Chapter 13.

He wasn't entirely sure why he had done it, but after a horrible lesson after an even worse encounter with a very snappy Kim Jongin, Kyungsoo had gone looking for Chanyeol. After all, if Chanyeol couldn't cheer him up, no one could. It had taken him five minutes after class had ended to organize a tutoring time with Oh Sehun, who had then had to rush to catch his bus home, and an additional ten minutes before Kyungsoo accpeted that Jongin wouldn't be coming to his after school English lesson, not that he would complain. In total, only twenty minutes had been lost before he found himself sitting rather miserably in the passsenger seat of Chanyeol's car, waiting for his friend who had rushed off to get Yifan to tag along.

All in all it had been a rather confusing turn of events for all parties involved. Kyungsoo was feeling quite emotionally jarred due to the rather large and horrible shock he had experienced thanks to the run in with his unexplainably bellicose student, and Chanyeol and Yifan, because for once it had been their usually content colleague who had inititated a misery fueled drinking outing.

It hadn't taken long at all for the two tall men to get thir shorter counterpart to start talking once they had arrived at their usual pub for after work drinks.
 

“He said what?!?” Chanyeol almost shrieked, looking positively outraged as Kyungsoo retold him once more what Jongin had said to him.

“He told me I was undesirable and pretty much called me a e, I guess”

Chanyeol’s face had become an alarming colour and Kyungsoo was beginning to worry for his friend’s health. He wasn’t even entirely sure whether it was the effects of the alcohol Chanyeol had been drinking, or anger.

“I won’t stand for this! I refuse! Unacceptable, totally unacceptable!” Chanyeol threw his hands up, his unruly hair and pink face making him look like some sort of oversized cupid. “First Jongdae and now you too?! That teen needs to be taught a lesson, I ought to—”

...it was definitely the alcohol doing the talking.

From his other side, Yifan took a deep drink of his beer before placing it down and turning to examine Kyungsoo. “I’ve been teaching Jongin for a while now, but I’ve never heard of him being downright rude to teachers. Difficult, yes, but nothing like that.”

“He was rude to Jongdae!” Chanyeol interjected with a splutter.

“Hardly. The reason Jongdae snapped back then was because he was a relatively new teacher and he was insecure and inexperienced. We all know how stressful organizing lessons and marking is, especially when you’ve only just started teaching. Jongin just so happened to be the one to…er… how should I put it? …bluntly tell Jongdae that he wasn’t doing a very good job that day?” Yifan shrugged before having another mouthful of his beer. “He wasn’t rude, so to speak. Jongdae was just a little more fragile, thus prone to having a breakdown, even he'll admit that.”

“Still! That doesn’t excuse Jongin from what he said!” Chanyeol exclaimed, pulling a complete 180 by focussing once more on Kyungsoo’s current predicament rather than Jongdae's past experience. He rounded on the shortest of the three with almost wild eyes. “You should go and complain!”

Kyungsoo sighed. “What’s the point? It is true that I was hugged by a student.”

“Yeah and it’s not like anything could be done even if you did complain about what Jongin said” Yifan shrugged. “He could easily deny”

“Joomyeon is useless and doesn’t deal out punishments accordingly, anyway” Chanyeol said, almost bitterly.

Yifan sighed at the mention of the head of science and current headmaster. “What do you expect? It’s not like he wants to send a suspension note to his own childhood homes address” Yifan stared gloomily down at his glass before looking up, uncomfortably aware of the two laser like stares that were suddenly on him. A look of great horror appeared on his face as his brain quickly reprocessed the information he had just unknowingly revealed — the realisation of what he had just said hitting him in full force.

“Care to explain what you mean by that…?” Chanyeol said slowly, the bottom of his beer glass clinking softly on the benchtop as he placed it down. He was looking remarkably sober and alert for a person who had been spouting alcohol induced nonsense only a few minutes earlier.

All of a sudden, Yifan was looking unusually interested in the small potted plant that was sitting in the corner of their private booth. “Nothing”

“Wu Yifan” Chanyeol said, his voice seeming lower than usual. Kyungsoo could only stare with widened eyes as what could only be explained as a nonverbal battle began between the two men beside him. YIfan was looking everywhere but at his friends, and Chanyeol was glaring at the art teacher with a ferocity Kyungsoo had not thought possible from the overly carefree English teacher.

In the end, it was Yifan who relented.

“If I tell you guys, you have to promise me this will be kept secret. No one can know. No one.” The art tea