K I M C H I - 02

April 22nd, 2014

 WARNING: MINOR SWEARING and the F-WORD!! XD

 I stared at him a little too much, I knew it, but I couldn't help it. This new English teacher was incredibly hot. Indeed, he was hotter than most of the popular male students. He was half-korean, his other part being American, and he got only the best of both worlds in his DNA. He had been assigned to my English class since two weeks ago, and ever since I had been anticipating Business English in a way I never thought I would.
 
Just then, he caught me stealing glances at him again. Damn, this must’ve been the tenth time this lesson. I felt my ears turning a dark shade of red. 
 
"Cha MinAe?" he said in his calm, deep voice, not breaking the eye contact. The way he pronounced my name made me melt. Oh, and those eyes, with their western accentuated shape and their deep green orbs...
 
"Yes, Lee-seonsaengnim?" I replied, a little too slow. I heard SeRi trying to supress a chuckle next to me. Needless to say, she failed at it.
 
The teacher smiled. "Would you please collect this week's assignments?" 
 
"Yes, of course," I hurried to say, standing up to follow suit.
 
"Thank you," he replied, turning his attention back to the entire classroom.
 
"Everybody, the homework for next week is writing a business letter in reply to this form - Kim SeRi?"
 
My flatmate straightened her back. "Yes, Lee-seonsaengnim?"
 
"Please hand this out," he gave her a stack of printed paper. Our homework. "Class is finished with this."
 
In an instant the usual noise of chairs scratching over the floor and paper rustling took over the classroom, as everybody handed me their assignments and prepared to leave. After collecting them all, I handed teacher Lee the stack of papers (trying hard not to look at him but not to appear too respectless at the same time, which ended up with me looking at his damn-y collarbones and turning red yet again), and went back to my desk to collect my stuff. This was getting out of hand.
 
“Cha MinAe?” teacher Lee directed his voice at me.
 
“Yes?”  I shrieked, startled by his sudden call. I mentally slapped myself. Well, fine, it had already gotten out of hand.
 
“I can’t find your essay here. Are you sure you handed it in?”
 
I cursed inwardly as my heart dived. Quickly bowing in apology, I  explained: “I am sorry, I didn’t have the time to finish it until today.”
 
He shot me an admonishing look. “I don’t have to remind you of your grades, right? It’s important for you to sign your homework in – and please, stop daydreaming during class. I don’t want you to fail out of laziness. You’re a smart girl, so please pull yourself together.”
 
I nodded, clenching my teeth in embarrassment. “Yes, Lee-seonsaengnim. I will make sure to be more studious in the future.” But wait - did he just call me smart?
 
What with SungGyu’s WooHyun-SungYeol-problems, my uncle asking me to take endless extra-shifts and JaeJin wanting to eat ddukbeokki every other day after our shift ended, I kind of happened to completely forget about the assignment. Not that I would’ve had time to finish it anyways. Damn.
 
“You can hand it in tomorrow, I’ll give you this one last chance.”
 
“Thank you, Lee-seonsaengnim,” I bowed again, unsure if this really was a last chance or rather a punishment. There went my afternoon.
 
“You can go now.”
 
“Have a nice day, teacher,” I quickly bowed again, and hurried to get out of the classroom.
 
SeRi was waiting for me in the hallway.
 
“You should stop the staring, you’re making it pretty obvious,” she grinned, once we were out of hearing distance from teacher Lee’s classroom.
 
“I know, my feelings for him are all over the place,” I sighed.
 
SeRi patted my shoulder. “Totally.”
 
“But he is just so incredibly hot,” I exclaimed. “Have you seen the way he smiles when he gives back an especially well written essay? To die for.”
 
SeRi just shook her head. “You’re love-blind. Besides, my dear, he is married.”
 
“Psst, no need to tell me every day. Having a crush on my teacher is hard enough,” I whined. “Why did I even tell you…”
 
“You didn’t need to, it’s totally obvious. I swear, if anyone in our class hasn’t noticed yet, they’d have to be pretty damn slow.”
 
I moaned. “Why are there no hot guys my age…”
 
SeRi laughed. “There are. You just happen to have a thing for teachers.”
 
I hit her arm. “This is a first. I don’t usually crush on elder men.”
 
“Lie to yourself all you want,  but if you excuse - I’ll be in the library. I have to study for next week's test. See you tonight.”
 
“Bye, SeRi,” I waved her goodbye as she turned into another hallway, and made my way to the lecture hall for International Management.
__
 
 
Needless to say, after two hours of international management I was done for. I was contemplating the various pros and cons of skipping class and enjoying the beautiful spring day at the University Park, as I heard my kakaotalk messenger ringtone go off.
 
From: SungGyu Oppa
How's classes going? 
We’re still practising for
our comeback. Can't 
get this one movement
right for the life of me. -.
The atmosphere here
doesn’t really help.
Cheer me up. - Gyu
 
Reading his message, I remembered he wanted to send me the picture he took of us. (And that I needed to change his contact name).
 
As for cheering him up, nothing worked better than reminding him of being made fun of on television. Since he already found out I had googled him, I might also just admit to having seen the one or other episode of Weekly Idol involving Infinite. Who would judge, everyone had googled his or her friends at one point or the other. Lucky me, typing Kim SungGyu into google served me plenty of stuff to find out about him.
 
To: SungGyu Oppa
I'm fine with univ.
Work hard at the dance,
or weekly idol will make 
fun of you, yet again, 
salamander. When is
your comeback?
Send the picture as 
promised. >.> MinAe
 
The pro side of skipping class won my inner debate by far too many points, so I headed for the exit leading to the leisure park. Still looking at the screen, I made my way through the crowded hallways, changing SungGyu Oppa to Rooftop Boy. I didn't exactly want to get in trouble by having him saved by his original name in my phone. Better safe than sorry.
 
The kakaotalk sound rang again. 
 
From: Rooftop Boy
It's undisclosed information,
Sorry, but you'll see. It’s some-
time next month. You'll like 
the song! And weekly idol
is scripted, I'm not that
bad at memorizing the
steps... glad you watched
it, though! Please give
your love to us, fellow
Inspirit! Me-rong.
I'll search for the
photo on the phone, hold
on-
 
Just at that second I bumped into someone. The momentum made my phone fly out of my hand and I heard it land on the floor a few steps away from me with a painfully loud cracking sound. I’d be damned if that wasn’t my screen, painfully breaking into thousands of glass-shards. Figures, my luck.
 
But I was too captured by a pair of deep green eyes, looking directly into mine, to actually be concerend about my cellphone. 
 
"Lee-seonsaengnim," I managed to choke out, already feeling my face burn red in embarassement.
 
"Did you get hurt?" he asked in concern.
 
I shook my head 'no', trying to look anywhere except his eyes. Damn, even his jawline was a perfect v-shape. And was that a faint hint of a beard on his jaw?
 
"Your cell-phone,-" he started, and averted his gaze from me. I breathed again. Had we ever been this close to each other? I doubted it. He smelled like patchouli and...maybe... a touch of lavender?
 
As I (still unable to move) observed him pick up my phone, a stern expression appeared on his face. 
 
"I am afraid your screen is broken," he stated, apologetically.
 
But before I could reply anything, the kakaotalk sound went off again. Lee-ssem looked at the screen as by reflex, and I saw his eyes widen. Then he looked back at me, and at the screen again. 
 
I realized we were all alone on the hallway. Classes must have had started again by now. 
 
"Cha MinAe?" 
 
I cleared my throat and blinked. "Yes, Lee-seonsaengnim?"
 
"I'm very sorry to have intruded into your privacy," he started, coming closer, still looking at my cell phones display.
 
I couldn’t help but notice how his pitch-black hair radiated a shade of blue under the lighting of the hallway. How could he be 34 years old? I sighed at the memory of how SeRi found out his age - by asking his Chinese zodiac sign, and then looking at me with a disappointed gaze, mouthing "Too old". One of too many embarrassing situations in Business English classes.
 
"MinAe?" he jolted me out of my thoughts.
 
"Oh, yes?" 
 
He cleared his throat, holding my cell phone's screen to my eyes, "Isn't this Infinite's Kim SungGyu?"
 
With the sudden mention of my friend’s name, all colour faded from my cheeks, as I was confronted with the picture I recognized as the one SungGyu had taken the day before. To make it all worse, apparently he had written 'SungGyu Oppa is MinAe's favorite oppa in the whole world' across the bottom half of the picture, with some kind of editing program. The upper left corner of the selfie read “Kimchiii~”. He, being used to have his photograph taken, looked quite stunning, I, on the other hand, looked as if I had just woken up in the middle of the night. My hair was all messed up, and my eyes were even smaller than his, if that’s even possible. SungGyu had his left arm put around my shoulder; in the background one could see the the prominent Namsan Tower iluminated in a bright red colour in front of the night sky, and even part of the rooftop railing.
 
.
 
This obviously wasn't any kind of fan-meet photo. 
 
"Uhm..." I stumbled, at a loss for words.
 
If this got out, my life was ruined for the next months, and even SungGyu’s career could be damaged. Looking at the way things had developed for MyungSoo's ex-girlfriend, I knew this meant serious trouble.
 
Leave it to me to manage to get me into this kind of situation - even with the first photo ever taken of us, that is.
 
But then, Lee-seonsaengnim surprised me. He handed me my cell-phone, and prompted: "I'll pay the replacement of your screen. In return, can you organize a meeting with Infinite?"
 
"Say- what?" I was too astounded to keep to formal speech. Lee-ssem was an Infinite fanboy? No way.
 
"My daughter is a huge fan of Hoya," he explained, and managed to shyly scratch the back of his head. 
 
"Wai- what?" This was too much for me; he had a daughter? How could he say that and still make my heart beat at 200bpm by serving me some kind of business-english-teacher-level aegyo head-scratching shyness? It had been hard enough to cope with him being married. A daughter, too? An Infinite-fangirl, out of all things?
 
"I know this may sound suspicious – but trust me - I am in no way interested in your relationship with SungGyu-"
 
"He's not my boyfriend," I cut him off eagerly.
 
He smiled a typical I’m-an-older-person-so-don’t-lie-to-me smile, and overlooked my inappropriate behaviour. "I never even mentioned the word boyfriend. But my daughter is 13 years old and she's been into Infinite for about two years now, and her birthday is coming up in less than a month - I have never met anyone who was close to any of them, and seeing you are...I just can't let this opportunity slip..."
 
"Uh," I said, my head still spinning with how things were developing, "I'm not sure I can help you-"
 
Lee-seonsaengnim cleared his throat, and added, lowering his voice: "You know, your Business English grade isn't really the best, right? Doesn’t help you didn’t hand in your assignment today. If you help me out, I’m sure we can work things out in your favour."
 
Oh man, I thought, blushing. This surely escalated quickly. Was this my first Infinite-related blackmail? 
 
I was still contemplaiting how to explain to him that I personally only really knew SungGyu and that Lee-seonsaengnim probably knew more things about HoWon than me (Well, except for some random information maybe and some personal issues, courtesy of SungGyu), when he suddenly patted my shoulder.
 
"I'll entrust you with this. Please come to my office next week on Friday, I have a class now, and I'm really late. I’d give you my number, but seeing I am your teacher, this might go wrong, and I don’t want to be in a scandal involing a love-triangle about a university professor, an idol and a female student, if you know what I mean," he winked.
 
I swallowed hard at the picture he had just planted in my head. What? Love-triangle?
 
Before he left me alone in the hallway, he patted my shoulder again, giving it a short squeeze, and I probably would have fainted at this, if only I wasn't so overrun by the turn of events.
 
How did I even get myself into this situation?
 
After the echo of teacher Lee’s hurried footsteps had died in the hallway, I finally managed to pull my thoughts together.
 
I cursed myself for using the push-and-preview-setting on my messenger. And as if on cue, my kakaotalk sound rang yet again.
 
From: Rooftop Boy
I think it's a cute picture,
but we need to take 
another one where you
look good, too! Haha
 
Oh, boy. No way in hell.

As always thanks to the new subscribers, it always motivates! :)

I'll just let our male lead shoot you with some backstage-aegyo because OMG *-*

--JaeRin out