idyllic

2: Let me borrow your notes (again)!

With final exam season approaching, your desperation to recruit a tutor also becomes increasingly stronger. You decide that your tutor should be a student around your age since you find it easier to learn from people you are more comfortable around. Furthermore, someone your age would better understand the difficulties of the current curriculum compared to a 50-year-old man.

That being said, you spent the following week scouting your school for a gifted student that is both intelligent and adept at explaining. You figure that they should be adaptable, have enough time on their hands to help you, and also be meticulous in their explanations.

Unfortunately, all of the promising candidates that caught your eye seemed to only meet the criteria halfway. One of them refused, saying they were much too busy with their own extracurriculars and worrying about getting into university. Another demanded a ridiculous sum of money as his wage. The third and fourth potential tutors you sought out both had issues with their teaching style.

So, what could you do except for search some place else? It would be a lot more difficult, you understood, but there wasn't any more viable options at school.

You decide that the next best place to execute your search was cram school. The following session at cram school, you arrive early so you could survey the classmates around you. Punctuality is a surefire way to detect a student's dedication.

Although, perhaps you arrived too early, because when you walked into the classroom, there was only one student in the class: Si-eun Yeon.

You watch him curiously. Today, just like always, he has his earbuds in, busy scribbling notes on the margins of his textbook. You peek at the cover. Seems like today, he's reviewing Calculus.

He really is unbelievable. He's the first one here, and last time, he was the last one to leave. Just how much does he study in a day?

You take a seat at your desk and continue to regard him as he works. Something about his manner of studying piques your interest. He's solving all the questions at the bottom of each section flawlessly and effortlessly, as if he's already done them millions of times before. You watch him expeditiously finish a set of problems without reaching for his eraser a single time.

Read. Write. Flip the page. Not once does he pause to take a break. He repeats this process several times like a ritual. Your eyes suddenly land on a certain question about limits involving trigonometry. You recognize the problem. A few days ago at school, you were having trouble solving it.

Actually, you never really figured out a solution. You perk up as you see him pick up his pencil and start writing something down. You slowly crane your head and lean forward, hoping for the opportunity to inspect his method for solving the problem.

As you continue to inch yourself towards him, you suddenly lose balance as your chair makes a loud creaking noise. His eyes snap up at the disruption, before he removes the earbud in his ear.

For a second, Si-eun curiously examines the way you're sitting -- torso twisted to face him, shoulders leaning to your right.

He gives you a questioning look before opening his mouth to speak.

"...What are you doing?"

His cold voice flusters you as you realize your awkward sitting position. Your eyes don't meet his gaze as you respond.

"Ah, I just noticed that the question you're working on right now was one I had trouble with earlier. And I wanted to see how you would solve it."

He paused for a moment before looking around the classroom and noticing that only the two of you were currently present. You watch him eagerly, with the slightest hope that he might take the effort to pause his working for a minute and guide you through the problem. Your hope is met with dejection as he picks up his pencil and continues writing.