It has been three years since Irene Bae had started working as a teacher. And it wasn’t uncommon for her to receive gifts and confession letters from her students – she had been dealing with this since she was a middle schooler in fact – so she had pretty much grown accustomed. The usual gifts that she would receive from her students would be in a range of small boxes of chocolates, bunch of roses, and sometimes short though mostly long admiration letters to her; even though Valentines nor Christmas wasn’t even around the corner. But there was one particular thing that stood out to her after the first few months of the new school semester. Yes, Irene still received the usual on her desk at the teacher lounge at times but what was different now, is that her desk would always be decorated with one particular yellow, bear-shaped post-it note. Funny thing is, it wasn’t one of those confession lines like ‘Miss Bae you’re the prettiest teacher in our school’ or ‘Miss Bae I would fail History class every year just to see your face’ – nope, the note she received was nowhere near that territory.  Because it was rather strange yet funny on how the student would gave her trivial facts on the most random topic. As for today, she arrived to her desk in the morning, setting her things down; not missing to pull off the post-it-note and read another fact with an amused smile crept on her face. [Did you know that there are 34 flavours of Pringles in this world? Amazing, isn’t it?] This student really is one of a kind, she thought to herself as she kept the note back inside her purse before heading to her class. All attention was on her as she walked in. She didn’t find it unsettling at the gazes of her students – maybe she did back then, but she had learnt to cope with it. People would check her out since she was in middle school back then. She finds it uncomfortable at times but now, she was rather used to it. The class representative, Jackson, greeted her as he stood in front of his table followed by the rest of the students. Irene did her usual routine, checking the student’s attendance as her eyes shift from the names on the list to the student itself. “Kim Yerim.” “Here!” She looked up to see one of the cheekiest girls in the class doing a V-sign from the back row of her seat. Her eyes already darts towards the student sitting one desk away from Yeri – Kang Seulgi. She was immediately greeted with the usual bright smile. That infamous smile that’ll make one cooed on how adorable it was. At times, she admits she really do feel therapeutic and at ease when she witness the girl smiling but –   “Miss Bae?”   “Yes?” Her distracted mind turns to the voice ahead of her.   “You haven’t finished with the attendance yet.” Hyojung reminded her politely.   “O-Oh yes,” She focused once more on the attendance before preceding with the pop quiz that she had prepared a few days ago.   When she started handing out the question paper, almost all of the student grunted in annoyance. Irene had to admit, History definitely wasn’t in the list of the top subjects that high school students love, unlike her. But there was less to no choice as the subject is compulsory for them to pass and graduate. “Enough with the whining,” Irene walked past the isle of students and made it to her podium. “I’ve told all of you since last week on the topics that’ll come out today. This quiz takes up 10% of your marks. So if any of you leave the paper blank, there’s a chance I’ll be seeing you repeating my class again next semester.” “We don’t mind,” Seungyoon chirped from his seat with a grin which quickly disappears as she shot him down with a glare.       It was already three in the afternoon when Irene finished marking the quiz. She stacked the marks accordingly, rearranging from the highest marks to the lowest. As she had predicted, Seulgi’s paper, with a full twenty over twenty sitting neatly on top of the stacks; funny how when Irene first walked in into the class, it didn’t piqued her of Seulgi to be a smart student. She knew it was wrong to make assumptions about her students but Seulgi did not left an entirely good impression on her first class as she was whispering ever so visibly with her friend Sooyoung while she was talking in front of the class. Then she had this silly looking grin where her eyes turned to crescents before mumbling an apology when Irene called her out and she thought ‘Ah, this must be one of those class clowns or something’ Irene then tidied her desk, chatted with a few of her co-workers before leaving the teacher’s lounge, making a beeline towards the staff toilet. As she had done with her business, she walked past most of the empty classrooms, making her way to the car park when she saw an occupied class. The school’s Dance Club was having a practice it seems, she tiptoed slightly as she walks, peeking at the half-ajar door, spotting few similar faces. She then made her way to the car, not realising a certain student slipping out from the occupied room, heading towards the teacher’s lounge.                                                                                                                      ***   Irene knew there isn’t any job in this world that isn’t stressful. Today was one of those grumpy without-a-reason day, or maybe there is. The teachers had a meeting with the higher ups yesterday discussing over the statistic of the student’s performance in each subject and it seems that History was a tad bit unstable over the past few years. And unquestionably, the higher ups would always blame the teachers for not doing their job properly which was untrue, at least for her part. Being