Teacher, Is This Your First Time?

The only option given to me was to trust the exemplary student with an innocent expression.

I crouched down quietly. The thought “Is this enough?” was not even close. The hole was too low and small to waddle through in a rabbit-jumping position. It seemed I would have to lie flat on the ground and crawl to barely get through.

“…Is there no other way?”

I glanced at Woo Tae-seon. Looking up from my crouched position, his already tall figure seemed even bigger. Woo Tae-seon didn’t rush me in my indecisiveness, and though he was just standing there, I felt intimidated for no reason. It felt as if he was saying, “What are you doing not going in quickly?”

“You don’t like it? Dirt can be brushed off, you know.”

Although my hesitation wasn’t because of the dirt, I just nodded slightly, pretending that was the case.

“Can’t you just dust that off too?”

“Huh? What?”

“Your butt.”

I followed Woo Tae-seon’s continuing laughter to around my back pants pocket.

I stretched my neck as much as possible to check, but it wasn’t easy to confirm while squatting. I quickly stood up and tried looking over my shoulder, even twisting my waist while supporting myself against the wall with one hand, but without a mirror, it was difficult to check my entire backside.

“Did you fall on your bottom somewhere?”

When I patted the lower part of my buttocks with my palm, a dark red powder came off on my hand. I could immediately recognize it was similar in color to the bricks that made up the wall.

“Ah, earlier…”

I couldn’t say it was because I had been pressed right against the wall trying to peek through the school gate without being caught.

“Not there, a bit more to the right.”

“…”

“No, a little more.”

Since I was only dusting with one hand, I must have been cleaning the wrong spot, because Woo Tae-seon, unable to just watch, applied a bit of pressure and directly dusted off my pants for me.

I was about to say I would do it myself but then let it be. I probably already looked quite foolish vigorously patting the wrong areas while the right spot was clearly visible, and I didn’t want to appear stubborn on top of that.

“It wasn’t coming off properly. Here.”

“Ah, yes… thanks.”

To be fair, the mistake was made from the beginning when I meekly followed along after he said he would show me a secret way into the school.

Just then, the bell rang throughout the entire school.

“Huh!” My mouth fell wide open. My face must have quickly turned pale too. The bell that had just spread to every corner of the school signaled the end of morning self-study in classrooms and the beginning of a faculty meeting in the teachers’ office.

I looked urgently at Woo Tae-seon. Even though he couldn’t provide an answer for me, I found myself looking to him instinctively. Woo Tae-seon was still smiling gently.

“You shouldn’t be late.”

Woo Tae-seon gently encouraged me. He was right. Come to think of it, if I was late, Woo Tae-seon was late too. I needed to hurry through this hole so he could follow.

I considered telling him to go first. The thought did cross my mind, but I had already embarrassed myself several times, and if I delayed this too, it would truly be humiliating.

My gaze meeting Woo Tae-seon’s gradually filled with determination. Nodding while maintaining eye contact, I quickly knelt down to align myself with the hole and lowered my head. Pressing my body close to the ground, I could see the large tree stump inside the school through the hole. It seemed to be the backyard.

“Ugh. It’s tight.”

The hole was too small even though I had curled up my body as much as possible. First, I quickly inserted my head into the hole.

Once I ducked my head in, there was nothing else to hesitate about, and I could move quickly and efficiently. I stuck my butt up toward the sky to keep my upper body as close to the ground as possible and pushed my waist through. Then, as my upper body had passed through the wall, I pressed my pelvis to the ground and stretched my head toward the sky.

After my buttocks passed through the hole, getting the rest of my legs through was somewhat easier. Looking back, it didn’t seem like much.

After hurriedly squeezing through the dog hole, I dusted off my knees and palms, which were covered in dry dirt powder. This time, since I could see clearly, I cleaned up quickly.

But no matter how long I waited, no one followed me through. No one was climbing over the wall, nor could I hear any sound from beyond the wall. I anxiously stamped my feet, unable to stay still.

“Why isn’t he coming out?”

Just then, my phone rang. It was my senior. The voice asking why I still hadn’t arrived sounded quite urgent. In the end, I bent down to the dog hole I had escaped through alone, put my face in, and whispered as quietly as possible.

“I’ll go ahead!”

I had to run off in a hurry, leaving Woo Tae-seon and the wall behind.

* * *

Perhaps due to excessive nervousness, I couldn’t gather my thoughts. I couldn’t remember how those two hours had passed. Actually, I only realized this now because I only noticed the number on the sign just before opening the front door of the classroom.

This class was for Year 3, Class 5.

The face I had met under the wall flashed in my mind. I wondered if he had made it safely to the classroom too. My conscience weighed heavily on me for leaving him behind that morning without being able to say thank you or ask him to keep it a secret.

“Attention. Bow to the teacher.”

“Good morning.”

But the voice from my memory did not welcome me. I stared blankly at the vice class president returning to his seat, then shifted my gaze to the only empty seat. Sensing my confusion, the vice president gave me a brief answer.

“The class president went to the faculty office, teacher. The homeroom teacher called for him.”

It was common for the class president to be called to the faculty office by the homeroom teacher. Just like now, no one in the classroom questioned it. Perhaps normally, I too would have nodded and immediately forgotten about it, going straight into the lesson, but today was different.

The worry protruding from my memory became a thorn firmly lodged in my mind. Could it be because of this morning’s tardiness?

It seemed that Woo Tae-seon had been caught. I was able to sneak into the faculty office safely thanks to my helper in the next seat who had set things up to make it look like I had already arrived by turning on my computer and such, but it would have been difficult for him.

Even trying to think positively—that they wouldn’t pull him out of class just to scold him, especially as a senior high school student—anxiety peeked its head out again. Even if he wasn’t called out now because of being late, it was already third period, so if he was going to be scolded for tardiness, wouldn’t it have happened earlier?

So either way, the only conclusion left was that it would have been difficult for him not to get caught.

“So if we substitute 3 for x, right?”

“Yes.”

Besides the questions and answers, the only sounds were the pencils moving across paper and chalk writing on the blackboard.

During the near-silent class time, I was on edge every time I wrote a formula on the blackboard. I felt that way whenever the conspicuously empty seat caught my eye.

Knock, knock.

At the two evenly spaced knocks, my head jerked up. When my gaze shifted from the textbook to the back door, as the door opened, the face I had been anxiously waiting for appeared.

“I’m sorry.”

“…Take your seat.”

Woo Tae-seon bowed his head slightly, and I watched intently as he found his seat. The classroom that had seemed empty now felt properly filled. Somehow, my anxious heart felt calmer.

“Alright, focus. Let’s move on to problem 56.”

I lightly tapped the side of the podium with my palm to gather the students’ concentration back to their books, but in reality, what needed to be gathered was my own attention. My gaze kept wandering elsewhere, toward one particular place.

Even while holding the textbook and reading the problem, even while holding chalk and explaining the solution, I stole glances at Woo Tae-seon from the corner of my eye. Whenever it seemed like the light brown-haired head might look up, I quickly turned to face the blackboard or lowered my gaze to the textbook. Not seeming to notice anything strange, Woo Tae-seon continued looking alternately at the blackboard and his own desk.

Growing more confident after not being caught despite repeated glances, I continued watching Woo Tae-seon. To be more precise, I was checking his expression. He didn’t seem to be in a particularly bad mood. It seemed he hadn’t been scolded after all. I felt like I could finally relax a bit. That was a relief.

“So from next time, we’ll start on trigonometric functions.”

At the same time, I glanced at the clock hanging on the left pillar. I thought I had paced it properly, but there were awkwardly 5 minutes left. Perhaps I had spoken a bit too quickly. It wasn’t a major issue, but how to spend those 5 minutes was a new task given to me.

However, for these kids with 12 years of experience as students, it was very easy to quickly identify the sudden short dilemma facing a rookie teacher.

“Teacher, tell us about your first love!”

“You haven’t forgotten you’re senior students, have you?”

“That’s exactly why you should tell us about your first love. We need to date when we get to college too!”

Everyone cheered and agreed with the opinion of the loud-voiced boy. Indeed, the sluggish atmosphere after the April mock exam had not returned to its original elasticity. They seemed somewhat tense for their first mock exam, but they quickly got used to being senior exam students.

They’re not really curious about my first love story; they just want to play around for even 5 minutes. Even when I narrowed my eyes accusingly, these kids who had already disguised themselves as innocent children didn’t budge.

“…Well, I met them in college.”