505

19

"minho-yah, do you need more time?"

"no, hyung, i'll leave, it's your office hours anyways," the younger smiled and put the paper he was grading into a folder with all the others.

"it's tough to share one office, huh?," chan asked with a smile and took a folder from a shelf that said '3y', for third year.

"kind of," minho admitted with a chuckle, "but it's even harder to evaluate so many papers, presentations and tests.."

"true. i still haven't returned a quiz we did two weeks ago with my students," the older tiredly sighed, "thankfully, mr jeon forgot to ask about it in this week's email.."

"haha, i feel like he doesn't care about what i do," minho confessed, "i say 'i did an extra activity to make sure they understood the concept' and he goes, 'uh-huh, glad you're doing fine'."

chan laughed, "he does that.. hey, is that yours?," he asked, lifting up a cherry blossom themed notepad from the desk where he was about to put his test pile.

"oh, yeah. sorry, i keep leaving it everywhere," minho extended a hand to get it back.

"ah, you graded them," chan exclaimed and took a closer look at the notes his colleague had, "oh, lee chaeyeon did pretty well, didn't she?"

"um, yeah.. i think it's fine to give her an a. it was convincing," minho reflected, even though he only half-listened to the orals after jisung was finished.

"good.. what about han jisung though?"

the younger's eyes shot up in panic and he mumbled a questioning 'huh?'

"he doesn't have any comment. just a grade.."

"oh, uh.. yeah," minho scratched his neck dubiously, "i actually.. um, forgot to listen to him.."

"what?," chan started laughing and shot the other a joyous but half-judgemental look, "you spaced out during his thing?"

"yes. and i don't know how to fix it.."

"and so you just gave him an a?," chan incredulously eyed his colleague.

"yeah well.. it was my fault for not listening.. he shouldn't pay the expense..," minho doubtfully returned. as far as minho knew, this was the truth.

"well, isn't that generous," the older chuckled, "maybe you can ask him to send you a report, or an overview of it. say you lost your notes of that particular day or something.."

minho nodded pensively, "yeah.. you're right. thank you for the advice," he smiled, "is that what you do when you forget to listen?," he prompted with a teasing grin.

"it is, actually, though it doesn't happen often," chan defended and they laughed for a while, and then minho decided to go grade his papers in the library before it was time to go to work.

when he went in, he immediately walked to a corner table and sat onto it, taking out his work to finish it so that he could concentrate on his own assignments after.

he was still a long way from being done though, so he stood in the same position, only moving his hand to flip a page and write the review in the end, for about an hour, and even then he wouldn't have changed it if not for the noise that he heard right in front of him. someone was sitting at his table.

when minho lifted his eyes to see the origin of the sound, he was only partly surprised to see jisung and hyunjin in front of him, trying their best to look casual. in other words, the shorter was obviously panicked, and the other, who was probably at the origin of the idea to sit there, was trying not to laugh.

in a state of momentary agitation, minho lowered his head again but then figured that he needed to greet them, so he did. the curt nod was met with another one from jisung, while hyunjin joined in later, because he was already looking at his phone. what was the point of going to the library to look at your phone?

jisung took out a notebook and a sheet of paper, then started filling it with sentences, probably even writing what minho had assigned him, though the older didn't want to look too much at him, in fear of coming off as weird. they stayed silent for a while, the two working and hyunjin on his phone.

suddenly, the tall boy elbowed jisung a little, then showed him something on his phone that jisung pouted at. he didn't seem annoyed, nor disappointed, but something in between, milder. then hyunjin pointed to the door and jisung nodded, smacking his lips together.

minho saw the whole thing while he was pretending to look at a paper and wasn't surprised to see hyunjin stand up and take his stuff, seconds before he disappeared, practically running towards the door.

jisung's eyes followed him to the door, and then stayed glued to it for a couple of seconds after he had exited.

when he was finally ready to turn back to his work, jisung shot a look at minho first and the older immediately dropped his eyes, though he had probably made it clear that he had been staring. jisung lifted up his sheet and started rereading the text.

"can you..," minho whispered as he pushed a paper on the desk towards jisung, "tell me what it says right here?"

the boy looked up in surprise, then bent over the sheet where minho was pointing to a word. it was a weird handwriting for sure, but he probably should've been able to understand it from the context.

"i think it's 'home environment'. but it might be 'lone' too, though that makes no sense," jisung reflected quietly. it was odd, and possibly unprofessional, to show him his classmates' work, but he honestly couldn't mind and knew minho didn't care either.

"thanks," the older mouthed and pulled the paper back towards himself, "you look tired," he suggested and bit his lip. what the fuck even was that line?

"um, thanks," jisung giggled and rubbed his eye with one hand, "it's been a hectic week with the presentation and all..," he admitted and looked out of the glass window next to him. the whole wall was see-through.

"sorry. i thought passing first would mean you're done with it," minho admitted and casually looked outside too. so that was why he insisted, jisung thought.

"that's alright, you didn't know my preference," he whispered back. hyunjin was out on the campus alley, talking to changbin in the rain. that's what the text was about: changbin had said he wanted to meet hyunjin after his lecture was over.

the two were an awkward couple from jisung's point of view, but their smiles were wide and they walked towards one of the buildings of the faculty, not minding the rain at all.

"it's him, isn't it?," minho let out softly, as if he just sighed the words. jisung's lips parted and he turned to look back at his desk companion inquisitively, "your friend," minho clarified and the younger knew.

he nodded and lowered his eyes in embarrassment.

'too bad he wants you to be with me,' minho thought but couldn't say that aloud. he had seen jisung at the cafeteria many times, a couple more than jisung had noticed him. and all because he was looking at hyunjin.

"do you think he knows?," jisung asked after a while of them sitting in silence. minho was about to get back to his work.

"no," the teacher replied surely, "he doesn't."

minho's eyes went down to the page in front of him. he wanted to grade this paper even more now. jisung bit his lip when he saw him but buried himself in his assignment too.