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"Where's Mrs. Kim?" Jaemin whispered, referring to the elderly and kind lady who was supposed to teach them this subject.
"I don't know... maybe she retired," Jeno answered in the same whispery voice. Meanwhile, Haechan observed the stranger, whose sole presence felt foreign. "Maybe he's in the wrong class," Renjun guessed. Haechan stayed quiet, but he disagreed with his friend; the male appeared far too confident and collected to make such a mistake.
Paying absolutely no attention to the students, the unknown man placed some papers on his desk, as Haechan slyly placed his phone back inside his pocket to avoid getting caught.
After a few seconds, their presumable new teacher finally stood up straight and stepped in front of the desk, facing the students before crossing his arms. "Good afternoon, my name is Mark Lee. You may address me as Mr. Lee." He began, sternly eyeing his students one by one.
Haechan listened to him attentively, and when Mark's eyes landed on him, he swore that they stayed on him for more time than the others. That's weird, he thought, deciding to just shrug it off. It probably had been his imagination.
"I will be your English teacher on your final year. As some of you might have heard, Mrs. Kim has retired." "Told ya." Jeno spoke, but maybe a little bit louder than he had intended to.
With the rest of the class in silence, it was easy for the teacher to hear him. He looked at their direction, and the four of them instantly lowered their eyes and stared awkwardly at their laps. The teacher tilted his head, annoyed, but using this opportunity to gaze intently at Haechan once more, which went completely unnoticed by the student.
Turning his attention back to everyone, the teacher carried on. "Let me tell you right away: undiscipline will not be tolerated. If you think you won't be able to behave then do not bother coming to my class. I strongly hope that I have made myself clear."
Haechan found himself gulping, not having expected this level of seriousness on their very first day. Other students, like Jeno and Jaemin, exchanged anxious glances between each other. The bravest ones, like Renjun, nodded at what the teacher had said, but still avoided looking at him.
Mark stared at the class in silence for a solid five seconds, as if daring anyone to contradict his words. Then he placed his hands on his pockets and stepped to the side of his desk. For the next fifteen minutes, Mr. Lee explained the basics of the subject and how they were going to be assessed.
There was something about him, definitely.
He appeared a bit young to be a teacher, but one wouldn't mistake him for a student. His stance, his attitude, the bold but grave expression on his face... everything exhumed a somehow menacing nature.
"Since this is your first day back to school, I will only ask for you to hand me a short descriptive essay in which you write about yourself. Twenty lines approximately." Some groans and quiet complaints were heard, but with one sharp look from Mark everyone fell silent.
"This will be a good chance for me to know your English level and also to get to know more about you, since this is our first time meeting each other." Haechan grabbed a new piece of paper and a pen and started to think about what he could possibly tell about himself.
By the next minute everyone was busy with their own writing.
And while some students looked kind of scared of Mr. Lee, Haechan just thought that the new English teacher didn't seem all that bad.
If only he had known.
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