One Day At A Time [ATEEZ]

Ten

2014, August

San watches with nervousness as I twirl the red pencil in my hand. I nod slowly, reading over the last question before putting a check mark beside it. Putting the paper and pencil down, I turn my chair to face San who's sitting on my bed.

"How many mistakes did I make this time?" he asks carefully, his hands politely resting on his lap.

"Last time, you made eight mistakes. This time," I look back at the question paper, "you made none. You answered all the questions correctly."

"Really?" his eyes widen in surprise before a smile appears on his face.

"Yes, really. All your sentence structures were correct and you used the right prepositions for each one," I take the paper and stand up, going to give it to him, "good job."

"Wow..." he mutters as he looks at the paper up and down, "I can't believe I actually got all ten questions right."

"Good job. You really studies hard this time."

"Can I get a pat on the head?" he looks up at me, his eyes sparkling.

"No."

"Why not? You said I did a good job!"

"I did, but I'm not patting your head. What are you? A puppy?"

"Hmmp!" San pouts before looking back at his paper. "Mrs. Yoon will be so surprised to see how much I improved during the summer break."

"Wow, Mr. Choi San, I'm so surprised," I try to imitate our English teacher's tone and San laughs. "You got such a high score! I knew you had it in you."

"It's because I had a great teacher helping me."

"Who? Me?"

"Yes, you. If it wasn't for you, I wouldn't have improved this much."

"Oh, please," I sit down on the bed, making sure to keep some space between us, "you're exaggerating. You only improved because you worked hard. I only helped by pointing out your mistakes."

"You can't deny that you helped a lot. You kept saying you don't know how to teach but you taught me a lot."

"I thought I would end up confusing you more because I don't know how to explain properly."

"No, you helped me a lot. You're a good teacher."

"Really?"

"Totally. You can be an English teacher."

I look at him and try to figure out if he's making fun of me but all I see is a genuine smile, "hmm..."

"Now that I mentioned this... Is there something you want to do in the future?"

"Huh?" I give him a confused look.

"As a job I mean. Is there a job you really want to do?"

"A job..." I look at the floor, "not really... There were a few jobs I was interested in when I was little, but now? Nothing."

"What were they?"

"Well," I put my palms on the bed behind me as I lean back slightly, "at first, I wanted to be a vet. I loved animals so much that I thought it would be nice to be a vet. But with my current science grades, I figured it would be impossible so I gave up on that thought."

"What else?"

"A baker."

"A baker?"

"Hmm... You probably know by now that my mom's an amazing baker and she really enjoys baking. I've also learned how to bake when I was little. I bake cakes and decorate them every once in a while and really enjoy doing it. So... I thought about working in a bakery or opening my own."