Chapter Text
“You want me to work with him? ”
Jake shot to his feet, almost causing his chair to fall back in the process. Without breaking eye contact with their teacher, he pointed to the older student. “I can’t work with him. He’s… just… impossible to work with.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Heeseung rolling his eyes before responding. “Well you’re not fun to hangout with either, Jakey.”
This caused Jake to finally acknowledge Heeseung’s presence and if looks could kill, the boy sitting beside him would be 6 feet under by now.
A sigh came from the teacher's mouth as she rubbed her temple for a second before continuing. “Look you two, we will be having a very special student joining us at our school and have been told he will require some…” she took a pause, “extra support. That’s where you two come in.” She neatly folded her hands in front of herself while leaning in ever so slightly. “As I mentioned just a moment ago, I want both of you to be his tutors.”
There was a prolonged silence. Jake, still standing, looked to Heeseung, who slowly turned to meet his gaze with an expression somewhere between confusion and disgust. After a brief second, he snapped his head back to their teacher.
“Why him?” He gestured to Heeseung. “Why me? ” He gestured to himself.
“Mr. Sim. Would you please sit down.”
The brown haired boy reluctantly plopped back down in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest, not bothering to hide his dislike of the situation.
“Thank you,” she continued. “As for the reason I chose the two of you is because, A,” she moved her hand to suggest she was talking about Jake, “you are our only student here on a purely academic scholarship as well as being a year younger than everyone in your year. And B,” she turned to the other student sitting in front of her, “you are the top student in the class as well as one of the top in the whole school.”
Pointing once again at the older student, Jake questioned, “But why do we have to work together?”
She leaned all the way back in her seat. “Because I think it would be beneficial to have multiple people working with him. Plus, he will be new and doesn’t know anyone and this will give him an opportunity to make more than one new friend. Now if that’s all, he will be joining us this coming Monday. I suggest you two start getting along over the weekend.”
“But-“ Jake raised an arm in protest before getting cut off.
“Have a good weekend.”
Signing in defeat, Jake swung his bag over his shoulder and marched out, followed close by Heeseung who departed with a quick goodbye. The two eventually ended up side by side and continued in silence down the hall. As they neared the entrance, Heeseung finally spoke up.
“Well, looks like we’re stuck together.” He gave Jake a playful nudge with his shoulder but Jake was unamused and just kept his focus on the nearing doors.
“Oh c’mon,” he heard come from his side and saw Heeseung slightly throw his head back. “It can’t be that bad. I mean, this guy might catch on quickly then we will be rid of it all.”
Jake still refused to respond. All he wanted was to take the bus back to his family’s apartment and fall asleep. The lack of a response must have ticked something in the taller because he grabbed his shoulder and turned the shorter to meet his eyes.
“Did you hear anything I just said?”
“Yeah,” he spat out, violently shrugging the other’s hand off and crossed his arms. “I just chose to ignore you.”
Matching the other’s stance, Heeseung continued. “Well, I said that you’re stuck with me, so we’re gonna have to figure something out because I’m not letting your inability to listen affect me.”
Unable to restrain himself, Jake let out a scoff under his breath while turning away. “Don’t worry.” He turned back, this time with a venomous stare, “I think I can restrain myself.”
He walked away, but not before shoving Heeseung to the side with his shoulder.
“You better not ignore me if I message you,” he heard being hollered behind him. “We are gonna need to go over some kind of plan before Monday.” By the end of his sentence, Jake was too far away to hear anything else. Luckily, his bus was still at its stop when he made his way out of the building. He stepped on and greeted the driver before dropping into his usual seat in the back. Once they were off, it became a challenge to keep his eyes open and he let himself doze off, lulled by the rocking moment of the bus.
“I’m back !”
Jake stepped through his family’s apartment door and called out to anyone who was home. A response came from around the corner in the kitchen.
“Why back so late?” His mother inquired, folding up what Jake assumed was the stack of bills she tried to keep hidden from him. She then leaned her forearms on top of them and shifted forward. “I talked to Sunoo and he said he hadn’t heard from you. I was beginning to worry.”
“Oh yeah….”
Shit. I forgot to text her.
He moved to the table to rest his stuff down as he continued. “Another student and I were asked to stay after for a meeting.”
She looked puzzled. “A meeting? Nothing bad, I hope.” By now she had picked up the envelopes and moved them to a drawer in her work desk, situated in the kitchen’s corner.
“No, don’t worry. We were just asked… well told actually, to tutor a new student this coming week.”
“That sounds like quite a job.” She changed gears while making her way over to the stove. “Go sit down for a little bit. Dinner should be ready in about fifteen.”
“Okay,” he answered over his shoulder, already making his way down the dimly lit hall to his room at the end of it.
Letting the door swing close behind him, the exhausted boy fell onto his bed, which was starting to feel more comfortable than it did this morning. As his eyes drooped closed, his phone buzzed in his back pocket, causing a groan to leave his lips. He flipped over onto his back and brough the phone to his face, the name “Sunoo” written in big letters across the screen. Reluctantly, he tapped the pick up button and answered.
“Hello?”
“ Wow, you sound like you’ve been up for the past week.” His best friend's voice managed to sound both concerned and playful at the same time.
“That's what it feels like.” While he continued, he began rubbing his eye, “Why are you calling?”
“ Well, your mom came over not too long ago thinking you were with me and since you obviously weren’t with me, I got worried. Where were you anyway?”
There was a moment of silence before Jake swiftly snatched a pillow from his side and screamed into it.
“ That bad, huh?”
After letting all his frustrations out, he hugged it to his chest. “You’re not gonna believe what I was told to do this afternoon.”
“ Should I be concerned? Or scared?”
“You should be concerned for my well being for the next few months.” He let out a sigh before filling in Sunoo about his afternoon.
“ What?” the now shocked boy steamed in his ear. “ You mean Lee Heeseung?”
“Unless we know of any other Heeseungs, then yeah, he's the one.”
“ Why would she do that? She has to know you two despise each other.”
Shrugging as if Sunoo could see him he stated, “I don’t know.”
Just then his mom called from down the hall. “Jake! Dinners ready.”
“One sec,” he sent back before addressing his friend once more. “Dinners ready. I’ll message you later.”
“Okay, bye!”
With that, he hung up and proceeded to join his mother at the table.
The rest of the evening went on pretty smoothly. They finished dinner and his mom wished him a good night before he returned to his room. Rather than starting on his homework, he decided to take a much needed, decompressing shower. He thought about the afternoon’s conversation with his teacher under the borderline scalding water, which caused him to lose track of time. By the time he got out, it had been almost 30 minutes.
After checking the time, he noticed a notification had popped up on his screen. It took him an instant to go from relaxed to agitated. The sender's name read “him” aka Lee Heeseung.
“Why did he have to text right now?” he said under his breath. Not giving a care, he chose to once again ignore the older student and go on with his night routine.
Once he was just about ready for bed, he took a seat at his desk and pulled out the little notepad he kept in the drawer. He began writing out what work he needed to get done over the weekend before moving onto a brief assignment that needed to be completed. Just as he put his pencil to the paper, his phone buzzed, signaling a phone call.
Assuming it was Sunoo calling him back, Jake accepted the call, keeping his eyes trained on the page in front of him.
“Hey, I can’t talk about Heeseung right now. I’m doing-“ He was cut off by a sly snicker and before the boy on the other end uttered a word, Jake knew he was screwed.
“ So,” he began, using an overly teasing tone, “ you’re talking about me to your friends.”
Shit! Someone shoot me.
“What do you want, Heseung?” Jake groaned, lightly tossing the pencil down onto his desk.
“Not that I wouldn’t love having a meaningful conversation with you, but we need to figure out a time to talk about the transfer student.” The sarcasm was suffocating him.
Jake let out a sigh before following with, “Can’t we just wing it? Anytime spent with you would be good time wasted.”
He heard the older boy answer with a light chuckle. “ I don’t think that would make Ms Kim happy. I know you want to stay on her good side.”
Damn it, he’s right.
Pinching the bridge, Jake continued. “Okay… what were you thinking?”
“ Well, why don’t I meet you at your place and we can find-” Before he could finish his proposition, the younger cut him off.
“You’re not coming here,” Jake stated as he let his arm fall back to the desk, not wanting to give the other more ammunition to use when picking on him. Going to a wealthy school did have its advantages, one of them being a much better education than Jake could ever dream of at his own town's high school, but he was only there on scholarship and lacked the funds to attend otherwise. Even though Heeseung knew of his situation, he never fully witnessed the extent of it and Jake liked to keep his private life to himself.
“ Why not?”
“Let’s just meet at the school’s library,” Jake suggested in an attempt to make the other drop it.
“That’s no fun though.”
“It’s that or nothing, Heeseung.” He was beginning to grow more annoyed at the older student than he already was.
After a brief pause, he surrendered. “Ugh, okay, fine. Have it your way. What time?”
“I’m gonna be there at 10 and if you’re not there within a minute of me arriving, I’m leaving and making up a plan on my own.”
“Yeah, yeah.” He could hear the exaggerated eyerolls through the phone. “I’ll be there.” And without another word, the line went silent and Jake heard a beep, beep, beep in his ear.
Staring at the black screen, he mumbled, “Who does he think he is?”