Hwang Chansung

Hwang Chansung was going to throw up. With his arms braced on the bathroom counter, he stared at his tired, brown eyes in the mirror. He couldn't believe today was the day. Where had the time gone?

"Daddy! We're gonna be late!" a tiny voice yelled from the bathroom door.

Turning toward the sound, Chansung eyed his five year old son, Jaebeom. It seemed like just yesterday Chansung was cradling his tiny son in his arms and now Jaebeom...oh, right, it's Jay now, was starting kindergarten. He felt his stomach rumble at the thought of how fast his little boy was growing up.

Jay had dressed himself for his first day of school. The little boy was wearing a green "Rex Rules" t-shirt with a picture of a snarling T-Rex, that he all but slept in, and a pair of blue and brown checkered shorts.

It wasn't the outfit Chansung would have chosen, but he was proud of the confidence his son had in himself and his fashion choices "We're not gonna be late, buddy." glancing at his watch he saw that they had to leave the house in half an hour "Let's go grab some breakfast, okay?"

"Fruit Loops?" Jay asked hopefully, his toothy, million watt smile on full display. 

"No way, little man. You know you get one bowl of sugary cereal a week and that's on..."

"Fruit Loop Friday." Jay sighed, hauling himself up into his seat at the breakfast table and sinking his chin into his hands.

Chansung couldn't help but laugh at his son's theatrics. It was hard enough getting the boy to eat well and Fruit Loop Friday had been his one concession. What he ate while he was with his mother was another story.

Shuddering, Chansung grabbed a box of Cheerios from the top of the refrigerator and poured each of them a bowl. Hwang Jea was the reason he was standing in the cramped kitchen of a two-bedroom apartment in downtown Gangnam, Seoul.

If Chansung were being honest with himself, he'd say he was responsible for this damn apartment with uneven floor boards and no on-street parking. He'd known he was gay since he was nine years old and saw Tom Brady play his first NFL game for the New England Patriots. With Tom's glittering blue eyes and the way his looked in those tight uniform pants? Forget it. Chansung fell in love at first sight.

Too scared to come out to his friends and family, he'd hidden in the closet all through high school. In order to maintain his "straight" cover, he'd started dating Kim Jea. She was a nice Catholic girl who attended Immaculate Conception High School in their hometown. What better way to maintain his cover than with a girl whose religious morals would make her wait until she was properly married to have ? He'd get to play straight for all the world to see, while playing the role of perfect gentleman who also wanted to wait until he was married to have . It was a win-win situation for him. Until it wasn't.

Once he and Jea graduated from high school, they'd gone their separate ways to college, overseas...but even then they weren't that far apart. He'd gone to Simmons College to major in Library and Information Science in Boston, while Jea had gone to Emerson to major in communications. She had aspirations to be the next Diane Sawyer and the pricey Boston school was the first stop in making that dream a reality. Stopping that dream in its tracks was a frat party thrown at Simmons during their sophomore year.

Chansung had really been feeling the heat over producing his often talked about, but never seen girlfriend. The guys in his frat kept referring to her as "Vera." Norm Peterson's never seen wife on the sitcom, Cheers. Knowing he had to produce Jea or risk rumors being started about his uality, Chansung invited her to the party.

He'd been able to satisfy his frat brothers' curiosity over his rumored fake girlfriend. Jea had charmed them all with pictures of the two of them together, which Chansung always insisted they take, even if they were just having lunch at Chipotle. Maintaining his cover at all costs was his number one priority.

Inviting Jea to the party had solved one dilemma but heated up another one. Over the last few months Jea had been turning up the heat for the two of them to have . She'd been a Catholic girl in name only, knowing that graduating at the top of her class from the smaller Catholic high school in Gwangju rather than the larger public high school in the city, would give her a better chance of getting into Emerson and their vaunted communications program.

After a lot of begging and more cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon than he could count, Chansung had finally given in and had with Jea. She'd screamed his name and writhed under him like she was really into it, but it had been the worst experience of his life. He'd had to fantasize that he was ing Tom Brady just so that he could come and get the nightmare over with. Unfortunately for Chansung, that fateful night was just the start of his nightmare.

Once Jea realized she'd gotten pregnant as a result of that fateful night, both sets of parents insisted they get married, which Chansung had dutifully done. Seven months later, tiny, screaming Hwang Jaebeom had been born.

The baby had been the light of Chansung's life. He'd been more than happy to work nights and weekends at the Seoul Public Library, restocking shelves and checking out books, to support their little family while he finished his junior and senior years at Simmons through their online program. Jea, depressed and hating motherhood, dropped out of college, whining to anyone who would listen that she couldn't be the next Diane Sawyer with a ing baby on her hip.

"Daddy?" Jay shouted. 

Startled, Chansung spun around, knocking the Cheerios box onto the floor "Yeah, buddy?"

Jay pointed to the two dry bowls of Cheerios sitting on the kitchen counter "Is your head in the clouds?"

"I was just thinking about the day you were born." quickly adding milk to the bowls, Chansung grabbed two spoons and brought their breakfast to the table.

"Was I cute?" Jay asked around a mouthful of cereal and milk.

"Were you cute?" Chansung laughed "You were the cutest baby at the hospital." it was the truth. What wasn't so cute was the way Jea refused to hold her newborn son. Based on her reaction, Chansung should have taken the baby and filed for divorce then and there, but hindsight, as they say, is 20/20.

Lee Junho

Lee Junho was standing in the center of his kindergarten classroom, twirling slowly around. To the right of the classroom door was the cloakroom where each of his eleven students had a cubby for hats, gloves and lunchboxes and a peg for their jackets. Each child's name was stenciled on the cubby door.

Moving on from the cloakroom was a large rectangular bulletin board where he'd stapled a tall cardboard tree. Right now the branches were bare, but later in the week the class was going to make green construction paper handprints for leaves and once October hit, would add colorful handprints to go along with his lesson on the change of season.

The hallway door leading to the bathrooms was next to the bulletin board. On the other side of the doorway, running the length of the classroom were built in cabinets designed with the height of five year olds in mind. Inside the cabinets were toys and craft supplies. On top of the cabinets was Junho's pride and joy, his reptile collection.

There were four small terrariums, each housing a different lizard. Over the years he'd managed to collect a chameleon, bearded dragon, leopard gecko and a horned lizard. He loved keeping them in the classroom since kids with animal allergies would be able to hold the animals and participate in their care. Classroom pets were a good way to teach responsibility and allow Junho to indulge in his passion.

In the center of the classroom were twelve desks with small matching chairs. Over the summer, Junho had made nameplates for each of the children with a drawing of one of their favorite things. Today wouldn't be his first time meeting his new students.

The Little Wonder Clovers School catered to students from Pre-Kindergarten through the third grade. Junho's incoming class had all been students in last year's Pre-K program. At the end of the school year last June, there had been a Step Up ceremony where the students were able to see their classroom for the next school year and meet their new teacher. 

Junho had sat his new class around in a circle and asked each of them about their favorite hobby or superhero. One little boy, Hwang Jaebeom or as he intrudused hemself as Jay, was a child after his own heart. His greatest love was dinosaurs, while Junho's happened to be dragons. He'd drawn a happy T-Rex holding an apple in one of its tiny hands on Jay's nameplate.

Against the far wall in the classroom was his own desk and cubby for his personal items. Lastly was his favorite part of the room: the reading rug. The large, round rainbow braided rug had been a present from his parents when he'd signed the contract to become a kindergarten teacher at Little Wonder Clovers.

His parents' easy acceptance of his uality never failed to bring a tear to his eyes. Over the years, he'd seen and heard stories from friends and neighbors whose coming out had been met with anger, disgust and pleas from family members to go to church to pray the gay away. No matter what, Junho knew his parents had his back.

The start of the new school year was just what the doctor had ordered for Junho after spending the summer dealing with a bad breakup. He'd been together with his ex, Junyoung, for the last three years and the relationship had nearly bankrupted him emotionally and financially.

Junyoung was smoking hot, with his dark hair and chiseled body, but his looks weren't enough to make up for the fact that he was a lazy bum. In the three years they'd been together, Junyoung had been through about ten jobs and still spent most of those years unemployed. None of the jobs he'd found had been the right fit or he always ended up getting into some kind of altercation with another "queen" as Junyoung put it, forcing the manager to let him go. Fire him, more like.

The final straw had been the five hundred thousand won gym bill for the services of a personal trainer. Junho had a feeling that money paid for more than just work in the gym.

His salary as a teacher was barely enough to support him and the small two-bedroom house he'd bought the year before he and Junyoung got together. Thanks to Junyoung's overspending, he'd had to supplement his income by helping to run Little Wonder Clover's summer program, which was glorified day care with educational games, arts and crafts projects and rowdy sing-alongs.

"Lee-sunsengnim!" a tiny voice yelled from the classroom door.

"Jay, slow down!" a man's voice called out from further away.

"Good morning, Jay!" Junho smiled brightly at the little boy who was wearing a Tyrannosaurus Rex t-shirt "Happy first day of school."

"Jay!" Chansung called out as he ran into the classroom.

"No running in school, Hwang-ssi." Junho greeted with a smile. He couldn't help staring at the gorgeous man whose chest was heaving from sprinting down the hall after his speedy son. His blond hair was perfectly styled while his brown eyes twinkled with what Junho thought was amusement. 

"Mianhe, Lee-sunsengnim. I won't ever run in the halls again." Chansung agreed breathlessly and bowed a little.

"That was a very nice apology, Daddy!" Jay hugged his father's leg and stared up at him with a look of adoration on his face.

Junho couldn't help thinking that was a line his father used to praise him "Hwang-ssi, I don't think we've met." Junho bowed and held out his hand.

"No, we haven't. My ex-wife was here on Step Up day and well..." Chansung trailed off, a slight blush bloomed over his face.

After spending five years teaching, Junho knew all about broken families and how that influenced which parent showed up at which events. He'd never understand why people couldn't band together for the sake of their kids.

Seeming to recover from his embarrassment, Chansung took Junho's outstretched hand.

A bolt of attraction stronger than he'd ever felt before zinged through his entire body. Junho had never been this drawn to another person in his entire life. It was too bad Chansung was straight. Not that it mattered anyway. After the way his relationship with Junhoyung ended, Junho had sworn off men for the foreseeable future.

Chansung jerked at the contact between them and was quick to pull his hand away from Junho. He stared at his hand for a second before getting down on his haunches in front of Jay "You're gonna have the best time ever today."

"Yup!" Junho crowed.

"Don't forget Grams and Pop-Pop are gonna pick you up at 3:00pm when school ends and I'll see you a little after 5:00pm when I get out of work."

"You're gonna have the bestest day ever too!" Jay looked certain.

"I love you, buddy." Chansung said with a slight hitch in his voice.

"Love you more, dinosaur!" Jay giggled.

"No! I love you more, dinosaur!" Chansung returned, hugging his son and pressing a kiss to his head "It was nice meeting you, Lee-sunsengnim." he held up a hand to wave.

"You too, Hwang-ssi.: Junho returned his wave and tried to turn his mind away from the handsome single father who'd just rung his bell.