Chapter Nineteen: A Thorn in the Side of Authority

It All Started with a Big Bang...

It was nearly ten to 7:00 on Monday evening when GD stepped into the elevator, headed down to the fourth floor.  Although the starting time for class wasn't enforced so strongly when it was held at night, in the teacher's apartment (not taking up company space and being so close to home allowed their schedule to be a bit looser), he made his way over just a bit early, hoping to get a chance to ask Caden about her weekend before the others showed up and everything got started.

The elevator dinged as it halted, and the doors opened just in time for GD to watch Top knock on the door.  His friend didn't seem to notice as GD sauntered over to him, leaning in as close as he could without being noticed.

"Fancy meeting you here," he announced loudly, causing Top to jump slightly, his head snapping around to face the newcomer.

"Oh yeah, hardy har har," the other member quipped sarcastically, giving the laughing GD a light shove. "And how old are we, exactly?"

"Ah, that's right - hyung doesn't like when people sneak up on him," GD replied in the snottiest tone he could muster. "I forgot what a poor sport you are about that kind of thing."  Top only rolled his eyes.

"I'm a little surprised to see you here so bright and early," GD teased, not letting up. "I can't remember the last time you beat me to class."  Top laughed at this.

"It's true, I'm no teacher's pet," he replied, eyes glinting mischievously, "but it is slightly easier getting to the evening class, considering I'm already awake."  It was GD's turn to laugh now, and they were both still chuckling when the door finally opened to reveal a smiling Caden.

"Ah, the students are arriving," she proclaimed brightly in Korean. "Is it that time already?"  She moved over to allow them inside.  Top entered, nodding at her with a smile, with GD following closely behind.  They were both surprised when they were greeted by the sight of Seungri, who stood from his seat on the couch as they entered, a small but meaningful smirk playing across his lips.

"I would comment on how early you two are, but considering how much longer he's been here, I guess it's kind of a moot point," Caden teased good-naturedly, nodding toward Seungri.

"Hello hyungs," he greeted from behind her back, smirk widening. "I got finished with my fitting late, so by the time I got back I could either stand in my apartment doing nothing for 20 minutes, or come a little early."

"Luckily I had just finished setting everything up when the doorbell rang," Caden piped up, gesturing the new arrivals toward the couch.

"Caden ssi and I were just discussing her weekend," Seungri added, returning to his seat on the couch as the two older boys purposefully sat down on either side of him, eying him distrustfully.  They had both heard enough whining out of him regarding the new tutor to have a pretty good idea about his motives for arriving early.

"How...nice," GD stated with forced cheeriness, glancing at Caden - who had taken a seat on the arm chair beside the couch -trying to gauge how worried he needed to be about the maknae embarrassing himself before their arrival.  She simply smiled over at the three of them, gesturing toward the coffee table.

"I don't know if you've all eaten yet, but just in case, I generously provided plenty of snacks, so eat at your leisure.  There are also drinks in the fridge, so feel free to help yourself."

"Doesn't it take away from the generosity slightly if you describe it that way yourself?" Top teased, reaching for a piece of fruit in a bowl on the table.  The other two laughed and Caden pretended to consider his question  thoughtfully, but she never quit managed to stop grinning fully.

"I don't think it's the generosity of the act that it takes away from, so much as the thoughtfulness," she answered, trying to sound serious before breaking into a wide grin.  The boys laughed.

"You seem to be in a particularly upbeat mood tonight," GD pointed out with a grin.

"Is that so?" Caden asked, still smiling widely. "I hadn't even noticed..."  There was another knock on the door, and Caden quickly leaned over to grab a cookie from the snack tray, popping it into and waggling her eyebrows at them before making her way over to the door.  She flung it open to reveal both Young bae and Daesung, who smiled down at her politely.

"The gang's all here!" she cried, in English now, as she finished chewing her cookie.  She moved aside to let them in. "Looks like we're just about ready to get started."  She glanced over at the clock.

"Although..." she continued, switching back to Korean. "We still technically have five more minutes before we're scheduled to start...  Wow.  I really didn't expect you all to be early.  In fact, I kind of thought you'd be a little late getting back from your day's activities.  Either my teaching skills have become so great that you all wanted to soak up the lesson for even longer, or you just really aren't morning people."

"Or maybe it's because they... I mean we, enjoy your company more than all the other teachers," Daesung joked, making sure to emphasize his feigned slip of the tongue.  GD and Seungri glared at him, while Top, as well as Young bae, only chuckled.  Caden laughed in surprise.

"Don't say that!" she chastised mildly. "Teacher Park would be devastated to hear you say that!"

"I don't think she would be too surprised actually," Young bae muttered under his breath.

"What was that?" Caden asked.

"Oh nothing," he replied, smiling widely.  The boys on the couch gazed over at him curiously, while Daesung (who was close enough to hear) held in his laughter.  The two newcomers finally settled down onto the floor, in the open area Caden had created for the lesson.

"Well, whatever the reason, I'll give you all a few more minutes to eat snacks and get settled before we officially start.  I need to do a few last minute preparations anyway."  With that, she disappeared briefly into her bedroom, closing the door behind her.

Top and Seungri stood, making their way over to the fridge to grab drinks for themselves and the other members.  Caden reappeared after a moment, carrying a large white board that she set on the couch that Top and Seungri had just vacated.

"Students on the floor," she announced rather apologetically. "Sorry guys.  I tried to set up the furniture so that you'd all fit, but it just didn't work out..."

 She disappeared again, this time down the hall, as GD grudgingly stood up from his place on the couch before plopping down on the floor beside Young bae.  Drinks were passed around and all the members chatting and laughing about how much space the five of them took up when sitting on the ground when Caden reappeared, rolling an even larger mobile white board into the "classroom" area.  Sipping their beverages, the boys watched with detached interest as Caden set up both white boards just the way she wanted them.  She then proceeded to pull out school supplies from where she had them stored under the coffee table.

First came a stack of notebooks, followed by a jar of freshly sharpened pencils, a handful of white board markers, and finally the calendar that she had mentioned in their meeting on Friday.

"Alright," Caden breathed, sitting down on the edge of the couch briefly, looking out at the five of them. "My plan is to quickly go through and review lessons for the two languages first - starting with English, since you're more up to date with it, leaving more time for Japanese review.  After that, as always, I have a few more announcements to go over, after which you will be free to go.  So that we can hurry and get to that point, let's begin."  She picked up the calendar, peeling off the first layer of paper to reveal the day's date.

"Right," she continued, holding it up for them to see. "First we'll need someone to write the Fact of the Day on the board."  She indicated the smaller white board propped up on the couch behind her. "Since we know he's reliable - Teacher's Pet, why don't you be the first?" she teased, grinning at GD.  He rolled his eyes good-naturedly as the rest of the guys snickered quietly.  He stood, taking the calendar from her with an overly polite bow.

"Whatever you say, Madame Teacher," he replied rather sarcastically, but Caden only smiled.  He plucked a marker up from the table, carefully copying the words from the calendar onto the board.  When he finished, he replaced both items on the coffee table before returning to his seat.  Caden waited until he was all settled in before musing,

"My, you sure have nice handwriting... I wish I could say the same..."

This caused the boys to chuckle.  Previously, before Teacher Park left, they had all seen her writing in the classroom.  Being left handed, she had to work comically hard not to erase everything she wrote on the white board, and they had all about her boyish handwriting, both in English and Hangul.

"Now then," she continued, switching to English (which indicated that it would no longer be acceptable for anyone to speak in Korean for the remainder of the lesson), "would you please read today's fact aloud?"  GD complied.

"A person's second language is often the most difficult to learn," he stated clearly, "but the more languages one learns, the easier language learning generally becomes."

"Perfect, thank you," Caden praised, turning her attention to the whole group. "Does everyone understand the basic meaning of today's fact?"

"It means 'besides the language you grew up speaking, the more languages you learn, the easier it is to learn another', right?" Seungri translated in Korean.  Caden smiled.

"Very good," she responded, still in English. "I couldn't have asked for a better fact for my first lesson as your official tutor."  She stood, picking up a marker,

"Now let's do a quick review of our latest English lesson before moving on to the Japanese.  Everyone grab a notebook and a pencil, and let's begin."

 

As predicted, the English lesson went by fairly quickly.  Everyone, even Top, had been fairly well caught up before Teacher Park's final day on the previous Thursday.  They were given a ten minute break to relax, use the bathroom, or eat snacks before Caden dove headlong into the Japanese review.  Since they hadn't been taught the language for so much longer, this lesson began with a review of the basics.  They covered vocabulary and sentence structure nearly forgotten (except by Seungri and Young bae, who had managed to remain fairly fluent).

After some time, GD couldn't help but notice that the lesson had already gone past the allotted time by about ten minutes.  Caden drilled them on a few more test sentences before announcing that the class would come to an end for the day.  They all let out a collective sigh of relief.  Caden grinned at this.

"I know it's pretty hard, picking back up after all this time off," she told them, once again in Korean - signaling that the lesson was truly over, "but it'll get easier for you, I promise.  And now, although I know you'd all like to get back to your rooms and recover from your busy days, first we have to get through a few announcements.  For now, feel free ti stretch and relax while I put the white boards away.  Oh, and I won't force you to sit on the floor anymore."

The boys began to stand, stretching out their arms and legs, purposefully groaning and making various overly emphasised noises of discomfort.  Caden grinned, but ignored them, removing the two enormous white boards from the classroom area.

As she disappeared, GD plopped down in the middle of the couch, followed closely by Seungri who sat beside him.  Top settled into the armchair, while Young bae simply stood, leaning on the back of the couch.  Daesung, who had remained on the floor, scooted closer to the coffee table, resting one arm across it while avoiding all the snacks and school supplies.

Caden returned shortly, white board free, to find them seated comfortably.  She made her way over and sat on the last remaining open seat on the couch, beside GD.  Although she had gotten serious for the lesson, now Caden's almost giddy, perma-smile from earlier returned.

"I don't know about you all, but I think that went well for my first solo lesson," she said, almost excitedly, smiling out at them.

"It was okay," Top said, sounding serious.

"I personally found the style of vocabulary review rather contrived," Daesung joked, using his most uppity tone.

"Oh shut it," Caden commanded, rolling her eyes good-naturedly as the other members laughed, proving that she was already out of tutor-mode. "Anyway, we've proven that we can successfully continue without Teacher Park, and that's what matters."  She smiled again before continuing.

"Now, I promise I'll hurry with all the announcements so you can get on with your evenings," she prompted. "First of all, I want to remind you that, from now on, most of you will only be meeting here two days a week."  Top snorted at this, which Caden effectively ignored,

"As you might recall, Mondays and Wednesdays are Japanese lessons, while Tuesdays and Thursdays are English lessons.  If you don't remember which lesson you were assigned to, I'd be happy to remind you before you leave.  If you're simply bitter about the lessons to which you were assigned, however, I request that you keep your comments to yourself."  Top, who had opened his mouth to speak, made a combination surprised/annoyed face at this statement, at which Caden couldn't help but laugh.

"I miss the times when we were making fun of Jiyong for being too good at everything," Top announced once he'd recovered himself, grinning teasingly. "Why don't we go back to that."

"I think it's a nice change of pace," GD piped up before Caden could reply. "Very refreshing." Caden and the other guys all laughed at that.

"Moving on," Caden announced finally, still grinning. "As I said previously, every other Friday we will be meeting in the classroom in the morning to reivew.  We will be meeting this Friday, around 10 or 11 in the morning - I see no reason to have you all wake up early for an hour long class once every two weeks.  And now you can look forward to having Friday to yourselves next week."  She paused, thinking for a moment.

"On the subject of your lessons, while I have you," she continued, "let's talk about learning Japanese for a moment.  I want to warn you that I'm going to be making a few slight changes to the Japanese that you've been learning until now.  Don't be alarmed - it's nothing major.  Luckily you were previously taught by a male teacher, so you avoided learning the overly polite woman's Japanese, which would sound strange coming from you guys.  However, the Japanese that you did learn is still a little too polite and unfamiliar for my taste.

"From now, I will be teaching you the polite Japanese boy-speak that male Japanese idols use when speaking to fans and to other idols.  Again, don't worry - whether you've made much progress in the language or not, it won't be a huge difference.  As it is, are there any questions?"

"I have a question," Seungri piped up.  Everyone's attention turned to him and Caden smiled encouragingly, prompting him to continue.

"Now that Teacher Park is gone..." he began carefully, "are we allowed to see your room?"  The other boys immediately laughed and hooted in agreement, while Caden attempted to give him an unamused look, but ruined it by chuckling.

"To answer your question," she said loudly, in an attempt to regain their attention, "no you may not.  I will be continuing Teacher Park's house rule of 'bedrooms are off limits'."  There was much groaning and grumbling from the boys in response.  Daesung even booed.  Caden ignored this, continuing,

"Although, I was planning to mention that the bedroom vacated by Teacher Park has been turned into a study room of sorts - but only for those who have not done their homework or fallen behind on lessons due to slacking.  So it's been turned into a punishment study room.  Teacher Park and I have added a surprise punishment technique to the room, so trust me when I say that you don't want to be sent in there..."

"Why do you want to hide your room from us so badly?" Seungri complained, clearly brushing off all the information Caden had just mentioned.  She gave him a look,

"Think about how much less privacy Teacher Park and I had from students, compared to the average teacher.  I am entitled to keep at least that little space to myself, especially from students."

More grumbling followed this statement, but they couldn't exactly argue with her point.  Caden rolled her eyes, grinning at their reaction.

"All right, all right.  Enough announcements for today.  Class dismissed - now get on with your evenings.  Remember, I'll see Top, Seungri, and Taeyang here tomorrow at 7:00, the rest of you on Wednesday, and everyone in the classroom on Friday.  Have a good night!"

Much standing, stretching, and shuffling followed that statement as the members made their way out the door.  After several handfuls of snacks were taken for the road, and numerous goodbyes, they were all eventually waved out the door by a smiling Caden, left to make their way back to their various apartments.

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A/N

Hey guys. :D  I'm really really sorry I took so long with this chapter. =/ I'm a horrible, non-updating-ontime person.

For some reason this chapter just didn't flow for me like the others did, but I'm hoping you still like it.  I think it came out okay in the end. :)

I hope everyone's excited for the return of our Big Bang boys - they got some classic tutor lesson interaction in this chapter.

Due to this semester's class schedule, I'm actually left with some free time to write between school and work during the week, so updates might come a teensy bit faster (now that I'm past my writer's block ((hopefully)) and all) ^_^  I expect to update again by the end of this weekend, but after that it might drop back into the weekly pattern that I made happen... for that one week that it actually worked. :P

Please forgive my lateness, I hope you like the story, so please comment and subscribe to let me know. :D

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Thank you!
Mikalino13
I'm back! In case... you missed me! Lol. I hope you enjoy this latest chapter starring GD~~

Comments

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Yoongi1230 #1
Chapter 4: Omg the lip biting so cuteee! It's gna cause trouble lol!
Cinderelly12
#2
Chapter 37: Wow! I really enjoy the flow of the story! I also just realized that we are 37 chapters in and we don't know who exactly her love interests are. Hmm. I can guess at maybe 2. Will be interesting to see what happens next! Thank you!
Cinderelly12
#3
Chapter 34: So is Daeho cool with her teaching the idols? Was he shocked or impressed. Was he understanding? It seems like he is okay with it. Thank you!
Cinderelly12
#4
Chapter 18: I like her friendship with Daeho. Thank you
Cinderelly12
#5
Chapter 3: I'm glad she fessed up to not being the other applicant. Looks better on her.
Cinderelly12
#6
Chapter 1: Interesting start! I like that she is a little clumsy and confused.