The main problem was the mother. An adult. Someone he knew exactly how to dismantle and teach a lesson to. It wasn’t anything new. However, the approach this time would have to be done differently. Because, there was not a possible way where a direct approach as an ERPB inspector would end up in a good manner for the people who would be most affected by this, the pre-school teacher and the child. 

And so after plenty of brainstorming and discussions, there came a proper plan. 

Na Hwajin would be the new homeroom teacher for Class 1-3. 

There is a rule, unspoken but universally understood among the Grade 1 teachers at Hyeongjung Elementary School, that you never leave your door open during free activity time.

Not because the children will escape although they will, but because sound travels. And the specific frequency of seventeen six-year-olds in collective disagreement about whose turn it is on the rhythm sticks is the kind of thing that will ring within your skull even during the late hours of the night.

You know this. You have known this for three years.

The man currently standing outside Class 1-3, staring at the closed door like it has personally wronged him, does not know this yet.

You notice him from down the hall on your way back from the copy room ; tall, bright clothes with a baby pink shirt and glasses that somehow would look comical on someone else but suit him well, carrying himself like he was used to being at full focus at all times with a straightness you realised was probably instilled. Which is a very specific energy to bring to an elementary school hallway decorated with paper sunflowers and a hand-written banner that reads HOME OF THE HEART in scribbled writing.

He hasn't gone in yet.

He's just standing there.

You slow your walk slightly. The stack of worksheets in your arms shifts. You watch him reach for the door handle, stop, and then just, read the hand-drawn nameplate next to the door. Class 1-3, Grade 1, Teacher: Choi Jiseon. He reads it twice, like it would magically change to his name. 

"She's not in there," you say, eventually stopping, giving in to the curiosity. 

He turns and looks at you. Taking you in with a kind of quick yet assessing look that was definitely not something a school teacher would have, "I know," he says. "I am." He notices the way you carry yourself with ease yet confidence and how the loose ends of your hair sit across your face prettily, but then he stops that thought process with a blink as he realises he might be staring for a weirdly long time.

You pause, taking in his words.

"You're the substitute," you say.

"Na Hwajin." He says it like an introduction and a statement of fact simultaneously. "ERPB."

Your eyebrows raise at this, understanding this situation was much more complicated than you thought and a small tinge of guilt arose in you but you brushed it aside for the time being.

"I know you- well your organisation atleast.” The whole school knows who he is. Probably the whole of South Korea at this rate. The ERPB's presence had come with a sudden reshuffling of everything ; the monitoring, the gentle but firm conversations with the principal, the sudden very careful atmosphere in the staff room. "Anyways, I'm Y/N. Class 1-2." You nod at the door directly across the hall. "Jiseon's my neighbor."

Something in his expression shifts, just slightly. Neighbor meaning that you know her and you've been watching what's been happening to her. It was one of those cases where you tried as a fellow teacher to support your fellow teacher as much as you could but it seemed nothing was able to help the situation. You had gotten increasingly worried day by day and honestly were likely going to contact further authorities to help your colleague. But it seemed somehow, help was already on the way. 

"How is she?" you ask sincerely, knowing she was also on leave.

"Resting." he says carefully, making you understand this probably was not the right time and place to fully talk about everything.

You nod in understanding and then you look at Class 1-3's door and then back at him with a questioning look.

"Have you taught before?" you ask, a little in the tone of amusement wondering if this scary looking man was actually not at all scary. 

"No." A pause followed which had a look come across his face as if he was recalculating everything.

"Worked with young children?" 

"No."

"How young is the youngest person you've managed?" Now you couldn’t hold back the amusement in your tone. You didn’t know if he was purposefully ignoring that or not wanting to further address it but he looked in thought about your question.

He thinks about this genuinely, which is somehow more alarming than a quick answer would have been. "Fifteen," he says.

"Okay," you say honestly. "Good luck." And you mean it sincerely, because he definitely needs it. 

You are already turning toward your own classroom when he says, without a shred of identifiable pride: "Is there anything I should know?"

You give him seven minutes.

It's not that you're monitoring him, at least you don't intend to. 

It's that your classroom shares a wall with 1-3, and walls at Hyeongjung Elementary are approximately the thickness of two layers of coloring books and you can hear everything throughout the hallway to your classroom. Plus you're always extra attentive anyways, you need to be in cases of kids going suspiciously quiet to creating ruckus in a matter of few seconds.

The first two minutes are fine. Quiet, even a little too quiet, the way a classroom goes quiet when the children are observing a new thing with their curiosity as if it holds a new wonder for them.

Minute three is when a chair scrapes. Then another.

Minute four is when there is a sound that you will later understand as the calm before a storm.  It's luckily not screaming and it's not crying. 

But it is the specific vocal frequency of an entire class of six-year-olds expressing simultaneous opinions at full volume.

Minute five is when something hits the floor. 

Probably the rhythm stick box. Definitely the rhythm stick box. 

Minute six is when a brief, almost-restored quiet suddenly came and you knew it was probably because Hwajin had decided to use the old banging hands on the desk to create a sudden sound to stop the noise. 

However it didn't work at all because in the next approximately ten seconds even more chaos ensued.

Minute seven is when you decide you should definitely help. So you hand your class over to the assistant teacher with a look that communicates I'll be five minutes, pick up the small laminated schedule card you keep spare on your desk, and cross the hall.

You knock once and open the door.

The scene inside Class 1-3 is not the worst you've ever seen, which is honestly a testament to something, though you're not sure what.

Hwajin is standing at the front of the class. He has the posture of a man who is currently regretting the decision that has made him land in this position. 

Regret with a little bit of defeatedness.

His jaw is set. His eyes are doing that rapid-scan thing, tracking movement around the room, and there is a lot of movement to track because approximately six children are out of their seats, two are arguing over a purple crayon with the intensity of a property dispute, one has somehow gotten to the back shelf and is investigating the art supplies with the focus of a seasoned archaeologist, and a small girl in the front row is simply crying, quietly and steadily, for reasons that are entirely unclear.

He sees you come in. 

Something in his face relaxes but there is still that hint of stubbornness. The way one would look when they've been holding something very heavy and someone else has just walked into the room.

"Everyone," you say, at a volume calibrated specifically for six-year-olds which is basically loud enough to land yet calm enough not to escalate. "Seats, please. Let's show Teacher Na we know how to sit nicely."

It works the way it always works, which is not perfect but mostly a wave of compliance moving across the room, children drifting back to chairs with the slightly guilt of people who know they've been caught. The girl in the front row slowly goes off into sniffles. The future archaeologist returns from the back shelf.

"Thank you," you say warmly, and then you look at Hwajin, and you murmur, low enough for only him yet your eyes stay drifting on the kids, "What were you trying to do?"

"Activity time," he says, with the clipped precision of a mission debrief which makes you almost want to laugh. "The schedule said activity time. I told them activity time. They-” a pause that contains multitudes, "-interpreted that broadly."

You look at the laminated schedule card in your hand, then at the board. He's written the time block up but nothing else which meant it had no structure, no options, no visuals and for a six-year-old, activity time with no further parameters is essentially anything goes, which is exactly what they went with.

"You have to tell them what the activity is," you say pointing out to the board,"And where they do it. And what the rules are. Specifically. In order."

He looks at you with an expression that is not quite this is absurd and not quite of course, but somewhere between them, blinking rapidly and mentally adding it somewhere, "Noted," he says.

"The crying, that's Soo-ah. She probably misses Jiseon. It's not you. Just check in with her quietly in a minute, she'll be okay."

"Right."

"And the purple crayon situation," you glance at the two boys who have reached an uneasy duel where the crayon sits on the desk between them like a prize, “There's a backup set in the third drawer. Give them one each and they'll both be satisfied."

He opens the third drawer, finds the crayons, and delivers them with the same no-nonsense  energy that he is used to and probably uses for everything, which actually works perfectly, because six-year-olds don't respond to reasoning, they respond to certainty, and certainty he has in abundance. 

The boy on the left looks at his crayon then looks at Hwajin and says with a grin showing a missing front tooth,  "Thank you, Teacher."

Something crosses Hwa-jin's face so quickly you almost miss it but you were sure it was delight even if it was for a brief moment, 

"You're welcome," he says with a small smile. 

You don't think much about how his smile changed the way he looked, making him seem much more warmer. You definitely do not. 

You decide to stay for twelve minutes, which is five more than you planned.

It's not that he can't manage,he can, once he knows the structure, he's genuinely strategic about it, moving around the room with the deliberate efficiency of someone who adapts fast and doesn't repeat mistakes. 

Within a few minutes he's got them in a drawing activity with clear parameters and crayons along with their sketchbooks and his hands clasped behind his back, surveying the room with an expression that holds true to his nature you assume but for now he is watching a child carefully draw what appears to be a duck.

It's the duck that keeps you.

He stops next to the girl drawing it and then looks at it for a moment with slight squinted eyes. Then he crouches down which was quite a sight —this large, severe man— folding himself down to her level and asks with a very serious tone "Is that a duck?"

The girl nods, equally serious.

"It's very good," he says with the same seriousness carrying praise.

She doesn't beam the way some kids do when complimented, at least not yet. She considers his opinion first, like she's assessing whether he's someone worthy of listening to and then she says,  "The wings are wrong."

"The wings look right to me."

"You don't draw ducks."

"That's true," he says. "How do you know?"

"Your hands," she says with a serious tone that has you stifling your giggle, and goes back to her paper.

He looks at his hands. Then back at the duck. Then he straightens up, and catches you watching from the doorway, and for just a moment, one corner of his mouth moves. You think if your focus wasn’t already on him, you would have missed that.

You've been here for twelve minutes and you realise you also had your own batch of kids to tend to.

"I should get back," you say quietly, from the door.

"Right." He crosses toward you, and his voice drops. "The schedule after this-"

"It will be a literacy block, which will go on for thirty minutes. There's a read-aloud book on the shelf, red spine, The Very Hungry Caterpillar which they've done before but they'll still ask for it. Ask them questions while you read. They love that.”

He's looking at you in a way that's very focused and you’re choosing not to think more of it than you should but it’s easier said than done when your traitorous heart flutters a tiny bit. "Do you do this often?" he asks. "Help the substitute."

"Jiseon is my friend," you say simply. "And you're helping her."

He holds your gaze for a moment. "Thank you," he says and he doesn’t just mean it for the help you’ve done in the past twelve minutes, that much you understand.

You go back to your class. You absolutely do not think about the way his face entirely changes when he smiles for the rest of the morning.

(You think about it for the rest of the morning.)

Lunch is held in the school cafeteria, which is the one time of day when Grade 1 teachers get to eat food that is technically for them and have conversations that are technically for adults. You're halfway through your rice when he sits down across from you.

Not next to you across because you are the only familiar face in the cafeteria that he knows. Next to you would be weird, he justifies. He has a tray. He looks at it like he's not sure how it got there nor is he sure about the contents on it.

"The duck girl," he says, without anything else because you would know already.

"Minseo."

"Yes." You say with an amused smile beginning to form on your lips.

"She told me during literacy that my reading voice is too flat."

You press your lips together to hold back your laughter, he notices this and looks at you with an unidentifiable expression, "She's not wrong." You decide to be honest about it. Besides, it would help him more to understand how to work with kids.

He looks at you, with this pure look of defeat that makes you feel a little bad for him. 

"You do this-" you pitch your voice lower, perfectly level, "-when you read. The kids need the voices. The caterpillar has to sound hungry."

Something moves behind his eyes which might be genuine consideration. You cannot tell. "I lowered my voice," he says defensively, which has you shaking your head like you would at a  child defending themselves. 

"Hwajin-ssi." You set down your spoon. "The caterpillar ate through one apple, two pears, three plums, four strawberries, and five oranges. On Saturday alone it ate through ten different foods. That caterpillar is having a crisis and it should sound like it's having a crisis."

He is quiet for a moment, considering your suggestion, the seriousness of which you convey and the look in your eyes which was sincere too.

"The children laughed," he says finally. "During the reading. I didn't–I wasn't sure if that was appropriate."

Something in your chest does something unexpected. Because all along it seemed to him that he was not being able to manage anything correctly yet when he does manage to do the right thing the first time, he is surprised by it.  

"It's the best thing," you say earnestly, "If they're laughing, they're engaged. Jiseon was always really good at the voices."

He nods, absorbing this new information and then says, "She's well-liked. The children ask about her."

"They love her." You look down at your tray. "She's a wonderful teacher. What's happening to her is– it's not fair. What that mother did." You catch yourself, glance up. "Sorry. You're investigating. I shouldn't—"

"You're not saying anything I haven't already established," he says, evenly. "And you know her. Anything you've observed is relevant."

You look at him steadily. He looks back, and there's something about the way he gazes at you so attentively, that makes it quite disarming, as if you can’t help but just want to talk about everything with him.

"I should have asked her more directly," you say and he catches the guilt in that admission, "I brought her coffee a few times. Said the usual things — it'll be okay, they can't keep this up forever. But I didn't — I didn't know how bad it was. I was going to talk to her about approaching someone with more authority but-” You pause, not understanding what to say next, partially in guilt. 

"People in those situations are often very good at not showing it," he says truthfully but also not blaming you.

You look at him with understanding,  "You're surprisingly easy to talk to. For someone who looks like that."

It comes out before you fully think it through, and you blink twice when you realise what you just admitted.

He raises an eyebrow, and you can see his amusement, "Like what?"

"Like you're about to conduct an interrogation.”

"I might be," he says, and there it is again — his almost-smile which was just a smile because it also made his eyes squint a little beneath the glasses. You really should not make anything more of how much you enjoy seeing it. 

He comes back to your doorway at the end of the day.

The children are gone, your classroom is quiet, the aftermath of the day visible in both the classroom and yourself and you're at your desk reorganizing the next day's materials. You look up to find him leaning against the doorframe with his jacket back on and there's something about the tiredness that comes after a long day which is visible now that makes him look unexpectedly human.

"Survived the first day?" you ask with a smile. He finds his own one forming at the sight of it. 

"Minseo told me my duck drawing is worse than hers," he says. "She's not wrong."

"That is a very high bar there, Minseo is legitimately talented."

"She made me practice." He looks like he's still processing this as he shakes his head recalling the conversation, "She gave me her spare paper."

The image of Na Hwajin, ERPB inspector, former soldier, sitting at a table of six-year-olds practicing duck drawings at the instruction of a small girl, is something you will carry with you for a long time and it only makes the smile on your face widen at the thought of it.

"She likes you already," you say. "Minseo is very selective."

He's quiet for a moment. Look at his hands again, like he realised that there was gentleness hidden in them that he didn’t even know existed until now. Then after taking some thoughts, he decides to ask you the question, "If you haven't eaten dinner—"

"I haven't," you say before he finishes hoping it doesn’t come off too enthusiastically, but you’d be wrong if you said it didn’t make you want to squeal slightly.

"The teachers' room," you continue. "We have a spot for marking and I always bring too much food. It's technically not dinner but it's something."

"I have a report to write," he says as he nods at your suggestion. 

"You can write it there and I'll be marking. We can be productive and also not sit alone, which is — I think we've both earned that today." You acknowledge as you carry your worksheets to which he steps forward and takes in his hands before you can even say anything else.

"Where's the teachers' room?" 

You sit across from each other at the low table by the window, and you share the contents of your lunch bag, a tangerine, crackers, the last of the lemon tea from your thermos,with the ease of people who are slowly becoming comfortable in each other’s presence. 

He writes his report and continues to mark and occasionally laugh at the answers your kids have written to which he unknowingly smiles at. He doesn’t think he has smiled this much in one day. Hanrim would be proud. Outside, the school empties slowly, the sound of the last children leaving like a tide going out.

At some point he says, without looking up from his tablet: "The caterpillar does need more voice."

"I know."

"I'll try it tomorrow."

You press your mouth flat against a smile. "The kids will let you know how you did."

He makes a low sound, that is a laugh but it is probably how he laughs as someone not used to it frequently and it makes your stomach churn in a much nicer way than you’ve ever felt. 

"The schedule tomorrow," he says, wanting to be informed beforehand, "After morning activity—"

"Math. Counting to twenty with the blocks. They work in pairs and they'll always try to do it before you teach them. So let them."

He types something. You watch him for a moment, focusing of how he does everything, and think about the way he crouched next to Minseo's duck, and the way he'd sat across from you at lunch like he'd decided and that was that, and the way he said thank you earlier like it was about more than twelve minutes in a chaotic classroom. 

"Can I ask you something?" you say.

"Yes."

"Why did you agree to do this? The substitute. You're ERPB — surely there are—"

"I was asked to and I- I felt I’d fit more to handle the situation too," he says and pauses before he continues, "And someone needed to."

That might not be the full answer but whatever it was, it was an honest one and you accepted that.

From the outside, the last of the afternoon light shines through the old through the staff room window, giving a warmer tone to the room. 

Your phone buzzes. You glance at it: Jiseon's number. A short message.

heard there's a substitute. is he terrifying them???

You smile down at your phone, while typing back, he's doing better than expected. the kids like him.

A pause follows before she types back, really??

You look up. Hwajin is reading his report, brow slightly furrowed, the focus of a man who does everything with full attention. On his wrist, half hidden by his sleeve, there is, you notice now, what is unmistakably the faint outline of a child's sticker, a small golden star. 

Minseo, definitely.

He hasn't taken it off.

really. you type back.

He walks out to the carpark at the same time you do, which is probably not a coincidence. 

"The count-to-twenty blocks," he says, at the top of the steps, remembering how he doesn’t know where most of the stuff is "Are they in the cabinet or on the shelf?"

"Cabinet. Left side. There's also a set of number cards in the folder on top if the blocks aren't enough."

He nods, mentally noting it. 

You reach the bottom of the steps. His car is, predictably, clean and black and parked with geometric precision. Yours is across the lot.

"Tomorrow?" he says.

"Tomorrow." you agree.

You walk toward your car. You don't look back, specifically because if you look back you'll do something embarrassing. You hear, just barely, the sound of his car door opening.

And then,"Y/N-ssi."

You turn.

He's standing by his door, jacket on, the gold star sticker still on his wrist, looking across the carpark at you with an expression you haven't seen on him yet which is less certain than usual. 

"Thank you," he says, finally with that smile you have concluded you really like, "For today."

"Come back tomorrow," you say with a smile that does something to his chest,  "Minseo is saving you a duck template."

He looks at you. Something settles in his expression, something that is both delight and patient and you think, maybe the beginning of a lot of things.

"I'll be here," he says.