Well Done! (Part 2 of 10)

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It was bean sprouts again.

Three days in a row. Fried in that new wok of hers. Did it taste better, you might ask? Made no difference to me, honestly. Sprouts were sprouts, they taste horrible no matter how they were cooked. I hated them with a vengeance but mom loved them with a passion. Why? I had concluded that the reason for it was because my dad once said ‘they’ (as in collectively all the dishes on the table) were very good, remember? And she was crazy about the Eat your veg! and It will help you poop better! thingy. Yup, this was my mom, talking about such delightful things during dinner was a norm. Dad just nodded every time. Having said that, boycotting the dish was a no-no lest she stuff raw ones down my throat.

Don’t get me wrong, her cooking was great. It was just the sprouts. The sprouts and maybe her new wok. She made awfully loud clanking sounds while cooking, just like those Chinese chefs in cooking programmes minus the big flames. I pitied our neighbours. The wok had suffered much from all the scratches and lines that I saw just after a few days of using it. When done, all the dishes she presented on the dining table were stir fried, no thanks to the “Stir-Fry to Heaven” cookbook that she got free with the wok (whoever titled that book ought to eat and then go die. Sounded like a book of poison instead). Poor wok. It looked so used and probably would die young too. Tsk-tsk.

“Honey, I’m home.” Dad said tiredly after closing the front door.

Dad came home with a headache and a wet shirt. He told her that he had a flat tyre while driving on his way home and had to change it after parking the car at the road shoulder of the highway. Nobody offered to help and he had to do it himself – from jacking up the car to heaving the tyre out of the boot and replacing it. My dad had very active sweat glands and it was no wonder he came back home with a still wet shirt. Mom had wanted to give him a peck on the cheek but backed away instantly and wrinkling her nose after sniffing the stinky sweaty odour from his body. She sent him upstairs with just one word. Bathe.

“Honeybun! Set the table please!” Mom yelled from the kitchen, spatula in one hand and the damn cookbook in another.

My mom was cute wasn’t she? She called me an assortment of adorable pet name: baby, darling, honeybun, sweetie, sunshine, precious and so on. Sometimes, she would call me by stringing a few of the names together and I knew she was up to something. Like go shopping with her. Honestly, my drawers and wardrobe were bursting…….…..with her things. She needed space so she ‘borrowed’ mine.

“Sure, mom!” I yelled back and heaved my lazy body from the living room where I was splayed haphazardly on the sofa busy doing nothing. Wait, I was doing something - I was moping and dwelling in my own misery because we were having bean sprouts for dinner again tonight and what made it worse was that I will be having Math lesson with an unknown boy after dinner on a full stomach! Tell me who could concentrate after a heavy meal?

Dinner was torturous. Mom heaped bean sprouts on my plate along with the other dishes and sent me on an eating spree with a glare and one word, Eat. I complied though reluctantly. Aside from the bean sprouts, the spread was pretty good. My tummy was so full after finishing the food that she had forced on me. I burped loudly and rubbed my slightly protruding stomach earning me a grin from my mom and I gave her one of my lazy smile. She loved it when her cooking was appreciated. Dad pinched her cheek lightly before standing up and proceeded to the living room for the seven o’clock news. I joined him a while later after I had cleared and cleaned the table while mom washed the dishes.

I was again moping over my misery. I never wanted to cry so badly because of a burnt Saturday night. Eunhyuk, Donghae and I had always wasted our Saturday nights away at my place with mainly horror movies, karaoke sessions, surfing the www and occasionally played board games. Yes, we played boring board games just because Donghae suddenly felt like it and Eunhyuk indulged him and I was left with no choice.

Most of the time, they would sleep over in my room. Donghae would be hogging the bed, Eunhyuk would indulge him by brainwashing me into healthy sleeping with him on the tatami placed on the floor and knowing full well that I would ache all over by the next morning did not stop me from agreeing because I love those idiots too much. Come morning, I woke up to stiff here, stiff there, stiff everywhere, muscles aching badly and I would find Eunhyuk sleeping comfortably on the bed beside Donghae. They were sweet, weren’t they? Did I tell you that I love them? I really do. They added the twinkles and sparkles to my otherwise boring life.

I had waited till the last minute to tell them about the cancellation because I do not want them to be mad at me in school. Donghae was upset and whined a lot. He told me that he had wanted to play Pictureka this time and Eunhyuk consoled him by saying that he would box my face in on Monday. I love them.

Just then, the doorbell rang. I looked at the clock and noticed that I had been moping away for half an hour. Time for the much dreaded lesson but I was not moving my to get the door. Mom got it instead and I could hear her squealing a few times. She usually behaved like this when she was excited. What was she so excited about? My curiosity was piqued but I still didn't want to move my .

After what seemed like five minutes, she finally walked in with a young man trailing behind her. I casually tilted my head to one side to look behind her and watched him with furrowed eyebrows. No wonder I couldn’t find a face to the name. He looked alien to me. If he was from my school, I never knew of his existence.

Looking at his tall and lanky form, a small smile on his face which turned a little smirk-ty when he darted a glance at my direction, I drew my conclusion on a few things:

(1) he was not as simple as he seemed to be. Trust me, I could tell a bad egg by just looking at one. He was not bad looking actually if you ignore the trash he wore on his body. It seemed deliberate, his dressing I meant, in an attempt to cover up something. He looked good in his black rimmed glasses, slightly wavy dark brown hair that covered his forehead. Bright expressive brown eyes. A sprinkle of pimples and marks on his cheeks in the process of healing. Overall, he looked mature for his age.

(2) he was trying too hard to please (my parents that is; don’t all parents liked nerdy and do-nothing-but-study-all-day kids). The checker shirt that he wore ought to be sent to the museum. I wondered if it once belonged to his father. It was in the most awful shade of green with big bold yellow checks, buttoned all the way up to the collar with the shirt hem tucked into his mud-coloured sweatpants (whoever made sweatpants in that colour ought to go hang themselves with one). I felt giddy just by looking at the combination. Let’s not forget about his socks. Yes, the socks, they were orange in colour. Need I say more? Completing the look was the A4-size transparent hard case he carried in his hand. In it, I could see his pencil case and some papers and notebooks. I shook my head slowly as I accessed him from head to toe. All in all, he succeeded in being a walking fashion disaster. My eyes hurt from all the rolling I have been doing discreetly for the past few minutes so I concentrated my attention on his face instead which was the only pleasant enough part to look at.

Gosh! To study with a full stomach was bad enough, to have to suffer from brain damage with him looking like my neighbours’ rotting backyard garden was worse than having to consume bean sprouts for another week. I felt like dissolving myself in acid, once again.

(3) he knew me. I felt it in my bones. Don’t ask me why.

“Good evening Mr. Lee, my name is Kyuhyun and it was nice to meet you.” Kyuhyun bowed deeply to where my dad sat. My dad smiled widely, then stood up and offered him a firm handshake.

“Good evening to you too, Kyuhyun. Pleasure to meet you. It was nice of you to come tutor Sungmin. You need a lot of patience with him. He seemed to excel in failing the subject. Good luck.” Dad said apologetically towards the end. My eyes grew large as I looked at my dad with a gaping mouth. What was wrong with them?! First my mom then him. Stepping on my ego with words like that. Hurt like hell. Who’s next, huh? Kyu-ing-hyun?

Kyuhyun laughed heartily. “The pleasure is all mine, Mr. Lee,” Kyuhyun said. Call me sensitive but I sensed that he kind of draw out the word pleasure. “Mrs Boo showed me all of Sungmin’s test papers. I have gone through them and noted the areas that he was weak in. It will be difficult but I promised that I will try my best to get him back on track.” He continued politely. “I have tutored students weaker than him before and they all did quite well eventually.” Kyuhyun said confidently.

“The only thing I asked of Sungmin is,” Kyuhyun said and turned his head to look at me then, “he must be willing to learn and be 100% percent co-operative to my method of teaching.” He smirked which my parents can’t see it from their angle. I narrowed my eyes at him but felt three pairs of eyes on me. I let my eyeballs wondered to my parents and they had the “Well?” expression on their faces.

I closed my eyes, sighed and opened them again. With a constipated smile plastered on my face, I nodded my head once. Let hell begin…

“Well then, let’s not waste time now shall we? Sweetpea, show Kyuhyun to your room and start the lesson right away,” mom said chirpily. No! Not my pet names in front of aliens, I groaned inwardly. Where’s that tub of acid again? (Er…it’s for me, not for her lah). Her happiness was adding to my misery three-fold. I mentally picked her up with my gigantic hand and moved her to the tree branch outside our house where she can perch and chirp all she wanted all day long.

“Follow me.” came my curt reply. Dad gave Kyuhyun an apologetic look while mom glared at me. She gave me a firm slap on my arm and sent me on my way with a be nice. I returned her a sickeningly sweet smile that showed too much of my teeth before I trooped upstairs with Kyuhyun sniggering behind me.

Once in my room, I slumped down on the high-back leather chair beside my desk and gesture for Kyuhyun to help himself to the folded plastic chair leaning against the wall. He looked at the chair for a while and proceeded to pull it closer to my desk, unfolded it and then planted his squarely in the middle.

“You were dressed to kill, weren’t you?” I mocked while looking at Kyuhyun’s attire again, much to my annoyance. “I know you only dressed the way you did to please my parents.” I challenged.

“Always worked with the parents.” Kyuhyun admitted with a smug look on his face.

I sneered at his pretensions. “Was this shirt your dad’s? Are you colour blind? Do you really have to wear orange coloured socks? I know you know me, how?” I let it all out in one go.

“Yes, no, yes and go figure.” He said with amusement etched on his face.

“Don’t get smart with me. I am older than you so you must respect your elder. Now, elaborate on the last one.” I am pretty pissed right now and I made sure Kyuhyun knew it.

“You will know what you need to know in due course. Let me briefly introduce myself and you might get a hint to what you want to know in there.” Kyuhyun stressed on the word might.

I fake a yawn and waved my hand for him to continue.

“My name is Cho Kyuhyun.“ I gave him a flat look. He ignored me and continued in a straight face. “I am a second year student in SM High. I excelled in all subjects and was the top student in my cohort last year and possibly this year too. Mrs Boo said that I was too smart for my own good so she challenged me to study ahead of all my peers and here I am, fully fuelled with third year Math syllabus so I am more than qualified to tutor you since I was recommended by her. I am also the leader of the debate team and the president of the student council. My mission in life right now was to be…“ He paused. I waited.

All the time while he was delivering his glorious speech, I was drumming my fingers on the desk audibly and looking at him with a less-than-interested look but I was listening intently. I needed to find that hint.

A minute passed and we were just looking at each other. What the hell was he waiting for? Applaud? Standing ovation? What?

And then he ended it with the last word, “…accepted.”

Huh? That was it? Did I miss out on the hint? What the does that even mean? I thought that slender neck of his needed some twisting in order to squeeze out the information that I wanted to know.

“Accepted to what!?” I hissed and threw my hands up in the air in exasperation. “Could you please elaborate when needed to? How was I suppose to understand you if your words left me hanging?”

He smirked yet again. “That was for you to find out.” Is he a smirking machine or what? Couldn’t he smile properly like normal human beings do? What a pain in the .

Suddenly, I had the urge to practise my taekwondo moves on him. Wham. Bam. Slam. Hehehe.

“Listen up. My method is simple, maybe childish even.” Kyuhyun straightened his back and began taking out his notebook and pencil case from his hard case. “See these?” Kyuhyun pulled out a small stack of papers from in between his notebook. I took a closer look at it and noted that they were sticker in the shape of stars. Different sizes, colours and texture star stickers.

I looked at them with a raised eyebrow. I had got lots of similar looking ones for getting full marks in spelling tests as well as well written compositions when I was in primary school. “What are those?”I dare asked.

“Stars”, replied Kyuhyun as he looked at me like duh. So smart alec here thought I was stupid.

“I can tell”, I said trying hard to suppress my frustration. “What I want to know is if you were going to use them like how I thought you were going to use them - on my worksheets like back in primary school” I demanded accusingly.

“Exactly. So clever.” Kyuhyun grinned and ruffled my hair. For once, I was unsure if I was being complimented or insulted but I was sure I was now sporting a bed head.

“Hey! I said you should respect me. Not treat me like a child!” I stormed one foot on the ground and tried to finger-comb my tousled hair with the other, annoyance clearly written on my face.

“Don’t forget what you agreed to earlier. You complied with my teaching method so hush now.” Kyuhyun said and pulled out another sheet of paper from his notebook and placed it on the desk. “This is an achievement table. It is for you to record the number of stars you earned at the end of each week. By the end of the month, if your stars exceeded ten, I will grant you a request.” My eyes lit up at this but the flame was quickly doused by his next sentence. “Any request provided it does not terminate, interfere or hinder my teaching or to do anything against my will.” My face fell flat. He knew. .

“I do not have a say in this do I? Seemed like you had it all planned out.” I grounded out.

“Nope, you don’t.” He said nonchalantly. I resisted the urge to give him the middle finger.

“Let’s start, shall we? By your standard, we have to go back to the very basic and work our way up” Kyuhyun then grabbed the Math textbook on my desk as well as a red pen from his pencil case. “And you have to use a green pen for all your workings.” Kyuhyun then pulled out a green pen from his pencil case and handed it to me. I took it gingerly.

“I hate green. Can I use my pink Sharpie instead?” I only wanted to annoy him.

“Refusal should not be an option.” Kyuhyun patiently stated. I could only sigh. my life.

Kyuyhyun then proceeded to teach me in a way one would with a dim-witted person. Explaining formulas in such a lay-man way that I had to roll my eyes and puffed out sighs to suppress my bubbling tendency to lash out at him. He did not seem affected by my attitude at all. Not yet maybe. Though I resented the way he talked to me, I must credit him eventually when I see a pinpoint of light at the end of the marsh clotted tunnel. Seriously, I was beginning to see what I should have seen few years ago. Mrs Boo and her predecessors at doing their job, I concluded. My eye-rolling and sighs gradually gravitate towards oh,I sees and ahs in understanding.

I was given a few worksheets to complete after Kyuhyun was done explaining. For once, I was eager to attempt the questions.

~~~~ END OF PART 2 ~~~~