[Year 23]

"You must be the only person I know that works on his birthday."

A foreign voice broke the silence of the staff room and the sound of the door sliding shut followed after. My eyes reflexively darted upwards to sneak a peek at the person who had entered the room and the corners of my lips tugged upwards slightly, but I quickly dropped my eyes back onto the lesson plan that I had been drafting for the past half hour. Even though physical education lessons just requires me to bring out equipment for the kids and letting them play, I still have to come up with lesson objectives and how to go about achieving them. (Do not tell my principal that I’ve never once followed my plans because duh, physical education is all about having fun.)

"Oi, I'm still standing here and waiting for you,” The person spoke, tone huffy and I could imagine folded arms across chest and pursed lips. I suppressed a knowing smile and moved on to another paragraph. “Kai Kim! It’s been fifteen minutes past our agreed time to meet!"

"Nobody asked you to keep standing and not take a seat." I replied, eyes still not wanting to meet with the pair that was currently burning holes at the top of my head. “Jen.”

She blew a raspberry. “And where should I sit, Mr. Kim? I don’t see any available chairs that don’t belong to teachers.”

I couldn’t swallow the urge to laugh any longer, so I stopped writing and finally let my eyes meet with hers. Flashing a smile, I playfully pointed to myself. “You can always sit on me.” And I winked.

Her eyes blew wide and crimson immediately coloured her face as she spluttered, “W-What are y-you–”

“C’mere.” I dropped the pen and extended both my arms towards her, fingers beckoning and brows wriggling. She continued to stay rooted at her spot, face still the colour of a ripe tomato. Once again, I suppressed the strong urge to burst out into laughter and instead slapped on a slight pout. “C’mon, my arms are getting tired.”

I waggled my fingers once more. She seemed to have snapped out of a daze, sighed and with hands covering her face, she shuffled towards me but stopped short about a few centimetres away.

I scoffed, muttered sheesh under my breath as my hands found purchase on her waist, and pulled her to me. She landed on my lap with a muffled oof! while my roller chair rolled backwards slightly from the impact. My feet dragged us back to my desk and I childishly swivelled the chair left and right, the wheels creaking under our combined weight.

“Stop it! The chair’s going to break, I swear.” She finally removed her hands from her face and the same crimson-coloured visage greeted me. Her brows were furrowed, lips pulled into a thin line. “I am not going to pay for this chair if it does break.”

I sniggered and earned myself a pinch on the cheek. “Kai…!”

“It won’t break, I can safely assure you.” I pinched her cheek in return and she yelped, hand immediately darting to the spot to rub it. With one cheek squished, she looked simply adorable. “Tried and tested.”

Her expression darkened. “And how would you know? Ho! Some other girl must have sat on your lap like this and the chair barely broke a sweat right!”

I stared at her a few seconds before bursting out into laughter, tears forming in my eyes as I processed her absurd words. My arms tightened their grip around her waist even as she tried to pry herself away from me with weak, futile attempts. (I didn’t work out excessively for nothing.)

Her loud huff brought me back to the situation and I found myself being glared at with narrowed, fiery eyes. My chin struggled for a little while as it tried to rest on her shoulder which wouldn’t stop moving. When I finally managed to place my chin on her shoulder, I darted my eyes upwards to hers. “No, you’re wrong. No other person has ever sat on me like this; you’re the first.”

Her eyes continued to look at mine and I was taken aback by her searching gaze, but I kept calm. “And if you must know why I said that this chair will be able to take our weight, it’s because its previous occupant was a large teacher.” I pointedly coughed and finally elicited a soft giggle from her which I lapped up eagerly.

“Alright, alright.” She put up her hands in surrender and smiled, but she didn’t turn her head towards me, looking straight ahead instead. I wondered why, and so I wanted to find out. By calling her name.

“Mm?” She turned her head and instantly, I felt her lips ghost across my own, warm breath mixing with warm breath. Her eyes rounded, colour flooding her face and she began to pull away. But I didn’t let her, my hands unclasped themselves from her waist to reach up to her face, cupping her cheeks and preventing her from moving.

Warmth spread fast and hot throughout my body as we stayed in that position, my hands on her face, her hands on her lap, our faces still millimetres apart and lips so dangerously close. I was beginning to lose my mind (and self-discipline). “Jen…”

A sharp, loud clatter broke the moment and the girl jumped up with a shriek, hands immediately straightening her outfit as my eyes narrowed and darted to the door, hoping to shoot the intruder with a murderous glare for disrupting–

“Even though the staff room is off-limits to students, but I hope you do know that it is still in a school. So I would very much appreciate if you could keep your hands to yourself, Mr. Kim.”

Mr. Boom’s unimpressed countenance filled my sight, and even though we’re colleagues (he transferred to the elementary division a few months ago, citing that I’ve had enough of hormonal young adults who can’t keep their hands to themselves), the student in me still keeps me afraid of him and his booming voice. So as he stared down at his ex-students, I hurriedly stood up and timidly mumbled an apology which was quickly followed by another of her own. So much for wanting to murder the intruder. Geez, Kai, geez.

“You didn’t tell me that Mr. Boom transferred to the elementary division.”

I glanced up from the ice cream in my hand to find her looking down at me, her own scoop of ice cream partly obscuring her face. She brought it to and I watched, unconsciously, her lips meet the softness of the ice cream and her teeth appeared, ripping off a large chunk of it. Her squeal of bliss snapped me out of the daze and I chuckled, shoving my melting ice cream into my mouth as well.

“Oi, you haven’t answered my question.” She plopped he