Daehyun stared down at his books like he was trying to set them on fire. Anything to avoid looking at the boy beside him, which was difficult enough because the other was sitting so close to him, close enough that he kept catching whiffs of his cologne and heard the low drum of his voice nearly right in his ear. And there was the fact that, really, he wanted to look.

Bang Yongguk, his English tutor. Daehyun had never had much luck with the language and eventually his parents had been advised to hire a tutor, because the school simply couldn’t afford giving him any extra lessons – or so they claimed. This tutor had turned out to be Yongguk, nineteen years old, with, in Daehyun’s opinion, the prettiest smile in the world.

It really hadn’t taken much at all for Daehyun to develop a crush on him, and over the months he was sure he had fallen in love. Yongguk was kind, smart, had just started university and had such strong morals that sometimes Daehyun was sure their was much more than three years. It seemed impossible to dislike him and sometimes Daehyun told himself he simply admired Yongguk a lot.

Well, then again, he was sure that mere admiration wouldn’t cause his heart to speed up and his ears to turn red whenever the other was near, and it certainly wouldn’t make him think of kissing Yongguk so often, a thought that was both exhilarating and terrifying, because his tutor undoubtedly had more experience in this area than he did.

He had talked it over with his friends Youngjae and Junhong, who had pointed out to him that he had no chance with Yongguk whatsoever (he wasn’t sure if he should be grateful for their honesty or offended that they hadn’t been more supportive) and had advised him to just get over him as quickly as possible before he’d embarrass himself.

Still, he couldn’t help but notice that the touches to his shoulder whenever he answered a question correctly lingered a little longer every time, and he was sure it wasn’t just his imagination that told him Yongguk looked at him more fondly than before.

Unable to resist the temptation any longer, Daehyun snuck a glance over at Yongguk, his face heating up when he realised the other was already staring at him. Yongguk chuckled shyly when their eyes met and turned away swiftly.

“I think that was enough for today,” he said, grabbing his things together and shoving them in his bag. A peek at the clock showed a disappointed Daehyun that their hour was indeed already over, and he nodded quietly in reply.

Yongguk smiled and threw his bag over his shoulder before following Daehyun to the door. “You did well today,” he praised. “Soon you won’t even need me anymore.”

Daehyun wanted to protest and say that he’d need him around for a lot longer, but that might be weird and would probably fall under the category of ‘embarrassing himself’. Instead, he shrugged and opened the door, mumbling a thank you.

He frowned in confusion when Yongguk ruffled his hair, because that was something he didn’t usually do, and he certainly never looked at him so intently. Seemingly realising what he was doing, Yongguk smiled sheepishly and stepped away, placing one foot out the door.

“Same time next week?”

“As always,” Daehyun agreed. He gazed at his tutor curiously when he didn’t immediately leave, wondering what he was waiting for. Before he could ask him if something was wrong, Yongguk grinned and moved outside, waving as he walked off.

“See you then, Daehyunnie.”

As Daehyun shut the door, it hit him that Yongguk had never called him that before. Suddenly giddy, he hurried to his room before his mother could find him and ask about the silly grin on his face.

A/N: This ended up pretty awkward, since I wanted to write more, but with all the 'more' I wanted to write, I would've gone way over the word limit. So it became this. XD