Chapter Text
Perfect, Jesse thought to himself while adding some finishing touches to the letter in form of a little doodle, a little heart. Mr. White would never know it was him who wrote this. He’d been crushing on his teacher for a good while, used to pray for it to go away, he wasn’t supposed to be damn fag after all. Still, he was never ever going to confess to his teacher in person so the best thing he could really do was to do it in form of an anonymous confession. That’d maybe ease his mind once and for all. Get it off his chest before he did any really dumb shit.
If someone had told him around a year ago or so that one day in the future, he’d be writing a love letter for his damn Chem teacher he would’ve probably told them to go fuck themselves.
Jesse was so absolutely sure of himself that Mr. White would never even dare to suspect it was him, he sucked at Chemistry, and he wasn’t a girl, neither was he particularly polite to him most of the time, there was no way he’d ever know it was him who wrote it.
He packed the letter into his schoolbag, safely tucked away into a pocket where it wouldn’t fall out by accident. If anyone saw this falling out of his bag and subsequently read it, he’d never live down the sheer embarrassment from it.
Jesse Pinkman having a crush on his schoolteacher, one whose subject he was failing at that. He’d absolutely never escape the endless teasing and taunting. And if his parents came to find out about it, they’d be less than happy about it. Their son, not just an academic failure but also a fag.
At the end of the day, he was so very happy that he had his aunt Ginny. He actually trusted her, has always been able to tell her anything and she never hated him for it. She never told his mom or anyone else for that matter, didn’t make him painfully aware of how she vastly prefers his brother over him at every second of the day (like his parents did) and so on.
Sometimes his parents actually kicked him out for a day or two and no matter the time of day, if she was home, she’d always let him in and stay with her for the time being. Jesse did not know what he’d do without her.
In fact, Ginny had even been the one who had noticed him acting a bit odd, she’d asked him about it and at first, he didn’t want to confess but she wouldn’t let off and he even made her assure him that she would never tell this to a single soul, and he ended up telling her all about his crush on his teacher, being scared that for once she’d call him weird for once.
But she was fine with it, said that she’d let him talk about it. He was downright embarrassed about how giddy he got at some points. Yet she didn’t make fun of him even once, when he was finally done with his schoolgirl-esque monologue the two of them ended up making dinner and watching television together. That had taken a massive weight off his chest for once, but he still wasn’t going to tell her about the love letter, that one would be his secret alone, no amount of torture would ever get him to admit this. Neither would he ever talk about his feelings like this again, just thinking back to it made him want to tear his pillow apart with his teeth alone. He didn’t blame Ginny at all, only himself.
Lying in bed, he almost wanted to scream into his pillow thinking about what he was going to do sooner rather than later, even begun having second thoughts but goddamn he had to get this out of his system somehow, lest he did something even dumber, or anyone found it before he could leave it somewhere where only his teacher would find it.
Jesse was tired and despite the never-ending revolving of thoughts in his head he eventually fell asleep. He’s sometimes spent sleepless nights just lying awake and thinking. Feeling his cheeks flush and his heartbeat quicken. He was determined to try and have the letter at its destined location by tomorrow. Mr. Whites desk. The quicker he got over himself the better.
--
Days went by and he couldn’t find even one single opportunity to put the letter on Mr. Whites desk discreetly. He felt himself going insane and could pay even less attention than normal in his classes. The letter seemed to be burning a damn hole in his school bag.
Even when he hung out with his friends on evenings he could barely let go and have fun all he could think about was how he still hadn’t gotten a chance to give the letter to its recipient. Sure, Mr. White would absolutely never know it was him, nor would anything truly come from this, but he had to get it off his chest somehow.
Sometimes he even went as far as to fantasize about confessing to his teacher after class in the middle of the lesson and more, only to act disinterested, even somewhat rude and standoffish to him when asked if he was even paying attention. Whenever he was confronted with how bad he was at his subject, he’d never actually take his advice to heart. He despised chemistry and his crush on his teacher didn’t change that a bit.
--
And then, almost two whole weeks after he’d finished up the letter, he FINALLY got a chance to put it on his desk. He’d been taking longer detours to classrooms as of recently, detours that ever so coincidentally always involved the hallway that Mr. Whites classroom was on.
Jesse peered into the room through the window in the door, it seemed there was nobody in there, not at the desk nor anywhere else in the room, the coast was finally clear, and it was either now or never. That was if the classroom was even open. Which was unlikely considering Mr. White was a very careful man.
He carefully pressed down the door handle and sure enough, the door opened, his heart was practically beating out of his chest by now. He was finally about to get that off his chest. Jesse quickly snuck to the teacher’s desk and sat down his school bag. Pulling out the letter and setting it on the desk facing downwards.
He almost instantly zipped up his bag again and rushed out of the classroom, careful to close the door again and rushed down the hallway. Jesse was more than glad to finally have that weight off his chest. He could finally go back to doing everything he usually did without constantly having that letter at the back of his mind.
Relief washed over him while he ran to his next class, it wasn’t that he cared much about getting there on time, but he absolutely did not want Mr. White to spot him, wherever the hell he was.
--
Walter walked out of the teacher’s restroom, locking the door behind him. He could hear distant running, he didn’t like it when kids ran in hallways and was quick to tell them off about it. He wondered who it could’ve been as he walked back to his classroom, he usually always locked the door but didn’t bother this time due him hardly ever taking more than two minutes while in the bathroom. To him, there was simply no way that anyone who wanted to steal anything from him would manage to do it in such a short time frame.
Walter reentered his classroom and sat down at his desk. From his bag he pulled out the papers from today’s tests which he still had to grade. He liked to give back tests as soon as he had the same class again, never understood why so many teachers didn’t do the same as him. It was a waste of time in his eyes.
It was when he put the stack of papers onto his desk that he finally noticed something on the corner of his desk. A letter? He carefully picked it up and inspected it from both sides. No sender or receiver on either side. Strange. Also, who could’ve possibly put the letter in here in this time frame? Was this perhaps connected to those rapid footsteps he heard just earlier? The man had no idea what the letter could even contain.
The teacher’s curiosity was piqued, and he put the tests aside for now. He’d grade them later just this once. He pulled out a pair of scissors from a drawer in his desk and carefully opened the letter with it. He didn’t want to damage anything within.
The letter contained nothing but a single sheet of lined and folded paper. Definitely nothing professional of any kind, he thought to himself. The absence of both sender and recipient already gave away that much though.
He wondered what the letter could possibly contain while he took it out and unfolded it. A threat from a disgruntled student that he had to fail perhaps? He knew he wasn’t that popular of a teacher despite very much trying his best to get students interested in the subject. Sometimes heard from other teachers in the faculty room that some of the pupils said he was “boring and strict”.
It was always a mystery to him how so many people could be so bored and disinterested when it came to Chemistry. Why wouldn’t someone want to know what existence as a whole is made of and how it works? He tried not to let it get to him but ever so often he couldn’t help but rack his own brain with frustrated questions.
He unfolded the letter and to his surprise, there were no hateful insults or threats anywhere. It was a love confession. Even had a little drawing of a heart in the corner. Walter went wide-eyed and mumbled as he read the letter to himself. He had absolutely no idea who could’ve possibly written and slipped him this. A prank perhaps? Then again, it was an incredibly nicely written letter. It seemed sincere to him.
Walter had no idea what he was even going to do with this letter, he was flattered yes but he was not about to do anything with the newfound knowledge that one of his students probably had a crush on him. What would he do with it anyway? He supposed this was just what teenagers were like and slipped the letter into a small pocket in his bag. Didn’t want to throw it away but also didn’t want anyone to discover it.
He wondered just which one of the girls it could be who would have written him this. Never had he noticed any of them staring at him for extensive periods of time, acting blushy and giggly or anything like that.
The teacher shook his head and decided to get back to work. He had tests to grade after all and wanted to get them done as soon as possible. He usually didn’t like doing schoolwork at home, preferring to spend the time with his family and friends.
Pushing the stack of papers back in front of him, putting a separate sheet that had all the answers to the test to his left, and clicking his red pen he got started. Switched to auto pilot for the most part as he graded one test after the other. Not thinking much except that all the test results were the same as always.
There were the two straight-A students who always got top scores, the majority of students who were good but nothing exceptional, one where he could tell the student was trying his absolute best but didn’t quite make it. He wrote himself a note to maybe offer him some tutoring. All he really wanted after all was for people to put in effort. Apply themselves.
Then of course there were those where he knew that they couldn’t give less of a shit about Chemistry. Prime example was Jesse Pinkman and his usual beyond stupid and jokey answers. He frowned while he mindlessly corrected everything the boy got wrong until he had a realization. The handwriting looked awfully familiar.
Confused, he instantly pulled the letter out again and did a thorough side-by-side comparison. The letter was written significantly more neatly than the test. Very obviously had much more thought and time put into it. Priorities, he supposed. But it was the same handwriting. He recognized it. Unmistakably Jesse Pinkman.
This new information created more questions than it answered. If he liked him then why was he such a bad student? Combined with how impolite he was towards him. He’s attempted to reach out and help him quite a few times by now. All of which appeared to be completely for nothing. Walter was fully aware that he could do better than that and he didn’t want to quite give up on him. But he knew deep down that Jesse would not end up doing anything proper with his life. Sometimes he suppressed the urge to yell at him, absolutely keelhaul him and tell him the truth. Maybe that’d give him the reality check he needed. He’s found that some people really just needed to be forced to face reality for once.
The teacher decided that he would not tell this to anyone as he packed away the letter again. He had no reason to. This was probably nothing but a crush that his student had which would pass with time and would never be acted on. He’s never had much of an issue with homosexuality either. Didn’t see much of a reason to care about it as long as he was left alone. And he assumed that this had been intended to be purely anonymous after all.
All he really cared about and wished was that all his students applied themselves and worked hard. Which was not the case with Pinkman. “What am I going to do with him…” he mumbled to himself as he resumed with correcting the test. Once again having to put a big, bold circled F onto Jesse's paper.
“Ridiculous! Apply yourself” he wrote in huge red letters. Underlining the last word. He continued and finished his other work without any interruptions.