Chapter Text
Johnny was sitting at his desk getting the good morning songs ready for the children when Jungwoo started working in his classroom. He was in his second year of university and had chosen to pick up a couple of days at the school between his classes. Taeyong was already there, sitting at one of the low tables and cleaning the laminated sheets the students used to write their names.
“Hi, sorry I’m late,” Jungwoo said, walking across the room and sticking his hand out to Johnny. “I’m Jungwoo.”
Johnny looked at the clock over Jungwoo’s shoulder as he shook his hand. “Johnny, nice to meet you. And don’t worry, you’re actually right on time.” He looked at his laptop and pulled up the email he’d received the night before. “You’re only contracted to start at eight thirty.”
“Oh.” Jungwoo adjusted the strap of his bag. “That’s good then.”
Johnny smiled at him, hoping that it was reassuring. “That’s Taeyong over there.” Taeyong waved to Jungwoo who looked at him over his shoulder. “And you can put your bag in the cabinet next to the sink.”
“Thanks,” Jungwoo said, already walking towards the sink. “Is there anything that needs doing?”
Taeyong stood up, handing the wet wipes to Jungwoo. “Could you finish cleaning these? I should go wait for the kids at the taxis.”
“Sure thing.” Jungwoo sat down, looking far too big for the tiny chairs.
It was a slow day; a few of the kids were out sick, meaning that Johnny would have three teacher aides for only four children, but he didn’t feel the need to tell the staff manager. Doyoung came in at nine o’clock exactly, Jeno and Mark gripping his hands as Chenle opened the door in front of him. Taeyong helped Mark write his name, hand over hand, while Chenle wrote his own independently. Jungwoo sat next to Jeno who leant almost completely in his lap and scribbled on the laminated paper.
Doyoung leant down and wiped it clean. “Jeno, sit up and write your name please.”
Jungwoo looked up, face concerned. “Are we not allowed to let them lean on us?”
Johnny lifted his head. “That’s fine, they just have to stay on task. So, make sure he writes his name first, then stick it up on the board,” he pointed at the Velcro section with his pen, “and then he can have a hug.”
Jungwoo nodded and looked down to monitor Jeno’s progress. The door to the classroom opened and Donghyuck entered at full speed, hitting his body full on the opposite wall and falling back onto the carpet. Johnny stood up and walked over to him, offering a hand.
“Whoops! Come on, Hyuck, stand up.” Donghyuck grabbed his hand and giggled up at him. “Ready? One, two, three!” on three, Johnny pulled Donghyuck up to stand, then turned him in the direction of the door. “Go put your bag away buddy.”
Johnny followed as Donghyuck ran to get his bag from his father, who was standing in the doorway and looking exhausted.
“Morning Taeil,” Johnny said, and gestured for them to step outside.
“Morning.”
“How’s Hyuck been at home?”
Taeil ran a hand over his face. “He’s been alright, but he didn’t get much sleep last night. Oh, and if his mouth looks a little green don’t worry, it’s just food dye.”
Johnny raised a brow. “Food dye?”
Taeil nodded. “Well, he only eats green food, so I thought I’d dye some pasta green to get him to eat it, but I think I added too much.”
“Did it work?”
“Yeah, really well. I’ve packed him some for today, it might need reheating, though.”
“Okay, I’ll let Taeyong know.”
Taeil reached out and gripped Johnny’s bicep, a little harder than Johnny was expecting. “Thank you so much, Johnny. For everything, I,” he took a steadying breath, “I don’t know what we’d do without you.”
Johnny smiled at him. “Your son is a good kid, Taeil. It’s a privilege to have him in my class.”
Just as the words left his mouth, he heard a crash and a loud cry from inside the classroom, followed by Taeyong saying; “Hyuck, pick it up. We do not throw things at people.”
They looked at each other for a moment, mouths twitching before they both broke into giggles. Johnny wanted to pat Taeil’s shoulder, but he felt it was a professional line he shouldn’t cross. He opted instead for a nod.
“I better get back in there, have a nice day.”
“You too Johnny, I’ll see you after school.”
Johnny told himself when he started working at the special school – his first job with his brand-new Master’s in Special Education – that he wouldn’t have favourites, and for a long time, he didn’t. But then, six months into the job, Donghyuck came into his class, hiding behind his mother’s legs and looking around the room with interest. He was tiny and shy and Johnny fell in love with him as soon as he said his first words to Johnny. He had reached up and stuck a finger into Johnny’s dimple, asking why he had holes in his face.
Johnny didn’t remember much of Donghyuck’s mother; she had left Taeil two months after Donghyuck started at their school. The only reason Taeil had given was that it was “too much for her”. It broke Johnny’s heart, to think that someone didn’t want Donghyuck.
Two years later, Donghyuck had made more progress than any of Johnny’s other students, apart from Lucas who had transitioned to a satellite class earlier in the year. Donghyuck was the most verbal, just ahead of Jeno who could carry a conversation, he just chose not to. He could count to twenty already at just eight years old, and Johnny was talking to the speech therapist about possibly teaching him sign language. Though it pained him, Johnny knew that Donghyuck was close to transitioning himself.
They all had favourites, really. Taeyong liked the little ones, which meant he favoured Renjun, who was shorter than all of them and liked to crawl up in Taeyong’s lap. Doyoung tried to always sit himself behind Jeno at circle times, using Jeno’s restlessness as an excuse to wrap arms around him. Sometimes Johnny wished that he had been a teacher aide so that he didn’t have as much of a professional boundary between himself and the students, but he didn’t much like the idea of changing nappies.
When he got back into the class, Chenle launched himself at Johnny, arms secured around his waist. Johnny pried his arms off and crouched down, reaching up to cup Chenle’s face.
“Hey, bub, you’re okay.” He swiped his thumbs over Chenle’s cheeks as Chenle continued to cry.
Caving, Johnny pulled Chenle in for a hug, regretting squatting as his thighs burned.
Over Chenle’s shoulder, he saw Donghyuck approaching them, looking thoroughly reprimanded. He tapped Chenle’s back and Chenle detached himself from Johnny, only to fall back onto him once he saw Donghyuck’s face.
Donghyuck looked down at the ground. “Sorry.”
“For what, Chenle?” Taeyong prompted from where he was helping Mark stick his name on the board.
“For throwing the book at you.”
Across the room, Doyoung disguised his laugh as a cough.
Johnny supressed a smile himself. “Chenle says th?”
“Thank you.” Chenle’s voice was muffled in Johnny’s chest.
Johnny looked up at Taeyong. “Should we give him the iPad? Just until he calms down?”
“Sure, hey Jungwoo, right?”
Jungwoo perked up from where he had Jeno sitting in his lap. “Yeah?”
“In the cupboard there,” Taeyong pointed to a cupboard in the corner, “there’s a bunch of iPads, could you grab one for Hyuck and just watch him on it? He’ll just watch soap cutting videos or something but we don’t want him doing anything more than that.”
The rest of the morning went as usual; watching videos about counting to ten on the smart board and then getting the kids to do small exercises relating to the video. Doyoung, being the most senior teacher aide in their classroom, kept an eye on Jungwoo and made sure he knew what he was doing. Taeyong helped Chenle pick off stickers to put down on paper in the shape of the numbers. While the others helped the kids with their exercises, Johnny ran some tests to see how they were progressing with learning at least what the numbers looked like. It didn’t much matter to him if they could count, apart from maybe Donghyuck and Jeno, who were far higher functioning than the other students. Donghyuck was always willing to do the tests, with the promise of an iPad motivating him. Jeno, however, was a little more reluctant to co-operate and took a little more persuading.
By the time Johnny went on break, his head was pounding with the amount that Mark was screaming – not over anything in particular, he just screamed sometimes – and was looking forward to being off his feet. Jungwoo happened to be on break at the same time as him, so Johnny sat next to him and kept him company.
“How are you finding it so far?” he asked, then biting into his apple.
Jungwoo nodded as he swallowed a mouthful of coffee. “It’s alright, needs a bit of adjusting, I think.”
Johnny chuckled. “I don’t blame you. I should get in contact with someone to see if you can have some training. The other TAs have it at the start of the year but –”
“Because I’ve started halfway through, yeah. That’d be great, thank you.”
Johnny waved a hand in dismissal as Kun sat down on his right.
“Hey Johnny, this your new recruit?”
Jungwoo reached a hand across and Kun shook it. “Jungwoo, nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you too, I’m Kun, I run the developmental rooms.”
Jungwoo nodded as if he knew what Kun was talking about, making Johnny stifle a laugh.
Johnny lent over to Jungwoo a bit. “We’ll be taking the kids in there this afternoon, so you’ll see what it is.”
“Okay, cool.”
They spent the rest of their break talking about the students and conversing about the progress they were making. Johnny liked taking his break at the same time as Kun; he was happy and talkative and also the father of one of Johnny’s past students.
“How’s Lucas doing?” Johnny asked, and Kun rolled his eyes.
“He thinks he’s a dog right now. Every morning I wake him up and he goes ‘I’m not a human boy, Dad, I’m a dog,’ and starts replying to me in barks. All he does is walk around the house barking.”
Johnny nodded thoughtfully while Jungwoo tried to hold in his laughter. “He did always like dogs, didn’t he?”
“It’s exhausting, Johnny, you have no idea.”
At that moment, Johnny saw movement out of the corner of his eye as Mark tried to come into the staff room, one of the other teachers, Jaehyun, hot on his heels. Johnny was quick to stand up, crossing the room and helping to steer Mark back out of the door.
“Nice try, buddy. Better luck next time,” Johnny said as Jaehyun guided Mark back down the steps to the playground.
“Thanks, John.”
“No problem.” Johnny slid the door to the staff room shut and locked it before taking his place at the table again.
Jungwoo cleared his throat. “Does that happen often?”
Johnny nodded. “Yeah, especially because Mark’s a bit of a runner.”
Kun snorted. “Not as bad as Renjun.”
“God, don’t remind me,” Johnny said through a groan.
Jungwoo just laughed at the exchange, clearly out of politeness as he had no idea who Renjun was. Soon after, Jaehyun came in to ring the bell, and Johnny explain to Jungwoo that they had to go out and fetch the children. He showed him where they made the students wait, instructing Jungwoo to sit there with Mark while he, Taeyong and Doyoung went to find the others. He discovered Donghyuck sitting under the bridge on the playground, digging into the dirt and eating the bark. Johnny heaved a sign and crouched down, offering a hand to Donghyuck.
“Come on, Hyuckie, bark is finished.” He curled his fingers into a loose fist, his thumb resting against his forefinger in something akin to a thumbs up and shook it slightly – the sign language for “finished”.
Donghyuck squealed a little, grabbing more bark to put in his mouth before Johnny took hold of his wrist and lowered his voice. “Donghyuck, bark is finished.”
Reluctantly, Donghyuck dropped the bark and fitted his hand in Johnny’s, allowing Johnny to help him up. They walked back through to the rest of the class together, Donghyuck’s steps significantly smaller than Johnny’s, and Johnny leaning to one side so Donghyuck could reach his hand.
After morning tea was toileting – which Jungwoo was exempt from on his first day – followed by reading, which was just Johnny reading a book to the children and playing related videos afterwards. He brought out soft toys for the students to play with and gave Chenle a puzzle that he sprawled out on the floor with and put together in record time.
As Johnny watched his students he was overtaken by a wave of affection. He’d waited five years to get his own classroom, and he couldn’t have asked for a better bunch of kids to work with. Each of them had such unique personalities and were at different developmental stages, but they all seemed to work well together. Jeno was leaning all his weight into Doyoung’s lap, Chenle was tugging Jungwoo over to look at his puzzle, Taeyong was tucking Mark’s hair behind his ear while Mark squirmed in his seat, and Donghyuck was working independently on a matching game. Johnny was proud of what he’d built alongside Doyoung and Taeyong, of the progress he’d made himself in just a couple of years.
Johnny lived in an old state house near the school with his best friend, Ten. The two had met in primary school, when Ten was still wearing splints and Johnny was asked to be Ten’s friend by the teachers. They’d been close ever since, and Johnny had been alongside Ten every step of the way as he worked through his cerebral palsy.
Ten was lying on the couch when Johnny got home, his walking stick leant against the coffee table as he typed away on his laptop. He shot Johnny a bright smile before looking back at the screen.
“How was work?”
“Good, Taeil brought Donghyuck in and we had a new teacher aide helping out.”
“Oh, Mister Moon?” Ten cocked a brow and Johnny rolled his eyes.
“It was just to talk about Donghyuck’s lunch, relax.”
Ten shrugged. “Bet he put a hand on your arm again.”
Johnny couldn’t help the heat that rose in his cheeks. Ten had tried his hand at teacher aiding the previous year, had seen the way Taeil made Johnny blush and how touchy he got. He couldn’t deny that where he had a soft spot for Donghyuck, Johnny had also taken a liking to his father. Taeil was often frazzled and a bit dishevelled, but he always made sure his son was well looked after, and the compassion he showed to Donghyuck warmed Johnny’s heart.
“And what if he did?”
“God, I can’t wait for you to ask him out one day.”
“You know I can’t, Ten. That goes against so many rules, and if I got involved with Taeil then Donghyuck would have to move classes, or I would have to move schools, and I can’t do that. I’ve worked too hard for my class.”
Ten waved a hand. “I get it, Johnny. It just seems a shame.”
Johnny had to agree with him. “Maybe when Donghyuck goes to the satellite class. Maybe,” he stressed when Ten’s face picked up, “maybe I’ll try to initiate something.”
“That’s enough for me, I’ll leave it. For now.”
Johnny breathed a sigh of relief. He really didn’t want to have to confront his feelings for Taeil then, or ever really. It was too messy – too complicated. There were too many rules and codes of conducts that would get in the way of anything coming of it, anyway. And he didn’t want to risk Donghyuck’s education being damaged as a result. It was better for Johnny to push it all down, at least until Donghyuck graduated. No matter how many times Johnny’s heart skipped a beat at even just the thought of Taeil.