Final. Happy Birthday Suho!!! =D
TutorThe afternoon sunlight is bright, blinding even, as it shines into the kitchen and reflects off of the ivory white walls. On the dining table, a wirebound notebook, two soft cover textbooks, and Hello Kitty covered stationery are scattered across its surface. A heavy sigh draws out of Eunae’s cherry coloured lips for the umpteenth time today as her eight year old sister stares blankly out the window in front of her, chin resting on her right hand.
“Eunhee, you need to pay attention when I’m talking to you.” Eunhee doesn’t respond, she merely shifts her head over to her left hand. “Eunhee? Hello?”
“This is so boring unnie, can’t I study English later? Pleeaaasse?” Eunhee pouted as she replied.
“No,” Eunae ignores her baby sister’s doe-like eyes and stands her ground, “we can’t. You have to finish all of your English homework before you do anything else.”
“But unniiieee.”
“Eunhee, yo-” Ding Dong “Hold that thought, I have to go get the door.” Getting up to her feet, Eunae points at her own eyes then towards Eunhee, as if to say ‘I’m watching you’ before walking away. She reaches her living room quickly and is greeted by a pasty male with a head full of platinum blonde hair.
“Eunae, did you invite someone over? Why are you just standing there?” Eunae’s mother makes her down the stairs and looks over at the front door curiously.
"Mom... There's some blonde guy at our door..." Said blonde guy is currently peeking his head inside of the house and smiling politely at Eunae’s mother.
“Hi, I’m Kim Joonmyun,” the corner of Joonmyun’s eyes crinkle as he introduces himself. He then stretches his right arm out to shake Eunae’s mother’s hand, “the new tutor you hired.”
“Oh! Right! Sorry that was today? I’ve been so busy lately I completely forgot! I thought you were coming next week.”
Joonmyun chuckles and scratches the back of his neck awkwardly. “Is it a bad time? Cause I can always just come back next week instead, I don’t mind.”
“Oh no, no. You’re already here! Let’s just start today.” Eunae’s mother turns around and faces her, “Eunae over here can give you the quick rundown on what Eunhee needs help in.”
“Me?” Eunae’s eyes widen in surprise and points to herself before looking at her mother then back at Joonmyun.
“Well of course honey, your father and I have atrocious English, you know that.”
“Right…”
As Eunae’s mother turns to Joonmyun and discusses the details on future tutoring times and fees, the words they say get tuned out and lost in the background of Eunae’s thoughts; she couldn’t help but look the blondie up and down. Eunae won’t deny that his pale blue button up and faded black skinny jeans look great on him, but he sure doesn’t look like an English tutor. If anything, the way he’s dressed, coupled with that bright hair of his makes him look like a crossbreed between some preppy high schooler and a juvenile delinquent. What was mom thinking?
“Okay, now off you go.” Eunae’s head snaps to the side when her mother pushes her back into the kitchen. “We can’t just leave the poor boy standing around!” Once Eunhee’s in their line of sight, their mother’s voice switches from one of authority to a softer and almost sickeningly sweet tone. “Eunhee honey, this is your new tutor, Mr. Kim.” Eunae shudders.
“Hi, it’s nice to meet you Eunhee. Feel free to call me Joonmyun oppa.” Joonmyun smiles brightly and waves at his new student.
“H-hi…” Eunhee looks up at Joonmyun then quickly faces her books again.
“Sorry, Eunhee is shy around strangers, but she warms up quickly. Eunae will help you.”
“I will?”
“Yes. And Eunhee, make sure you listen to everything he says okay? Your older sister will be here to watch and make sure you do.” With that, Eunae’s mum bids the three youngsters goodbye to run some errands.
“Hi, Eunae-ssi right?”
“Yeah, you can just call me Eunae.”
“Okay, Eunae. Um, can I take a look at Eunhee’s books first? I just want to see what level she’s at before we talk about what she needs more help in.”
“Yeah sure, go ahead.” Eunae reaches over for Eunhee’s English textbook and slides it across the table to Joonmyun.
“Thanks.” Joonmyun flips over it’s contents, taking note of the vocabulary and grammar points that this little girl has already learned. “Wow, Eunhee, this is really advanced for someone your age, you’re already writing compound sentences and using logical connectives.”
Eunhee beams at the compliment and decides that she likes her new tutor. “Thank you Joonmyun oppa! The older kids at cram school scares me, so unnie helps me everyday instead.”
Eunae’s head shifts over to the side, a small smile tugging at the edge of her lips. Not bad, he’s pretty good with kids.
“Well that’s really nice of her. I’m going to talk to your unnie about what you need extra help in now okay? Can you finish up the last five questions on chapter six while we talk?”
“Okay Joomyun oppa!” Eunhee’s wide eyes turn into two crescent moons as she replied. This is the first time Eunae has seen the younger so excited to do English homework.
“This is going to sound weird from someone who tutors to make a living, but your sister doesn’t really need a tutor from what I can see; you’re doing a great job.”
“Oh um, thanks.” Eunae feels a blush creeping up on her cheeks, “I’m actually in school to become an English teacher right now, so I guess that’s why. The thing is, I start student teaching next year and won’t have as much time to help her. Her grammar is fine on the most part, but her spelling could use some work. She also gets her homophones mixed up and forgets a couple details like apostrophes and capitalizing her words since we don’t have to do that with Korean words.”
“Ahhh, I see. Okay, well I’ll see what I can do then.”
Eunae spends the next half an hour watching Joonmyun tutor her sister on her phone, glancing up every now and then to see how Joonmyun and Eunhee are doing. She notices how expressive Joonmyun is: his lips protrude in a cute way when he speaks and his eyes seem to hide no secrets. He’s really patient with Eunhee and managed to make her feel comfortable during the whole forty-five minutes. Impressive.
"Don't forget to capitalize all your character and building names Eunhee, those are proper nouns remember?" Handing Eunhee the eraser, Joonmyun looks over Eunhee’s shoulders to make sure she corrected them all.
“Like that?”
“Yep, good job Eunhee.” Joonmyun ruffles Eunhee’s hair lightly and gives her a thumbs up. “Our time is almost up, so how about we review everything we worked on today then make a plan for what you want to work on next week before I go?”
“Okay!”
After Joonmyun finished up with Eunhee, Eunae walked Joonmyun to the door and thanked him for helping Eunhee.
“You’re welcome, it’s my job so it really isn’t a big deal.”
“Right, so um… I guess I’ll see you next Saturday then?”
“Yeah, your mom said that Saturday works best for you guys… which reminds me, are you busy next Saturday?”
“Nope! Not busy at all!” Eunae cringes and mentally facepalms herself. Tone down the excitement!!! “Why?”
Joonmyun chuckles awkwardly and places his hands into his pockets, shifting his weight from his toes to his heels a couple of times.
“I was wondering if you wanted to go to the movies or something with me after I’m done tutoring Eunhee…I got free movie tickets and I haven’t seen Spider-Man yet, but we can watch something else if you don’t like Spider-Man…”
“I’d love to go watch Spider-Man with you, I haven’t seen it yet either.” Eunae grins while Joonmyun lets out a breath of relief.
“Oh! And umm, I guess we should probably exchange numbers too?”
“Right, yeah.” Eunae pulls out her phone, types in his contact name then passes it to Joonmyun, “here”.
“Awesome! I’ll see you next week then.”
“Sounds great, bye!” Eunae waves Joonmyun goodbye then slams the front door shut, squealing and jumping up and down moments later.
“Unnie, what are you doing?” Eunhee looks up at her older sister with furrowed brows.
“Uh… I’m… um… Dancing?”
Fin.
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