Almost two weeks passed, and Taekwoon was finally beginning to feel as if all might settle out. His children had become accustomed to one another, and while a few had tried to form their own little cliques, as children are wont to do, he had made an effort to separate those ones into other groups, giving them 'assignments' of artwork that they completed in groups. Not only did it help them to learn how to work well together, it kept alliances from forming and kept all the children happy, and that in turn made him happy.

If only it were so easy to find a way to deal with the new teacher across the hall. At the oddest of times, screams would echo down the hallway from Hakyeon's room; upon checking in, Taekwoon would inevitably find him with his hands full of one screaming child or another, his big, expressive eyes pleading with the taller man for help. Despite his initial space from the dark man, Taekwoon couldn't just stand aside and watch children cry, and so he grudgingly helped the other man to settle his students; it happened at least once a day, though, and honestly Taekwoon was beginning to wonder why Hakyeon was even a teacher.

This particular day he had yet to hear any of the blood-curdling screams from Hakyeon's students, and he felt a strange calmness to the air that should have been peaceful. Of course, with him now worrying as to if the other man had just gone ahead and murdered his students, it wasn't peaceful to Taekwoon at all. His eyes ghosted over the students in his room, the sixteen youngsters all working on their own projects of counting and categorizing the toys in front of them. It was an effort to get them ready for learning more advanced math, and to his delight he found that some of the students took to it like fish to water. 

The chatter from counting children brought a smile to his face, but he could tell that some of them were getting bored and frustrated with their project. A quick glance at the clock showed that it was very nearly nap time, too, and so he stood to his feet and clapped his hands lightly together. The children all looked up at him from their places on the floor, gazes expectant and in a few cases, grumpy.

"Let's go ahead and get ready for nap time," he said softly, then pointed at one little girl with uneven pigtails in her hair. "Minyoung, it's your turn to pick a book." The words were barely out of his mouth before she was on her feet and headed for the book case, her stubby little fingers running over the spines of the tomes there as she tried to sound out the words to decide on a book. She chose one soon and brought it to him, and he waited patiently while they all headed for their mats to lie down.

She'd chosen a book called 'Llama Llama, Mad at Mama', and so he settled himself cross-legged on the floor and began to read, quietly and using the inflection of his voice to lull them to sleep. They were tired, after all, and paired with his voice, he wasn't even halfway through the story when the last child dropped off to sleep. 

With a smile he closed the book and set it aside, standing to his feet to begin gathering all of the plush squares that the children had been playing with, the numbers on them large and brightly colored, easy for the kids to recognize. There were two for each number, one of them with the number written out and the other with polka dots on it, numbering whichever written number it was supposed to match. He'd found the toys at a wholesale retailer by chance, and hadn't hesitated to buy them despite having to use his own money to do so. The school had never reimbursed him but he found the blocks to be irreplaceable, and so didn't mind in the long run.

He tucked the blocks into one of the tall plastic drawers on the side of the room, then with a content smile on his face, settled himself back at his desk to go over what he wanted to do when the children awoke. He was actually excited for this next one, and so he never noticed the face peeking in the window of the classroom door.

Hakyeon let out a sigh as he slipped back into his own classroom, tension in his back from his worry over being caught. Taekwoon hadn't been friendly the few times that Hakyeon had interacted with him; usually the tall man was doing something or other to help Hakyeon handle the upset children in his class. He still didn't understand why the other teacher disliked him so much, but he himself was willing to admit the deep admiration that he was beginning to feel for Taekwoon. He had such an ease around children, was so good at understanding them and handling them; Hakyeon felt like an oaf in comparison.

The other teacher was still stand-offish to him, though, something that truly frustrated Hakyeon. He'd never had problems getting along with people, and in the last two weeks that he'd been teaching here, he'd found friends in most of the other faculty members, especially Hyungmoon. Seungyeon was still way too friendly with him, though, and so he did try to avoid any contact with her (especially alone; he was half afraid she's shove him into the janitor's closet to have her way with him!), and yet Taekwoon still held himself apart from them.

No, not them... that wasn't true. Hakyeon would find Taekwoon in the faculty lounge, speaking with one teacher or another, a soft smile on his face as they engaged in quiet conversation, and yet when he noticed Hakyeon, his smile would slip away and metaphorical shutters would clos