The next forty-five minutes are easily the most uncomfortable of Jungkook's life. He's paying no more attention than he did before, mentally slapping his hand away from wandering to his pencil as he shifts in his seat, making scenarios in his head that get more pessimistic by the minute. He'd almost rather the professor had actually yelled and kicked him out than forcing him into this impasse as it exists now. He wonders what the professor had seen, whether he'd caught onto the fact that there was no other muse to it but him.

And how he'll react.

A cold sweat is dripping down his back by now, hands and fingers shocked to the point of numbness. His happy place eludes him, only seeming more and more remote the more he tries to retreat into it. To quell the paranoia that is digging its claws into him like an illness, he counts. Counts the number of chairs, the number of students, the guys and the girls.

If there are more guys than girls, everything will be fine.

He ends up with a hundred guys and a hundred and thirteen girls.

Somehow, the time passes. Slowly, surely, the minutes tick by on their roster, and Jungkook doesn't know whether he's dreading or anticipating the bell when it rings. Either way, there's a tightness in the pit of his stomach—because while he knows that the professor won't pull any punches as far as humiliating him is concerned, it's his first time getting to see him up close and maybe putting a name to all the artwork that lies dormant within the confines of so many stray pages.

He dawdles in the general vicinity of professor's table, waiting for the class to empty out, fixing his gaze upon a scratch on the shiny surface of it to avoid the glances the other students shoot him. It seems to him that the students leave, alternately, maddeningly slow or way too fast for Jungkook to prepare himself for the verbal battery.

Finally, though, they're the only ones left, and Jungkook lifts his gaze to the professor, hands shoved deep in his pockets to hide the shaking.

"Seonsaeng-nim, you—"

"Asked you to stay back, yes." To Jungkook's great unsettlement, he wasn't glaring—just looking at him with that same unreadable look from roll call. "Couldn't have you calling me out in front of the whole class again."

Here he gives a half-smile and beckons Jungkook—who is getting more confused by the minute— to the front of his desk.

"Look, Jungkook. You're a talented kid. I've seen you sketch, and you're not totally incompetent with English. But I'm telling you now—if the reason you're attending this class is not the love for English alone, then change courses right now."

"I love English, seonsaeng-nim." Jungkook says, fighting to keep his voice level— though whether the threat is from the insinuation, or just the sheer nerve of this guy, he's hard-pressed to discern.

"But that's not your reason for attending my class," the professor states flatly. "There hasn't been one lecture when my teaching has had your attention. I doubt you even know my name."

And fuck him, but he's right. On all counts. Even now, Jungkook has to fight to separate his words from the cupid's-bow mouth that says them— lips chapped from the cold and the unnatural pink of spilled pastel ink. Up this close, his skin is so, so pale, almost translucent, so that Jungkook swears he can see the bruised purple-blue veins running just underneath.

He knows he's staring, gaze locked with the professor's, his quirked eyebrow daring Jungkook to contradict him. But all he can see are the smudges under his eyes, like someone was careless with a soft pastel stick, the little beauty mark just at the juncture of his neck and shoulder—just little details he longs to pencil in, treasure and keep. He tries, nevertheless, his best attempt at feigning sincerity, quickly glancing down at the papers scattered across the table in front of him.

"I do know your name—," he scans the documents for something close to one, but the professor interrupts before he can volunteer anything plausible.

"Save it. You're a hundred years too early to be trying to fool me, so don't even bother trying."

Jungkook's hands ball up into fists. He barely has time to shudder at the déjà vu, or consider that this is the second time in the span of a week that the guy has provoked this reaction, before the words are out of his mouth.

"So what do you want, seonsaeng?"

The professor frowns, maybe at the impertinence of the question itself, maybe at the intentional dropping of the –nim, and pinches the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. And while Jungkook kind of really wants to punch him in the face, he wants also to take those slender fingers into his own and examine for himself their delicacy.

"I want you to not half-ass my class. Think whatever the hell you want to, but in my class, you're a goddamn student. I want you to drop that holier-than-thou attitude and pay some attention, because as you are now, you're not only being a shitty student, but also insulting the hell out of English Lit. And I don't hold with people insulting the things I love. So shape up, or ship out."

If it were anyone else, Jungkook would have ended the conversation there. Walked out with a yes, seonsaeng-nim and never attended again. But it's this guy, this man in front of him who somehow always knows what buttons to push to provoke Jungkook in the worst way possible. So, riding the crest of that wave of aggression which had led them here in the first place, Jungkook glares right back.

"It's not my fault that half the stuff you teach is basic high school knowledge."

The professor flushes, the eyebrow raise threatening to merge with his hairline, and Jungkook knows he's hit a nerve. And however the ramifications of that might come to haunt him later, he is, in the moment, completely unapologetic.

"Oh, really? Which is this magical high school you went to, then? Maybe we should all go there and get a head start on English."

"Busan Science School."

The words are out before he knows it, dropped like the echoing clang of a bell into a long, tense silence—and he can feel the same question he's fielded time and again in the aftershocks.

W hy?

Why leave Busan ?

Why this third-rate anonymous university after your academic record?

He's expecting all of it again—that and more, laced with the venom the professor is so proficient at dispensing. But—to Jungkook's abject shock—the scowl melts off his face, and he catches a fleeting glimpse of something inscrutable before it is replaced by a quirk of his mouth.

"Well then, you'll just have to show me what you've got, Jeon Jungkook. What is the famous first line of Pride and Prejudice?"

Jungkook barely has time to register the mercurial mood-shift before he's responding automatically. "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." Adding, "That was easy."

The professor smiles, the first real smile Jungkook has seen on him, and there's something just beautiful in the way it makes his eyes crinkle, the laugh lines deepen on his smooth, unblemished skin. Just a flash of it, but it makes something squeeze in Jungkook's chest. Just a flash, and they're on to the next question.

"Written by?"

"Jane Austen."

"Quote Milton."

"Better to reign in hell, than to serve in heaven."

"Favorite Frost poem?"

"Fire and Ice."

"Virginia Woolf's famous writing style is called?"

"Stream of consciousness."

They're both—well, smiling now, Jungkook's facial muscles feeling tight with disuse. It's a strange feeling, sure, because whatever he'd expected from this, it hadn't been to end up smiling across the table at this guy, being struck dumb by how he looks even prettier up close, torn between wanting to capture it on paper—even though he knows that the pasty white gradient can never compare to the luminousness of his skin, the two dimensions never catch the life he seems to exude—and just drinking it in.

This sense of camaraderie he wants to bottle up and store, too, like a firefly jar for the inevitable second-guessing he knows will follow as soon as he steps foot back into his sterile haven. He's subconsciously putting it off, the minute analysis of every little bit of today even with the knowledge that it's the only remedy to the discomfort coiling in his gut. It's been a while, he justifies, and more than anything, he wants—

He stoppers the train of thought there. Wants turn into needs turn into hurt.

It's a conscious effort, but he brings himself back to the present from where he's drifted far away, forces himself to tune into what the professor is saying.

"You're a good kid," he's talking to Jungkook as he gathers his papers up, who tries not to stare too obviously as he commits to memory how every action is somehow graceful while seeming purely accidental. "Just try and attend. We do move past the high school level, I promise you."

They walk out together, with a strange sense of exhaustion seeping into Jungkook's bones with every step he takes. The thought of dealing with the rest of his classes makes his stomach turn, threatening to void itself of the coffee he'd drunk earlier—a danger he knows will materialize if ignored. The same, indecipherable expression crosses the professor's face when they part ways with Jungkook making a beeline for the carpark, but he says nothing.

It's only when he's walked ten steps in the direction of the parking that he hears the professor calling after him.

"Jeon Jungkook!"

Jungkook turns, to see him flash another of those quick, dazzling smiles.

"It's Yoongi. Min Yoongi."