“For your punishment, I’m assigning you to one of our newest foreign teacher, Nichkhun Buck Horvejkul.”

“The with the name?” That was quite mouthful for a name.

“He is of Thai and Chinese ethnicities. You can just call him Khun for short.”

That was the start of this hell. Her whole life was hell to start with, but being assigned to counseling sessions every single–ing–day, with him nonetheless, had just given a new meaning of hell to Dasol. Well, she didn’t have a wide vocabulary to start with, as obviously showed in her report card.  

It was the third day. Just like the previous two days, hoards of girl students smacked their faces on the wall along the counseling room to have a glimpse of the ‘baby-faced teacher’, ‘the teacher with the face of an angel’, or ‘the freaking walking statue’. Not to mention that the counseling room was enclosed within glass walls; though tinted, which explained all the distorted faces pressed against it. Leave alone those who approached her after class to ask if she had Khun’s phone number. Perfect wasn’t it?

“Eyes here, Ms. Kim.”

Dasol hissed and turned her attention from the prying schoolgirls outside to his gentle smile in front of her. Honestly, his smile had the power to do funny things to her heart. Like right now, it was beating so fast it hurts. He’s annoying, she thought.

“Have you answered the questionnaire I gave you yesterday?” Khun asked.

Dasol’s eyeballs rolled to the side, trying to avoid his round, puppy-like eyes. “Nope.”

“You lied. Give it to me.”

“What makes you think that?”

“I was just guessing. Is it true? It must be true. You’re fidgeting, and blushing. Give it to me now.”

With a deep grunt, she handed him a piece of paper that was badly crumpled. Her writing was messy and all over the place, there were also lots of crossed words and doodles from her youngest sibling whose age was four; but Khun probably didn’t know that and might thought it was hers.

“Thank you. While I go through this questionnaire, do your English homework. I know you have an English essay to be submitted tomorrow.”

Ugh.

Khun didn’t want her to see but he couldn’t help but crack the smallest smile he could afford while reading her answers. Apparently, she saw that. Just like any other person, she was probably anxious about having someone reading about her personal information right in front of her.

“I swear I’m going to strangle this guy to death someday.” Dasol muttered through gritted teeth.

“Is that a threat?” Khun provoked her with a calm smile.

“So what if it was? Are you going to tell the principal?!”

“Are you scared of the principal? Maybe I should then.”

Dasol looked away from his boyish smile and concentrated on her paper. She had no idea about what to write so she continued to doodle on the paper instead.

Khun watched her. He thought she communicated better through writing. From the things she wrote down, she wasn’t exactly a bad student. She appreciated her family and people who were nice to her. She was also very interested in sports so there was lots of potential in that.

He turned around the questionnaire and showed her the paper.

“Your doodles are pretty bad considering your age.”

“It was Yoonhee’s!”

“Oh, sorry. Also, today is your birthday isn’t it?”

“I hate birthdays. Like seriously. It’s annoying. Especially the birthday song.”

“Oh, really? I was thinking about treating you to a meal, with lots of meat.”

Dasol’s eyes brightened. “Really? Are you serious? Would you really treat me to lots of meat?”

“On one condition. Finish your English essay now. I’ll look through it, and if it’s good enough, I’ll treat you to meat.”

“Sheesh.” Dasol leaned further against the chair. “That sounds like a scam.”

“No, I’m serious. If I lied, I would come to school tomorrow in red attire, from head to toe.”

“With a red party hat.”

“With a red party hat too.”

“Deal.” A smirk slapped across her lips. That didn’t sound too bad. If she couldn’t get her meat, she could get the whole school to laugh at him tomorrow. Win-win situation for her.

“Hey, lend me your dictionary.”

Khun gave her a strict look. Dasol cleared .

“I mean, teacher, would you lend me your English dictionary, please?” She rephrased her request, complete with a polite tone.

Khun smiled again, “Sure.”

-

[Author's Note] A fanfic based on a word prompt [Threat]. I guess I might use prompts for future entries too, for writing practice and trying to get myself to write regularly aside from writing my current fics. Hope you guys enjoyed it.