"How was your day, Sweetie?", His Majesty asked his dear daughter as she walked into the Royal Quarters, throwing her bag on the ground, which Mari picked up immediately and dusted, although there wasn't any dust in any corner of the royal residence.
"Utterly disappointing", the Princess scoffed, turning her head away from her father.
"Oh? What went wrong?", knowing his daughter's penchant for dramatizing things at times, the King was more amused than concerned.
"Boring, boring, boring", Lin walked past her father, heading straight to her bedroom, leaving the man behind who was expecting a hug.
'Ah, she's grown too old for that already'
"How was your homeroom teacher? The young man you've picked"
"An insolent fool, he was"
His Majesty raised an eyebrow.
"Should I have him replaced?"
"God, No!"
That made the father smile inside, 'So he wasn't all that bad, eh?'
"I appreciate your perseverance"
"Hmpf. I will allow it"
"That's very big-hearted of you"
"Are you teasing me now, Dad?"
"Just appreciating my daughter's growing maturity"
The Princess rolled her eyes and quickly continued her way to her room with Mari expertly tailing her without jogging.
"Your Highness, wasn't Mr. Lee to your liking?", the Royal Maid jokingly teased.
"He was awful! How could he?!", Lin was huffing and puffing.
The (mildly) infatuated girl was irritated that Lee Jun showed absolutely no sign of opening up as they sat and ate their first meal together at the staff cafeteria. It was she who had to make efforts for small talk, and every subtly probing question about his personal or private life was quickly shut down with the most bland answers followed by something related to studies.
She flopped herself onto her massive bed, let out a big sigh, and rolled over to one side to pick up the shoujo manga she was reading the night before. Opening the book, she quickly found a scene with Minsu, the character that Lee Jun resembled with scary accuracy.
'Urgh. Minsu IS a tsundere character but he was never this bland'
What hurt was not actually a disappointment, but the fact that she, a princess, had to play the role of a chaser. She expected that she could at least get this man's heart to flutter and see him thrown off balance for brief moments at her beauty (for confidence in herself was not something she lacked), but the man appeared to be cold as ice.
"Your Highness, it's a marathon, not a sprint", Mari, who was now fully aware of what her young girl was thinking, wisely advised.
"Oh, what do you know?! Get out of my room now!", the maid bowed and left with a smile on her face at the Princess' command.
'Hmpf. I will show you tomorrow. You are a man after all'
At the same time, in a different place, Jun was on the phone talking to his mother who began to interrogate her son about his first day at the job.
"Jun, how was your day?"
"It was good, Mom"
"Have you eaten?"
"Yes, perhaps a bit too much"
"You should still have dinner"
"Maybe later, but I'm really full"
"What have you eaten?"
"Just some pasta"
Jun didn't want to tell his Mom that he had a Royal Lunch Box, neither did he want to tell her that one of his students was a princess, but of course, his Mom already knew from the news that the Princess Disaster was going to her son's school.
"So, did you have the chance to see the Princess?"
'Sigh. There is no point lying here is there? Besides, why should I?'
"Yes, I did"
'I actually had lunch with her, Mom'
"How was she? Is she prettier than on TV?"
"That's a highly inappropriate thing for a teacher to discuss"
"Aw, come on. You know your Mom is a big fan of the Royal Family"
This was precisely the reason he did not wish to talk about it.
"Mom, they are just like normal people dressed well and speak a bit funnily"
"Is she in your class by any chance?"
"…"
"OH MY GOD!!! My son's teaching the Princess!!"
"Yes, I am"
"What is she like?"
"Just normal. Nothing special"
"Aw, that's not a nice thing to say about a young lady"
"Mom, I can't treat my students as girls or ladies. They are just students. Gender should not come into play"
"Did she make your heart flutter? Skip a beat?"
"Mom!"
"Heh~, she did, right?"
"Gees, I gotta go now"
"Good luck, son. I have high hopes for you"
"Well, thanks, Mom"
Jun put the phone on the bedside table and plopped himself onto the bed.
'Man, what a tiring day. And what is Mom even thinking?'
But the young man knew exactly what his Mom was thinking, for she was married to her high school teacher - his Dad. They started dating some years after she graduated since running into each other again at the high school reunion, but nevertheless, it was an embarrassing story that he never wanted anyone to find out, precisely because he became a teacher himself now.
Then Jun looked back on his day. It wasn't spectacular - well, it was, in some ways - but he was content with how things went. His students seemed to be generally OK, with no obvious troublemakers, and as expected of the students from a prestigious school, they generally seemed to be studious types. The way they reacted in his English class was also as expected. It was his job to instill some passion into them, or at least to make them realize that there is joy to be found in literature and media analysis.
That helped Jun recover some energy and being a man of action, he got up from his bed immediately and sat at his desk turning on his PC to prepare for the future lessons, which put him in a good mood.
The only annoyance was that his concentration was periodically broken by the image of the Royal Lunch Box engraved in his head now.