ok. u sent this two months ago but. here i am begging for forgiveness
(even/isak teachers au!!! also i think kids in norway call teachers by their first names so i went with that happening in case ur confused bc it confused me to write it)
Isak walks into the classroom, trying to force a smile onto his face for the kids waiting inside for him. He loves his job, really he does, but he has to be so energetic for the eleven year olds or he loses them the minute he starts talking about protons, and he’s just not an energetic person, unlike soe.
“Hey everyone, sorry I’m late,” he says, and as usual, it does nothing to stop everyone’s chatter. “Guys?” he tries again, knowing that in about five seconds, he’s going to have to deploy the teacher face.
It takes a while, but he eventually settles everyone down into silence, and begins the lesson.
It’s at this point that he turns to the board, and sees what’s left from whoever’s lesson was in here before his.
(”Whoever’s.” As if he isn’t very well aware whose.)
Regardless, he puts up a front, and feigns ignorance. His students can’t know about this. There’s a huge doodle, drawn in different coloured whiteboard pens, of a bouquet of flowers, and yes, Isak knows that the lesson that happens in this classroom before his is art, but there is definitely no real artistic or educational reasoning behind this.
He turns back to the class.
“Who did this?” he asks, as if he thinks it might have been one of them.
His stomach drops at one of his students piping up from midway back in the classroom. “I think it was Even,” she giggles. “He teaches in here before you.”
Isak raises an eyebrow, hoping that the giggles, now spreading to the entire classroom, will die down as he wipes the doodle off the board, kind of wishing he didn’t have to.
He finds Even in the staffroom later.
“Flowers, Even, really?” he asks as he slumps down into the seat beside him.
Even looks at him, faux-mournfully. “Didn’t you like them?”
Isak narrows his eyes. “Not the point. I mean, they were - fine, but why would you - I mean, I had to - all my students -” he gives up, and sighs.
He gets a knowing grin from Even.
It’s been a long time building, this thing between he and Even, and it’s not anything yet because of perfectly valid reasons like Isak just doesn’t know how to ask him on a date.
For now, Even just leaves something on the board every time Isak has a lesson directly after him - usually its something more subtle. Something that Isak can smile softly at, and erase without anyone noticing, then roll his eyes at Even later about - a tiny picture of a cheese toastie, or a little phrase calling back to something one of them has said recently. It’s nothing that would give anything away - and what is there to give away, when they haven’t put a name to all their flirtatious behaviour yet.
“We were drawing flowers in my lesson,” Even explains, his face the picture of innocence. “I told my students to choose any medium they wanted, and that I would do the same, so i chose whiteboard pens.”
Isak tries to look unimpressed.
“I would’ve left you the actual flowers we were drawing,” Even says, and Isak’s heart takes note, however much he tells it not to. “But they were plastic, so it felt a little cheap.”
It takes a lot of self control not to smile, and in the end, it’s self control that Isak doesn’t have.
A week later, he arrives at his classroom just as Even’s students are leaving, and he peeks through the door to see Even erasing the whiteboard, to his disappointment. He turns to the door a second later, and notices Isak, and a wide grin appears on his face as he winks.
A second later, he’s picking up his bag and leaving the room, passing by Isak and pausing for barely a second just to whisper “check under the desk.”
Isak does as he’s told half an hour later when his students are distracted by their work, and finds a small bunch of flowers and a note.
My lesson today did not involve drawing flowers. I’m teaching still life at the moment, and I know you don’t eat fruit, so I didn’t leave you any of that. I get the sense it would have the opposite effect on you to the one I want to have.
Actually, I found myself wanting to leave you flowers again. I was thinking about it on my way to work this morning, and I passed by the flower shop in the next street and I couldn’t help myself.
Please don’t be mad at me. I’m just a bit of a hopeless romantic, and as much as I enjoy leaving little notes for you on a whiteboard, I want more than just that.
Would you go on a date with me sometime?
Isak finds him in the staffroom later, and where there’s usually a grin, there’s a nervous look.
Isak rolls his eyes and smiles. “Do you honestly think at this point that I would say no?”
