The Good Professor

Flashback (Seven Years Ago)

Taehyung adjusted the hoodie he was wearing as he walked into to his statistics class. He noticed that his professor had been paying extra attention to him lately, and the last thing that he needed was another person sticking their nose in his business, asking him if everything was okay at home.

No...everything was definitely not okay at home, but he really didn't feel like saying, "My mom's boyfriend of the week left her, and therefore, she went on a bender and decided to beat up on me once again...and oh yeah, by the way...this is nothing new, I've been used as her and her dead beat boyfriends personal punching bag and worse, since I was four years old so...could you please do something about it now that I am basically an adult?". So, anytime someone asked, he would just nod and say, "Yeah.", before making up some lame ass excuse as to why he was covered in bruises and cuts.

Tucking himself into the desk at the back of the classroom, he couldn't help but feel someone staring at him. Looking up, he locked eyes with his professor who by any standards, could have passed for a student himself. He was in his early twenties and extremely good-looking. And although Taehyung had never really talked with the man outside of normal student/professor conversation, the man always seemed so comforting to Taehyung.

He had the kindest eyes and the warmest smile that would spread across his full lips, showcasing perfect teeth. The man really should have been some kind of model or idol, he was a beautiful sight to behold. Taehyung cleared his throat and looked away as the professor smiled at him.

Class couldn't be over soon enough. This was Taehyung's last class of the day, and he needed to get out of here as soon as he could. The bruises across his back, was making siting in a desk damn near impossible, but more importantly, he needed to go find some release, so he could relax a bit before he had to go back into that hell hole, he called home.

He really wished that he could live in student housing, but considering his age, he was required to live off campus with his guardian. Taehyung couldn't help but find the humor in that...he had taken care of himself his entire life...and him being forced to stay home with his mother, because it was deemed "safer", was the most comical thing that he had ever heard. So unfortunately, he was trapped in hell until next year when he turned eighteen and could finally escape.

Taehyung's mom didn't even know that her son was a genius. She was strung out on drugs most of the time, and the day that he graduated high-school two years early, she was in the hospital from an attempted overdose. Sadly, she had no idea that he was even in college half of the time because of her drug use...and the times when she was sober enough to recall that he was, she held it over him making snide comments about how he thought he was better than her and reminded him that he was nothing but a worthless piece of shit, who had ruined her life.

That revelation usually came right before her hand found its way across his cheek or before a glass liquor bottle was being thrown at his head, or perhaps the worst of all, after he had been used and discarded like the trash, she claimed he was.

The truth of it was that even though Taehyung basically raised himself and lived through unimaginable horrors, he was an exemplary student who exceled in everything that he did. His seventh grade English teacher was the one who had him tested for gifted abilities, and when his IQ score came back as a 152, she knew that she had to get him on a different academic path, so he would have better opportunities. That led to Taehyung graduating from high-school at 16, and him enrolling himself in college to pursue his Ph.D. in Literature.

Feeling something tap on his shoulder, Taehyung groggily raised his head up off his desk and noticed that the classroom was now empty. Shit...he had fallen asleep. How embarrassing he thought to himself as he rubbed the sleep out of his heavy eyes.