Work Text:
1) locked out
Eunchae was happier than usual at pickup on Thursday, running up to him immediately and climbing up his legs. He’d picked her up and she’d pressed a wet kiss to his cheek, “Appa, I love you!” she’d proclaimed loudly, “you’re the best appa ever!”
Yeonjun should’ve known something was off then: Eunchae normally hated pickup because it meant she wouldn’t be able to see her friends until the next day. But Yeonjun had honestly missed carrying her in his arms like this, so he hadn’t paid any mind as to why she was so suddenly affectionate with him, just that she was.
It wasn’t until he was going through her backpack after dinner that he saw it.
“Eunchae, what is this?”
“A key!”
“I know it’s a key, baby, I’m asking what it’s for.”
Eunchae shrugs, “I don’t know, appa, I found it on the floor.”
Yeonjun hadn’t thought much of it, tucking the key back into her backpack. He had honestly forgotten it until he got a call from her school the next day, saying that the key Eunchae “found” was actually the key to the art supply closet, which she had stolen out of her teacher’s apron pocket, and that she was refusing to reveal where she “hid” it.
Yeonjun immediately called out of work early and rushed to her school. When he walked into the building, Eunchae was sitting sullenly in the chairs in front of the office, her bag at her feet. Her face brightened when she caught sight of him, though. “Hi, honey,” he says, crouching in front of her. “I just need to look through your bag really quickly.”
“Why?” she asks, grabbing the backpack and dragging it closer to her chest. So his hunch was right. “We didn’t have any take-home assignments.”
Yeonjun decides to change gears. “You can’t just take your teacher’s keys, Eunchae.”
“But it was right there!”
“Inside your teacher’s apron pocket?”
“Yeah!”
“That means it was not ‘right there,’ baby.”
“But he kept looking for it,” Eunchae argues. “It was really funny.”
Yeonjun presses the heel of his hand against his forehead. “Sweetheart,” he says carefully, “you can’t just steal from your teacher because you think it’s funny.”
Eunchae huffs, crossing her arms. “But I was gonna give it back.”
“Well, give it to me now,” Eunchae grumbles, but digs into her backpack anyway, procuring the key and placing it in Yeonjun’s outstretched palm.
“See?” Eunchae frowns, crossing her arms.
Yeonjun stares at her for a long moment, then, despite himself, he laughs. “Baby,” he says, reaching over to smooth her hair back, “giving it to me now doesn’t make it better.”
Eunchae melts immediately at the attention, leaning into his hand with a dramatic sigh. Yeonjun presses a kiss to the top of her head before standing.
“Okay, we’re going to see your art teacher, you’re giving the key back, and you’re apologizing to him. Understand?”
Eunchae groans loudly enough that he’s sure the surrounding classrooms could hear it through the walls.
“Eunchae,” Yeonjun warns.
“Okay,” she mutters.
Yeonjun doesn’t entirely trust that response, but it’s the best he’s getting. He walks to the desk, key in hand, and the receptionist recognizes him.
“Mr. Choi? The art teacher, Teacher Choi, is waiting for you outside of room 5A, just down the hall.” She peers at Eunchae over the rim of her glasses. “Eunchae will need to apologize.”
“Yes, of course.”
“Well, go on then.”
“Right.” Yeonjun takes Eunchae’s hand and heads down the hallway she pointed toward. The school is loud this afternoon, the fluorescent lights unnecessarily bright, and children’s artwork taped crookedly along the walls.
Someone is standing outside room 5A. “Are you Teacher Choi?” he asks, and the person turns. Yeonjun forgets, briefly, why he’s here. The art teacher is… pretty, distractingly so. His dark hair falls a little past his shoulders, streaked white in uneven pieces that have been dusted with chalky color. Half of it is tied back away from his face. Silver jewelry hangs from both ears, mismatched and swaying slightly when he moves, and over a long-sleeved white t-shirt and black jeans is a black apron with a tiny bear stitched onto the breast pocket.
“That’s me,” he says easily. Then he smiles down at Eunchae. “Hi, Eunchae.”
Eunchae hides slightly behind Yeonjun’s leg.
“I– yes, sorry,” Yeonjun says quickly, suddenly remembering why he had, in fact, left work early to come here. “Here.” He digs the key out of his pocket and holds it out. “I’m really sorry she locked you out of your supply closet all day.”
Teacher Choi takes the key with a shrug. “It’s not that big of a deal.”
“The principal said you had to change the entire lesson plan.”
“Mr. Choi,” he says, already sounding tired, “I teach six-year-olds. They were perfectly happy making macaroni art instead of finger-painting.”
“Still, that sounds stressful.”
Teacher Choi gives him a look that somehow manages to be both unimpressed and amused. “You’d be horrified by what I consider a stressful workday.”
Then, like this is an entirely normal conversation to be having with his student’s parent mid-day, Teacher Choi unlocks the supply closet and immediately starts pulling out massive paint jugs. “Most of my supplies are in the classroom anyway,” he says. “This just meant I had to improvise.”
He balances two paint bottles against his hip, nudges the closet shut with his foot, and disappears into the classroom beside it. Yeonjun stays where he is, mostly because he’s still processing the fact that Eunchae’s art teacher is apparently unfairly attractive.
A second later, Teacher Choi pokes his head back out. “Are you planning on standing in the hallway forever, or?”
“Sorry, yes,” Yeonjun steps inside, tugging his daughter with him, “Eunchae, honey, what do we say?”
Eunchae huffs dramatically, toeing at the tiled floor. Yeonjun tugs on her hand a bit, “Remember what we talked about last night?” She nods. “Okay, so don’t you have something to say to Teacher Choi?”
“Sorry,” she mutters.
“For what?”
Eunchae groans loudly, like this is the most difficult conversation she’s ever been forced to endure. “Sorry for stealing your key, Teacher Choi.”
Teacher Choi hums thoughtfully, like he’s considering it. “Alright,” he says at last. “Apology accepted.”
Eunchae brightens immediately. “Really?”
“Really. But no more stealing from me, okay?”
“Okay.”
He tilts his head slightly. “Especially not before lunch. You’re terrible at keeping secrets all afternoon.”
Eunchae gasps. “You knew?”
“Eunchae,” Yeonjun says weakly.
Teacher Choi laughs then, bright and easy and completely unbothered, and Yeonjun has the strange thought that he probably laughs like that often around his students. Around people he likes, even. It does something weird to Yeonjun’s stomach.
“Thank you for bringing it back so quickly,” Teacher Choi says once he settles again, standing back up. “Most parents would’ve just shoved it back into their kid’s backpack and hoped for the best.”
“Trust me,” Yeonjun says dryly, “getting that call from the school in the middle of the workday was humiliating enough.”
Teacher Choi grins. “Please. This isn’t even close to the weirdest thing a student’s done this year.”
That somehow does not make Yeonjun feel better.
Beside him, Eunchae suddenly tugs on his sleeve. “Appa, look.” She points proudly toward the far wall.
Children’s drawings cover nearly every inch of it, clipped up in uneven rows. Right near the center hangs one Yeonjun recognizes immediately from his kitchen table a few days ago.
A figure with long dark hair stands in aggressive crayon colors, a cartoonishly sad expression on his face. On the surface in front of him, which Yeonjun presumes is meant to be a desk, is a giant red question mark.
Teacher Choi follows his gaze and snorts softly. “Ah,” he says. “That one’s called ‘Teacher Choi Lost His Keys.’”
Yeonjun laughs before he can stop himself. A second later, Teacher Choi laughs too.
2) permanent marker
Yeonjun wishes he could say he’s shocked to receive another call from the school only a week after the key incident, but he’s really not.
When he answers, the receptionist sounds deeply tired. Apparently, Eunchae had somehow managed to get into Teacher Choi’s desk cabinet and discover his stash of permanent markers. Then, during recess, while Teacher Choi had been outside supervising, she’d climbed onto a chair and drawn all over the classroom whiteboard in every color imaginable.
“All over?” Yeonjun repeats weakly.
“Mr. Choi,” the receptionist says carefully, “she covered nearly the entire lower half of the board.” Fantastic.
By the time Yeonjun reaches the school, he already has a headache forming behind his eyes. He greets the receptionist with the exhausted familiarity of someone becoming a little too well-known in the front office before heading down the hallway toward the art room.
The classroom door is propped open. At the front of the room, Eunchae stands on a stool, aggressively scrubbing at the whiteboard with a rag. Beside her, Teacher Choi is doing the same thing with significantly more success. He looks up as Yeonjun steps inside.
“Mr. Choi, hello.”
Yeonjun had thought he’d prepared himself mentally for what the board would look like. He had not. Scribbles cover nearly every inch of it: stick figures, flowers, hearts, smiley faces, a lopsided cat. Across the center, written in huge uneven letters, is:
CHAE WAS HEER!
And underneath all of it, barely visible beneath layers of pink marker, is what looks like Teacher Choi’s original lesson notes.
Yeonjun drops immediately into a ninety-degree bow. “Teacher Choi, I am so sorry–”
“Mr. Choi, please,” Teacher Choi interrupts, sounding deeply unimpressed. “This isn’t even close to the worst incident I’ve dealt with this year. I teach five-year-olds art. Permanent marker is honestly pretty tame.”
Yeonjun straightens slowly, unconvinced.
“Honestly,” Teacher Choi continues, glancing toward Eunchae, “I’m a little impressed she found the markers; that cabinet locks. Between this and the supply closet incident, you may actually have a future lockpick on your hands.”
“I don’t think that’s a good thing,” Yeonjun says warily.
Teacher Choi snorts softly. “Honestly, there wasn’t really any reason to call you down here,” he says. “Eunchae finished her Korean work before recess anyway, so I just borrowed her to help clean the board.” He glances toward her. “Isn’t that right, Eunchae?”
Eunchae nods distractedly, entirely focused on scrubbing at a stubborn patch of blue marker.
Teacher Choi gestures loosely toward the board, still covered in multicolored scribbles. “See,” he says, “totally fine.”
Yeonjun looks at the board. “I think we have different definitions of ‘fine.’”
“Well, anyway, there’s only 20 minutes until school is out, so if you want, you can check her out now. Or you can wait up front for her to be done.”
“I think she’d rather be here,” Yeonjun says.
Teacher Choi turns to look at her and smiles. “Probably,” he says softly.
Eunchae, entirely unaware they’re talking about her, scrubs harder at the board as if she’s trying to polish metal. It is not working.
“Sweetheart,” Yeonjun says carefully, “I think you’re mostly spreading it around now.”
“I’m helping,” Eunchae insists.
“Mhm.”
Teacher Choi bites back a laugh beside him and reaches around Eunchae to spray more cleaner onto the board. Up close, Yeonjun can smell paint and something citrusy from the cleaning solution. There’s a streak of blue marker across the side of Teacher Choi’s hand. Somehow, despite the situation, he still looks unfairly pretty, which feels deeply inconvenient for Yeonjun personally.
“You know,” Teacher Choi says suddenly, still scrubbing at the board, “most kids prefer to draw on paper.”
“I am aware.”
“Eunchae just likes to think outside the box.”
“Please don’t encourage her.”
Teacher Choi laughs again, bright and easy.
Eunchae finally looks back from the board, examining the section she’d been cleaning with narrowed eyes. “I think it’s worse now,” she announces.
“It is,” Yeonjun says immediately.
“A little,” Teacher Choi agrees.
Eunchae sighs dramatically and climbs down from the stool. “Sorry.”
Teacher Choi reaches over and pats the top of her head. “It’s okay. Next time, though, we use the washable markers.”
“Okay.”
“No markers, actually, unless Teacher Choi approves it,” Yeonjun interjects
“Aww.”
“Especially no markers you had to break into a locked cabinet to get.”
Teacher Choi grins at that, and Yeonjun has to look away for a second, which is honestly ridiculous, considering he’s a grown man.
“Appa,” Eunchae says suddenly, tugging on his sleeve.
“Hm?”
She points toward the whiteboard proudly. “I drew Teacher Choi.”
Yeonjun looks up. Somehow, among the chaos, there is in fact a drawing of Teacher Choi. A surprisingly recognizable one, actually, complete with long dark hair and dangling earrings. Beside him is a second figure, smaller.
“Is that you?” Yeonjun asks.
Eunchae nods, and Teacher Choi goes oddly quiet beside him.
Then: “Well,” he says lightly, “at least she has artistic vision.”
3) finger paint
Yeonjun’s phone rings just as he’s about to go on his lunch break, and he sighs when he sees it’s from the school.
“Hello?”
“Mr. Choi,” the receptionist says, “your daughter is currently covered in finger paint.”
Yeonjun pauses. “Covered how?”
“Well,” the receptionist says delicately, “that depends on your personal definition of ‘covered.’”
Yeonjun closes his eyes. “Please just tell me what happened.”
“Teacher Choi’s class was finger painting today,” she explains. “At some point, Eunchae slipped while carrying a paint tray.”
“Okay.”
“Which caused another student to slip.”
“Okay.”
“And then Eunchae attempted to help clean it up herself.”
Yeonjun already knows, somehow, that this next sentence is about to ruin his day. “With what?” he asks cautiously.
“Her clothes and bare hands.”
Yeonjun goes silent as he contemplates bashing his head into a wall.
“Mr. Choi?”
“I’m still here,” Yeonjun says faintly.
“The situation is under control,” the receptionist assures him quickly. “But Teacher Choi requested a change of clothes.”
Yeonjun frowns. “Requested?”
“Well,” the receptionist says, lowering her voice slightly, “he said, and I quote: ‘I’m not explaining this to her father without at least getting her in clothes not covered in paint.’”
Yeonjun immediately abandons all plans of having a peaceful lunch break. Thankfully, he keeps a spare set of clothes for Eunchae in the backseat of his car, which feels less like preparedness and more like survival instinct at this point.
By the time he reaches the school, he’s already bracing himself for disaster. Somehow, it’s worse. Tiny blue footprints trail toward the art room.
“Oh my god,” Yeonjun mutters.
The classroom door is propped open. Inside, the floor around the painting tables has been transformed into what looks like the scene of a very small, very colorful crime. Finger paint covers the tile in smeared streaks of yellow, green, and blue, several tiny handprints decorate one cabinet, and the tiny footsteps continue from the sink in the corner to the center.
In the middle of it all sits Eunchae. Her smock is soaked through with paint; there’s green streaked across both cheeks, yellow on the tip of her nose, and blue tangled into the ends of her hair. Beside her, kneeling on the floor with a wet towel, is Teacher Choi.
He looks up as Yeonjun walks in. “Before you say anything,” he says immediately, “she did actually start out really neat.”
Yeonjun stares at his daughter, who beams up at him. “Appa, look what happened.”
“I can see it, baby. How did this even happen?”
Teacher Choi opens his mouth, then pauses. “Honestly?” he says. “I genuinely don’t know.” Then he turns to Eunchae, who takes it as a cue to begin.
“I slipped,” Eunchae explains proudly.
“Yes, we know that part.”
“And then Minji slipped too.”
“Mhm.”
“And then everyone got upset.”
“Right.”
“So I tried to fix it.”
Yeonjun looks around the room again. “You know,” he says carefully, “I think your definition of ‘fixing it’ might need some work.”
Eunchae gasps, scandalized. Beside her, Teacher Choi ducks his head, shoulders shaking with suppressed laughter.
“I was just trying to help clean up!”
“Eunchae, honey,” Teacher Choi says through laughter, “we use rags to clean up paint, not our clothes.”
“Oh.” She looks down at herself. “That makes sense.”
Yeonjun presses the heel of his hand against his forehead.
Teacher Choi finally gives up on pretending to be professional and laughs properly, bright and loud enough to echo through the classroom. It’s deeply unfair, Yeonjun thinks, that someone can look that pretty while kneeling on a paint-covered floor, especially with purple paint in their hair.
“Okay,” Yeonjun says eventually, crouching in front of Eunchae. “Let’s get you cleaned up before your teacher has a stress-induced breakdown.”
“I’m actually doing great,” Teacher Choi says cheerfully.
Yeonjun gestures vaguely toward the room. “You’re sitting in a puddle of yellow paint.”
Teacher Choi glances down. “Oh. Yeah, okay.”
Eunchae suddenly points at him. “Teacher Choi has paint in his hair.”
“I’m aware, baby. So do you.”
“No,” she insists seriously, “a lot of paint.”
Teacher Choi reaches up instinctively and immediately smears more purple across the side of his head.
Yeonjun laughs before he can stop himself.
Teacher Choi looks at him, mock offended. “Wow. Betrayed in my own classroom.”
“I’m sorry,” Yeonjun says, still laughing a little. “It’s just–”
“What,” Teacher Choi says, like he’s bracing himself for the worst.
“It’s all over your face now.”
Teacher Choi sighs dramatically. “This is what I get for trusting kindergarteners with finger paint.”
4) glitter dust
Yeonjun’s phone rings midway through answering emails, and he almost ignores the unknown number before remembering he has a five-year-old daughter enrolled in public school. “Hello?”
“Mr. Choi? It’s Be– Teacher Choi. Eunchae’s art teacher.” Oh. Yeonjun sits up a little straighter in his chair. “I got your number from the directory. I figured I should give poor Ms. Kim a break from relaying her art adventures to you.”
Yeonjun sighs. “What has she done now?”
Well,” Teacher Choi says carefully, “technically, she didn’t mean to do it.”
That somehow makes Yeonjun feel worse. “Teacher Choi…”
“I think,” he says, voice suspiciously strained, “it’s probably better if you come see this in person,” which is never a sentence anyone wants to hear regarding their child.
Twenty minutes later, Yeonjun is speed-walking through the school lobby while the receptionist at the front desk visibly tries not to laugh. That is somehow more concerning than if she’d looked worried.
“Room 5A?” he asks tiredly.
Ms. Kim nods immediately. “Good luck.”
“Why would you say that to me?”
She just smiles sympathetically. Fantastic.
By the time Yeonjun reaches the art room, he can already hear laughter from inside. The classroom door is open, and glitter drifts out into the hallway.
Yeonjun stops walking. “Oh no.” Slowly, carefully, he peers into the classroom.
Teacher Choi is standing in the middle of the room absolutely covered in glitter. Not lightly dusted, covered. It sparkles across his apron, his shoulders, his hair, his eyelashes. There’s pink glitter on one cheekbone and silver glitter caught along the bridge of his nose. Every time he moves, more of it falls onto the floor like enchanted dandruff. In front of him is an empty glitter canister and its lid.
Around him, several children stare in open fascination. Eunchae stands frozen next to his desk, looking equal parts horrified and impressed with herself.
Teacher Choi notices Yeonjun in the doorway and closes his eyes briefly. “Before you say anything,” he says, “I specifically kept the glitter on my desk so this exact thing wouldn’t happen.”
Yeonjun lasts exactly three seconds before laughing. He tries not to, genuinely, but then Teacher Choi exhales, and a piece of glitter floats off his bangs and onto the floor, and Yeonjun loses the battle entirely.
Teacher Choi points at him accusingly. “You’re supposed to be on my side.”
“I’m sorry,” Yeonjun manages between laughs. “I know this is serious, it’s just–”
“Don’t.”
“–you’re sparkling.”
“I’m aware of that, yes.”
Eunchae raises her hand suddenly from the table, and at his nod, she says, “Teacher Choi, you look really pretty. Like a fairy!”
Teacher Choi blinks, and Yeonjun chokes on air.
“What?” she asks innocently at their silence. “He does.”
Teacher Choi presses glitter-covered hands against his face, which only makes the situation significantly worse.
“I’m going to be finding glitter in this room well after you guys graduate.”
The bell rings then, sharp and sudden, cutting him off. Immediately, the classroom erupts into chaos as the children scramble out of their seats and race toward the door for recess, except Eunchae.
“Teacher Choi,” she says seriously, “should I help you clean up?”
Teacher Choi looks down at himself as glitter falls off his apron. “No,” he says after a beat. “I think you’ve helped enough for one day.”
Euncahe nods solemnly, then she runs over to Yeonjun, wrapping herself around his leg in a quick hug before darting out the door after her classmates.
Silence settles over the classroom almost immediately after she leaves, well, relative silence, since there’s still glitter floating through the air.
Teacher Choi sighs and reaches up to pull some out of his hair. It does not help.
“You know,” Yeonjun says carefully, “in Eunchae’s defense–”
“Dangerous start.”
“–you do kind of look like a disco ball.”
Teacher Choi stares at him. “Wow.”
“I mean that like a compliment!” Yeonjun defends.
“That somehow makes it worse.”
Yeonjun laughs again, softer this time, and Teacher Choi shakes his head, smiling despite himself as he grabs a dustpan from beside the sink.
“I swear,” he mutters, “kindergarten art teachers deserve hazard pay.”
“At minimum.”
Teacher Choi glances up at him then, glitter still caught in his lashes. “You know,” he says casually, “most parents wouldn’t be so chill in this situation.”
“That’s because most parents probably don’t have children actively terrorizing your classroom.”
“Mm.” Teacher Choi sweeps glitter into a tiny sparkling pile. “I don’t know. I think she just likes being here.” Something about the way he says it softens the room a little.
Yeonjun looks around at the tiny paint-stained tables, the crooked paper stars hanging from the ceiling, the glitter still clinging stubbornly to Teacher Choi’s hair. Then he looks back toward the playground outside, where Eunchae is laughing loud enough to hear through the windows.
“Yeah,” he says quietly. “I think so too.”
5) crayon wrappers
The phone calls about “Eunchae’s art adventures” stop entirely, and Yeonjun isn’t sure whether to be relieved or concerned. The silence lasts almost two weeks: no missing supplies, no paint-related disasters, and no exhausted calls from the front office.
Eunchae has been suspiciously well-behaved lately, though Yeonjun suspects that has less to do with maturing and more to do with the upcoming end-of-year art showcase.
She’s been intensely secretive about her project. Every time he asks about it, she gasps dramatically and tells him it’s “private,” which, frankly, feels excessive coming from a five-year-old.
“Can I see it when it’s done?” he asks one night while packing her lunch for the next morning.
“No.”
“Why not?”
Eunchae narrows her eyes suspiciously over the top of her juice box. “Because.”
“Great argument.”
“It’s not done! Teacher Choi says art has dafts.”
“Drafts, Chae.”
“Yeah, that.” She waves a hand dismissively. “He said art has, like, stages. And every stage gets more stuff. So no looking during drafts.”
Yeonjun pauses mid-sandwich. “Teacher Choi says that?”
“Yeah,” Eunchae says absently. Then, after a bit: “Appa?”
“Yeah?”
“What do you think about glitter like stars?”
Yeonjun points the butter knife at her immediately. “No.”
“But appa, you didn’t listen.”
“You mentioned glitter. I’m getting ahead of the problem.”
Eunchae huffs, “What if it’s for art?”
“That’s usually where the problem starts.”
“Do you think Teacher Choi likes it?”
Yeonjun nearly drops the knife in his hand. “Why are you asking me that?”
“Secret!” Eunchae declares, grabbing her plate and darting away before he can question her any further. Yeonjun watches her disappear down the hallway. Yeonjun watches her disappear down the hallway.
A week later, his phone rings during work, “teacher choi” flashing across the screen.
Yeonjun answers immediately. “What’d she do this time?” he asks lightly.
“She, uh-” Teacher Choi cuts off abruptly. On the other end of the line, Yeonjun can hear classroom noise: children talking, chairs scraping against the floor, pencils against paper. Beneath it, though, he hears… crying.
Yeonjun goes very still. “Teacher Choi.”
“We had a bit of an accident,” Teacher Choi says carefully. “It’s not serious, but she’s really upset. I think… I think she wants her appa.”
Yeonjun is already grabbing his keys. “I’ll be there in ten.” He hangs up before Teacher Choi can answer.
The drive to the school feels significantly longer than ten minutes. By the time Yeonjun reaches the art room, his stomach is in knots. The classroom is strangely quiet when he steps inside. Most of the students are gathered at the far tables, coloring quietly while a teaching assistant supervises them.
Near the sink, Teacher Choi sits cross-legged on the floor, and Eunchae is curled against his side, face buried in his apron. Oh.
Relief crashes through Yeonjun so quickly his knees almost give out.
Teacher Choi looks up when he enters. “Hey,” he says softly, careful not to jostle Eunchae too much. “She’s okay.”
Yeonjun nods once, trying to steady himself, before crouching down in front of them. “Chae?”
Eunchae peeks up immediately, eyes red and wet. “Appa,” she sniffles.
Yeonjun reaches over automatically, smoothing her hair back from her forehead. “Hey, baby. What happened?”
Eunchae’s lip wobbles hard enough that Teacher Choi winces sympathetically beside her. “I broke them,” she whispers.
Yeonjun blinks. “Broke what?”
Teacher Choi glances toward the nearby table, and only then does Yeonjun notice the crayons, or more accurately, the remains of them. Broken crayons sit scattered on the floor around the tabletop in uneven pieces, paper wrappers peeling away at the edges. Some are snapped cleanly in half, while others have crumbled entirely. Beside them lies an overturned plastic caddy.
“She was helping me pass supplies out,” Teacher Choi explains quietly. “The handle slipped.”
“And they all broke,” Eunchae says miserably.
“Some of them broke,” Teacher Choi corrects gently.
“I ruined them.” Her voice cracks completely on the last word.
Yeonjun’s chest aches. “Oh, honey,” he says softly.
“It was for the art show,” Eunchae whispers. “Teacher Choi got out the nice crayons because we’re almost done, and I dropped them, and now they’re ugly.”
Teacher Choi immediately shakes his head. “Hey. No, they’re not.” He reaches over, picking up one of the broken crayons from the table. Carefully, he peels part of the wrapper away and holds it out toward her.
“See?” he says. “Still works.”
Eunchae stares at it uncertainly. “But it’s broken.”
“Lots of art supplies are,” Teacher Choi says simply. “That doesn’t mean they can’t still make good things.”
For a moment, Eunchae just sniffles quietly against his side. Then: “Really?”
“Really.” Teacher Choi reaches for another broken crayon and scribbles a bright crooked line across a scrap sheet of paper nearby. “See? Still works perfectly.”
Eunchae watches carefully, like she’s trying to decide whether or not to believe him. Eventually, she reaches out and takes the crayon from his hand, and a tiny, thin line appears beneath his.
“Oh,” she says softly. Beside her, Teacher Choi smiles, small and gentle.
Yeonjun has the sudden, overwhelming realization that he has a fat crush on him, which feels inconvenient, considering the circumstances.
“Okay,” Yeonjun says eventually, standing back up before his own emotions can get any more humiliating. “I think this calls for an early checkout.”
Eunchae looks up immediately. “Really, appa?”
“Really. And,” he adds, because she still looks fragile around the edges, “possibly emergency ice cream.”
That finally gets a smile out of her. Yeonjun reaches down to help with her backpack when she suddenly turns to Teacher Choi. “Appa says ice cream helps sadness,” Eunchae informs him seriously.
“That sounds medically questionable.”
“And yet,” Yeonjun says, “shockingly effective.”
Teacher Choi shakes his head, smiling despite himself. “Well,” he says, “try not to let her eat anything blue. I think I’m still recovering from the finger paint incident.”
Eunchae giggles. Then, before Yeonjun can stop her, she launches herself forward and wraps both arms around Teacher Choi’s waist.
“Sorry about the crayons,” she mumbles into his apron.
Teacher Choi stills for a second, then his expression softens completely. “Hey,” he says quietly, resting a hand against the back of her head. “It’s okay.”
Eunchae squeezes him tighter once before pulling away. “Bye-bye, Teacher Choi.”
“Bye, Eunchae.”
Yeonjun reaches for her hand automatically as they head toward the door. Halfway out, he glances back. Teacher Choi is gathering the broken crayons into the caddy, smiling softly.
He catches Yeonjun looking. “What?” he asks lightly.
Yeonjun hesitates. “Thank you,” he says quietly. “For calling me.”
Something in Teacher Choi’s expression softens again. “She was having a hard day,” he says simply.
Later, sitting across from Eunchae in a tiny ice cream shop while she carefully picks rainbow sprinkles off the top of her cone one by one, Yeonjun’s phone buzzes against the table with a text message from Teacher Choi.
teacher choi: She left her project sketchbook in the classroom again 😭
A second text appears immediately after:
teacher choi: Also the broken crayons are currently being used to draw a horse with six legs so I think it’s all good.
Yeonjun laughs before he can stop himself.
“What?” Eunchae asks around a mouthful of ice cream.
Yeonjun glances down at the messages one more time, then back at his daughter. “Nothing,” he says, smiling despite himself. “Just Teacher Choi.”
+ 1) art showcase
The elementary school art showcase is held on a Friday afternoon, and Yeonjun makes sure to get there just in time. Eunchae darts over to him when she sees him, wrapping her arms around his legs in a hug.
Yeonjun crouches to her height. “Hey, baby.”
“Hi, Appa!” she giggles.
The art room behind her has been transformed for the showcase. Children’s projects cover every available surface: watercolor paintings taped to walls, clay sculptures lined carefully along tables, paper stars hanging from the ceiling beside strings of glittering streamers. Parents crowd the classroom, talking softly while children drag them excitedly from project to project.
Somewhere across the room, Yeonjun catches sight of Teacher Choi helping another student adjust a crooked display card. He’s dressed nicer than usual today, colorful chalk missing from his hair, though his black apron is still tied around his waist, and there’s already something smeared faintly across one sleeve.
Yeonjun looks away before he gets caught staring.
“Come on,” Eunchae says urgently, grabbing his hand. “I have to show you mine.” She practically drags him through the classroom.
“Okay, okay,” Yeonjun laughs. “I’m coming.”
Eunchae weaves confidently between parents and tables until she stops near the far wall. Then, suddenly, all her earlier excitement disappears, and she goes quiet. Huh
Yeonjun looks down at her just as she edges closer to his side. “Chae?”
Instead of answering, she hides partially behind his leg. Well, that’s new.
“Hey,” Yeonjun says gently, crouching beside her again. “What happened to all the confidence from five seconds ago?”
Eunchae presses her face into his shoulder dramatically. “Nothing.”
“Uh huh.”
He glances up, her project hanging directly in front of them. For a second, Yeonjun can only stare. The drawing itself is done mostly in crayon, thick, uneven colors layered over each other in the determined way only kindergarteners seem capable of.
Two people stand in the center. One is unmistakably Yeonjun somehow, despite the lopsided proportions: dark hair, long coat, coffee cup drawn in one hand. The other has long dark hair, dangling silver earrings, and a black apron with a tiny cartoon bear above the pocket. Above them, spelled out in tiny, star-shaped glitter, are the words:
MY FAVORITE PEOPLE
Smaller silver and gold stars are scattered around the title.
Yeonjun’s throat goes tight unexpectedly. Beside him, Eunchae makes a tiny distressed noise and hides more completely behind his leg.
“Baby,” Yeonjun says softly.
“It’s dumb.”
“Hey.” He reaches back immediately, squeezing her hand. “No, it’s not.”
“But the hands look weird.”
“All drawings have weird hands.”
“Appa.”
“I’m serious,” he says, smiling a little. “This one’s my favorite, though.”
Eunchae peeks out cautiously. “Really?”
“Really.”
“Even the glitter?”
Yeonjun looks back at the title, glitter suspiciously neat, far too neat for a five-year-old.
Before he can say anything, a familiar voice speaks behind him. “I did the glitter.”
Yeonjun turns, and Teacher Choi stands there holding a paper cup of juice, expression carefully neutral in the way people get when they’re trying not to look nervous.
“She insisted on glitter,” he says. “I figured star-shaped was safer than loose glitter.”
“You trusted her with glitter again?” Yeonjun asks faintly.
Teacher Choi shrugs one shoulder. “I like living dangerously.”
Eunchae giggles quietly behind him. “Teacher Choi helped me spell, too.”
Something warm and aching settles in Yeonjun’s chest. He looks back at the drawing again, at the careful glitter stars, at the figure beside him wearing dangling silver earrings, at the words written across the top in uneven kindergarten handwriting, and when he looks back up, Teacher Choi is already watching him.
“She worked really hard on it,” he says softly.
Yeonjun swallows once. “Yeah,” he says quietly.
“I can tell.”
Later, when Eunchae has gone to play with her friends near the juice table, Teacher Choi approaches him again.
“Having fun?” he asks, stopping beside Yeonjun near the wall of student artwork.
“I think I’ve seen at least twelve papier-mache sculptures,” Yeonjun says solemnly. “So yes. Absolutely.”
Beomgyu laughs softly. There’s glitter caught faintly near one of his earrings still, and Yeonjun is filled with the sudden, overwhelming urge to brush it away himself.
“It’s been really fun teaching Eunchae this year, Mr. Choi,” Beomgyu says after a moment, glancing out toward the classroom where Eunchae is currently attempting to stack crackers into a tower with alarming intensity. Something in his voice is softer than usual, almost fond.
“You can call me Yeonjun,” he says before he can think too hard about it.
Beomgyu looks back at him. “Okay,” he says easily. Then, with a small smile, he says, “Though I guess you should call me Beomgyu now, to keep things fair.”
Yeonjun smiles despite himself. “Beomgyu,” he repeats. The name settles warm somewhere beneath his ribs.
For a second, neither of them says anything. Around them, parents chatter softly while children run through the classroom showing off paintings, clay sculptures, and glitter-covered construction paper.
Then Yeonjun clears his throat. “So,” he says carefully, “now that you’re not technically Eunchae’s teacher anymore…” Beomgyu raises an eyebrow. “Would you maybe want to go out with me sometime?”
Beomgyu blinks once, then he laughs softly, almost surprised. “Yeah,” he says. “I’d like that a lot.”
Relief rushes through Yeonjun so fast it leaves him a little dizzy. Before he can say anything else, Eunchae suddenly barrels between them at full speed.
“Appa!” Yeonjun barely has time to brace himself before she crashes into him. He scoops her up automatically, settling her against his hip as she points excitedly toward the snack table. “Look, they have the cookies with the frosting there!”
“Wow, Chae,” Yeonjun says, mentally preparing for the sugar rush he’s bound to deal with later.
“Teacher Choi,” Eunchae says, “do you want some?” and to Yeonjun’s horror, she opens one sticky fist to reveal the crumbling remains of a frosted sugar cookie.
“Euchae,” Yeonjun says, hiking her higher onto his hip, “please do not offer Beomgyu your half-eaten cookie–” He cuts himself off, realizing what he said.
“Beomgyu?” Eunchae’s eyes widen, and Beomgyu bursts into laughter.
“Wow,” he says. “We just got promoted immediately, huh?”
Heat crawls up Yeonjun’s neck. “I hate both of you.”
“No, you don’t,” Eunchae says confidently, and annoyingly enough, she’s right.
Standing there in the middle of a noisy elementary school art room, with his daughter in his arms and glitter somehow still clinging stubbornly to Beomgyu, Yeonjun realizes he can’t remember the last time he felt this happy.