Life Lessons [Park Jimin]

Chapter 16

Yeji

I felt guilty about making Mr. Park uncomfortable all weekend. It's just... whenever I see him, I want to spend time with him. It doesn't feel weird being around him even though he's my teacher. But it's selfish, especially since he would get into a lot more trouble than I would if people misunderstood.

So I walk into his class with a new mindset. I'm going to get over this stupid little half crush I have on him and stop thinking about him in weird ways. He is just my teacher. 

I'm able to look at him with this professional filter throughout class and tutoring, but once we are alone it gets harder.

Normally we would talk casually and joke around as we grade things, but this time I just sit quietly. He seems to pick up on my change in behavior quickly and doesn't try to start anything either. He's probably still regretting the movie too.

But half an hour into grading, he breaks the silence.

"Yeji, you got a question wrong," he says, surprised.

"What? Really? Which one?" I walk over to his desk, confused.

"This one," he says, pointing to number 3 on the homework.

I lean over the desk next to him and scan my work several times, but I can't figure out what I messed up.

"Uhh... can you tell me where the mistake is? I can't figure it out," I admit, embarrassed. This is the first time I've been wrong in front of him and I can't even fix it.

"I'm not sure where this term came from when you evaluated the first integral and also it looks like you dropped a negative somewhere because your answer ends up positive," he explains.

I look at the problem again, biting my lip.

"Well, I got this term from doing integration by parts, and since it came out negative it cancelled with the other negative," I say, pretty sure I did it correctly.

"Yeah, but you were supposed to do integration by parts with the trig term as your main term," he says.

"But that wouldn't work because it wouldn't simplify. You told us that we should choose logs over trig for the main term," I say, confused. Maybe I'm remembering incorrectly?

"No I... wait. Yeah, you should choose logs first. Why did it work when I did it the other way then?" he mumbles, pulling out his own work to check.

I lean over his shoulder to look too.

"Ah, you cancelled these terms when there is addition in the denominator," I say, quickly spotting his mistake.

"Shit, that's such a stupid mistake," he groans, making me giggle.

"Mr. Park, did you just swear?" I ask, surprised.

"What? No," he looks up at me, his cheeks tinted a light pink. 

Mine also probably turn a little pink when I realize how close our faces are.

"Swearing and lying?" I laugh, amused by his behavior.

"Okay, okay. I was just surprised that I messed up, alright? I worked through these problems really late last night so I was tired," he makes excuses.

"Just admit it, I'm better at math than you," I tease him.

"No way," he scoffs.

"If you are so confident, let's make a bet then," I challenge him jokingly.

"How would we make a bet about this?" he asks, confused.

"I'll look up an old AP calculus exam question and whoever solves it first wins," I say after thinking for a second.