Chapter Text
it’s monday of all days, and lee gon heaves a sigh as he sits down at the table, his tray of food clanking onto the cheap plastic surface.
across from him, jeong tae-eul raises an eyebrow, “stayed up late looking at maths problems again?”
called out, lee gon can only focus his gaze on his sad bowl of jajangmyeon as jo eun-seop, sitting beside the female pe teacher, tuts, “yah, you really spend too much time obsessing over those. you’ll get wrinkles before you know it!”
rolling his eyes (let's be real, gon was never going to get wrinkles with his immaculate skincare routine), gon changed the topic. “where’s shin-jae?” it was rare that the chemistry teacher wasn’t hanging around tae-eul.
tae-eul, eun-seop and shin-jae had grown up together, with gon joining their little trio when they’d been the only four born-and-raised korean students in the teaching stream of their university in the united states, and banded together as a result.
while eun-seop and gon had both spent their fair share of time on their own due to the age gaps, tae-eul and shin-jae had pretty much spent every waking moment glued at the hip, and gon knew both of them had feelings for each other.
it was just that they had been dancing around each other for about ten years, according to eun-seop, who’d had to deal with being their third-wheel before gon had entered the picture.
so gon, being the wonderful friend he is, decided he was going to start trying to get them together, which hadn’t been very successful at the start since shin-jae had actually thought gon was interested in tae-eul, which he very much was not. that girl was scary.
anyways, it hadn’t worked so far, and gon was contemplating just locking them in a supply closet or something for a few hours to see if they would talk it out.
for some reason, tae-eul glares, and gon’s eyes immediately go to the hairband on her wrist, praying she wouldn’t start tying her hair.
“shin-jae’s helping a first year figure out how to not burn her skin off.” the way it’s bitten out leads to gon speaking before thinking, “wait, tae-eul, are you jealous of a first year?”
in the split second he takes to realise what he’s done, tae-eul has started pulling her hair into a ponytail, and gon scrambles out of his seat to try and make a break for it.
before tae-eul can get to beating gon’s ass, though, shin-jae appears, still in his white lab coat but with an ice-cream in his hand. “what did gon do to make you angry again, tae-eul?”
tae-eul freezes and glares at gon, who raises his hands in surrender, “nothing! i did nothing!” eun-seop snickers, still sitting at the table and shovelling cheap cafeteria japchae (honestly, it just tasted like rubber) into his mouth.
shin-jae sighs and herds the duo back to the table, sitting down beside gon.
“so, tae-eul told me you were helping out a first year? did that go well?” gon knows tae-eul won’t do anything with shin-jae around to judge her, and decides to continue playing matchmaker for the oblivious duo.
“huh? oh, yeah, she’s actually doing great for everything except practicals, hopefully it doesn’t bring down her overall grade too much, she wants to take triple sciences in upper sec,” shin-jae mumbles absent-mindedly as tae-eul determinedly stabs her kimbap multiple times with her fork.
gon looks up from picking through his jajangmyeon to make eye contact with eun-seop, who just wiggles his eyebrows in response.
tae-eul seems to catch their interactions, because she abandons her now ruined kimbap and asks, “eun-seop, isn’t today yeong’s first day? he’s coming in for introduction during the afternoon assembly, right?”
gon is successfully distracted, he’s only ever heard about eun-seop’s elusive younger brother, having never gotten the chance to meet him since he was always off doing other things when he visited eun-seop’s house during holidays.
“eun-seop’s younger brother is going to teach here? didn’t you say he was in the navy or something?” eun-seop grimaces, setting down his chopsticks.
“well, you know, he did study literature and he actually got a teaching license but joined the navy anyways, but he got injured last month so he’s just settling for being a teacher now.”
gon wonders about the injury, but eun-seop is continuing, “he’s going to be a teacher-in-charge for the martial arts club with tae-eul and shin-jae though! my baby bro can really beat up people if he wants, god knows he’s tested it out on me enough times.”
eun-seop winces as if remembering times he’d gotten beaten up by his younger brother, and gon chuckles, he’s heard about yeong’s fighting prowess from all three of them, and all of it had been praise too.
before gon can ask more questions, though, a squeal bordering on a scream rises from the doors of the cafeteria, and suddenly a horde of high school girls are rushing there, brandishing cell phones and chattering loudly about ‘a hot guy spotted at the school gates’.
tae-eul raises an eyebrow (gon wonders how many times she does that in one day, should he count and see if he could get an average–) and says, “don’t you think that might be yeong?”
almost immediately, the three of them are standing, and gon scrambles to follow. they push through the crowd (most of them part before tae-eul with her hair up as well as the chemistry teacher and maths teacher, so all eun-seop has to do is scurry behind them) and gon asks why they’re rushing there.
“yeong really hates public attention, he’s not used to it at all. besides, he really got all the good genes from my parents, goddangit. you’ll know when you see him, tae-eul calls both of you pretty boys for a reason.”
eun-seop manages to speak up over the crowd of squealing girls, and gon nods to himself, wondering just how handsome yeong is.
they make it to the field before a good portion of the girls from the cafeteria, but there’s already a crowd forming at the gates, with a little ring of space around a lone figure.
tae-eul draws in a breath, and eun-seop starts running at the crowd as she yells, “MOVE ASIDE!” in the voice of a pe teacher who will not hesitate to make you run twenty laps around the field.
as expected, the crowd parts before eun-seop, and he launches himself at the man in the middle of them, slamming into him and clinging on like a koala. gon winces as the man takes a few steps back, patting his brother on the back and supporting his weight.
the three of them approach the brothers, and even from a distance gon can hear eun-seop wailing, “yeong-ah~ it’s okay now, hyung is hereeeeee~! were you scared? this is why i told you to message me before you came!”
having apparently satisfied his worried older brother instincts, he continues on a tirade as he clambers down from his younger brother’s hold. “other than that, you little rascal, you really don’t think to call or visit us huh? watch out, next time you come home eun-bi’s going to think you’re a stranger!”
gon hangs back a bit as tae-eul and shin-jae approach the duo, he still hasn’t gotten a proper glimpse of yeong and he didn’t know him as well as the others so he decides to stay back first.
tae-eul pats the brothers’ heads, laughing as yeong ‘hmph’s, and shin-jae jokes, “eun-seop, watch out, people are gonna think yeong’s the older one with how you cling to him like a baby.”
as they speak, they move a bit further apart, and gon finally gets a clear look at the youngest’s face.
his eyes widen, he did look really similar to eun-seop, but there were a few differences that added up to a big difference, yeong’s eyes were sharper and he had three moles on his nose, his hair was military short, gelled up and not dyed like eun-seop’s.
and yeah, the first thing gon thought upon looking at him was ‘damn, i guess tae-eul really wasn’t wrong in calling him a pretty boy’ because for some reason, yeong made his heart go–dare he say– dugun dugun.
especially when he smiles at something tae-eul says, his eyes crinkling and his teeth flashing in an eye smile he’s seen many times on eun-seop, but it hits so much differently on yeong, this man five years younger than gon who knows nine martial arts and is wearing a full blown suit, albeit missing the tie.
one of them must say something about gon, because suddenly yeong is looking up, right into gon’s eyes, and oh, that’s another difference between the brothers. yeong’s eyes are darker than eun-seop’s, bordering on black as opposed to eun-seop’s dark brown.
gon awkwardly waves when he realises that maybe the staring has gone on for too long, and yeong smiles lightly and waves back.
tae-eul starts herding them towards the school building, and shin-jae immediately takes up the task of telling the students to go back to class and that the ‘handsome man’ is a new teacher who would be introduced later during afternoon assembly.
eun-seop is still clinging to yeong, holding the sleeve of his suit jacket like the big baby he is, and yeong seems slightly flustered by it, as if he hadn’t thought that his older brother would act this way in front of his students.
eyes lingering on yeong’s red ears, gon smiles to himself unconsciously, following behind them and devising plans on how to get closer to yeong.
of course, the first plan is getting eun-seop to introduce them formally. although he’s heard quite a few stories about yeong and he’s sure yeong has heard about him, he doesn’t know some things about him.
like, his favourite food, favourite colour, favourite type of weather, and he’s sure he’s heard of yeong’s birthday before, but it had never occurred to him to remember it until he realised just how cute and hot yeong was. gon truly regretted his idiocy.
anyways, the plan. when they made it back to the cafeteria, gon casually sat further down the bench than he was originally, bringing him face-to-face with yeong, who had gotten just a sandwich. gon would offer some of his food but, honestly, the jajangmyeon wasn’t looking very up for it.
as the others settled back into eating, gon stared at eun-seop, trying to convey his thoughts to the younger boy. unfortunately, the korean teacher seemed oblivious to gon’s attempts to bore holes in his skull, continuing to munch happily at his japchae.
not five minutes after they had sat down, gon was still staring at eun-seop, and startled when the cafeteria doors slammed open and myeong seung-ah screeched from the doorway in a stunning display of her apparent banshee traits.
“YAH! JO YEONG, WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE, WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME YOU WERE GOING TO BE TEACHING HERE?!” the english teacher stomped her way over to the table as myeong na-ri appeared behind her, rolling her eyes as her younger sister’s antics.
processing the fact that seung-ah, who'd wormed her way into their friend group by means of her older sister, na-ri, who was eun-seop's crush of 3 years, apparently knew yeong, gon turned back to said man only to discover yeong grimacing and–oh my god he was so precious–pouting slightly like a scolded child.
seung-ah slammed her lunchbox down on the table and plopped herself down at the end of the table, muttering curses under her breath as she unpacked it and shoved a still steaming tupperware of kimchi fried rice in yeong’s direction.
“tsk, even when you’re a teacher you still don’t know to eat properly! hmph, just because you had to practically starve in the navy doesn’t mean you have to now!” seung-ah turned back to her own food, shaking her head at the literature teacher.
yeong winces at the berating, but abandons the sandwich in favour of digging in to the rice, a cute sparkle in his eyes. gon would have to ask seung-ah how to cook kimchi fried rice.
na-ri makes it to the table with her own lunchbox, squishing in beside seung-ah, and in much the same manner, unpacking her lunchbox and shoving a tupperware of japchae at eun-seop.
as the korean teacher stared at her with stars in his eyes, na-ri scoffed, “the japchae the cafeteria serves isn’t even nice. what are you doing eating it, huh?”
of course, eun-seop scrambles to shove the plate aside and accept the tupperware like it was brimming with 100000₩ notes.
gon is reminded of the need to get all his friends together with their crushes, but he sets that aside to continue trying to get closer to yeong. it was a very important task, okay?
anyways, gon turned to observing the younger man, watching as he packed kimchi fried rice into his mouth, stuffing his cheeks like an adorable chipmunk on a mission.
as yeong chewed hurriedly, eyes wide, gon noticed a few more differences between him and eun-seop. they had really looked incredibly similar at first sight, but if you looked closer you could tell that yeong's face was more angular compared to eun-seop's, with high cheekbones and a sharp jawline.
internally, gon thought, is it really that he's that much more attractive than eun-seop, or is it just because it's him that i think he's incredibly hot and cute in a way i never thought of eun-seop?
because really, gon has never ever in his life felt like this towards eun-seop, all fluffy and on cloud nine, already fantasising waking up to that small bashful smile and running his hands through yeong's hair when it wasn't gelled up.
okay so maybe he shouldn't be thinking about all this soft domestic stuff when he's just barely met yeong, but he can't help it. for some reason, yeong reminds him of something, and gon wants to know what that is, wants to get to know this man more.
he wonders why they didn't really meet before today, as if separated deliberately from each other, it was weird since gon had been friends with eun-seop for well over 6 years, and yet he'd never met yeong face to face before today.
but that wasn't the important thing now, the important thing now was getting to know yeong now that he had actually met him! tuning back into the conversation, gon realised that they were talking about the faculty members, probably to get yeong better assimilated to the school.
tae-eul was talking animatedly about jangmi, the new pe teaching assistant who was apparently sucking her soul out of her body. "he wore leopard print leggings to class yesterday! what teacher or teaching assistant wears leopard print?! and they weren't even proper sports leggings!"
shin-jae is watching her like she's the only woman in the world, and yeah gon might really need to lock them in a supply closet sometime.
"ah, yeah, clubs! yeong-ah, you're definitely gonna be put in the martial arts club with shin-jae hyung and tae-eul noona!" eun-seop seems so proud of his younger brother, and gon perks up at the mention of martial arts, seeing a chance for him to ask questions.
"oh, yeong, eun-seop and the others told me you know nine martial arts?" gon is completely unprepared for the way yeong looks at him, slightly wide-eyed and so completely innocent gon wants to bundle him up in a fluffy blanket and stow him somewhere he'll have an unending supply of hot chocolate and marshmallows.
then he smiles again and ugh gon's heart really needs to stop doing that weird squeeze thingy. "yup! i learned taekwondo from tae-eul noona's dad with shin-jae, hapkido from my dad and judo and sumo as after-school activities. we did karate, boxing and wrestling in the navy for fun, and after that i picked up wing chun and muay thai by myself!"
gon didn't know what he expected honestly, he knew tae-eul's dad ran a dojo and that tae-eul had been learning taekwondo since she was in daipers, with shin-jae joining classes when they met, but they hadn't mentioned yeong learning with them.
he had heard eun-seop complaining about how his father wanted him to learn hapkido too, so he guessed it was just something in the jo family, like how eun-seop had also been encouraged to join the navy as his father did.
the conversation deviates again after that, and gon is left to bask in the new information about yeong, feeling strangely accomplished despite only learning one new thing about the younger man.
gon wonders when else he can talk to yeong, hoping the seating during the afternoon assembly placed him right next to yeong, even though he knew that was relatively impossible since they were in different departments and the maths and literature department heads hated each other's guts.
soon, too soon, the gon's alarm for the next class he has to teach rings, and he has to excuse himself from the table to get his things from the staffroom and head off to wrangle the rascals in class 2-c, bemoaning the loss of time spent being with yeong.
but every cloud has a silver lining, and when gon enters the faculty staffroom he remembers that the desk next to him is the only empty one in the staffroom, which means yeong will definitely be next to him.
koo seryeong, a history teacher who fit impeccably into her role as teacher-in-charge of the publications club, eyes him as he does a little victory dance at his table, but gon could honestly care less. he was going to sit next to yeong!
reality hits him fast though, and he has to hurry to collect his materials and stave off his strange high-school-crush-esque feelings to rush to class 2-c mere seconds before the last bell.
after class, he has to manoeuvre his way out of the small crowd of girls that were asking him either about 'the hot guy at the gates' or for his phone number. internally proud that yeong was garnering so much attention but also worried because eun-seop had said he didn't like attention, gon takes a minute to address the whole class.
"okay, kids," he lays stress on the kids because they really are kids and shouldn't be thinking about their teachers like this, "that 'hot guy' you saw at the gate is a new teacher in the literature department who'll be introduced later at the assembly. don't overcrowd him or be disrespectful."
the students' clamouring died down to an acceptable volume, and gon hurried out before they could accost him again with more ridiculous questions like 'what's his waist measurement?' i mean, how would gon know?! he also wanted to know, because yeong's waist looked absolutely tiny, but he wasn't about to ask!
anyways, the reason he had rushed out of class was! yeong was sitting next to him, and he had no classes since it was his first day, so he would probably be there! and gon would be able to talk to him! get to know him!
yes, gon was fully aware he was acting like a 6th grader with his crush and living up to his nickname of 'giant baby', courtesy of tae-eul.
as he thought about that, gon came to a sudden realisation. so maybe they'd never met before, but eun-seop had probably talked about him, right?
and eun-seop... had literally no brain-to-mouth filter, which meant... YEONG MIGHT KNOW ABOUT ALL OF HIS BAD PASTS LIKE THAT TIME HE ACTUALLY DATED KOO SERYEONG OR THAT TIME HE ACCIDENTALLY CAME INTO SCHOOL WITH A HANGER STILL IN HIS SUIT JACKET BECAUSE HE WOKE UP LATE AND WAS IN A RUSH AND–
that's it, gon thought. i'm never going to be able to face yeong again.
but of course, life has to mock gon one last time, and yeong turns the corner to see gon frozen in front of the door to the staffroom, with his papers slipping out of his arms and staring blankly into the distance, remembering every single time he did something stupid and eun-seop knew.
"um, gon hyung? are you ok?" the younger man approaches hesitantly, wondering why the maths teacher was standing like a statue in front of the doors.
gon, hearing the soft, smooth voice, half-startles out of his daze and spins around, nearly smacking yeong in the face with his pile of papers.
"oh– shit– are you okay? did i hit you? oh my god eun-seop will kill me–" as the older man flails about as much as he can while still keeping a grip (though a shaky one) on his paper, yeong, laughs lightly and shakes his head.
"no, no, it's fine, you didn't hit me." then he smiles up at gon and– gon– gon can only stop and stare, mindless of his papers now sliding out of his grip to flutter to the floor.
yeong's laughter and yeong's smile– they feel so much like a sudden glimpse of the sun through clouds, like a flower growing on a concrete road, just something so wholly rare and precious– and oh damn gon needs to get a grip or go see a cardiologist because his heart has a problem.
as gon has the revelation that he is so so gay, for one jo yeong, yeong scrambles to pick up his dropped papers, stuttering, "uh– um– gon hyung, your papers–"
realising that yeong, sweet handsome cute yeong, is picking up his papers for him, gon immediately drops into a crouch to help him, "ah– no, it's fine, thank you, yeong-ah–" the nickname slips out, and gon hurries to amend– "oh, um, sorry, i hope you don't mind me calling you that–"
but yeong is still smiling his small smile, and reassures him, "it's fine, i know tae-eul noona and shin-jae hyung have also been influenced by hyung into calling me casually! i hope you don't mind me calling you hyung either..."
it's only then that gon realises that this whole time, yeong has been calling him hyung. he doesn't know why, but it just seems right, like he's been calling him that the whole time and gon has been calling yeong yeong-ah the whole time too.
of course, gon has absolutely no objections. he wants yeong to call him hyung forever, actually.
"yes! it's fine! great even! uh, are you going in?" reminded that he was still in front of the staffroom and yeong had probably been about to enter when he saw him, gon gestures to the door, papers now haphazardly stacked in his arms. some kids would just have to deal with wrinkled papers.
"ah, yeah, you first," yeong smiles again, subdued as always, and lets gon go first, which he does hurriedly, holding the door open for yeong.
gon strides over to his desk to set down the papers, shoving other random bits of clutter around to make space (he was terrible at organising things sometimes). turning back, he saw yeong hovering uncertainly at the door.
"has no one showed you your desk yet?" yeong shifts awkwardly, now clutching his bag to his chest (gon has to hold back from cooing at the adorable sight, he was so shy!!).
"yeah... seung-ah just finished showing me around the school, and then she had to go for a class." he scratches the back of his neck with his free hand, peering around the spacious room at the multiple cubicles and desks.
the few people in the staffroom at the moment all look busy, so gon gleefully takes the chance to help yeong. "your desk should be this one, next to mine. there aren't any other free desks as far as i know."
yeong brightens up visibly, walking over to put his bag down.
"i noticed you and seung-ah seem to know each other well?" gon still hasn't forgotten his plan of getting to know yeong, and the first thing to do was to find out how the korean literature teacher knew the english teacher.
"ah, seung-ah and i have been friends since high school. hyung, shin-jae hyung, tae-eul noona and na-ri noona were really close back then so when they went out and my parents made me tag along i would just play with seung-ah."
gon nods slowly, he knew na-ri had known the other three since high school but had split off when they went to different universities, which is why gon had only met na-ri when they had all started teaching at this high school, but he hadn't thought about the significance of it, that seung-ah and yeong were probably close too since their older siblings were.
"well, if you have any questions or anything, feel free to ask me!" gon flashes his best smile, the one that had gotten him the nickname of 'visual king' among the staff members and the students.
yeong smiles back and nods, then gon is sitting down and trying to clear the mess on his table so that yeong didn't think he was a slob (yeong seemed like the kind of person who would have everything perfectly in order and gon wanted to make a good impression okay).
once most of the random clutter is thrown away or stuffed into the drawers, gon sets about marking the kids' homework, taking advantage of the free period he has before afternoon assembly. he tries not to be overly aware of yeong beside him, but he at least knows that the younger man has his laptop out, the keys clacking softly in the near silence of the room.
gon gets through four pieces of work before he hits the first troublemaker, song mingi. mingi often slept in class, passing out with his head on the table as soon as he started teaching.
his friend, jeong yunho, who sat behind him, would attempt to wake him up by kicking his chair when gon approached, on the warpath with a detention slip in hand, but usually mingi was only raising his head by the time gon slapped the paper onto his table.
mingi was in the martial arts club, one of their outstanding members, even, and gon had tried talking to shin-jae and tae-eul about it to see if he would listen to them, but apparently he saw no use in listening in any class, or doing much of the homework.
he was a smart boy, really, and he was passing all his classes, but his involvement and detentions were piling up on him and as his class teacher, gon was worried.
yunho himself was also a bit behind on his lessons, and gon frowned as he crossed out yet another wrong answer. he knew yunho wanted to get better, but he had told him himself that he hated reading books, and relied completely on classes, which wasn’t bad but also wouldn’t be able to help him in his own revision.
if he recalled correctly, yunho was also in the martial arts club, so if yunho could mostly keep awake in class then it had nothing to do with their club activities, and mingi had no reason to be sleeping in class.
mind wandering, gon wondered if mingi would listen to yeong, hoping that he would and the boy would feel more motivated to do well in his studies and get into a good university. well, gon also wanted more opportunities to talk to yeong, but that was another matter.
after that, it's mindless marking and tutting under his breath when he discovers quite a few students who had obviously not paid attention in class when he explained how to solve one of the questions.
twenty minutes before afternoon assembly starts, gon sighs as he scrawls another note on the margins of kim hongjoong’s work, adding a few exclamation marks for emphasis. hongjoong wasn’t a bad student per se, he'd been doing great in class before this, it was just that recently he seemed to be a bit... distracted. namely, lovestruck.
park seonghwa was a transfer student, having had to change schools when his parents moved from the city out to the countryside for work, and hongjoong seemed to be more interested in the drama club member than gon’s classes.
seonghwa himself was a great student, he was doing well in all his classes and everyone seemed to like him. gon wondered if he would be up to help tutor his classmates, he didn't really seem to have anyone he was close to yet, despite it being nearly halfway through the year already.
setting that thought aside for consideration, gon returns to marking, determined to finish at least that class before afternoon assembly.
he finishes off a smiley face on jeong wooyoung's work, and then gathers them all together to give to kang yeosang, the class president, to hand out to the class. breathing a sigh of relief, he stretches, grimacing as a bone somewhere in his back pops.
it's four minutes to 4pm, which means he has four minutes to make himself look relatively presentable and then sprint up six flights of stairs to the hall for afternoon assembly.
yeong is already gone, as expected since he probably had to go check in with the head teacher for literature, and gon is smoothing back his hair and straightening his tie as he grabs his phone and ID card to hurtle out of the empty staffroom and dash up the stairs.
for the probably 20th time, gon curses the school under his breath for not having enough money to put at least one lift in the school building, with one minute left on the clock and the side door to the hall coming into view.
knowing full well that they rarely start the opening address on time (it was always hard to wrangle things under control and have everyone seated properly), gon takes an extra minute to fold his cuffs neatly and pull his shirt down to make sure it isn't creased.
when his chest has stopped heaving and he's suitably groomed for an appearance in front of yeong, gon pulls open the door and strides in, weaving his way through a few stragglers to take his seat in the mathematics department next to kim jonghyun, the amicable man who taught the first years and half of the third years.
just as he nods to jonghyun and min yoongi, the other male teacher in the mathematics department, the emcees start the opening address, and gon settles in for the normal formalities.