Han Jaeheon dragged over a wheeled chair and sat down right next to Eunseo. He came in a little too hard — thunk — close enough for the armrests to knock together.
“…I have more books in the lab, I’ll go get one for you.”
“No, that’s a bother. Can’t we just look together?”
Looking up, Han Jaeheon’s face was even more devastating. Eunseo felt reality slipping further away. He’d thought he’d gotten quite used to Jin Seunghu’s slick face, but getting used to a handsome man drawn in an entirely different art style would take a long time.
And that attitude — doing shameless, absurd things without a hint of embarrassment — was something he’d truly never experienced. A blank assignment, a lab report turned in without fixing a single typo, asking for tutoring without a shred of remorse. And now he’d come without the book…. But somehow he wasn’t hateful.
“Yeah, well….”
“Nice, the book’s big.”
The print was tiny, but Han Jaeheon, smiling, tugged Eunseo’s arm to hurry him into his seat. The big grip wrapped entirely around his wrist and then some. It closed and fell away in an instant, but a faint warmth lingered on his wrist. Eunseo cleared his throat for no reason and opened the book.
As that head swooshed closer, Eunseo leaned back slightly. He picked up the pen and—
—summarized the lecture content, drawing diagrams on the practice pad. Han Jaeheon nodded along like he understood, but Eunseo was sure he hadn’t understood a thing. Because to every question, all he did was nod and answer…
“I don’t get it.”
So Eunseo went back to the beginning and explained it all again, summarizing sentence by sentence.
“So Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle means you can’t know a particle’s momentum and position — or its energy and time — precisely. So all these practice problems are about those probabilities.”
“Ah, yes.”
He clearly had no idea. Watching Han Jaeheon, all answers and no comprehension, Eunseo pushed his glasses up. This school… he knew they didn’t admit people with that kind of pull, but — ah, was he a chaebol who’d bought his way in with a donation to the president?
“This is basic physical chemistry… you’d have learned it in chemical engineering.”
“I’m on the polymers track, so I focused more on organic and petrochemistry than physical chemistry.”
“…But you’d still know the basics?”
“Haha, TA. You forget most of it after the exam, don’t you? Isn’t that right?”
His bright, refreshing smile only spiked Eunseo’s irritation higher. With slightly irritable fingers, Eunseo flipped the book back to the start of the chapter. He couldn’t tutor for money anymore, but back when he did private tutoring gigs, he had a habit: Then I’ll start over from the beginning.
“Then I’ll start over from the beginning.”
When it came to persistence, Eunseo bowed to no one. Other people closed up a failed synthesis experiment and went home, but he never left the lab until he’d seen an experiment through to the end, and the nights he’d pulled wrestling with an unsolvable problem were countless.
“So the Bohr model can only explain the hydrogen atom, but here….”
His even voice filled the seminar room. Mid-explanation, Eunseo slowly stopped at the sight of Han Jaeheon resting his chin on his hand, eyes half closed. Wondering if he was dozing, Eunseo poked him for no reason — and out popped an absurd remark.
“Are you listening?”
“Ah, yes. But TA, you have a really nice voice.”
“…What?”
“I mostly get it. I think we can move on to Schrödinger’s equation.”
“Then let’s try these practice problems.”
There weren’t many problems this week, but each solution ran long and complicated. I don’t get it, I don’t understand, this is hard… Enduring the repeated torment, they finally finished the last problem with their heads together. A couple of hours, my foot — seeing the clock past nine, Eunseo wanted to scream. He had a mountain of work—
—piled up, and the whole day had gone by with nothing done.
“…Good work.”
“No, thank you, TA. Really.”
With thanks utterly devoid of sincerity, his eyes narrowed, subtly hiding his feelings. At the faintly sweet scent filling the seminar room, Eunseo hurriedly gathered his books and papers. Alpha pheromones. If an omega or alpha were sharing the space he’d be more careful, but with only betas around, they seemed to relax a little and let pheromones slip like this. For Eunseo, it was pure torment.
“I’d like to show my appreciation. Let me buy you dinner next time.”
“…No need. I’m just doing my job.”
“Don’t be like that.”
Even though he was younger and dropped every polite ending, Eunseo could only sigh. The thought of pulling an all-nighter grading tonight made his vision go dark.
“Let’s have dinner Friday.”
“I’ll see.”
“Keep your schedule open.”
Eunseo was certain he would never, ever go have dinner with Han Jaeheon. Because he was the person who hated standing out more than anything in the world, and Han Jaeheon was the person who stood out most in the world.
“See you Friday, then.”
“…Yeah.”
A paper covered in writing was thrust in front of the exhausted Eunseo.
“And, this.”
“……..”
“Turning in my assignment.”
“……..”
“This doesn’t count as unsubmitted, right?”
What Han Jaeheon held out was the practice problem set that he and Eunseo — no, almost entirely Eunseo — had just written out. Taking it with a sense of ruin, Eunseo could only nod. But he did add one thing.
“It’s not unsubmitted. It’s late.”
***
Thock — at the feeling of someone hitting his shoulder, Eunseo pitched forward over his desk, then shot upright. He’d been half dozing, so he shoved his chair back entirely and stood, only to find Jin Seunghu looking at him like he was pathetic.
“You look like a sick chicken.”
“Ah, I’m just short on sleep.”
“What were you up to at night that you’re short on sleep?”
“Grading assignments.”
“……..”
Jin Seunghu looked faintly disappointed at Eunseo’s all-too-definite answer, as if the question had carried some other intent. But only for a moment — he dragged a chair over next to Eunseo and started running his mouth again.
“That thing about you tutoring someone after class.”
“Yes?”
“That bastard from chemical engineering, Han Jaeheon.”
“Ah, yes….”
“For real?”
He must’ve heard it somewhere but hadn’t believed it; confirmed, Jin Seunghu’s face twisted subtly. Unable to look at it, Eunseo — eyes half closed with sleepiness — slipped his hand under his glasses and pressed them shut.
“That alpha bastard born to rich parents says he wants after-class tutoring?”
“…The alpha bastard born to rich parents?”
“Yeah, Han Jaeheon.”
“Ah, yes….”
“Why?”
“He said it’s been so long since he took general chemistry he doesn’t remember it.”
“So, why?”
“I mean….”
“He could just copy the assignments and reports. That bastard’s got people all around him — why come learn from you?”
“…I wonder.”
Honestly, Eunseo had been curious about that from the start. He couldn’t exactly tell a student who came to learn to go copy instead, so he’d just accepted him, but no matter how he thought about it, wasn’t it strange? Something he could’ve turned in within an hour by copying, he instead spent four hours getting lectured, learning, solving…. The quantum mechanics section he’d never look at again after graduation anyway.
“What do you think he’s after?”
“…What do you mean by that?”
“Just, whatever.”
“His attitude to learning leaves a lot to be desired, but he does try.”
The look on his face plainly said that’s not what I mean, but Eunseo looked away. Jin Seunghu really did have a tendency to overprotect him. Inexplicably.
“He’s coming today too?”
“Yes.”
“Then when are you grading the lab reports?”
“On the weekend.”
“You have experiments on the weekend too.”
“I can do it during experiments.”
Coming in on Sundays would leave plenty of time. Experiment hours, TA work hours. The only problem was having zero days off, but he spent Sundays at home doing nothing anyway, vegetating like a plant, so coming to school seemed better.
“You’ll go bald, I’m telling you.”
“…I have plenty of hair.”
“Keep it up and you’ll end up like him. Ever seen our professor’s old photos?”
“The professor’s?”
“Wow, you haven’t? Wait here.”
Seunghu got up and went into the storage room inside the lab, rustling around for a while. Head aching from lack of sleep, Eunseo took off the glasses pressing on his nose and temples, set them down, and rubbed his face all over trying to wake himself up.
“Look. The professor’s hair.”
What Jin Seunghu brought out was a group photo from some academic society, about twenty years old. Their advisor was in it too.
“The professor’s hair….”
“Magnificent, right?”
“How much did he drink?”
Eunseo let out a startled, half-gasping cry, his voice jumping. The advisor, who now treasured the few strands he had left, had in the photo—
—an extremely lush head of hair.
“So you be careful too.”
“……..”
“Watching you feels like watching a sprint — makes me nervous.”
“Nervous….”
“Here, glasses on.”
He put the big horn-rimmed glasses back on Eunseo’s face and stroked his hair. The gesture always annoyed him, like being treated as a kid, but today it was a small comfort.
There was no one around him to feed him when he was running himself ragged, and Jin Seunghu usually filled that role. When he was backed into the corner of that wall — driven by himself and others — clutching his head alone, even this touch was a small comfort.
“Don’t go taking your glasses off wherever. You’re blind without them.”
“I can still see outlines.”
“Last time you took them off and went up to Im Jinhwan calling my name.”
“……..”
“Even so, mistaking him for me is a bit much.”
With nothing to say to the genuinely offended Jin Seunghu, Eunseo just pressed his lips—
—together a few times, then shut.
“If you can’t say no and that’s why you keep tutoring Han Jaeheon, tell me. I’ll turn him down for you.”
“No. It’s just my job.”
“How many years have you been a TA? You’ve never done this before.”
“……..”
“You’ve said no to plenty of these before.”
“…Understood.”
“Good boy.”
With a final pat-pat on his head, Jin Seunghu went back to his seat, and Eunseo let out a quiet sigh, pulling his chair in properly. His head was a mess.
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