With a sigh, I entered into the classroom and wasn’t surprised to see Kyung there drumming away on his desk. Each step that I took towards him made my insides twists uncomfortably. After last night, I knew that things would probably become awkward; yet when I sat down in my seat, Kyung looked at me and smiled like as if last night never happened. I creased my brows, and wanted to question him, but I figured I shouldn’t if I didn’t want to bring last night up. I took out papers from my bag and a pencil, “Do you have your assignment?”
“Of course,” he answered. I looked at him and watched as he extends arm towards me with his paper in hand, “in fact, I decided to work on it after getting home last night.” He said. “Feel free to check it.” I took the paper from his hand and looked at the first problem. As much as I would have liked to be surprised, I wasn’t. He had answered every question he had done right.
“And you said you needed help with math,” I mumbled to which he heard and laughed.
“I had helped with those, but in the end, I got it right.”
“Your parents helped you?” I asked without giving it much thought.
“Parents,” Kyung repeated the word and quickly took the paper from my hand, “I had my friends help me; my parents kicked me out of the house.”
“Oh,” my shoulders lowered at his comment, “sorry.”
He shook his head, “What’s there to be sorry about? They kicked me out.”
“I just…” I mumbled, unable to find the right words to tell him.
“It’s nothing to feel sorry about,” he said with a smile, “I was never what they wanted me to be anyways.” I stayed quiet for the next couple of seconds, unable to understand how he could be smiling while talking about such a subject. And almost like as if he had heard my thoughts, Kyung scooted his chair close to me, “Like I said, I have no problem talking about my personal life unlike someone here.”

I scowled and leaned away from him, “Our stories are different,”
“I don’t believe they’re that different from each other,” he stated, “then again, I don’t know anything about you except for the fact that you’re smart and work at a coffee shop.”
“That’s all you should know about me,” I said, “anyways, let’s get back to tutoring, shall we?” Kyung scowled and began to work the rest of the problems presented on the paper. We stayed quiet, working on our own things until class began. The following days were the same as today; Kyung stayed quiet about asking me personal things, which was nice. But I knew that he probably really wanted to ask me about what had happened.

Afterschool; last day of the week, I noticed Kyung looking at me as if waiting for me to hurry and gather my things.
“You’re not leaving early today?”
He smirked, leaning towards me, “Why; should I leave early?” He asked and stood up from his desk.
I shrugged, “I was just wondering,” I simply answered before standing up, “you’re not going to follow me to work, are you?”
“No,” he answered, “but I’ll see you after work.”
“You’re seriously not going to stop this, are you?”
“Not until our tutoring sessions are over and done with,”
I sighed when a question popped into my head, “Wait, how long are our tutoring sessions going to last?” He had never mentioned anything about this to me. I narrowed my eyes at him, awaiting his answer to which he smiled in response.
“I would say about a month or two,” he replied, “that should be enough time for me to learn math and understand it, right?”
I shrugged, “It depends if you’re a good learner,”
“Then should I play it dumb so we can see each other longer?”
“No,” I quickly shook my head at his suggestion.
“One to two months sounds good then,”
I sighed and began making my way towards the exit of the classroom; Kyung followed from behind. I could feel every hair on my back stand due to the fact that he was walking behind me. It almost felt like he was just going to suddenly grab me from behind and—I quickly shook my head, interrupting my thoughts from continuing anymore. How could I even think of such a situation? I slightly turned my head to the side and glanced from behind me; he was there, just walking and whistling to himself.

“What?”
I turned my head back around and continued walking forward. Exiting the school building, Kyung catches up to me, walking by my side, and tells me that we’re going to part ways now. I just nodded at him without saying anything.
-

The sound of the door’s bell echoed throughout the store, indicating the arrival of a customer. I looked over at the clock and noticed that it was about the usual time that Kyung would arrive, so instead of walking up front, I stayed where I was and restocked. The sound of a knock on the counter interrupted me from continuing to stock; I turned my head and was surprised to see 3 young men standing before the counter. My brows furrowed, seeing that I was wrong to guess that it was Kyung who had walked in. With a nod, I stopped what I was doing and walked over to the 3 young men. They each looked at me with annoyance as soon as I stood before them. I put on a smile, “What will you guys be ordering?”
“What sounds good right now?” One of them asked with their brows shrugged.
I slightly cocked my head to the side, “Um, you can try our mint—”
“I want something sweet,” he interrupted, “you can’t suggest something that mint in it when the weather isn’t even cold.”
I nodded, “Sorry,”
“Hm,” the other leaned forward and smiled at me, “say, how about you make me the mocha?” I grabbed a paper coffee cup from below and a sharpie to write down his order. He widened the smile on his face and winked, “you’re pretty cute, you know?”
I ignored his comment and turned to look at the other guy—a timid-looking guy with frizzed hair. He looked like he was having trouble trying to decide what he wanted, but he didn’t ask me for a suggestion. I wasn’t sure if should ask him, seeing that he was in deep thought over what he wanted. Before time could pass any longer, the first guy knocked on the counter to catch my attention.

“I want the raspberry drink,” he said, “make it real hot, alright?”
I simply nodded and turned my attention back to the timid guy. It looked like he finally made his choice and turned to look at me with a smile—a smile that made my heart felt at ease. I swallowed back and waited for him to speak.
“Just give me caramel frappe,” his mellow voice spoke; it was almost soothing.

After they paid, I went right to making the drinks, which didn’t take longer than 20 minutes to make. One by one, each of the males came to retrieve their drink from me. First was the guy with the mocha, then the timid guy, and last was the rude one. They sat at a table not too far from the counter; they chatted and laughed loudly about obscure things. Though I tried to not listen to what they were talking about, it was hard not to.

“… I heard that teacher made out with—”
“Seriously; with that—”
“Yeah, apparently they’ve been meeting after school or something.”
“You guys shouldn’t believe every rumor there is,” his voice spoke, “so gullible.”
“Jaehyo,” one of them clucked their tongue, “who are you calling gullible, huh?”
“You,” he replied, “that teacher has only been absent for two days and rumors have already been floating around. You shouldn’t be so interested in other people’s lives like that.”
“You don’t understand—” the sound of a phone interrupts the male from continuing his argument. I stopped listening by this point and began to sweep. After a couple of seconds, the sound of clothes shuffling and chairs scratching the marble floor are heard. Next, the knocking of the counter sounded again.

I looked up and saw that one of them was pointing a finger at me to come to them. I obliged, oblivious to what he wanted. I approached them with caution, “What is it?”
The male rashly grabbed my arm and pulled me towards him, even though the counter was in between us. He smiled at me, “I might just start coming here to see your pretty face,” he commented, “though I don’t know if I would buy the same drink from you again, seeing that it didn’t taste as good as I thought it would.” I tried to jerk my arm away, but he opposed. “You should be thankful that I’ve taken a liking to you, you know? I’m Jihoon; heir to a rich company.”
“Come on, stop,” I looked to the side to see that Jaehyo had gripped onto Jihoon’s shoulder, “she’s working.”
“What?” He questioned, “I’m just letting her know.”
“Let go of her, alright?” Jaehyo reasoned to which Jihoon obliged to. He released my arm and began making his way out of the coffee shop. Jaehyo stayed behind; he scratched the back of his head, “Sorry about that; sometimes his position of being heir gets the best of him.” I shook my head in response. Jaehyo smiled a bit, “Well, thanks for the coffee. Mine was wonderful to drink.” He said and made his way out.