Chapter 10

Chapter 10

When We Were Young: Revealed Secrets, Hidden Expectations

Hu…!

I let out a sharp exhale to shake off the rest of my nerves. My puffed-up chest deflated as a white vapor came out of my mouth. It didn’t really help though.

The massive doors before me were wider than two adults standing side by side with their arms spread. I thought rich people might want to flaunt their beautiful homes, yet the wall was so high and the gate was so thick.

I had called the number on the piece of paper, arranged a time, and, as requested, was now at his house. On the way, I’d felt rather calm, but now that I was standing in front of such an intimidating front gate, I was anything but.

This was my first tutoring session. I couldn’t be late on day one. After another attempt to steady my breathing, I pulled my gaze away from the gate and walked up to the doorbell on the side wall.

It even had a camera.

I pressed the button and almost immediately heard a click over the intercom.

“Oh, I’m—!”

I took a step closer to make sure my face could be seen by the camera and was about to introduce myself. But before I could say anything, the gate unlocked with a beep and automatically opened.

I was startled once again by the whole thing.

I guess they can check with the camera.

I timidly walked inside.

There was no time to admire the beauty of the tranquil garden. I set one foot in front of the other on the neat stepping stones that seemed to say, Follow me! and before I knew it, I’d reached the front door. Again, before I could contemplate whether I should knock, the door swung open.

“Welcome! It’s pretty cold today, isn’t it?”

“Uh…”

Before I could emotionally prepare myself, Jaemin was right there, standing before me. I could barely manage a proper greeting. He wore a thin knit sweater with a deep V-neck. Warm air spilled out from the house. After a brief hesitation, I slipped past Jaemin, who stood to the side to make way for me.

“Pleased to meet— I mean, it’s not the first… I mean, thank you for…”

After closing the door, he walked past me just a little to guide me further inside. That was when I tried to thank him, but my words came out jumbled at best. What an idiot.

As I trailed off, I felt my face get hot with embarrassment, but Jaemin offered me a gentle smile as if to tell me it was okay. Looking a little sheepish himself, he lowered his gaze and held out his hand to request a handshake.

“Good to see you. I’m Jaemin Shin.”

I didn’t say anything this time. I just knew my voice was going to crack or something. Instead, I slowly lifted my hand and carefully grabbed his. His long, pale fingers wrapped around my hand. His hand was large and warm.

“No one’s usually home at this hour. You can relax,” he said, catching my eyes darting here, there, and everywhere as I followed him up the stairs.

“Oh, okay.”

He’d already told me that over the phone when we decided on a location. Feeling like a country bumpkin caught marveling at the city, my ears started burning this time. I pried my eyes away from the spacious living room and kitchen below and quietly followed him.

I felt like the house suited him perfectly. It was... terribly beautiful. I mean, I had zero artistic sensibilities, so perhaps I should say it was mathematically perfect. Each object was placed where it should be, while the colors and arrangements weren’t even the slightest bit off. Even the unexpected decorative piece that felt like it was in a random place echoed the wit and unironic harmony of the two small moles under one of Jaemin’s eyes.

His room was the same. The deep-green wallpaper on the farthest wall had an elevated, even aristocratic feel to it. It was so him.

“Then should we get right to it?”

“Oh, sure.”

The spare time I had when I didn’t have to work was limited, so there was no time to waste. We sat across from each other at a long desk that he had prepared. Our first lesson began right away, but my eyes kept drifting to different parts of the room, and I couldn’t focus.

The tall speakers in the corner especially caught my eye. Curiosity about the sound, the mechanism of the machine, and the four amps sitting side by side was secondary to how stunning the solid walnut wood was.

Catching my glance, Jaemin put down his mechanical pencil and asked casually, “Do you like music? Should I turn something on?”

“Oh, no, that’s not…”

What is with me today?

I shook my head as I kicked myself internally. Maybe it was the warmth of the place, but even after having taken off my winter jacket, I felt the bare skin on the back of my neck get warm.

Somehow, it felt like the protective outer layer wrapped around my entire body was helplessly slipping away.

“I’ve never been in a house so nice and cozy… It feels like something out of a movie…”

He already knew of my circumstances anyway. Feeling a bit dazed, I openly expressed my genuine admiration.

“Not that you would, but if you ever came to our place, you’d be shocked. It’s colder inside than outside… And instead of music, I have the sound of my young siblings crying or my mom yelling… Haha…”

I felt… refreshed. Such dingy affairs weren’t quite the things to be talking about on my first day. I added an awkward laugh at the end, but soon noticed the slightly dumbfounded look on his face.

“Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to ramble.”

I quickly pulled my posture back to straight from the slouched one I’d unwittingly melted into in my chair. He looked at me, then lowered his slightly troubled eyes.

“I don’t really…” he whispered, as if to himself.

“Sorry?”

I didn’t quite get what he said, so I had to cautiously ask for clarification. Jaemin looked up again with that warm smile.

“When I get into college… I’m moving out right away.”

“Why? Why would you leave a house this nice?” I asked in disbelief. It was such an absurd statement to me.

There was a bitterness in his eyes and smile as he dropped his gaze.

“It may be nice… but it isn’t mine.”

While I couldn’t wrap my head around it, I felt like that somehow suited him too. He had everything he could possibly want, and yet the fact that he could be bored with it and wanted to break away was strangely cool and elegant.

But as if such thoughts weren’t worth his time, he straightened in his seat and clicked his mechanical pencil to reset the mood.

“All right. Let’s really focus now.”

“Oh… okay.”

Reining in my lax mental state, I focused my eyes on my workbook.

We’d started off rather smoothly with the tutoring, but eventually came up to a hurdle.

Since he was going to treat the lessons as practice for his own teaching, we’d negotiated a fee that was the price of one meal—by my standards, of course—per lesson. But once that was tacked on to the allowance I gave my parents, it eventually became unsustainable.

By then, I had nothing to hide from Jaemin, so I told him about my situation. However, my grades were quickly improving, and Jaemin was reluctant to stop when we were seeing such tangible results. He persuaded me to continue and to repay the tutoring fees “with interest” once I became an adult.

So his pro bono tutoring carried on through the changing seasons, and, just as he’d planned, he finally moved out of his parent’s house.

Maybe it was because I’d grown so used to that mansion of a place that I was able to quickly adapt to his snazzy new apartment. However, the thing that now kept catching my eye was none other than… him.

Using the sound of a turning page as an excuse, I stole a glance at him again. As usual, Jaemin languidly rested his chin in one hand, marking the problems I’d already solved in my workbook and rewriting the wrong answers with the proper formulas.

His faintly colored eyes followed his fingers as they wrote. Those thick brows arched over his gaze. Before I knew it, my nervous glances became persistent. His skin was so pale that I almost feared he might vanish in the sunlight that shone through the blinds behind him.

It was so quiet that only the sounds of his mechanical pencil scratching across the paper filled the air. I hushed my breath, listening carefully to hear the sound of his breathing. But, though I could swear his chest was rising and falling, it was as if he wasn’t breathing at all…

I accidentally snuck a peek at his collarbone through the opening of his collar. Startled, I immediately pulled my eyes away.

“Done?”

Jaemin happened to look up at that moment, and our eyes met. He smiled.

My inexplicable guilt caused my voice to come out a bit hoarse. “Uh, yes…”

“Let’s take a look, then.”

Feeling deflated for whatever reason, I slid my finished pages toward him. I watched anxiously as he took them, the smile still lingering on his face, then, without thinking twice, I blurted out, “Um, Mr. Jaemin…”

Ever since our first lesson, I’d naturally begun addressing him as “Mr. Jaemin.”

“How’s university? Is it… fun?”

“Now, that’s an unusual question…”

He tilted his head, but soon offered me an answer.

“Yeah, it’s fun,” he said with a light nod.

A soft “Wow…” slipped out of me.

I knew where Jaemin lived, the changing colors of his duvet that he switched out every season, his family relations, his major, and even that he went to church on Sundays with his parents. And yet he rarely showed his own thoughts or feelings.

I was curious about him. I wanted to know more.