WHY IS TUTORING KOREAN SO HARD?!

It's his native language for crying out loud! How could it be possible for a foreigner, who'd never even lived in Korea or even visited Korea even once, be able to ask him questions he actually had to look up and research about?!

The kind of questions she had would be;

"You're probably old enough, so when you go to the doctor, how do they ask about your medical history?"

"Have you filled out any medical documents before? Do they use hanja, hangul, or both? How would you fill it out?"

"Why would they use hangul instead of hanja for this word?"

"What do you mean you don't normally use hanja?! WHY? Not only is it all over the place in all the medical books I found, but nearly all they use in the exam is hanja! Won't people need to know it when they go to the doctor?!"

Noona had been so upset when Yoosung could barely answer any questions she had regarding hanja. She couldn't understand why something so importantly 'basic' was mostly ignored by normal people.

Learning hanja was akin to learning Chinese; though, it wasn't 'really' learning actual Chinese since it was adapted to be used in Korean. As for why most people didn't use it… Well it was easier to stick to the native hangul. Why make life hard?

"So it's basically Korean Chinese? If that's the case, then we totally need to learn hanja! NO! We need to master it! It has the bonus of being useful for learning and understanding Chinese, even if it's only slightly similar in sound, at least it will universally broaden our vocabulary. I think some of these are used in Vietnamese, too. Oh~ I'll make flashcards for us to use! You can never go wrong with using flashcards as a learning tool."

In the end, he was forced to learn it all anyway.

Yes… Tutoring noona is very difficult because, honestly, Yoosung is just an over-glorified study partner.

.

.

.

It wasn't until he got a shock at school during a parent-teacher conference, that he realized noona had affected him a lot more than he realized.

"Are you aiming towards being a lawyer or doctor, Yoosung?"

"Huh?" Yoosung blinked owlishly at his form teacher.

"Well... You are at the top of the entire school in Korean studies, and you aren't too far off in Sciences either. With the scores you have, I don't think it would be too far of a stretch to say you'd be able to apply to a good medical or law school. It would, of course, be dependent on you keeping up your studies for the Suneung next year. With your current ability, I'd say you're nearly set."

His mom had been ecstatic at all the compliments his teacher had to say about him, but Yoosung had been lost in thought.

There was one year left before he'd have to take the Suneung.

Has it really been that long since he started 'tutoring' noona? He'd been more stressed out keeping up with her to be able to answer all her questions than he had been with school and his grades. Apparently, he was doing a lot better than usual.

He hadn't realized that by needing to answer all of her supposedly 'basic' questions made him study all sorts of things. Yoosung thought he'd just retained more useless, weird, and overly technical information.

When he came home, Yoosung finally noticed it.

In his room, there were piles of books. The walls were plastered with different random notes regarding different subjects. His computer was covered with sticky notes about tidbits of information he thought were interesting, which he wanted to go back and research on.

. . . .

Maybe he studied a lot harder than he thought… It wasn't all useless information. He had come out being a lot smarter than he thought he would.

Maybe if he kept being around noona, he'd find out what he wanted to do with his life.

Ding! Ding! You got a message yo!~

Yoosung took out his cellphone, at the sound of noona's voice. She'd recorded it to make sure he knew to always answer.

Why the hell do ship-pal (십팔) and ssi-bal (씨발) sound so similar?! I just got scolded by an old lady for being rude and cursing at her! Why didn't you warn me about this?! You fool!

Yoosung burst out laughing.

So maybe not everything was useful information. Some were just random silliness.

But that's alright, life was way more fun this way.

.

.

.

AN.

Yoosung may not be my top fave, but there's no denying he's smart AF. I mean! He got into SKY University! While SKY University, itself doesn't exist as a singular institution. The term is not unknown to the Korean populace. Why? Because it's referring to the TOP three most prestigious universities in South Korea; Seoul National University, Korea University, and Yonsei University.

Sure, he's always talking about getting bad grades and skipping class, but it's due to grief and no longer having any motivation. The fact he got into the university already proves he's smart and capable because he had to have scored really well on the Suneung to get in. According to a BBC article, I read. Some 70% of high school leavers will go to university, but fewer than 2% will reach the dizzy heights of a Sky institution.

People spend lots of money on tutoring, cram schools, and spend years studying to be able to do what Yoosung did. It's already apparent, Yoosung is not from a super affluent family otherwise he wouldn't be so fascinated with Seven's cars and Jumin's wealth in the game. This means his family didn't pay for him to go to some super cram school or hire an 'elite' tutor. This means Yoosung did all the work and got in on SHEER ABILITY! Even if Yoosung is naive and a bit gullible; that may all just be due to his inexperience and youth.

TLDR; Yoosung is a genius who only lacks drive and motivation. It may not be too far fetched to call him SUPERman Yoosung. He can literally do or be anything he sets his mind on.