A/N: A fusion of multiple prompts, basically Jackson as Youngjae's english tutor and the language barrier causes embarrassment (for Jackjae) and hilarity (for Mark).

“Dude, you need help. Like, serious help,” Mark commented as he flipped through Youngjae’s workbook.

“I knowwwww,” Youngjae wailed, dropping his head onto the desk with a loud thump that sounded just as painful as it felt, but Youngjae was beyond caring about pain at this point. “I’m going to fail and I’m gonna have to repeat or drop out- oh god I’m never going to graduate am I? I’ll be stuck working at the restaurant for the rest of my life begging for tips and my parents will ground me for life and–”

“Woah, chill,” Mark dropped Youngjae’s workbook with an exasperated smile, reaching over to ruffle his roommate’s hair. “You need help, some major help, but I wouldn’t write yourself off so soon. There’s hope. Besides, dude, you’re in college. Your parents are on the other side of the country.”

“That doesn’t make them any less scary,” Youngjae’s petulant voice was muffled as he spoke into the desk.

“Oh come on, have a little faith. You’re not as hopeless as you think, really.”

Youngjae shifted, peeking up through his bangs cautiously.

“You think so? I have a D- right now hyung. D freaking minus. How is there hope…” It seemed his words had more of a persuasive effect on himself than Mark, and Youngjae dropped his head again with another resounding thunk against the wooden surface.

“Stop that,” Mark reprimanded, tugging Youngjae upright by his shoulders. “Have some faith! It’s only midterms, you have half of the semester still to pull your grade up!”

“But howwwwww,” Youngjae whined, pouting lightly as he stared down at his English workbook. “I am so hopeless.”

“Like I said, you just need some help. Get a tutor or something,” Mark suggested.

“Mark-hyung are you offering to tutor me? Finally?” Youngjae’s defeated look now changed into one of hopeful excitement. “Please please please please?”

Mark fought the urge to roll his eyes.

“No, Youngjae, the answer is still no, for the millionth time. I still have basketball and if you’ve forgotten, I’m literally trying to make sure I don’t fail chem myself. I don’t have a problem helping you once in a while, you know I don’t, but I really don’t have the time to give you the help you need. You need to look for an actual tutor who can sit down and help you regularly.”

Youngjae deflated.

“But who, hyung? Everyone’s struggling with their courses right now. God, it’s only my freshman year, how have you survived to your third? And I thought high school was bad.”

“Everyone thought high school was bad,” Mark corrected, and Youngjae couldn’t help but snort at the truth of Mark’s words.

“And you should know how I survived- frequent and unhealthy doses of caffeine, just like everyone else. But back to your problem.” Mark twirled his pencil thoughtfully. “You know, if you don’t mind it being someone you don’t know, I might have an idea of someone who’d be willing to tutor you.”

“Really?” Youngjae leaned forward eagerly at Mark’s words. “Who? Is she a native speaker?” Youngjae inquired.

“Who said it would be a she?” Mark snorted, amused. “My friend Jackson. He just recently quit fencing, so he should have some free time on his hands. Actually, knowing him, he’d probably even be willing to tutor you for free if he’s bored enough, so long as you bought him food every time.”

“Does he eat a lot?” Youngjae asked apprehensively.

“Yah, that’s the least of your problems, okay?” Mark cuffed Youngjae on the back of his head lightly, shaking his head. “I’ll text him and if he’s willing I’ll give him your contact info, kay? If it doesn’t work out, I’ll think of something else. Don’t stress.”

“Aw, thanks hyung~” Youngjae smiled, eyes crinkling into two crescents.

“No problem. I gotta go now, I’ll let you know!”

“Bye hyung!” Youngjae called as Mark grabbed a sweatshirt before heading out, waving once before the door swung shut.

Youngjae sighed, turning back to his English homework, the entirety of it marked up with horrid red pen. He sure hoped this whole tutor thing worked out, because otherwise he was so screwed.

In the meantime though…back to studying to good ‘ol fashioned way.

Flashcards, here he comes.

~~

Youngjae gulped as he entered the library, glancing one last time at the one measly text Mark had sent him before bracing himself for the inevitable.

Lowest level of the library Sat at 10am, look for short, stocky, w/snapback. Your type ;)

So here he was, descending to the lowest (and loudest) level of the library, looking for a guy that was supposedly “his type.”

On the bright side, it seemed Mark had successfully convinced this Jackson character, but for whatever reason had neglected to divulge Jackson’s info so Youngjae could text him ahead of time. He assumed Mark had given Jackson his number at the very least, but he’d received no message from this ex-fencer-native-speaker tutor, either.

Youngjae was having a mental breakdown. What the hell did Mark even know about Youngjae’s type?! He didn’t even have one in the first place, so how in the world was he supposed to find this–

Oh.

Ohhhhhh.

Youngjae suddenly had a type.

There was only a single person in sight wearing a snapback, a guy lounging on one of the couches in the middle of the library, casually flipping through a Lit magazine. His cap shaded half of his face, but a strong jaw, bold eyebrows, and very handsome face were all clearly visible under the bright library lighting. He wore a black tee, which did everything to accentuate his fit form.

Youngjae found his eyes lingering on muscular arms.

Damn.

Suddenly eyes snapped up to meet his, and Youngjae almost choked on his own spit.

he’d been caught staring and now he was gonna think he was some kinda freak -

“Hey you must be Youngjae!”

Youngjae could only gawk as the guy’s somewhat intimidating face split into wide grin, all blinding teeth and eye-smiles as he tossed down his magazine, patting the seat on the couch beside him. “Come sit!”

Youngjae swallowed his saliva back down, hurrying forward to greet him.

“Hi, yeah, I’m Youngjae, you’re Jackson, right? Mark’s friend? Thanks so much for agreeing to tutor me,” he babbled as he approached, slinging his backpack off his shoulder to set on the floor, just narrowly missing hitting Jackson’s face with it on the downswing. He would’ve nailed him, too, if Jackson hadn’t ducked swiftly.

“Oh my god I’m so sorry,” Youngjae flushed with embarrassment, now completely flustered as he attempted to apologize. “I’m really clumsy oh my god I didn’t hit you did I–”

“Nah, nah, you’re fine, man, don’t worry about it,” Jackson cut in smoothly, waving it off with a laugh. “Sit! Don’t worry, I’ve spent my entire life dodging swords, I think I can handle a backpack.”

He winked, and Youngjae almost fell off the couch.

“So, you need help with English, right?”

Youngjae nodded meekly, doing his best to calm his heart.

“Um, can you show me you’re workbook? So I can see, uh, where you’re at or what you need help with or something?” Jackson smiled again, teeth flashing.
“Oh, yeah! Definitely! I’ll get it out, just a sec…”

And Youngjae was a mess again, fumbling with the zipper of his backpack for a full three seconds before he managed to the goddang thing and extract his blue English workbook.

“Here,” he practically it into Jackson’s hands.

Gosh dammit Choi Youngjae get your together you’ve made a fool of yourself at least a dozen times already and it hasn’t even been five minutes how are you supposed to survive the hour freaking Get. It. Together.

Youngjae finally felt as if he’d managed to get a hold of himself as Jackson flipped through his workbook. His attractive brows were furrowed in concentration, and when he finished he slowly set down the workbook, frown still intact.

Youngjae felt his stomach drop.

Crap.

“Um, sorry Youngjae, I’m not sure how to say this, but,” Jackson paused, scratching the back of his neck awkwardly as he searched for the right words to say.

Youngjae fought the urge to grab his stuff and run in an attempt to avoid the embarrassment of being told he too much to be tutored. Because that was obviously what Jackson was about to say, wasn’t it? Going suddenly  from all-smiles to awkwardly apologetic…god this was all Mark’s fault, why in the world did he even agree to do this–

“I’ve never tutored before, so I don’t really know how to do this,” Jackson finally finished his sentence, smiling sheepishly while Youngjae’s brain tried to process the words he just heard. “I’m not sure exactly how to teach you. You got any ideas?”

Wait, so he wasn’t too y to be taught?

“Oh, uh, I’m not sure either?” Youngjae managed to get out in a relatively normal voice, though perhaps pitched slightly higher than a normal questioning voice. It was tinged with relief; okay, so he hasn’t scared Jackson off yet.

“Hey, don’t be so nervous!” Jackson finally seemed to pick up on how stiff Youngjae was sitting, and the jittery way he was tapping his fingers against his thigh. “Just relax, okay?” he said in English, with yet another wink.

“Just…relax?” Youngjae repeated, the foreign syllables rolling off his tongue awkwardly as he tried to make sense of them. He tried to suppress his blush at the wink, but wasn’t entirely successful.

“Yeah, just relax,” Jackson translated, smile softening into something more encouraging. “Hey, you know what, I have an idea. You need to get more comfortable, with this whole tutoring thing and English itself. Forget the curriculum for today- let’s just talk.”

“In English?” Youngjae asked uncertainly.

“Of course in English!” Jackson confirmed. “Don’t worry about sounding stupid or making mistakes, I won’t judge, trust me, I’ve been there and done that already with Korean!”

“O-Okay,” Youngjae agreed, but was still hesitant. Although Jackson had a very-present accent, he was still nearly fluent in the language and Youngjae only wished his English was half as good as Jackson’s Korean.

“So, what’s your name?” Jackson started off, enunciating clearly as he leaned back to settle into the couch, gaze carefully trained on Youngjae.

“My name is Youngjae. How about you?” Youngjae managed to answer this confidently; it was one of the key phrases he had confidence in, and he used it whenever he could during oral exams. Basics.

“Good! My name is Jackson! Nice to meet you!” Jackson paused, looking at him expectantly.

“Nice to meet you too!” Youngjae replied automatically. It was another textbook response, so far so good.

“How are you feeling today? The weather is really nice out, do you have any plans?” Jackson upped the difficulty, but still made sure to speak slowly.

“Um…” Youngjae took a few seconds to frantically organize his thoughts, stringing together his measly vocabulary as best as he could. “I feel good. I am plan to go out with friends.”

“Planning,” Jackson immediately corrected. “I am planning.”

“Ah, right, I am planning to go out with friends,” Youngjae repeated hastily, any embarrassment eased by a nod of approval from Jackson.

“Okay, where are you planning to go?”

“Um, um,” Youngjae wracked his brains for the word, any word. “The park?”

“Say that in a full sentence.”

“My friends and I are going to the park.”

“Good!” Jackson praised, smile a constant now and Youngjae felt himself slowly relaxing more and more with each second. “I love going to the park too! What else do you like to do in your free time?”

“Um, I like to sing? And I like to eat, I like to read, I like to sleep.” Youngjae managed to list off these things will relative ease, phrasing slightly awkward and accent horridly prominent but delivery smooth nonetheless. And, the vocab was flowing out more easily now. “And you?”

“I like all those things too! I also like to travel a lot. I’m from Hong Kong. How about you?” Youngjae couldn’t help but appreciate at how genuinely interested Jackson seemed to be in their conversation, despite having to speak so slowly and deliberately. His attention was solely fixed on Youngjae, and there was a sort of excitement in his posture, his mannerisms, that made it seem like he genuinely wanted to know.

“I was born in South Korea,” Youngjae replied automatically, stomach flipping slightly at the encouraging nod Jackson gave him to continue. “I like to travel too,” he paused, checking his grammar in his head before uttering, “I would like to visit Hong Kong someday. I have never…leave this country?”

“I have never left this country,” Jackson corrected, smiling reassuringly as he briefly lapsed into Korean. “That’s a tricky one, you’ll get it! You’re doing well! Okay, now back to English. I’ve visited a lot of countries; where else would you like to go?”

“Everywhere?” Youngjae chuckled nervously. He was taking the easy way out- “everywhere” was a lot easier to say than trying to come up with the English equivalents of location names.

Jackson, however, being the unexperienced tutor he was, did not pick up on this particular bullting tactic.

“Yo, me too! We should travel together sometime. Mark is a party-pooper and likes staying close to home.”

Youngjae wasn’t quite sure exactly what a “party-pooper” was, but he had a feeling it wasn’t exactly complementary. And he wasn’t about to ask, not when he was actually holding decent conversation.

“Yes, traveling together would be fun,” he said instead, grinning back at Jackson tentatively.

“Awesome!” Jackson was clearly excited at the prospect of gaining a travel buddy. “I’m actually going home to Hong Kong over break, I could totally show you around!”

“So, should we start packing?” Youngjae asked with a shy smile. He waited for the praise that would most likely follow- “to pack” was one of the new vocab words from this chapter, and he was proud he managed to not only remember it, but use it in a sentence in a somewhat witty way.

Jackson, however, suddenly froze.

“Um, could you repeat that?”

Youngjae’s brows furrowed slightly. Had his enunciation been unclear? “Um, should we start packing?” he repeated, careful to emphasize every syllable.

Jackson blanched, emitting an involuntary croak.

To be fair, Youngjae’s pronunciation was pretty off, the ‘a’ vowel of ‘packing’ turned to an accented ‘uh’ instead, though the hard ‘p’ was still present. The result had been “Shooed we staht-eu puh-king,” and it was Jackson’s own erted mind (hey, he was a college student, what did you expect) that was responsible for the resultant twisting of the sentence that led Jackson to hear something completely unintended by Youngjae’s original, very innocent question.

The result that Jackson heard?

“Should we start ing.”

“Um,” Jackson’s voice cracked, and Youngjae was only staring at him with increasing confusion. “I-Isn’t it bit too soon for that?” he managed to stammer out, tacking on a strained laugh on the end that sounded more like a gurgle.

Unfortunately, due to the speed, lack of enunciation, and just general choked-up-ness of Jackson’s voice, all Youngjae managed to comprehend was the two relatively familiar words of “too soon.”

“What too soon?” Youngjae asked, genuinely confused.

Jackson let out a noise resembling a strangled goat.

“Why too soon? Maybe because we just met?” Jackson’s voice was panicked, and when Jackson panicked he started to ramble, unfortunately, in choppy, much too fast for Youngjae to comprehend English. “Like, look, you’re super cute and all, like totally and attractive and adorable but woah I didn’t see that coming from you. Is it me? Like I know I’m more open than most people but do I really come off like that? Like I mean, I’m not like that. Honestly. Like, I totally wouldn’t mind going out to get coffee or something with you after but um, that’s just, I can’t, oh my god what am I saying, , sorry, I–” Jackson suddenly broke off, eyes wide and almost frantic now.

Youngjae only stared at him blankly, confusion and panic rising up in him as well as he struggled to grasp more than just an errant word here or there from Jackson’s little rant. Was this some sort of test? Because if so, Youngjae was definitely failing.

With Jackson staring at him as if waiting for a response, Youngjae could only bow his head in embarrassment. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand…” Youngjae finally uttered softly in shame. Gosh, his English really .

Jackson, on the other hand, seemed to be choking on nothing but air itself.

“Oh my god, you don’t- but I- oh um, uh,” Jackson was literally frantic now, eyes darting around the library as if looking for an escape, or perhaps just looking everywhere except Youngjae. “Um, I-I gotta go, yeah, um, we’ll continue this later okay I’ll-I’ll figure it out just, yeah, okay bye.”

And with that, Jackson was booking it out of the library as if his life depended on getting out of there, leaving a self-loathing Youngjae behind.

~~

When Mark finally answered his phone, Youngjae was about ready to have a panic attack.

“Hyung! Oh my god finally what took you so long but it’s too late anyways I think I’m gonna die hyung you need to plan my funeral and notify my parents I–”

“I’m gonna assume this has something to do with how Jackson ran out of the library on you earlier?” Mark cut in, voice infuriatingly amused.

All that sounded next over the phone was a loud groan, Mark’s chuckling barely audible in the background.

Then, a silence, as Mark waited for Youngjae to figure out what that meant.

“Wait, how did you know?!”

Youngjae could almost see Mark rolling his eyes.

“The reason why I didn’t answer your call was because I’ve been on the phone with Jackson, who was freaking out even more than you at what happened. The idiot, it took me forever to calm him down enough to understand what the hell he was saying.”

There was another beat of silence on Youngjae’s end of the line, before a tentative question was posed.

“So?”

Mark’s sigh came out as a scratchy swoosh over the phone. “So, you two are both idiots. But first let me ask you something. What’s the last line of English you said to Jackson before he freaked?”

“Uh…” it took Youngjae a few seconds to gather himself, thinking back. “I think it was, ‘Should we start packing?’ Why?”

There was a choked sound on the other end of the phone, and Youngjae started getting anxious when Mark didn’t say anything.

“Yah, you okay? What is it?!”
“Oh my god this is priceless,” Mark had burst into laughter, the gleeful sound echoing as he tried to get it under control. “Oh my god this is better than the time Jackson got chased around the mall by an old lady.”

“Jackson got chased around by what?” Youngjae was starting to get tired of feeling so lost, irritation working its way into his voice. “Mark-hyung, what does that have to do with anything?!”

“Absolutely nothing,” there was one last chuckle, before Mark finally got a hold of himself. “Okay, okay, here’s the deal. Jackson misheard your sentence. Your pronunciation is pretty bad, but half of it’s on Jackson for jumping to conclusions and then just taking off and running with it.”

“What did he mishear? Oh my god just spill it already!” Youngjae griped.

“He thought you said ‘should we start ing.’” Mark didn’t sugarcoat, saying it bluntly.

“Oh noooooo,” Youngjae moaned, a thunk sounding over the receiver and it was clear he’d banged his head against some sort of hard surface. “No wonder he- oh my god I can never look him in the eyes again what do I do how–”

“Chill, Youngjae, chill. Breathe, it’s fine,” Mark soothed, but that damned hint of amusement was still present. “Let me finish, okay? That was only part of the reason why Jackson was freaked out.”

Another thunk. “God what else did I do.”

“You didn’t do anything,” Mark said hastily. “Stop banging your head and listen! He was a little freaked by what he thought you said, but he bolted because he basically accidently sort-of confessed to you in the form of a rambling rant. When the idiot realized what he’d said, he ran, and failed to realize he probably spoke too fast for you to comprehend anyways. Am I right?”

“He WHAT?”

“Okay, it wasn’t exactly a confession, but he called you cute and adorable and attractive and said he wouldn’t mind going out for coffee or something at all.” Mark paused, letting his words sink in.

“I- But- He- Are you serious?” Youngjae was at a complete loss for words now. What in the world was he supposed to say, or do, in this type of situation? He didn’t know whether to be relieved, flattered, embarrassed, or just crawl into some hole and just die.

And no one’s ever called him cute, adorable, and attractive all at the same time before. Damn, and he’d missed it too because he couldn’t understand.

“I guess I really need to work on my English, huh?” Youngjae finally said weakly.

“You bet you do,” Mark agreed, but there was a bit of relief in his voice as well, now that Youngjae had calmed down. “And Jackson needs to work on being less of a spazz, though I doubt that’s something he can get tutored for. But you, on the other hand, are fixable, so you’re going to meet Jackson tomorrow morning 8am sharp at the grounds’ coffee shop, you hear me? No buts, don’t worry, I’ll explain everything to Jackson too.”

And with that, Mark hung-up, leaving Youngjae unsure if he was feeling any more enlightened than before the phone call.

~~

“Hey,” Youngjae greeted nervously as he approached the table, fingers clenching the bottom of his own t-shirt in an attempt to refrain from wringing his hands- an old bad habit he didn’t want showing again at the moment. “Um, sorry about yesterday…”

“No, no, that was totally all my fault!” Jackson jumped up, literally, nearly flinging the menu he’d been agonizing over across the room in the process. “No, that was totally all my fault! I misheard and then jumped to conclusions and then was rude enough to just run out on you like that. I’m really sorry.”

The last part was said especially sincerely, and Youngjae found himself beginning to blush at the way Jackson’s wide eyes were fixed on him so imploringly.

“I-It’s okay. It was just a misunderstanding, right?” Youngjae flashed a nervous smile, earning a tentatively relieved one in return from Jackson.

“Yeah, thanks,” he said sheepishly, running a hand through his hair. “Um, let’s sit. All on me today, I insist, I already feel terrible so don’t take this away from me.”

“Okay,” Youngjae couldn’t help but laugh, sliding into his seat as Jackson dashed over two tables away to pick up his tossed menu.

“So…” Youngjae began, then stopped, and awkwardness creeping over the atmosphere of table that gave him goosebumps.

No, you can do this Youngjae, don’t be a sissy now. Come on.

“Um, Mark told me what you said,” he finally managed to say, and it took all of his willpower to not look away from Jackson’s heavy gaze.

Surprisingly, it was Jackson who willingly broke eye contact, an embarrassed chuckle sounding from his chest.

“Yeah, about that,” Jackson his lips, as if bracing himself, then turned back to look Youngjae straight in the eye. “I meant it. Yeah, I was panicked and kinda rambled and usually I never would’ve said those things out loud, ‘cause like, I mean, I check out everyone and it’s not like I just go announcing it to the world every time, especially on the first day I meet someone, I’d get slapped and beat up if I did, but since it’s all out anyways yeah, I think you’re super cute and I’d love to get to know you better.” Jackson only stopped when he had to take a breath, and then he was back to looking sheepish again. “, sorry, I rambled again didn’t I…”

“Good thing it was in Korean this time, so I could understand though, right?” Youngjae couldn’t quite hide the goofy grin forming on his face, because Jackson meant what he said.  It was a grin that Jackson slowly began to mirror, understanding finally clicking between them.

“So, we’re good?” Jackson asked, just to confirm.

Youngjae couldn’t stop the giddy laugh from escaping now.

“As long as you’re still tutoring me so I can understand your rambles in English one day, too.”

A flash of blinding white teeth.

“Deal.”

A/N: /whispers I love comments hint hint aren't I subtle /shot