Seunghyun was finishing the pad thai they had ordered when Jiyong asked about his boyfriend.  They had paused discussing the achievements of 20^th century poetry movements to eat, and the conversation had drifted to lighter subjects, but the instructor had not seen that one coming.

“My what?!” he spat, noodles falling from his mouth back into the grease saturated box.

“Your roommate,” Jiyong answered calmly, picking at his food.  “You said he was interning some place in Singapore?”

“Daesung isn’t my boyfriend.”  Seunghyun dusted imaginary crumbs from his sweater, anything to seem like he wasn’t afire with anxiety.

“Is he straight?”  Jiyong kept an icy cool face to hide his impatience.  He had mapped out a dozen or more different ways to start this conversation, and still wasn’t sure he had led the line of questions down the right track.

Why are you asking me this?! Seunghyun wanted to shoot back, but remained as collected as Jiyong appeared.  “Yeah, why?”

“I don’t know, I just think it’s cool that he’s living with you.” Jiyong prodded his peppered beef with his chopsticks.  “Youngbae would probably change dorms if he knew I was gay.”  Your move.

Seunghyun couldn’t help but stare.  Why is he coming out to me?  Had he presented such a convincing front of a down-to-earth aspiring professor that his students felt so comfortable with him?  Or was Jiyong going somewhere with this?

The older man set his dinner on the coffee table and debated with himself on how to continue.  He could argue Jiyong’s inference of his uality, and risk sounding overly defensive.  Or he could play his student’s game right back. 

“It’s like that with a lot of people,” he said casually, and scoured his brain for something inspiring to say.  But the best he managed was, “it’ll get easier, sort of.”  Nice mentoring, Teach, he mentally chided himself.

Jiyong muffled a laugh with a mouthful of food.  Look how nervous he is, he thought to himself.  His painfully subtle flirting with Seunghyun had been dragging on for far too long.  He had never dared behave this way with a teacher before, and sometimes he even shocked himself. But he had never had an instructor that made him feel the way Seunghyun did, either.  He pondered for a moment if maybe he should simply tell him that.

“So are you seeing anyone then?” Jiyong asked.  Both of them were becoming more and more aware that neither had looked the other in the eye since the conversation began.

Seunghyun’s ears were flushed red.  “No, I’m not.”  He’s not just looking for someone to confide in, is he?  Jiyong’s eyes fluttered closed as he took another bite, and Seunghyun studied his face shamelessly, the way he caught himself in class during quizzes sometimes.  This wasn’t going to end well.

“That’s a shame,” Jiyong said.  “I think you’d be quite the catch.”

Huffing, Seunghyun wiped his hands with a napkin.  “Right, some boring old poetry teacher.  That’s what guys are looking for.”  He stole a quick sideways glance at Jiyong eyeing him carefully, hoping he had caught the veiled admittance.   Of course he did, he’s more than clever enough for your piss poor attempt at fishing for compliments.

But if Seunghyun were fishing, Jiyong took the bait eagerly.  “Why wouldn’t they be?  You’re intelligent, creative, god knows you’re handsome.”  He could have kept going for an hour, but didn’t want to seem that desperate.

“You’re calling me handsome?” Seunghyun blurted out, and the coy look in Jiyong’s lidded eyes told him he was trapped now.  This is your student, the responsible corner of his brain was screaming.  How inappropriate can you be?  You never should have even invited him here, you idiot.  What were you thinking?  But if he were honest with himself, this was exactly what he had been thinking, what he had been day dreaming might occur.

Jiyong was grinning behind fingers that covered his mouth shyly.  “Are you surprised?”

“No.  I mean, yeah, but…” Seunghyun knew he was losing, flying through his conscience’s warnings like a car through a red light.  He knew that Jiyong knew he had him flustered, could see it in his smiling black eyes.  “It seems backwards.”

“How so?”

Seunghyun sensed his career falling to pieces at Jiyong’s feet.  “Because you’re gorgeous.”

Jiyong’s mouth fell open.  He had been pushing Seunghyun’s buttons, for sure, hoping for a good response and not a rebuke, but the fact that it worked shocked him nonetheless.  His face felt hot and a knot had tangled itself in his chest so tight he felt it might stop his breathing.  Suddenly, the playful flirting, the fantasy aspect of it all, was real.  In a way, it made Jiyong feel very selfish.  He had joked about Seunghyun being kicked out of the department for offering him a drink, but this was even riskier.  You could ruin his whole life, you know.

But his limbs were working independently of his brain, and Jiyong found himself rising from his seat on the couch and dumping his food on the table, eyes fixed on Seunghyun, always on Seunghyun. 

The instructor felt as though he were watching the scene unfold on a movie screen, helpless to stop it from proceeding, unable to avoid this undoubtedly huge mistake.  He’s in your lap, he thought as Jiyong’s knees sunk into the cushions on either side of him, a steadying hand near Seunghyun’s head on the back of the couch.  Stop him!

He should have been relieved to see a twinge of uncertainty in Jiyong’s downward gaze, but it only made him all the more nervous.  The student hooked a finger under the first button of Seunghyun’s cardigan, circling the plastic with his thumb.  “Don’t flunk me for this, either,” he nearly whispered.

Seunghyun’s throat, dry as desert sand, regained the ability to protest at last, but the will to do so was fading.  “Do I seem like that type of professor?”

“You aren’t a professor, not yet.”  Jiyong closed his eyes and caught Seunghyun’s lips before either could fight it.  It was a timid, almost innocent kiss, but enough to drain Jiyong of the last of his boldness, and his elbow nearly buckled under his own weight. 

Seunghyun caught him about his slim waist.  “Thank god,” he muttered before pulling Jiyong in for another try.