Chapter Text
Seonghwa glanced at his watch for the third time in the last five minutes and scanned the room again. He didn’t see anybody missing from last year and the way education was going that was - quite frankly - a miracle. Well, they were obviously expecting a new music teacher since Ms. Snow was on maternity leave for the first 12 weeks of the school year. He had to admire her planning. To time the birth of her child for the beginning of summer break so that she could have the first 8 weeks of her child’s life without using any of their abysmally short maternity leave and then start using up the leave the school district was legally obligated to give her at the beginning of the school year - it was masterful. Exactly how he would plan things when he had kids…eventually…hopefully.
From his assessment the only person they were missing from this first staff meeting of the year was the person who would be covering for Ms. Snow during her leave. Seonghwa shook his head as the principal got to her feet promptly at 8:35am. with no music teacher in sight. Not a great start. Just as the faculty had noticed her position at the podium and had quieted down someone catapulted through the door of the library, their heavy rings clanging against the metal door frame and grabbing everyone’s attention. The man was dressed entirely in black and looked like he got lost on the way to a mosh pit rather than an elementary school faculty meeting. He bowed, breathing heavily, and scanned the room looking for an available seat. Seonghwa propped his head up with his hand on his forehead and avoided eye contact with the newcomer. The seat at the end of the foot of Seonghwa’s table was empty so the stranger threw himself into it with a clang of more metal - this time from a belt and a wallet chain and loudly sighed in relief. “Sorry. Nothing went smoothly this morning.”
Seonghwa lowered his hand, shot the man a sideways glance that clearly was meant to inspire silence and turned his attention to the principal.
“Well, that was certainly an energetic entrance. I am happy to welcome you all back after your well-deserved summer break. I hope you had the opportunity to get some rest and to do something for yourselves and recharge your batteries.”
“As you know, Rebecca had her baby the second week of June, a little girl named Bryxen.”
“What the fuck?” the man next to Seonghwa muttered under his breath.
Seonghwa looked at him wide-eyed at his language but he continued anyway. “Why would you name your kid something like that? I wouldn’t even name a dog that.”
The principal must have moved on from the baby news. “Mr. Kim, would you please introduce yourself?”
The man pushed his chair back with a loud screech.
He bowed. “My name is Kim Hongjoong. I will be teaching music while Ms. Snow is on maternity leave. I taught for a couple of years right after college but that was high school kids and it feels like a long time ago so I’m sure I’ll be looking for lots of guidance from you all.”
He sat back down with a clatter of chains and pulled himself back into the desk.
“Please be sure to introduce yourself to Mr. Kim and help to make him feel welcome and show him the ropes. You picked a great seat, Mr. Kim. I’m sure that Mr. Park would be happy to be a resource for you, right Seonghwa? His room has been set up for a week already so he should have time to answer your questions and get you started.”
“I would be so grateful, Mr. Park.” Mr. Kim said, leaning closer and seeking eye contact with Seonghwa.
The other teachers looked at each other with dropped-open mouths and wide eyes at the openly flirtatious tone Mr. Kim was taking with Seonghwa.
Seonghwa was their sweet, angelic preschool teacher and it was obvious that they were going to have to protect him from this rogue. They could see him flushing in obvious discomfort at the unwelcome attention, the poor thing.
The principal continued. “I know what you need far more than listening to me talk is time in your rooms to get ready so that’s it for now. We’ll meet again here at 3:00pm. for bloodborne pathogens training.” This elicited groans. “At least the district listened to our feedback and moved it so it’s not right after lunch.”
The staff laughed and chatted as they drifted out of the library and went their separate ways towards their classrooms.
“Hw-..Mr. Park!” Hongjoong called. “Could you answer a couple of questions for me?”
Seonghwa froze and slowly turned back to Hongjoong. “Sure,” he said through a forced smile, and waited for Hongjoong to catch up to him. “Let’s just stop by my room and then I can show you around the rest of the building.”
“That would be great,” Hongjoong gushed through a cheesy grin.
Seonghwa power-walked to his classroom which was in a central location so that the tiny legs of his students didn’t have far to go to the bus or cafeteria. He opened the door, politely stepped aside for Hongjoong to enter and then carefully closed it behind them.
“Oh my god! Could you have called any more attention to yourself??” Seonghwa hissed at his husband.
“I’m sorry! I think I’m going to have to figure out some other way to get here besides the band van. It is just not reliable. She wouldn’t start this morning so I had to call a Lyft and that’s not affordable. So, maybe I can take a bus or maybe we can ride together but you can drop me a few blocks away and I can walk?”
“I’m not having you walk when the weather’s bad. Maybe you can use the bus for now and by winter could we afford another car? Or afford to actually get the band van fixed up?”
“I’m not sure the van is worth putting any money into to be honest. We need the hauling capacity but that engine is on its last leg.”
“Ok. Transportation aside. Maybe a little different vibe for elementary school? I’m not asking you to turn into Mr. Rogers but it would be a good idea to get in the habit of not dropping f-bombs when you are here.”
“But, ser-” Hongjoong began.
Seonghwa held up a hand. “I agree, that name is...” Seonghwa leaned in to speak right in Hongjoong’s ear, “fucking awful.”
Hongjoong snorted and started belly laughing.
“Ok. Now, your bling.”
Hongjoong held his hands protectively over his chest. “No!”
“Hear me out,” Seonghwa said. “It’s not the look. I don’t wear necklaces or brooches or pins because they can catch on clothes and hair when I am helping a kid get into a snowsuit or leaning over to look at something on their desk or bending down to tie a shoe. It’s a practical thing.” Seonghwa explained. “Just imagine walking down a hallway full of children and think of yourself as something they might bump into. You might want to remove some of your sharp edges, that’s all.”
Hongjoong scratched the back of his neck. “I never would have thought of that.”
“I learned the hard way. By having to untangle long baby fine hair from a pin with a very unhappy 4-year-old still attached to it.”
“I’m starting to think I’m not up to this.”
“You absolutely are. Don’t sit around and think about it. You just have to do it. Ready to see your room?”
“Ready as I’ll ever be.”
“Put your game face back on, Mr. Kim.”
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Meanwhile, in the teachers lounge, the grade-level teachers are meeting.
Mrs. Goeke: What was the principal thinking, hiring that guy as the music sub?
Ms. Turner: He looks like he’s in a motorcycle gang!
Ms. Blake: Have you ever seen a motorcycle gang? Other than on Sons of Anarchy?
Ms. Turner: No. But am I wrong?
Mrs. Goeke: I mean - he had to have passed the background check, right?
Mrs. Fox: There are layers of protection put in place for the kids. He’ll be out on his ass before the first day of school if there’s a problem, but what are we going to do about Seonghwa?
Ms. Turner: He looked at Seonghwa like a wolf looking at a lamb
Ms. Blake: He looked like he was going to eat Seonghwa with a spoon.
Mrs. Goeke: Have you ever even seen Seonghwa date? I don’t think he can handle a guy like that.
Mrs. Fox: And Seonghwa is obviously the settling down type. This guy is clearly only after one thing. We can’t let him seduce Seonghwa and then break his heart when he moves on the moment he gets what he wants.
Ms. Blake: Let’s just see how things play out once school starts. Maybe he’ll lose interest right away once he sees how straight-laced Seonghwa is.
Mrs. Goeke: Or he’ll be too busy making a fool of himself trying to do this job.
Mrs. Fox: Ok. For now we just observe. This situation might resolve itself.