The next few weeks settled into a predictable rhythm, and I spent my downtime conducting quiet surveillance on Mr. Lee. 

My initial assessment of him didn’t change; if anything, it solidified. He was an exceptionally dedicated teacher. Not only did he double as the head of discipline, but he also tutored a handful of struggling students from various classes after hours. He was usually the last to leave, locking up the building around 9:00 PM. From what I could gather, he went home, read a book on the couch, watched a bit of TV, and then fell asleep. His routine was rigidly uneventful.

I, on the other hand, wasn’t so lucky.

On week three, the hottest chick in class named Ji-woo became convinced I was her soulmate. I arrived at school to find a chocolate milk juice box sitting squarely on my desk. A few girls in the front row huddled together, giggling behind their hands. I reached my desk, picked up the juice box, walked very deliberately to the waste bin at the front of the classroom, and let it drop in with a hollow thud.

I watched the reactions. Ji-woo’s face immediately fell, her shoulders slumping as she dropped her head. Her friends looked on in a mix of shock and second-hand disappointment.

"Hey!" one kid yelled from the back. "That cost two thousand won! You could have asked if anyone wanted it!"

I ignored him.

During the break, I sat out by the school football field, munching on a pack of honey butter chips, when Ji-woo walked up to me.

"Hi! I’m Ji-woo," she said.

I continued chewing, giving her a bland, unblinking stare. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, nervous as hell. 

Jesus, I thought. I did not sign up for high school crushes.

"I like you," she blurted out, suddenly very interested in digging the toe of her shiny black school shoe into the dirt.

No shit, I thought.

"I don't like you," I replied. "Sorry."

Her head snapped up in disbelief. Apparently, she was not used to rejection. "Wh-what?"

"I don't like you," I repeated, keeping my voice flat.

"Why?" Her lower lip quivered, her eyes already turning blood-red.

Oh no. Not tears.

"I don't like girls," I supplied quickly. "It’s not you in particular. I like boys."

Her mouth opened, shut, and then opened again like a landed fish. "Wh-what?"

"Yeah. So..." I stood up, dusting the chip crumbs from my hands, and walked away.

By the next class, the gossip was hot on everyone’s lips. Apparently, being gay was a massive scandal in this rural town. Great. It fit right into my plans to keep people talking and off-balance. In truth, I was bisexual, so it wasn’t a total lie, but the rumor served my purposes perfectly.

After school, as I headed out, I heard the scuff of footsteps trailing behind me. I glanced back and saw the class bullies. I looked away, keeping my pace steady. They caught up to me just as I crossed the threshold outside the school gate.

"Hey, Ji-ho! I hear you like to kiss boys," the thickest one sneered, stepping directly into my path to block me. He had a short, choppy front fringe and a face badly scarred by acne.

I stopped walking. The other two flanked him, glaring at me with varying levels of disgust and malice.

"So, what is it to you morons?" I retorted.

"Morons!" the leader barked.

He charged at me without thinking. I sidestepped at the last possible second and hooked my foot behind his ankle. He stumbled forward with a yell, his momentum carrying him shoulder-first into the asphalt. He skidded across the dust with a heavy, breathless thud.

The second boy came swinging wildly. Amateur. I caught his wrist before the punch could land, twisting his arm just enough to force him up onto his toes. With a sharp shove, I drove him chest-first into the concrete wall beside the school gate. His face connected with a dull, sickening crack.

"Aish!" he cried out, clutching his nose as blood immediately began to drip through his fingers.

The third boy hesitated. Smart.

He circled me, fists raised, his eyes darting as he looked for an opening. I didn't even bother putting my hands up. My police training had ingrained spatial awareness and efficiency into my muscle memory; I didn't need a guard to deal with untrained teenagers.

"Come on," I said, my voice deadpan. "At least make this entertaining."

He rushed me anyway. I stepped smoothly inside his wild punch, drove my shoulder hard into his chest to break his balance, and swept both his legs out from under him. He landed flat on his back so hard the air rushed from his lungs in a violent wheeze.

Around us, a small crowd of students had gathered. They gasped in unison. Nobody moved to intervene. Rural schools weren't used to fights ending this fast, or this cleanly.

I adjusted my backpack strap, unlocked my bicycle, and rode away while the three of them were still groaning and trying to stand.

The next day, I made sure I didn’t do my math homework. Besides that, as expected, someone had reported the fight to Mr. Lee.

During his class, he kept glancing my way. His eyes held a flicker of nervousness, his gaze darting to me and then quickly away. After the bell rang, he kept it simple.

"Ji-ho. See me after school today," he said.

I didn’t acknowledge his instruction, just looked back down at my phone.

Bingo.

After school, I spent another hour hanging out by the sports field, waiting until the campus was empty. Once the last few lingering voices faded, I headed to the staff room. I pushed the heavy door open without knocking, pleased to find him entirely alone. He was hunched over his desk, grading assignments.

He looked up, startled. I strode inside, my school uniform shirt deliberately untucked and my tie completely missing.

"Ji-ho? I thought you went home," he said, his voice laced with surprise and that familiar, nervous edge.

"You asked to see me?"

"Ye-yes," he stammered, his fingers frantically sifting through a stack of papers until he pulled out mine. The page was stark white, devoid of any answers, save for a crude, mocking doodle of a stick figure hanging from a noose inside the grading box.

By then, I had reached his desk. I stood directly over him, hands shoved deep into my trousers pockets, practically glaring down into his space.

He held up the paper, his eyes scanning the blank spaces. "You didn’t do your assignment for the week. You at least attempted the work during your first few weeks after transferring here, but this... this is just not encouraging."

I kept my eyes fixed on him in silence, letting the stillness of the room amplify the weight of my presence.

He dropped the paper back onto the desk and let out a heavy sigh. "On top of this, I heard you were in a fight after school yesterday."

"I didn’t fight in school," I retorted smoothly. "We were outside the gates."

"It doesn’t matter if you were outside the gates," he countered, clearly troubled by my nonchalant attitude. "It was still within the school vicinity."

I shrugged, entirely indifferent.

"Care to tell me what it was about?"

I cocked my head, locking his gaze with unblinking clarity. "They tried to jump me because I'm gay," I stated flatly.

Mr. Lee’s mouth dropped open. He snapped it shut almost instantly; his tongue darted out to lick his bottom lip. I tracked the micro-expressions rippling across his face, reading the internal chaotic shift: surprise, embarrassment, a flicker of raw conflict, and then deep confusion.

If he was into minor boys, I've effectively set myself up as bait. 

"Err... that’s not something to go about telling your classmates. Or anyone, for that matter," he managed to say, his voice tight.

"Why?" I asked.

"Just because—it’s private. You have to be careful about... these things. People here are very traditional."

Is that why you’re hiding your true self? The thought flashed in my mind.

I ran a hand through my hair, letting out a sigh of feigned frustration as if he were wasting my time. His eyes instinctively tracked the movement, following my hand as it dropped back down to my side.

His gaze lingered there a beat too long, focusing on the veins lining them, the heavy, stark lines bruising my knuckles.

"Your hand," he murmured, almost to himself.

I glanced down at the fading scrapes. I'd caught them on the edge of the engine casing while servicing my motorbike two days earlier. 

"Did you hurt it yesterday? Fighting?"

"No, I didn’t even have to hit those punks."

"May I see?" He sounded genuinely concerned, yet desperately trying to maintain a neutral professional tone.

I held out my hand toward him. He only glanced down at it, not reaching out to touch me.

"These aren't from yesterday," I murmured.

"So what happened?"

I offered a faint, slow smile. "I have other hobbies aside from basketball, Seonsaengnim. Things that require me to get a little rough and keep a very firm grip on what's mine."

His throat bobbed hard. His eyes darted back up to mine in sheer panic, as if he couldn't comprehend why a student would dare be so flagrantly suggestive. He looked away, frowning deeply as he gathered the loose pages of my blank assignment.

"Let’s get back to your academics, Ji-ho..." He took a deep, exasperated breath before continuing. "You've actually scored quite well on every other subject quiz since transferring here."

My eyes flicked up, locking back onto him.

"You're clearly capable." He hesitated, looking almost embarrassed by his own certainty. "So why are you pretending? Why fail math?"

I shrugged. "Maybe I'm just lazy."

"No. You’re not." The answer came surprisingly fast, and the absolute certainty in his voice made a subtle warmth bloom behind my ribs.

Capitalizing on the moment, I leaned over the desk to look at the undone homework in his hands, closing the distance so suddenly that our shoulders almost touched. Mr. Lee instinctively recoiled into the backrest of his chair, desperate to put space between us.

"I guess you’re right, Seonsaengnim," I murmured, looking up from the paper. My eyes tracked the visible pulse jumping in his neck, trailing up to land squarely on his mouth. "It took me almost ten minutes to draw that."

By now, he had practically stopped breathing. His eyes were wide, his respiration shallow and rapid—the exact portrait of a prey animal caught before the strike.

A deep, hot flush crept up his neck, staining his skin. "Personal space," he whispered.

I stayed exactly where I was, hovering over him.

He cleared his throat, his eyes fixed firmly on the desk. "Stand on the other side of the desk, Ji-ho. Please," he interjected, forcing firmness into his tone.

I didn't move for another few seconds, letting the proximity simmer, before I finally straightened up and stepped back behind the desk as instructed. He let out a low, shuddering breath of relief, but I caught it.

"I'll let you off this time because this is... er... your first offense," he stated after a forced moment of careful thought.

"You're not going to punish me?" I asked softly, tilting my head. "Even after hearing the rumors?"

Mr. Lee answered immediately, his tone shifting into something fiercely protective and defensive. "Your sexual orientation doesn’t affect the way I treat you. You are my student. I treat everyone the same, without bias, regardless of their personal choices."

I studied his profile, hunting for ulterior motives. "Only because I’m your student?"

The silence stretched between us, thick, heavy, and loud.

"...You’re my responsibility, Ji-ho," he said softly. He looked me straight in the eye for the first time since my suggestive comment. "Whether you make things easy for me or not."

That tiny hesitation made me wonder, though.

He straightened his posture, trying desperately to reclaim the shattered authority in the room. "If I hear you are in any more fights, you will be formally disciplined. And this is the last straw regarding your homework. Next time, if you don’t finish it or turn it in empty, there... er... there will be consequences."

I smirked, a soft, quiet scoff escaping me. His desperate attempt at authority was infuriatingly endearing.

His jaw tightened, refusing to acknowledge the mockery. "Last thing: cut your hair shorter. It’s too long." 

"First my sexual orientation, and now my looks? Seonsaengnim, I’m hurt," I said, clutching my heart playfully.

He looked completely out of his depth, utterly unsure of what to say or how to handle me; then he reached into his desk and pulled out a student handbook. "Here, read this and be careful to follow school regulations from now on." The book shook slightly. I took it after a beat, holding his gaze. 

After a moment, he averted his eyes entirely and pushed his spectacles back up the bridge of his nose. "That will be all, Ji-ho. See you tomorrow."

I stood there for a few seconds, calculating whether I should push further and go in for the kill. I decided against it; it was too early in the game. Instead, I watched him lower his head back toward his paperwork. His pen hovered over the next grading script without writing a single mark. I noticed a distinct, faint tremor in his fingers. His breathing remained heavy and strained, as if he were desperately wishing for me to leave while bracing himself for the worst.

Was he nervous because I'd invaded his space? Because I'd challenged his authority? Or because of what I had revealed about myself?

I couldn't tell. And that bothered me far more than it should have.

I turned and walked out of the staff room, leaving him alone in the quiet office with his trembling hands.