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“Jeon Jungkook?”
His voice was sweet, honeyed, euphonic—it didn’t matter, though, Jungkook was absolutely mortified.
“H-here!”
Jungkook’s eyes were pried away from his desk, looking up at the owner of the saccharine voice who was weaving his way through the sea of student desks in order to get to the shy little sophomore. Today, the voice didn’t match its owner, the part in his light blonde hair betraying his forehead and his voice.
His name was Park Jimin, and unfortunately he was the Calculus 2 Teaching Assistant and de facto discussion leader for Jungkook’s class. Jimin—he insisted his students call him by his first name—was quite possibly the biggest walking contradiction on the entire damn campus: a melodious voice ringing through classrooms of students attached to a boy with ripped skinny jeans and killer thighs. A personality sweeter than a mochi coupled with a temper that no one dared to cross after that idiotic jock got on his nerves during the second week of discussion. A small nerdy math graduate student who could easily double as a chili-pepper-certified model if he wanted. Jungkook got whiplash just thinking about it.
Calculus 2 was, without a doubt, the cause of 90% of Jungkook’s social awkwardness on a weekly basis. One day a week for one hour—that’s the only time he had to squirm under Park Jimin’s presence, but it was like all of the functioning parts of his brain simply shut down as soon as Jimin walked into the room, especially the parts having to do with math. And of course it was a discussion section, so he had to talk whether he wanted to or not. He honestly contemplated skipping every week, but the paralyzing thought of losing the 10% of his grade that hinged on participation in Jimin’s discussion was enough to force him to class. Jungkook wasn’t that good at math, but 10% was an awfully big number of percents, he reasoned. He had to go, even if he could feel the social parts of his brain shrinking by 10% every class.
“Jungkook?”
His vision snapped back into focus as he looked at the blonde-haired boy standing directly in front of his desk, exam outstretched. Fuck, was he accidentally staring?
“S-sorry,” he stuttered out, awkwardly grabbing the curled-up face-down exam from Jimin’s hand and hurriedly placing it down on his desk.
Jimin looked directly at him, his piercing brown eyes boring holes into his own eyes. “Could you stay after class, please?”
Did he just say what he thought he said? Stay? After class? With him? Alone? No-fucking-thanks, he would rath—
“It would be in your best interest to stay,” Jimin added, his harmonic voice disappearing into whatever the hell that was. A warning?
Not daring to piss his short-statured-yet-short-tempered TA off, he meekly nodded. Jimin’s entire expression relaxed with a sweet little smile spreading across his face.
Whiplash. Goddamn whiplash.
Jimin’s eyes darted back to the stack of exams in his arms, reading off the name of the next student. Just like that, Jungkook was off the hook and he let out the breath that he wasn’t aware he was holding. The deep exhale seemed to deflate him, his head falling softly down to his desk. Why? Why is he like this? Nestling his head down, he looked at the jumble of papers that he had grabbed from Jimin. Flipping the top corner of his exam up, he saw the score written at the top: a singular 9. Did he really crack the 90s? He was honestly expecting the sixti—
Oh.
He flipped up more of the top of the exam and saw a 6 scribbled next to the 9—to the left of the 9. He got a 69.
Why was life a cruel joke?
Okay, to be fair, math really wasn’t his strongest subject. He didn’t think he was that bad, but he literally could not focus in discussion at all—ever. It all happened before class even started; the first day of class was legitimately awful. After walking into class and sitting down at one of the seats near the back, he noticed a cute little blonde-haired boy sitting up at the TA desk in the front. Jungkook, being the helpful upperclassman that he knew he was, decided that he would save the naïve little freshman from the embarrassment of getting kicked out of his seat by the actual TA. After awkwardly tapping on the blonde-haired boy’s shoulder, gently smiling at the bewildered pair of eyes staring back at him, and secretly hoping that the freshman might just follow him to a seat next to Jungkook’s in the back, Jungkook politely informed said blonde-haired boy that he was currently sitting in the TA desk.
“Well, it’s good that I’m the TA then,” the blonde-haired boy had replied. Jungkook might as well have died right then and there with his soul leaving his body at an exponential rate. The confused little smile from Park Jimin didn’t help as Jungkook scurried back to his desk, burying himself in his textbook and not daring to speak to the blonde-haired boy ever again until he realized that, shit, this is discussion.
And that’s how focusing in discussion became fucking impossible. If Jimin so much as glanced in Jungkook’s direction, the younger boy became a deer-in-headlights, his doe-eyes doing nothing to hide the fact that he was literally frozen in his seat. It didn’t help that, without fail, Jimin moved closer to Jungkook to hear his shy little choked-out answers. He could feel his cheeks flushing with heat from the embarrassment while everything just… stopped. Math capabilities? Approaching zero. Coherent sentences? About as defined as a fraction with a denominator of zero. Ability to make eye contact with other human beings? Essentially equal to square root of -1.
Why do math discussions even exist?
It didn’t take long for Jimin to finish passing out exams, signaling the end of this discussion period. Jungkook knew that he was supposed to stay behind, but would it really hurt to just… forget? Yeah, he could totally “forget,” write a nice little email offering apologies, and then be sick for the entire rest of the semester. Good plan, Jungkook, 10/10, would pass for a plausible proof.
Tossing all of his crap into his bag, Jungkook slung the strap over his shoulder and grabbed the test so that he could make his stealthy exit. He tried to put some students between himself and Jimin so that maybe he could get away without being notic—
“—Oh, Jungkook, you didn’t have to come up to the front.”
Crap.
“Um, y-yeah, I thought it’d be easier.” Easier to leave.
Jimin instantly bounced up to the taller student, motioning for him to take a seat at one of the desks near the front. Jungkook reluctantly sunk into the plastic chair, and Jimin found a nearby desk to move over right next to Jungkook’s. It wasn’t long before the rest of the students cleared out, leaving just the two of them and Jungkook’s raging embarrassment. Jimin seemed completely at ease, but Jungkook… well, he just wasn’t okay. Jimin was even prettier up close. Goddamn, if he wasn’t a graduate student, he might have even tried to win him over.
“May I see it?”
“S-see what?”
Jimin cocked his head to side in confusion. “Your exam, silly?”
“Oh, right.” Jungkook handed it over, the umpteenth wave of embarrassment hitting him. He didn’t know what to do. Sit and wait for Jimin to say something? Explain why he did so poorly? I’m actually not that bad at math, Jimin, you just make me want to cry for like seventeen different reasons in discussion. He decided against that tangent.
“You don’t talk much in class, but I have a feeling you’re much better than a 69, Jungkook.”
“U-um, ma – maybe?” he stuttered out, the familiar feeling of heat rushing to his cheeks. He had to get a fucking 69, and Jimin had to say it out loud, didn’t he? The pink starting to dust his cheeks forced him to look down again before it got worse.
Jimin placed the exam in front of Jungkook, pointing at problem 1c. Jungkook’s eyes darted between the problem and Jimin’s face, not sure where to look. “For instance, you missed easy review questions like this one. All you had to do was find the derivative of i. Do you see what you put?”
He looked down at the answer.
Crap. Explain it away, Jungkook.
“Um, I…”
“Hmm?” Jimin was looking directly at him, so he looked down at the exam. His TA’s stare was so glaring, so strong, like the only thing Jimin saw in the room was the sophomore sitting next to him. Why’d he have to have class with the hot TA?
“j,” he blurted out.
“Yeah. Jungkook, the derivative of i is not j. i is a constant so its derivative is zero.”
“Y-yes.”
“You know, speaking of i, I might be imagining it, but I think you’ve been avoiding talking in class.”
His head shot up, looking at Jimin with wide eyes. “I – I w-wasn’t—“
“Oh?” Jimin looked at him with a shy little smile. “My bad, I was deriving too much out of your constant distraction, it must have been nothing.”
“W-what ar—“
“—You also missed 1d, Jungkook. That was a geometry review question. The answer was 90 degrees. You put 60 degrees, and, well, that’s a little less than a right angle… and that answer is not the only thing in here that’s a-cutie.”
Jungkook nearly choked on his spit, looking up at his TA. Did he just hear what he thought he heard?
Jimin continued unfazed: “For 2a, you were supposed to derive the formula for the derivative of the sum of two functions. Your proof looked okay, but when you did an example with numbers, you put that 4 + 4 = 8 at the end.”
“Y-Yeah?” Doesn’t 4 + 4 = 8? Did something change? Is this like the Pluto-isn’t-a-planet-anymore thing? Did the International Association of Math decide to fuck with the rest of the world?
“Well, surely you should know that if 4 + 4 = 8, then…”
Jimin took his pen and started scribbling in red ink near the corner of the problem. Once he finished, he handed it back to Jungkook. He quickly found what Jimin wrote: If 4 + 4 = 8, then Me + You = Fate.
Oh god. Jungkook looked up at Jimin, his cheeks flushing even redder. “Ji—Jimin, I don’t kno—“
“—It’s okay, you still got credit,” Jimin interjected with a smile. “The same thing nearly happened with 3b, though. You got to the end of the problem, but didn’t finish it. You wrote that in order to get an inverse sine of pi/2 the answer must be 1.”
“I—isn’t that the answer?”
“No, silly. You were supposed to put your name because you’re the 1.”
He sat there in shock. Was this really happening? Was Jimin using pick-up lines on him? He must be hallucinating because it didn’t just add up. “Ji—Jimin, you must be kidd—“
“Jungkook, are you sure you’re not distracted in class?” Jimin was staring at him again. Why was he staring at him? Jungkook had at least four excuses lined up, but they were all stuck on the tip of his tongue: he was mute. After several moments of silence again, Jimin decided to scoot his chair a little closer and rest his hand on Jungkook’s thigh.
“It’s okay, Jungkook, lots of students paying attention in math. It might help you to have some… additional practice. Are you free after class every week?”
“Y-yeah—“
“Good. We’ll do some 1-on-1 practice. Maybe this will help solve your problem,” Jimin said, his face melting into a, ephemeral eye smile. Jimin patted Jungkook’s thigh and then removed his hand altogether, almost earning a needy whimper from the younger boy.
“O-okay,” he choked out instead.
“We’ll get coffee, my treat. See you next week, Jungkook-ah.” Jimin slung his bag over his shoulder, heading toward the door. He stopped just before leaving—“Oh, and Jungkook?”
Jungkook looked over at him, confused, needy, whipped, and even more confused.
“Don’t forget next time.”
One month later
“I’ll be handing back your second exam now. I graded these, let me know if there are any mistakes. Jeon Jungkook?”
“H-here!”
Jimin handed the exam back with a wink. When Jungkook flipped it over, he didn’t see a score—he saw a math problem.
“Solve me! :)
First Digit: 3 x 3 = ___
Second Digit: Please be mine?
“Uh, Jimin?”
“Yes, Jungkookie?”
“I’m missing the second digit of my score…”
Jimin giggled. “Maybe you should solve the problem then?”