Standing alone before the towering door, Taeyeon bit her lower lip nervously and raised her hand to knock on the wooden surface. The sound of a chair being pushed aside was heard from the inside before footsteps followed. Taeyeon wished that she had her friend beside her so that the anxious feeling in her stomach wouldn’t be so painful when a tall male teacher stood before her.

It was early in the morning and Taeyeon thought she would be receiving harsh verbal beatings from the maths teacher by now, but instead she was dismissed to the class near the school’s exit ‘B’. Nothing else was known to her. She could be sent to be expelled, punished or suspended for all she knows. She just wished that she was not going to be facing the unknown teacher alone but her partner in crime did not show up in class yet.

“Ah, you must be Taeyeon. Come in and make yourself comfortable,” a surprisingly warm voice greeted her. Taeyeon quickly snapped her gaze off the floor and looked up at the male teacher welcoming her into the classroom. She immediately recognised him to be the man who they had ran into the day before and swallowed down nervously at the possible outcomes of her actions.

Not wanting to make the situation worse, she stepped through the door frame but stopped when she realised something odd about their first meeting. She had not mentioned that she was able to hear yet the teacher greeted her verbally. She quickly looked up at the man who returned her gaze with a questionable one.

“How did you know I could hear?” Taeyeon questioned slowly. “Not to be rude or anything,” she quickly added to avoid coming off as disrespectful. The teacher chuckled and urged Taeyeon past the door so he could close the door. Taeyeon jumped at the sound of the door closing, expecting a dark demon to arise from the man who welcomed her all too warmly.

“I’m sorry, I forgot to introduce myself. I’m Mr Kwon, head of the very small art department with a total of twelve students throughout all years. I am part of the six teaching staff that can hear and part of the even smaller group that happened to hear that awful moans of that maths teacher, Mr Ham, during out breaks. You seem to be his favourite topic to talk about on most days,” Mr Kwon said calmly as he took his seat behind the teacher’s desk. Taeyeon stood perfectly still in her place, replaying the teacher’s words to make sure she didn’t miss anything that would reveal what evil punishments he has for her.

“Please, have a seat. I assure you that you are in no trouble whatsoever… well at least not from me anyway,” Mr Kwon reassured. Taeyeon stiffly marched her way to one of the empty desks and sat down with shaky knees. She glanced up at the teacher’s desk to see the art teacher leaning against his chair with his feet placed on the desk amongst the messy papers.

Taeyeon took the time to scan over his appearance. He was by no means a typical tyrannical teacher with his sleeves rolled up and the top buttons of his work shirt undone. His physical appearance seemed more like a man who you would find frequently occupying cafés with his subtle moustache and messy but seemingly tame hair. Mr Kwon turned his attention away from the ceiling and made eye contact with the nervous student, causing her to quickly avert her gaze onto the floor.

“I was hoping to explain this to you and Sooyeon at the same time but it seems your friend is absent toda-”

Before he could finish the door of the classroom burst open suddenly. Both occupants of the room turned their attention to the door where a girl was trying to catch her breath whilst leaning against the door handle for support. Taeyeon’s eyes brightened immediately when the intruder looked up and grinned at her.

“Ah, Sooyeon is joining us after all,” Mr Kwon smiled gently when he recognised the intruder to be Sooyeon, his second student for the class. Sooyeon paid no attention to the teacher at the desk and quickly ran up to give Taeyeon a hug and a quick kiss on the cheek as part of their usual routine. Taeyeon made eye contact with the teacher who was patiently waiting for them and felt her cheeks burn when he chuckled at her friend’s affection.

Still having the small fear of the teacher, Taeyeon quickly pulled Sooyeon down into the desk next to her and notified her of the third occupant of the room. Sooyeon tore her attention away from her friend to stare directly into the eyes of the male art teacher. Almost immediately, her back straightened as she sat obediently in her seat. She had recognised him to be the one who she had nearly kissed the shoes of and thought that perhaps he really was going to make her kiss his shoes this time.

“Relax, I’m not here to punish you two for your adventure yesterday,” Mr Kwon continued in sign language so that both could understand him. He walked up to the door and closed it again, causing both girls to jump when the door had fully closed. Sang-woo couldn’t help but find amusement in both girl’s attitudes. He was not used to having such obedient and stiff students due to the nature of his teaching style and it sure was amusing to him to see students fear him.

“Judging by your demeanour, I’m assuming Mr Ham has not told you anything,” Mr Kwon continued. Taeyeon frowned slightly when she realised she did not understand part of the sentence and glanced over at Sooyeon for help. Much to her dismay, her friend didn’t understand what the gesture had meant either. Sang-woo realised the problem and quickly took up a white board marker.

“Demeanour: outward bearing or behaviour.”

The two girls quickly took upon the meaning and pieced it into their memory for later use. Sang-woo placed the marker down and gave a gentle smile to the girls before continuing.

“As I mentioned just before you arrived, Mr Ham has been talking quite a lot and due to the nature of this school’s policy, I have decided to take it upon myself to relieve you two of his acts,” he continued. Taeyeon was slightly confused as to what the teacher was trying to explain to them and Sooyeon was even more muddled with Mr Kwon’s choice of words. She was expecting him to punish them in Mr Ham’s place, but judging by what Mr Kwon was telling them, he was doing them a favour.

“You two deserve to have your freedom and it is unfair on you to be discriminated against based on what you can and can’t do,” he continued, catching Taeyeon’s gaze. He paused to take in the blank expressions of the two girls and wondered how far he would have to explain before the girls understood that he was not the bad guy to them.

“And so, instead of taking maths classes, you will be studying art with me,” he finished before reaching for the book that was on his desk. Sang-woo walked up to Taeyeon and handed her the book gently. Taeyeon’s eyes brightened when she caught sight of her sketchbook and quickly took it back into her possession. She had been trying to find the book since yesterday afternoon before her family had taken her out for ice cream and was starting to lose hope in ever finding it again when she realised that Mr Ham could have taken possession of it.

Sooyeon leaned out of her seat to see what was handed to Taeyeon but made direct eye contact with the teacher and quickly retreated back into her seat. Sang-woo gave a reassuring smile and walked back to his desk to place his feet onto the top again. Sooyeon was slightly startled to see a teacher act so casually. Still having her doubts, she shuffled her seat over to sit closer to Taeyeon, pulling out a pencil that she kept in her pocket and flipping to a blank page in Taeyeon’s book.

“He could be a psycho killer for all we know. Just look at him. He doesn’t look like a legal teacher,” she wrote frantically onto the page. Taeyeon looked up from the page and saw Mr Kwon picking his teeth with his finger and quickly flinched away at the thought of what could possibly be in his teeth. The teacher then threw a sideward glance at the two girls and saw them staring at him cautiously. Seeing how they still weren’t convinced, he took his whiteboard marker and started writing on the board again

“Give it a Chance”

The two girls stared at the writing on the board and tensed. Mr Kwon replaced the cap on the marker and turned to the two girl with a questioning gaze.

“I’ve decided to give you two a chance. All I ask in return is that you give me a chance too,” he continued to explain to the girls. He could see the hesitation in Sooyeon’s expression and the guilt within Taeyeon’s. Sang-woo waited patiently for the girls as they exchanged a quick glance before Sooyeon returned to her seat and sat down obediently. With a soft smile he knew that he had succeeded in convincing the two and continued on with their first official class.

Taeyeon stared down at the booklist in her hand and sighed heavily. After the confrontation that her father had with the supply store that morning, she dreaded the thought of having to go back there again to buy more equipment. Although the salesman profusely apologised to her this morning, she knew that he did not mean anything that he said and probably had a growing grudge against her for embarrassing him in front of his co-workers that morning.

As she was walking to her literature class, she looked over at Sooyeon who was skipping quite happily with the booklist in her hand. She frowned when she remembered the last image she saw of the girl last night and quickly stopped, pulling Sooyeon’s arm as well to talk on the sides of the hall. Sooyeon was mildly confused when Taeyeon started pulling the sleeves of her jumper up and scanning her arms and legs.

Seeing no bruises on her limbs, Taeyeon then turned her attention to Sooyeon’s ears. She made eye contact with her friend for a moment before moving her hair to reveal her friend’s ears. Realising what Taeyeon was doing, Sooyeon quickly pulled away and covered her ears with her hair again.

“You saw?” Sooyeon questioned when she saw Taeyeon’s concerned frown. Taeyeon gave a sigh and nodded, the guilt of not being able to do anything overwhelming her again.

“I’m sorry.”

Sooyeon was startled by the sudden apology. She then quickly reached her arms onto Taeyeon’s shoulders to stop her from bowing to her and flicked her head swiftly.

“You should really stop bowing so easily to people. The more you bow, the closer you are to kissing the other person’s feet and unless you really mean it, you shouldn’t do it,” Sooyeon scolded sternly. Taeyeon was about to explain why she should be apologising but she was interrupted when Sooyeon dragged her to their class. When they arrived at their classroom, the teacher had just arrived as the students piled in.

Sooyeon dragged Taeyeon and sat her towards the far left of the classroom. With most of their classes, the tables were aligned in a U shape with the centre being the teacher’s ‘stage’. It gave every student the ability to see the teacher and learn without having to peer over the top of others’ heads. Being on the side would usually attract the least attention as the teacher would rarely turn during their sessions but Taeyeon still felt exposed to the teacher who was standing only a mere metre in front of every student. Having experienced being in a normal classroom, she missed the seating arrangements where the back rows would usually be the most unnoticeable by teachers who mainly sat at their desk in front.

As the students were waiting for the teacher to prepare their texts, Sooyeon nudged her friend and quickly scribbled down onto the back of her booklist.

“Don’t worry about it. It’s only red but it doesn’t hurt anymore. It’s kind of a good thing you didn’t tell your parents to stop, otherwise it could have been a lot worse.”

Taeyeon rested her elbow against the desk with her chin in the palm of her hand and nodded slowly. Sooyeon did have a point. Both of them knew that their mothers had it out for each other and Mrs Jung had a habit of venting her frustrations out of Sooyeon. Taeyeon was just glad that it wasn’t bad enough to cause Sooyeon with anymore bruises like the previous encounters before.

“How’s your neck?” Sooyeon wrote onto the page before passing over to Taeyeon. Taeyeon instinctively brought her hand up to her neck to hide the faint but still evident red marks on her neck. She then took Sooyeon’s pencil at hand and replied onto the piece of paper

“It’s alright. It’s just red.”

Before Sooyeon could reply, the teacher was walking around whilst passing out their class notes which held detailed information on the poem that they were studying. Their conversation was put on hold as they waited for the teacher to finish passing out her notes and to take her place in the centre stage. When the class was well under way, Sooyeon decided to write on the side of their notes to make it seem like she was studying.

“Don’t try to do that again. At least not alone. You should really ask your parents to take you to a professional to help you out with that.”

Taeyeon frowned at the mention of burdening her parents with more ‘professionals’ and took Sooyeon’s pencil to scrib