'I’m not angry at you anymore, Xing,' Kyungsoo said exasperatedly into her phone, running out of the bus. '…I got home safely so don’t worry…I need to go now. Talk to you later.'

Putting her phone into her bag, Kyungsoo rushed toward her home classroom. Students swarmed around her, yelling out their names to tell her that they were present for roll call. The bell for first period rang the moment she ticked the last student’s name.

Kyungsoo had difficulty sleeping the previous night despite feeling thoroughly exhausted. Looking at her schedule for the day while waiting for her students to show up, she groaned at the highlighted ‘semester meeting’. Kyungsoo had always hated these boring meetings and her lack of sleep meant that this one was going to be even worse.

Her attempt in catching up some sleep during lunch time was unsuccessful as she was called up by the principal. At first, she trembled with fear, wondering if yesterday was the reason for the sudden summon. It turned out that he’d only wanted to offer her a permanent position at the school.

Even the good news of a permanent position could not help to levitate some of her sleepiness. She had senior Biology for her last period and really, she just wanted to dismiss them at the door.

'You have a serious case of eye bags, Miss,' Sungjae commented.

She nodded in acknowledge, yawning.

'Why, Miss?' Luhan asked wittingly.

Kyungsoo shot her a glare while turning on the power point. Half way through it, she found that Jongin had already fallen asleep. An unknown sense of frustration formed in her and she decided that he was not going to sleep for this lesson.

'Jongin, wake up.'

He didn’t move at all. Luhan stopped fooling around Sehun, who remained indifferent to her the whole time, and nudged Jongin from the side. Kyungsoo repeated her previous statement but he still didn’t show any signs of waking up. Walking to the end of the classroom, where the three of them were sitting, she knocked onto the table surface.

'Wake up or I’ll give you an afternoon detention.'

He stirred slightly and lifted up his head, squinting his eyes before looking at her through his half-hooded eyes with a questioning expression. It had been quite a long time since the last time she did anything about his nap in class. Giving him a sour look, she said, 'Finish exercise 4.12 and I’ll check it at the end of the lesson.'

Once the class settled down and began working quietly, Kyungsoo decided to clean up the equipment at the benches to stay awake. Five minutes till the bell, she went around the classroom, checking the progress of each student’s work and handing them another question sheet for homework.

She left Jongin’s table for last and stayed there a little longer. Her lips curved into a small pleased smile when she saw almost all the questions were answered in his book. As soon as the bell rang everyone left quickly. She quickly put the folders away and headed out of class.

'Are you going to keep doing whatever you did today?'

She turned and found Jongin leaning against the wall outside the room, his eyes seemingly glaring at her.

'Maybe,' she replied.

'I told you yesterday. Don’t waste your effort trying to make me try any harder. It’s useless.'

Kyungsoo knew deep inside that was not the reason for her action today. But she decided to sweep that reason away. 'As a teacher, it’s my duty to help you to improve. Therefore, I won’t listen to you.'

He glowered at her. 'You’re just wasting your time.'

'I don’t think so,' she said. 'How about we make a negotiation? I’ll allow you to occasionally sleep in class if you agree to stay awake other days.'

'What makes you think that I’ll agree to your lame deal?'

She exhaled, angry at his remark.  'Have some respect for me. Now, go home. I have a meeting to go to.'

------

After the brief conversation that afternoon, Jongin actually slept less in class and in turn, Kyungsoo would overlook his dozing-offs. She liked to believe that it was because of the stress that the principal put on her rather than their compromise. The semester meeting’s focus was the students’ grade and she had been told threatened to improve the less impressive students’ marks. Her face twisted into a puzzled and irritated expression, considering the different methods to be used. Peer pairing and some after school tuition could work, she thought.

------

'So class, our class is going to have some seat changes. And before you guys protest, I am going to explain the aim of this.'

The whole class groaned at the announcement and began to protest anyway.

She rolled her eyes. 'Our class’s grades need to be improved and I believe the most effective way to do this is to study in pairs. And also, we will have one forty-five-minute afternoon class each week for selective students, starting on Tuesday next week.'

'This is a bad idea, Miss,' Luhan said from the back of the room. 'We like our current seats.'

'This will go on for a month and if your half-yearly exam results do not meet my expectation then I’ll make the seats permanent as well as increase the number of afternoon classes. So you lot better work hard and help each other.'

Once Kyungsoo finished, she began to read out the list of names.

'Sungjae and Sulli, Ilhoon and Junhyung. Get going, don’t just stand there.'

Luhan pouted when Sehun’s name was not being called out after hers. She sat down in front of Kyungsoo with an upset look.

'Jongin and Soojung. Move to the middle table. You are not going to sleep in the back anymore.'

Soojung was her best and most sensible student so Kyungsoo trusted that she would help him. She prayed inwardly that her methods would work. She didn’t want to be transferred after just making her first solid step up her career pathway.

Once all the students had settled down, she handed out a mini quiz to them. 'You have thirty minutes to do this. Attempt every question, if I see a blank section on anyone’s paper, that person will be on detention for one week.'

-----

It was quite a tiring Thursday afternoon for Kyungsoo, having to stay back for an extra half an hour to clean up the bloody mess that her grade-nine students had created during their bull’s eyes dissection experiment. Drops of rain began to wet the windows as she walked out of her class. Soon, it was raining heavily, forcing Kyungsoo to take refuge in nearest buildings.

The lyrics of ‘My Lady’ made its way to her ears, conjuring up the image of Jongin dancing just like it had been for the past two weeks. She could have come here every Thursday to see him dance, but she did not, knowing that it was too inappropriate.

Overwhelmed by the temptation, she cautiously tip toed to the door, not wanting to be caught again. Her eyes fell onto Jongin immediately. Inside, he was dancing, immersed in the music. She backed away when the thought of being caught by a teacher dawned upon her.

It was still raining hard outside and without an umbrella, she could only wait until it’s stopped. Walking over to the door, she sat down, leaning against the marble pole and watching the rain. Slowly, her eyes began to close.

-----

'Are you okay?'

A familiar voice pulled Kyungsoo out of her doze. Looking up, she found Jongin hovering over her, a mild concerned expression on his face. She stood up, only to be hit by a wave of dizziness. Before she could hit the ground, Jongin extended his arms and steadied her.

'I’m just a little dizzy,' she said.

Once he saw that she was fine, in a teasing tone he asked, 'Why are you here anyway? Did you want to peek at me dancing again?'

'I’m just staying here because of the rain,' she replied, avoiding his eyes. 'If you are going home now then give me the key, I’ll lock the door before I go.'

'Aren’t you going home?'

'I can’t while it’s still raining like this.'

'Well, it looks like you’re going to stay here until dark because it doesn’t seem to be stopping anytime soon.'

'Don’t jinx it,' she mumbled.

'Do you want a ride home? My bike’s in the car park near the school.'

She looked at him, surprised by his offer. Despite wanting to accept it, she did not because the idea seemed to be wrong and if someone caught them, she would be in trouble. Shaking her head with a smile, she rejected politely. ‘Thank you for the offer but I think I’ll take the bus home.’

He shrugged his shoulder, giving her the keys. 'Your choice. I’ll go now. Bye, Miss.'

A sense of regret bubbled inside her as she watched him walking away.

------

'The following students are to attend the afternoon classes: Sungjae, Sehun and Jongin. The first lesson is today, right after this period.' Kyungsoo looked at the students. 'As for those students that got between fifty-one and sixty, try to maintain above fifty or you will be joining the afternoon class.'

The bell rang and the students packed up their bag. Luhan snickered at the three who had to stay behind before skipping out of the classroom. Jongin and Sehun said nothing, merely rolling their eyes at her childish behaviour. Walking to the middle row, Kyungsoo joined two tables together. 'Come and sit around here.'

They moved to the table silently. Each of them occupied one side of the double-table. Except for Sungjae, who seemed to be genuinely enthusiastic, the other two had a bored expression on their faces. Handing out their previous mini quiz from the previous week, she explained to them.

'You got a forty-eight, Sungjae. Looking at your paper, I think a clearer understanding of particular dot points will allow you to get over fifty.' She turned to Sehun. 'Like Sungjae, your mark is very close to fifty. But while he needs clarification with the content, I think you need to do more revision.'

Finally, she looked at Jongin. 'As for you, all I can say is that a lot of work will be required. You got a fifty five for you first assessment but looking at the result for this mini quiz, your chance of passing the upcoming half-yearly exam seems really grim. So between now til your exam, we will try to help you get at least a fifty.'

Both Sehun and Jongin maintained their indifferent attitude throughout the lesson, just as Kyungsoo had expected. She gave them a sheet of their syllabus and told them to circle the dot points which they didn’t understand. Then she took the sheets back and began with the most common problem. They began to jolt down the summary on the board as she explained.

'The difference between xylem and phloem is the materials passing through them.' She drew on the board. 'Water and minerals for xylem. Glucose for phloem. Usually this will be tested as a multiple choice or a two-mark question. And remember, you can just list them in dot point form instead of proper sentence.'

When there were only fifteen minutes left, she stopped and asked questions to revise whatever she had just explained. Pleased with the result, Kyungsoo allowed them to leave a little earlier.

------

To her surprise, Jongin and Sehun diligently attended every lesson. For their effort, she rewarded them with snacks once every week. After hanging out with Kris’ team for a few times, she learned about Jongin’s obsession with chicken. Knowing this, she would deliberately order fried chicken.

Despite his unresponsive attitude, Kyungsoo could tell that Jongin was slowly improving from the results of the quizzes given twice a week. She was particularly happy with Sungjae, who had managed to get sixty-five for two consecutive weeks. As a result, she allowed him to stop coming to the afternoon classes.

On the last lesson, Sehun did not show up, saying that he had an appointment. She’d expected for Jongin to do the same thing. Thus once the bell was gone for home time, she began to pack up her belonging. Unexpectedly, Jongin strode into her class room and sat down in the usual spot. She stared at him for a while.

He gave her a questioning look. 'Are you going to keep standing there and stare at me until four?'

Shaking her head, she took out her folder and walked to him. Instead of the usual explaining, she helped him to revise for his exam by verbally quizzing him. Suddenly, a cockroach crawled near her shoes. She jumped onto her chair and began screaming. Jongin was stunned, watching her hopping hysterically.

Flailing her arms around, she screeched at him. 'Stop sitting there, kill the fricking cockroach.'

His lips curved into a smile and before Jongin realised it, he started laughing. Seeing his smile, Kyungsoo unconsciously stopped jumping and scolding him for laughing at her. Instead, she found herself listening attentively to that pleasant sound emitting from his mouth. Somewhere between the moments, her heart skipped a beat.

(tbc)

Remember to leave a comment on the way out. ^^