Kyuhyun stared hard at his music sheet, his fingers hovering above the piano keys. He stared harder, trying to concentrate on the notes and the order in which they were. Once he memorized a few, he felt a little bit confident to try playing it out on the piano – that is, until he yawned.

“Oh my god, I can’t do this,” He slammed his fingers down the piano keys, listening to the harsh sound fade away. He whined in frustration, leaning his head against the piano. He didn’t know why he agreed to play the piano; he just knew that he didn’t want to disappoint Ryeowook; not when the man looked at with so much concern…

“Ugh, I’m going crazy.” Kyuhyun groaned, feeling his cheeks warm up.

Ryeowook had already assigned songs for the class to learn, with Kyuhyun having some of the hardest parts to play. He felt like all the karma for slacking off the past few years in school were coming back to bite him. He had woken up early, unable to sleep out of anxiety; today was the first day they were going to practice playing their instruments and Kyuhyun really didn’t want to be the only one looking stupid. So he had decided to come to school an hour early, just to practice in one of the private music rooms.

So far, he wasn’t having much luck with anything. He had spent most of the time tapping random keys, hoping by some miracle he could figure this out within the next forty minutes.

He leaned away from the piano, looking back down to read his music sheet again. He sighed, ready for another attempt at it. He slowly pressed the first key; satisfied that he managed to hit the next three consecutive notes right until his fingers stretched for the fifth note. His palm brushed against the edge of the keys, setting off a couple random notes that screeched the song out of tune, completely disrupting the flow. Kyuhyun flinched at the unpleasant sound, frowning when he had failed yet again. He cursed under his breath, wondering if he should try switching instruments with Donghae.

The school bell rang, the obnoxious sound causing Kyuhyun to flinch again. He glanced at his cellphone, checking the time to make sure his forty minutes were up. Where had the time gone?

Figuring he had enough time to find Eunhyuk and Donghae before the second bell rang, he quickly packed his things away. Sighing in defeat, in exhaustion, and in complete frustration, he didn’t know how hard playing the piano could be until now.

But, he did know one thing for sure: today’s music class was going to be a disaster.

------------------

Kyuhyun smiled widely, knowing that he was going to make it. There was only ten minutes left in music class and he had yet to play his instrument – not that he really wanted to anyway.

The girls in the flute section kept messing up, rather shamelessly to get Ryeowook’s attention. Their claims varied from ‘Oops, it was an accident!’ to ‘Seonsangnim, how do you read this note?’ What bothered Kyuhyun even more was when Ryeowook had to help them, having to read over their shoulders sometimes or personally instruct how to hold a flute properly, which resulted in squealing girls whenever their hands brushed against his.

Kyuhyun pursed his lips to keep from pouting. Girls are so annoying.

“Okay,” Ryeowook announced, sighing in exhaustion. “How about we start from the beginning. Kyuhyun,” Kyuhyun glanced up when he was called. “Can you play the opening part just so everyone has an idea of how the song is supposed to sound?”

Kyuhyun gulped nervously, glancing down at his watch to find that there was only seven minutes of class left, which meant there was plenty of time for him to play. Crap.

“I…sure,” Kyuhyun stood up slowly, trying to waste as much time as possible walking towards the piano. He reluctantly sat on the piano bench, taking his time to purposely mess up and rearrange his music sheets until they were in proper order like before.

“Kyuhyun, any day now,” Ryeowook urged, his tone unusually stern.

“Right,” Kyuhyun nodded, stretching his fingers as he stared helplessly at the polished keys. Well, it’s now or never…

Remarkably, Kyuhyun had managed to make the same exact mistake as he did this morning, from the palm of his hand hitting the wrong keys to the brief screeching sound. The only bright side of it all was that the bell rang exactly when he made the mistake. His classmates didn’t hear it, or maybe they did but didn’t acknowledge it, as they rushed to pack away their instruments and gather their things.

Kyuhyun didn’t feel any relief though because one look at his teacher and he just knew Ryeowook knew about his mistake.

“Kyuhyun, please stay after class,” Ryeowook stated, halfheartedly waving his students good-bye. Kyuhyun winced, glancing away to find Eunhyuk and Donghae watching him sympathetically. Eunhyuk was nice enough to pack his things away, ignoring Kyuhyun’s pleading stares as he handed him his backpack.

“Fighting!” Donghae whispered in encouragement, patting Kyuhyun on the back. Kyuhyun frowned, watching as his friends left him all alone. He wanted nothing more than to chase after them and walk to lunch together, but he had a feeling his teacher wouldn’t be too pleased if he did.

“Come here, please,” Ryeowook called him from his desk. Warily, Kyuhyun walked over, immediately noticing how exhausted Ryeowook looked. His teacher had dark circles under his eyes and his typically energetic, bright expression was replaced with an aged, tired one. The solemn expression didn’t suit Ryeowook, in Kyuhyun’s opinion.

Kyuhyun stiffened when he meet Ryeowook’s gaze. He wanted to say something to defend himself, but he couldn’t think of anything clever – or, at least, believable.

“You have no idea how to play the piano, do you?” Ryeowook asked rather bluntly. Kyuhyun looked away, embarrassed that he was caught so quickly.

“I…err, no. I don’t, sir.” Kyuhyun admittedly, shyly gazing at the floor to avoid looking into Ryeowook’s eyes.

“Sir?”

“I mean, seonsangnim,” He quickly amended.

He heard snickering and immediately glanced up to see Ryeowook, biting his lip in a vain attempt to stop laughing. Instead, Kyuhyun’s surprised face seemed to be the trigger as Ryeowook burst out laughing.

“I’m sorry…Kyuhyun, I’m sorry,” Ryeowook managed to say in between chuckles. “It’s just…I never pictured you this shy. It’s not a bad thing, though.”

“Oh,” Kyuhyun blushed, praying that the fluorescent lighting would diffuse the color of his cheeks. “I’m really sorry about the piano…It’s not that I don’t know how to play it. It’s just that my skills are a little bit…”

“Rusty?” Ryeowook supplied kindly, grinning when Kyuhyun nodded his head anxiously. “Yeah, I’ve noticed that.”

“I’m really sorry.” Kyuhyun winced.

“It’s okay, I guess. I’m assuming you are going to want to switch instruments?” Ryeowook stared at him tiredly. Kyuhyun swallowed thickly, finding the question to be absurdly difficult because as much as his brain was screaming to say yes, his heart was telling him no.

“I…I want to try playing the piano again. I know I’m not very good at it, but I, at least, want to try one more time before giving up entirely.” Kyuhyun stated, tightening his grip on his backpack strap. He waited nervously as Ryeowook studied him; his teacher tilting his head with an unreadable expression. He shifted uneasily under the scrutiny, briefly wondering if he made the right decision.

Ryeowook suddenly grinned, clearly having thought of something.

“Kyuhyun, have you ever considered tutoring?”

Kyuhyun frowned, because no, technically he hadn’t considered that option. Ryeowook didn’t wait for a response, already knowing the answer by his student’s expression. “If you want, I can tutor you. I’m free on Tuesdays and Thursdays; we can practice for an hour or two after school those days. If it’s inconvenient for you, we can figure something else out like practicing early in the mornings or during lunch.”

“I…I don’t know what to say…” Kyuhyun uttered, shocked at the offer.

“You can say yes or you can say no,” Ryeowook teased lightly.

Kyuhyun stared at his teacher, surprised by the sincerity in his dark brown eyes. His mind kept drawing to a complete blank as he stared at his teacher, lost in those molten brown eyes. He couldn’t really think of any reasons not to and that was what he decided to base his decision on.

“Please look after me, seonsangnim.”

A/N: I apologize for taking so long to update. I rewrote this chapter a bunch of times before I was somewhat satisfied with it. I promise another update really soon; hint - it's going to be Kyuhyun's first tutoring session with Ryeowook. And again, I want to thank all my subscribers, commenters, and even the silent readers. I hope this chapter wasn't disappointing.