"No, Jimin, it's not there, it's their," you say, and point to the word on the sheet of paper in front of him.
"What the hell, they're the same!" He exclaims and glares at the scribbles.
"No, they're not," you tell him. "They're called homophones, and they sound the same but they're spelt differently, and have different meanings."
"That's dumb," Jimin declares and closes the Korean-English dictionary he's holding and slams it on the table. He pauses for a second then mumbles an apology at the unexpected violence. It's not the book's fault. And it's not your fault, so he shouldn't take it out on you.
And besides, he doesn't want to take it out on you because then you'd hate him for being the aggressive and angry member. Nobody else has issues with it so nobody else is an inconvenience to you.
Actually, maybe you hate him already - or are at least annoyed by him – because he's already an inconvenience to you; you're only here for him. Everyone else has already learnt enough to be able to read and make conversation, but he's stuck here with these stupid homophones.
Well, technically he's not. He's actually very good at coming to grips with things and he knows perfectly well where to use their and there and they're but he won't, because then you'd go off and have better things to do with your time.
And he doesn't want you to do better things with your time. He likes being with you, and he likes that you're both here alone, because he maybe sort of kind of likes you in general (or as Rapmon-hyung puts it, 'so in love it's nauseating').
"I don't like doing this," he says, in English, then laughs because it's his own lame jokes and he always laughs at his lame jokes. You roll your eyes and tell him his sentence was perfect, and that he can do it if he wants to.
Because he really can, and you know it. You've seen him learn dance moves in a day – moves that take everyone else at least a week. You've seen him learn how to cook something just by watching, and you know very well that he's really good at learning things. You don't really understand why English is such a problem.
Well, sure, it's complicated but if everyone else can learn at least the basics, then so can he, right? He's definitely got the potential, but for some reason, he's not using it. Or he's pretending not to.
"Hey, tell me something?"
"Yeah?"
Jimin pauses. He frowns at the book and looks at you. "How do you tell someone you like them in English?"
"That'd be 'I like you'," you tell him. "First you have the personal pronoun I, acting as the subject, then the verb, which is like, and then the object which is you."
"Oh, okay, so...um...I like you..." He turns red at that and you blink. Why is he so embarrassed? It's really nothing to be embarrassed about. After all, you're here to tell him what he wants to know, aren't you?
"Are you okay?" You ask him, leaning closer.
"Just swell," he says and shifts a little farther away from you. You shrug and pick up one of the books and start rifling through the pages. He doesn't say anything as you do so, and watch you while you look for whatever it is you're looking for. What are you looking for? You're not sure.
You're feeling kind of flustered because for a second – you're embarrassed even to think about it – you thought he was telling you that he liked you and your heartbeat kind of sped up at that. Why? Obviously you wouldn't mind if he liked you. Far from it actually, you would welcome it.
But that's obviously not it, so whatever. Pretend you're looking for something.
"So um, there's this girl." Jimin breaks the silence and you look up, jaw dropped. So that's why he was asking. To impress a girl!
"Really? That's amazing! I can give you all kinds of ways to tell her you like her in English," you say and beam at him, even though you're feeling really upset. There's no reason you should though, you'd always known he was way out of your league.
"How would you like to be told?"
"Hmm..." you pause. Why is he asking you this? "Probably like, somewhere completely unexpected you know, like, maybe this kinda setting, studying together and then just completely out of the blue, so I can get surprised?"
"Hey," he moves closer. "I like you."
"Yes!" You exclaim and clap a little. "Just like that!"
"Oh my god, would you listen to yourself – " Jimin scowls at you and you wonder what you did wrong. Did you do anything wrong? You don't think you did, but maybe he got offended at something? But you didn't even say anything offensive! What is happening?!
"I'm trying," he says, in perfect, immaculate English, "To tell you that I like you, and you're brushing it off as if it never happened."
You blink.
"I like you," he says, slipping back into Korean. "Like, I really, really like you."
Oh. Oh. God, you're so stupid.
"Well, then," you smile. "That's good then, isn't it?"
"Is it?"
"Well yeah, duh. Cause I mean, I like you too."
When the smile slowly spreads across his face, you smile back and when he leans in, you do as well.
