Into the Blue

Online Love

"Oh, you can stay, Mr. Ri. It's still break time. I just like leaving the class on in case any of my students comes back early and wants to ask some questions."

When she regales them with a bright smile, the first thing Jeong-hyeok notices was how the eyes he had first been drawn to were suddenly nowhere to be found.

Ji-hwan snaps him back to reality as the boy stands, announcing his intention to eat his lunch.

"Eat well, Ji-hwan," Se-ri calls out, waving at the exiting child, before turning to look at Jeong-hyeok. "Your son is a great kid, Mr. Ri. But this whole online class thing really is hard, you know. Maybe it's different from what you and I grew up with, but it has its own challenges. I hope you can give him all the support he needs."

Jeong-hyeok manages to swallow the lump that had surreptitiously formed on this throat. "You're right. I don't know anything about these so-called modules. If he says it's difficult, then it must be," he relents after much thought. "And he's my nephew, not my son."

He tries to hide the pleasure on his face when he sees her ears practically perk up at this piece of information.

"Ah, that explains why I could have sworn you're not the same Mr. Ri that I met at the beginning of the semester," she nods in acknowledgement. "My name is Yoon Se-ri. It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr...?"

"Ri Jeong-hyeok," he answers. "Ji-hwan's Dad is my older brother."

"The resemblance is uncanny."

Jeong-hyeok clears his throat again, reluctantly tearing his gaze away from her to glance at the pile of papers his nephew had left on the desk, and the figures and formulas scrawled on every sheet has him furrowing his brows.

"These do look... tedious," he says carefully, not wanting to offend the teacher.

But she merely shrugs. "That's Chemistry, alright. Tedious," she agrees. "But I think it's fun, interesting, and... magical."

At that, Jeong-hyeok steers his eyes back towards hers, but when she catches his gaze, she looks down abruptly and pretends to busy herself with the work sheets in her hands.

Reaching an impasse, with neither of the adults knowing what else to say, it is the lovely teacher who breaks the silence.

"Shouldn't you be joining your nephew for lunch? I'm sure you worked hard to make it for the both of you," she comments, tilting her chin up to a spot on the screen that can only point towards somewhere below Jeong-hyeok.

Then it hits him – he was still wearing his apron, and though it didn't bother him at first that the white cloth had turned sullied through his food preparations, this fact now flustered him infinitely.

The expression on his face, changing from questioning to realization to full awareness has the screen monitor practically shaking from Se-ri's laughter that's so hearty and genuine, he laughs along with her.

"I, uh, forgot to take it off when I rushed in here," he says sheepishly, palming his nape.

"Don't worry about it," she waves her hand dismissively.

She mutters her next words in such a low voice, Jeong-hyeok would have missed them if not for the fact that he happened to be looking at her when she said them, and so he was able to read the sentence off her lips: "It looks cute."

He will have stayed rooted in his seat if Ji-hwan hadn't come in to rope him out of the room, effectively breaking his reverie.

"Mr. Ri, if you like, you can sit-in for out next class," Se-ri offers before he goes after Ji-hwan. "So you can see for yourself how online classes work."

Jeong-hyeok doesn't need to be invited twice, and he finds himself silently observing their class that afternoon, eventually coming to the realization that everything about it was completely unattractive to him, from the glaring screens to the compressed modules to the fast-paced lesson turnover to the emotional disconnection...

Everything, except for the teacher.

It takes a month for the students to finish five whole modules, and Jeong-hyeok is able to sit through the class all but six times, now adopting a more lenient and understanding stance towards his nephew's school struggles.

Six times, six days, six observations, six long conversations with the beautiful teacher, whose face and laughter he can't get out of his head, whose Chemistry lessons seem to be seeping through their respective screens with every clandestine glance, every secret smile, with each time Jeong-hyeok lingered back at the end of the sessions under the pretext of asking school-related questions, when he really just wanted to talk to her.

His questions get increasingly mundane as time passes, much to both the chagrin and amusement of the intelligent teacher, who answers them with practiced patience and just a tiny hint of exasperation.

...until he asks the one question she's been waiting to hear all this time.

"You know, the pandemic is slowing down, and more public places are reopening with the mass vaccinations going on..." He starts at the end of the sixth session.

Se-ri mindlessly nods along, tapping papers yet again on the surface of her desk to arrange them into one neat pile.

"Mmm... and you want to know what's the chemistry behind those vaccines? Well, you see, organic chemistry and immunochemical strategies play a huge part in them, but I'm not sure if–"

"No." The quietude in Jeong-hyeok's voice is ironically magnified in its firmness, and the next thing he says stills his virtual companion completely. "I want to know what's behind our chemistry."

She blinks a couple of times at this sudden turn of events, then makes a move to hide her reddening face behind her innocent pile of papers, while he bends his head down to look at the screen more closely, a finger mindlessly making its way on the monitor, as if trying to remove the papers off so he can see her again.

"Can I finally take you out?"

With that, her beautiful face reappears on the screen, and he's glad to see it's adorned with a bashful rosy tinge, as well as her full smile – the one where her eyes mysteriously disappear along with the curve of her luscious lips.

"I thought you'd never ask."

-
Photos from header via Son Ye Jin, edited by me