhi,” he scratched his head as he said this.

                “Please, whatever you called me before, I would prefer it if you called me Teagan, now, especially as I am your English tutor,” I asked kindly.

                “Whatever…Yoonhi,” he laughed. “You know, I remember when you were little, you always tried to get me to piggyback you everywhere.”

                “Yeah, and you’d always drop me, too,” I sneered at him.

“You were annoying back then,” he looked me up and down again, “Looks like that hasn’t changed.”

“Seriously I could just…” I raised a fist in anger and then saw his face, daring me to punch him.

Well, I wasn’t going to take that bait.

“Ok, look. I have here a basic English skills test that I want you to take before I find a book that will match your skills. Part of the test involves us talking, but I will save that for last,” I told him calmly. I handed him the test. “You have 30 minutes…go.”

I honestly didn’t know what to do with myself while Kyuhyun took the test. Luckily I had brought a book I had bought at a book store in Itaewon, all in English, to read.  

“Um, can you help me? I won’t tell anyone if you do,” Kyuhyun whispered over my book, his face hovering over mine. It startled me.

“I will help you after you take the test. That’s kind of my job,” I told him, turning back to my book.

“I’ll get you tickets to a concert,” he bribed.

“I’m not a Super Junior fan,” I told him, not even blinking or looking up from my book.

“Well, what are you a fan of?  Just please help me with this test!”

I put my book down. “You know, for a genius you sure don’t know much,” I shook my head. “The purpose of this test is for me to see what level you are. This is only day one! I don’t expect you to do extremely well on the test. “

“Lame,” he muttered then turned back to his test. When he was done, he sighed. “I don’t remember any of my English tests in high school being this hard.”

“Weren’t you training in high school?” I wondered aloud.

“Yeah, doesn’t mean I didn’t have an education,” he said, tossing the test to me. “Just grade the dumb thing,” he sighed, turning away from me.

“Not so fast, Kyuhyun-ssi,” I told him. “The test isn’t over yet. Now I have to test your conversational English.”

“Are you serious?” he groaned. “I have a schedule in an hour!”

“This will only take five minutes! Geez, quit complaining,” I scolded him.

“Hurry up,” he groaned again.

“Fine,” I sighed. “Hi, thank you for coming. My name is Teagan. What is your name?” I switched to English.

“Kyuhyun,” was all he said.

“Ah, yes, nice to meet you Kyuhyun. Now can you describe to me what your job is?”

“Job?”

“Yes, what is your job?”

“I sing.”

“You sing? Really? Tell me more.”

He was silent. “Um. I sing. Super Junior.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”

There was a pause and a huff from Kyuhyun. “I am Super Junior singer Kyuhyun.”

“Ah, that’s really cool! What do you like to do when you’re not singing?”

Another pause. A few blinks.

“What do you like to do?” I asked, rephrasing the question as I wrote down a few notes on the evaluation sheet.  

“I like games.”

“What kinds of games?”

“Computer games.”

“What are some games that you like to play?”

“Starcraft.”

“Really? I think Starcraft is really dumb. Why do you like it?”

Another blank look.

“Why do you like playing Starcraft?”

“I play Starcraft,” he repeated.

“Yes, I know. Why do you like it?”

“Like?”

“Yes. Why do you like Starcraft?”

He huffed. “I don’t have to keep doing this ,” he murmured in Korean before standing up.

“CHO KYUHYUN YOU SIT DOWN RIGHT NOW AND FINISH YOUR LESSON!” I heard his mom call from her room. It frightened the both of us and Kyuhyun slowly sat down again.

“You know what, I have enough information so you can go,” I sighed, putting everything away. “Now the next thing to do is negotiate where we will meet for your next lesson and when, of course, as well as how you are going to pay me.”

“How about never?” he said.

“CHO KYUHYUN!”

 “Ok, ok…gah…I hate when SM makes me do stuff like this,” he ran his fingers through his hair with a sigh, scrolling through his iphone. “The next time we can meet is probably next Wednesday at four. Are you available then?” he asked.

I whipped out my planner and looked. “Yeah, sounds good,” I told him.  “But where? Here?”

“Sure. It’s the least suspicious this way,” he said.

“Ok, works for me,” I nodded. “What about…” I began hesitantly.

“I’ll pay you once a month. 30,000 won per lesson,” he finished for me, never looking up from his phone.

“Um, do you think you could bring that up to 35,000 won?” I asked him. I hated asking people for money, and so this question came out very shyly.

“Fine. 35,000. Bye,” he said, tucking his phone in his pocket and with that he was up and almost out the door before his mom caught him.

“CHO KYUHYUN YOU GET OVER HERE RIGHT NOW AND GIVE YOUR MOM A HUG,” she called from her room. Kyuhyun sighed, rolling his eyes slightly but with a smile as his mom came out to hug him. “Love you, son. Eat well and sleep!” Mrs. Cho advised (or should I say commanded) him in that way that all moms do.

“Love you, too, Mom. Now I really have to go!” he told her, kissing her on the cheek before walking out the door.

“See ya Yoonhi-stupid,” he said as he walked out the door.

“It’s Teagan! And you don’t get to address me like that!” I called after him.

His response was a wave as he walked down the stairs, not bothering to turn around. I huffed indignantly.

“You’re lucky I’m desperate,” I grumbled.