“Seul, there’s a new teacher in class 4-B. Could you go and help her with grading papers after school. She’s fairly new to the whole teaching thing.”

The principle had asked her to stay behind after school meaning, of course, missing another outing with her friends. She’d heard about this new teacher, Miss Chung, in passing but since it was from the boys all they’d said was that she was “majorly hot”. Nothing she could gauge the woman’s personality from.
She opened the door to the class and understood why they thought this, though. She was a curvy woman with a round face and deep eyes. She couldn’t have been any older than 22 years old. Her hair was loosely curled and she wore red lipstick that made her blindingly bright smile sparkle all the more when she greeted Seul.

“You must be the class president I’ve heard so much about,” she said in a smooth voice.

Seul was a bit taken back by this woman. “Oh, yeah. C-Choi Seul.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” the blinding smile never faltered, “I never anticipated my class would be so large so it’s nice to get the help.”

“No problem. Where should I start?”

“Could you look through these?” she asks handing her a stack of papers, “Just some student information sheets. Make sure they’re all filled in.”

“Sure thing.”

“I’m sorry for making you stay back with me,” she says sounding truly apologetic, “I’m sure you probably don’t want to be stuck here.”

“It’s fine,” Seul assures her though she was pulled out of yet another outing with her friends, “At least it’s for something useful.”

“So, how old are you?”

“18 years old.”

“Ah, that’s such a nice age. All my best memories came from when I was 18. A few bad ones, too.”

“Oh?”

“I broke up with a guy I really liked. It was 5 years ago, though, so you’d think I’d be over it.”

Seul gave her a look of sympathy. “That must .”

“It’s a part of life, I suppose.” She smiled, “Do you have anyone you like?”

“Um…” Seul stopped looking over the papers as she came across the familiar name of Kwon Jiyong.

Vaguely interested, she looked over his information more thoroughly than the others. Most of it was standard info: address, phone number, email. She skimmed over those tidbits. Towards the bottom were more personal questions.

Tell me about your family, the first said. He wrote: “I live with both of my parents. They get along pretty well. I have an older sister. She doesn’t live with us. She married some guy and moved to Gwangju 2 years ago.”

The fact that he used some guy to describe his sister’s husband indicated that he probably didn’t quite like the man. She wondered why that may be but didn’t feel it would be appropriate to pursue the question further.

Next, the paper asked to write something about yourself. He wrote: “My name is Kwon Jiyong. I’m 18 years old and I’ll be 19 in August. I don’t really care about most things I learn here. When am I ever going to need any of it? But I do like writing. I draw sometimes, too. One time, a pretty girl told me I’m wasting my life and now all I can think about is how she might be right.”

Then in the margins he did a ton of doodling. They were all pretty decent but the one that caught her eye in particular was a drawing of a girl. It was really well done. She looked familiar though.

Miss Chung, having noticed Seul was quiet for a while, came to see what she’d been looking at for so long. She smiled at what she saw.

“Wow, Jiyong did a really good job drawing you.”

Seul’s eyes widened. “What? T-That’s not me.”

“Of course it is,” she pointed a pink lacquered nail at different features, “Same long black hair, same eye shape, same nose. It looks just like you!”

Now that she’d pointed it out, it was clear to her. “What the…?”

“Oh, how cute!” Miss Chung clasped her hands together, clearly elated, “Are you two dating?”

Seul shook her head furiously. “No way! Kwon Jiyong is the worst kid at this school.”

“Bad boy, eh?” she looked Seul over, “I feel like you’d fall for that type.”

Whatever the reason for this sentiment, Seul couldn’t tell.