Chapter Text
Moon Byulyi had a certain reputation around school. She was known by all for being the most well liked teacher. The students would gush over how down to earth and hilarious she was. Parents didn’t like her, but they couldn’t complain too much considering how well their children were doing in her class.
Byulyi taught history, but with a certain edge. She tried to make a seemingly boring subject fun. She often told her students that the more fun you make a subject, the more likely you are at remembering it. To further prove her point she often got the students involved in various games to help them memorise for tests. Their grades shot up and so did their enthusiasm for history.
A lot of the faculty didn’t like her. She wasn’t a typical teacher. She would often speak to student as though they were friends and on a number of occasions other teachers heard her swear towards her pupils. They complained to the headmaster but to no avail. He wasn’t interested in their moans, he was only interested in how much the students grades improved.
One teacher who gave Byulyi the benefit of the doubt was Korean literature teacher Kim Yongsun. Yongsun was also a well liked teacher. But not for the same reasons. The boys loved her because of how beautiful she was and the girls loved her because of how genuinely nice she was.
Yongsun often defended Byulyi to the other staff members. Telling them that Byulyi’s unique teaching skills were actually working with the students and maybe other teachers should try it. They just mumbled and rolled their eyes at her.
Sometimes the other teachers were right about her. Every so often Byulyi would act slightly inappropriately towards the students, swearing at them or ridiculing them, but they took it in all good humour and they treated her the same way.
She even turned up to work hungover whenever her old school friend wanted to have a night out. That’s how Yongsun came across Byulyi dragging her feet inside the school hallways on a cold October morning.
“Take your hood off.” Yongsun playfully snapped at her as she brushed past her.
Smiling somewhat painfully, Byulyi pulled her hood down and revealed dark circles under her tired looking eyes.
“Good night?” The older teacher asked, opening her classroom door and letting her students inside.
Byulyi smirked and leaned against the wall next to the door, “It was so good, but I don’t know how I’m going to survive today.”
“Well that’s your own fault,” Yongsun began walking into her classroom, “Who parties on a Tuesday night?”
“Someone who doesn’t think about the consequences of her actions and wholeheartedly regrets not calling in sick.” The younger girl moaned, softly rubbing her eyes.
“Enjoy your day, Miss Moon.” Yongsun winked before slamming the door shut in Byulyi’s face.
She could hear the other woman groaning loudly behind the door, “Why did you have to shut it so loudly?” She then heard a soft bang on the door and knew Byulyi put her head to rest on the door for several seconds before walking to her own classroom.
Luckily Byulyi’s room was only down the hall. She could see her students impatiently waiting outside and she gingerly approached.
“You’re late.” One of them folded their arms across their chests, his thick French accent making her headache throb a bit more.
“I know.” Byulyi unlocked the classroom door and let her students flood the room, “Guys, just to let you know I am very hungover today, so please don’t be annoying.” She flopped on her chair by her desk and rested her head on the cold wood.
“Tu es un professeur ridicule.” The French student huffed before taking his seat.
“Olivier,” Byulyi raised her head slightly, “Your language is beautiful, but it means nothing to me.”
After delegating the attendance register duties to Kang Seulgi - one of her most improved students - Byulyi allowed a few more seconds of peace before diving into today’s subject.
“Okay guys,” she started, opening a can of Red Bull and taking a huge swig, “Tomorrow we have an test on the Mongolian invasion of Japan,” the groans from her students filled the silence, “So, you know what that means?” Twenty pairs of eyes looked up towards her eagerly, “It’s Class Wars!”
All twenty students jumped up quickly and pushed their desks against the walls, Byulyi took out a box filled with costumes and plastic weapons.
“Olivier,” She pointed at the French student, “What year did the Mongolians invade Japan?”
“1274.” He answered without hesitation.
“Perfect,” She chucked a Samurai helmet to him, “Your side of the room are the Japanese.”
“Kitae,” she pointed at a slightly overweight boy on the other side of the room, “Which Khan was responsible for the invasion?”
His eyes went wide with the question, not because he didn’t know the answer but because of the attention it brought, “Kublai Khan.”
“Correct,” She smiled at him, “Here,” she handed him a Mongolian helmet, “You’re Kublai Khan.”
The teacher in the classroom next to Byulyi’s absolutely hated class wars. All she could hear whilst she was trying to teach her own students was them screaming next door. She often complained to the headmaster but nothing was ever done about it.
Instead she decided that she would confront the history teacher herself. As soon as the first scream was heard, she jumped out from her desk and in a flash, she was out the door.
She didn’t bother with knocking, instead she just wrenched open the door in time to see the teacher on her back on the floor with a student decked out in Mongolian armour pointing a sword at Byulyi’s throat.
“You’re dead, Miss.” the student sniggered, “God you’re easy to kill.”
“I told you,” Byulyi groaned, pushing the sword away, “I’m very hungover and I’m a Samurai, I was supposed to die.”
“You’re hungover?” A stern voice called from the door way. In their excitement of the Byulyi falling so easy, no one noticed the strict teacher enter.
Scrambling to her feet, Byulyi replied, “No, my character was.” She lied, rubbing the back of her neck in nervousness, “The Samurai I was portraying had drank too much sake the night before.”
“Can I speak to you outside?” Without waiting for an answer, she turned on her heel and stormed out.
“Uh oh.” Another student, Irene, commented, “Someone’s in trouble.”
“Shut up, Irene.” Byulyi walked out after the other teacher, “Keep going like before, Seulgi, you’re in charge.”
Miss Park absolutely hated Byulyi and Byulyi knew it. She had tried to defuse the tension between them multiple times but with no positive results. Instead Miss Park proceeded to hate her more and more. Byulyi got fed up halfway through her second year as a teacher and came to the realisation that her and Miss Park were just destined to hate each other.
“You know that’s not a playground.” She pointed menacingly towards Byulyi’s classroom.
“Of course.” Byulyi rolled her eyes, “But doing something active stimulates the brain and more information gets absorbed when the brain is alert.”
Sighing, Miss Park snapped, “I hate you.” She poked Byulyi’s shoulder, “I hate you so much.”
“You know,” Byulyi began, “If you spent less time hating me and more time fixing this,” she pointed at Miss Park’s face, “You’d probably be able to find yourself a husband and finally release that pent up frustration you harbour for me.”
“You’re going to slip up one day,” she whispered, “And I will be there to see you get fired.”
Byulyi leaned in close, “Well it’s been five years and I’m still going strong.” Winking, she turned and casually strolled back into her classroom.
Her current class was a two hour session. Byulyi planned for the first half to be purely Class Wars and for the second half to be actual revising. Whenever they had the two hour class, however, the second hour was very rarely spent actually studying.
“How was last night?” Sunghyuk grinned from the back of the class.
“It was awesome,” Byulyi began writing important dates on the white board, “Hyejin was free for the first time in months and we ended up dressing up as Spartan warriors and gatecrashing someones party.”
“Did they not kick you out?” Olivier asked.
“No, they thought we were strippers so they let us stay.”
“Did you strip?” Sunghyuk asked, eyes wide in shock.
Chuckling softly, Byulyi shook her head, “I’m not answering that.”
“That means yes.” Sunghyuk laughed.
“Can I hire you for a party, Miss?” Seulgi raised her hand, “It’ll be a private party, just you and me.” She winked.
Turning to face the student, Byulyi pointed at her with her pen, “And from now on, comments like that will be banned.”
The student huffed and crossed her arms over her chest. It was no secret within the school of Byulyi’s sexuality, she accidentally outed herself a few weeks into her first term by complaining about her ex-girlfriend. The fact that the schools favourite teacher was openly gay also helped a lot of students come to terms with their sexual identity. But it also caused a few students to gain the confidence to flirt with the history teacher. To which she had to shut down immediately.
“No point trying it on with Byulyi,” A tall boy from next to Seulgi laughed, “Shes still in love with Miss Kim.”
Byulyi often didn’t mind her students calling her by her first name. As long as they didn’t do it when other teachers were present, she was alright with it.
“I am not in love with Miss Kim.” She rolled her eyes.
“Oh please,” the same boy, Jisung smirked, “Your Facebook password is Yongsun7.”
Byulyi’s face resembled a fish as she opened and closed her mouth repeatedly before stammering, “How did you guess my password?”
“It’s easy when you’re so predictable.”
The teacher slowly held up her middle finger at the student before turning back to the white board and actually enforcing a revision session upon them.
She was not in love with Miss Kim. She was just the only teacher that made the effort to talk to Byulyi. And yes she was one of the most beautiful women Byulyi had ever seen, both inside and out, but it didn’t mean that she was in love with the Korean literature teacher.
Maybe she talked about the older woman too much. Or maybe she was caught one too many times staring at her during their weekly assembly’s. Maybe she should change her Facebook password, and twitter, and email.
Yeah she definitely wasn’t in love with Kim Yongsun.