Previous Chapter: Just as Jessica was getting comfortable in her seat, a certain voice startled her.

                          “Hi Soo Yeonie!”

                          “Speak of the devil,” was the thing that Jessica come to mind once she heard him.

Bold: Dialouge that is being spoken to in Korean

As Jessica’s class was finishing their classwork, their Korean teacher was starting to pass out their tests from last week. As always, Jessica got a perfect score on her paper. The only time Jessica got a score lower than a 100% was when her teacher gave her a 98% because she wrote a word wrong, but it actually turned out to be a mistake made by the teacher so the 98% turned into a 100%.

Jessica’s desk mate Ye Jin whispered into Jessica’s ear, “Soo Yeon, I saw Dong Hae’s score on the test. It’s not good.”

1 hour later…

“Soo Yeon, Dong Hae, “I’m glad that you saw my note on your tests,” their teacher said with an expression that sounded neither sad nor cheerful.

“What did you need to talk to us about teacher?” Jessica asked, “Sorry if I sound rude, but Dong Hae and I need to go to the student council meeting soon.”

“I’m well aware of the student council meeting time. I already sent a message to the principal informing him that you two might be late, but I’m sure this won’t take too much of your time,” the teacher replied as she turned her attention from Jessica to Dong Hae.

“Mr. Lee, I’m sure you have a good idea as to why I called for you after class. If I’m not mistaken, this isn’t the first time I have done this, yes?”

“Yes teacher,” Dong Hae said in a timid voice.

“I’m sure that you’re aware that your grades haven’t improved much during this semester. I am sad to tell you, but if two of your grades do not improve to at least a “C” by the end of the second semester, you are going to be held back a grade level,” the teacher told Dong Hae in a disappointed tone.

“Teacher, I’m still not sure why you called me here,” Jessica spoke up.

“Ah yes, Miss Jung, I almost forgot. I want to ask you if you would be kind enough to tutor Dong Hae in all of his courses here at Korean school. I’m not asking you as a student, I’m asking you as the student council president in your level. As the student council president you should be willing to help a classmate when he or she needs it,” the teacher said calmly and naturally, as if it was normal to ask Jessica to help a failing student, which it wasn’t. Jessica was shocked and confused. It wasn’t that Jessica disliked helping others, even if it was Dong Hae, but she was terrible at teaching others, in her perspective.

There was this one time last year when Jessica tried to teach her two older brothers and her younger sisters how to speak Korean, which did not go as planned. Jessica’s parents wanted to see if she was learning anything at Korean school and they thought that there was no better way to see that by Jessica teaching her siblings Korean for 20 minutes. Jessica’s lesson with her siblings went something like this.

Flashback to last year:

Jessica sat at the kitchen table, excited to teach her siblings her native language, well native in the sense of where she was born.

“Are you guys ready?” Jessica asked in a cheery attitude.

“Yah, yah whatever. Let’s just finish this quickly, I have to finish stuff for Bible school,” her oldest brother, who was 13 at the time, Jake said, annoyed that he was being forced to learn something he had no interest in.

“Mommy said I only had to stay here for 10 minutes, then I could go play with my dolls,” Jessica’s six year old sister, Maria, said loudly and happily. Even though Maria was only six at the time and didn’t really have a concept of time, she knew that would be at the kitchen for a shorter time period than her brothers.

“Lucky you,” Jessica’s second older brother, Matthew said full of sarcasm. Even though Matthew was only a month older than Jessica, he acted as if he was boss of her.

 “Mom said that I should teach you guys how to say the names of family members, so that’s what I going to teach you,” and with that, the lesson started.

The first two vocabulary words, which were appa and omma, meaning dad and mom were easily taught to her siblings, but everything else after that went downhill.

“No Maria, it’s not pronounced oo-ni, it unni,” Jessica said repeatedly.

“How come I can’t call you nona or however you pronounce it?” Maria asked frustrated.

“It’s pronounced noona, and you can’t call me that because that’s only what boys call their sisters,” Jessica explained patiently for the n^th time.

“Who cares?” Maria shouted. Jessica decided to ignore Maria and went to help her equally frustrated older brothers.

“So I would call you noona?” Jake asked.

“No, noona specifically means older sister or a girl that’s older than you,” Jessica said, “You would call me your dongseng.”

“If dongseng means younger sister, what would you call your younger brother,” Jake asked again.

“Dongseng” Jessica replied again.

“Wait a minute, so I’m being called a younger sister even though I’m a guy?” Matthew asked confused.

“Dongseng just means a junior, so anyone younger than you, regardless of gender is considered a dongseng. Weren’t you guys listening to what I was saying 5 minutes ago?” Jessica asked a little peeved that she was repeating herself over and over again. Suddenly the sound of a timer went off.

“10 minutes are up,” Maria cheerfully said as she got off the chair and headed towards her bed room, “Bye oo-ni, bony oo-ni.”

“It’s unni,” Jessica yelled after her.

“So, I would call Jake here oppa, right?” Matthew said full of confidence.

“Oppa is for girls, you would call him hyung.”

“What?”

“Hyung” Jessica practically shouted

“That’s too difficult,” Matthew complained, “I think I’ll stick to oppa.”

That was the last time Jessica ever taught someone.

End of Flashback

“Teacher, I don’t know if I can do it,” Jessica said.

“I’m not asking you to tutor Dong Hae every day, maybe just once a week on the weekdays,” the teacher said, almost like she was begging Jessica to take Dong Hae under her wing.

“Teacher, why is this so important. It’s just Korean school, it’s not like this will affect his future. I doubt that knowing Korean history, Korean literature, and Korean arts will help him in America,” Jessica said rather bluntly, but it was the truth.

“It’s not about whether what he is learning will be useful, but it’s about his pride and dignity as a Korean. Please think about it Soo Yeon,” the teacher asked.

“I’ll think about it,” Jessica replied shortly and with that, she grabbed Dong Hae’s arm and they rushed to the student council meeting that they were three minutes late to.