Nae Chingu (My Friends) Chapter Sixteen

Nae Chingu (My Friends)

Chapter Sixteen

The next couple of days flew by quickly; I felt like I blinked and already it was the end of the school day on Wednesday. Where had the time gone? I packed my backpack and headed straight out the door without looking back. I had a lot of homework I needed to finish before I could go to bed and I needed to get to bed early because tonight was my first day on the job. I had just gotten down the stairs to the main floor when someone yelled my name. It was Annabeth and she was calling for me from the top of the stairs with a wide smile on her face.

I liked Annabeth, I really did. To a certain extent she reminded me a bit of Mae Ri--the life a the party kind of personality--but sometimes, she was just too happy to be around. It seemed she was always in a good mood, she was always peppy, happy-go-lucky, life was good for her and I hated it.

Nevertheless, I headed back up the stairs in her direction anyway..

    "Derek said you were coming to our study session today, I figure we could walk together," Annabeth told me.

Crap, that's right. I had said I would come today, I winced inwardly. Too late to back out now, I guess and resigned myself to my fate. At least I'd get homework done, I thought. "Awesome, I'll follow you." I kept my arms tight to my sides whenever I was near Annabeth, she had a bad habit of wanting to link arms whenever she was walking with someone. That was one thing I could say about Mae Ri; Mae Ri might be overly zealous when it came to her friends but she was never ridiculously touchy-feely and it made me miss her all the more.

Annabeth led the way to a classroom that, if the boxes and dust were anything to go by, looked abandoned. Light streamed through the windows and made the otherwise depressing room look somewhat less dreary but of all the classrooms to be studying in, this is the one they'd chose?

    "Hey guys, I brought Lily," Annabeth announced as soon as we stepped into the room

I was shocked to see how many people actually took part in this study group. There had to have been more than fifteen people here, I thought as I started counting heads. 18 to be exact. I had envisioned a group of maybe seven or eight but eighteen? And they were all students that were part of the program, did these guys never hang out with regular students?

    "Hey, Lily," a few people I recognized from the dorm said but otherwise I mostly just got curious glances.

Derek and Brian were already there sitting huddled over a book they were sharing, Derek waved earnestly while Brian just nodded his head in greeting before giving his attention back to the book.

    "Hey," I waved awkwardly, wishing all the more I'd been able to back out.

    "Come sit over here," Annabeth patted the floor next to where she was sitting. Only a few people actually used the rickety looking desks that the room had, otherwise most of everyone were either sitting on the floor with books in their laps or laying on the floor with the books in front of them.

I sat down next to her but didn't move to take out my books; I was too busy watching what everyone else was doing. I just observed the atmosphere for a few minutes and found it relatively pleasant. Once in a while someone would ask out a question and someone else would give an answer but mostly the room was quiet and everyone was busy doing their own homework.

Almost a full ten minutes after I arrived, I finally pulled out my books and laid down comfortably on the floor to start my own homework but I didn't get very far before Annabeth grumbled in frustration next to me. "What's up?"

    "It's nothing," she looked at me with a smile that was a little strained at the corners.

    "Maybe I can help, what is it?" I asked again wondering what could have possibly cracked her ever-so-happy mood.

    "I just--ugh, I don't know how you did it," she exclaimed with a loud sigh and pushed her book over to me. She must have been working on the Korean homework Mr. Do had assigned us today--an assignment I was going to put off until last because I knew it'd be the easiest homework for me. "I can learn the individual words but putting them together to form a sentence is probably the hardest thing I've ever had to do!"

    "Believe it or not, it was for me too, don't worry," I told her and looked at some of the sample sentences the book offered. "Well first off, just remember that the sentences they use in these books are a bit over the top--no Korean ever speaks this--" I searched for the right word. "--precisely."

    "What do you mean," she asked me with genuine confusion.

    "Well, no sentence structure ever looks the same in Korean. With the amount of suffixes and prefixes in the Korean language, it is never a sure bet as to what will come out of the mouth. Actually, Koreans tend to omit of lot of information when speaking to each other because the information isn't required. So very rarely will you hear sentences structured like this."

    "Okay," she nodded like she understood but her tone said otherwise.

    "Okay, so as an example, in English, 'Sa-gwahn-neun ppal-gan-saeg' would be translated to "The apple is red" or "Apples are red" but in Korean is just means "Apple red". It's a statement of fact. Actually, the word "saeg" literally means color. So "ppal-gan" means..." I let it dangle.

    "Red," she said hesitantly.

    "Yup," I nodded. "And 'neun' is just a topic indicator. Ah," I thought of a better way of phrasing it. "It indicates that the apple is the subject of the sentence, it's what you're talking about. So 'sa-gwahn'  means apple, well actually," I backtracked. I knew I was making a complicated concept more complicated but I had the sudden urge to explain. "It could mean 'apology' too, which happens a lot in Korean. A lot of words sound exactly the same which is why you have to listen to the whole sentence. Anyway," I waved the air in front of my face in order to get back on topic. "so 'sa-gwahn neun', apple plus the topic particle 'neun' combined with 'ppal-gan' literally means 'apple red', the 'saeg', which indicates the color red as opposed to, lets say, a red 'dress'. This is what turns the English translation into 'apples are red'."

There was a moment of pause while Annabeth digested the information before she nodded once again and said, "Okay, I'm starting to get it."

    "They don't have words for 'the' or 'is', so when translations from Korean to English happen, those words have to be placed there in order for it to make sense to us. Do you get what I'm saying now?" She nodded. "So don't beat yourself up for having a hard time putting words together. It's different when you're actually speaking to a Korean and can hear how they put words together."

    "So how did you do it," she asked me curiously.

I thought about it for a moment. "Well, when I came to Korea I didn't have a program like this to fall back on. It was sink or swim," I told her honestly. "It's nice that you've got people," I gestured around and realized that almost everyone was looking at me. "--What?"

    "Nothing, we're just listening," Derek said while some of the students pretended like they hadn't been eavesdropping on our conversation.

    "It's weird because it's like you're from here except you aren't," Annabeth said although I felt like she was stating an obvious fact. "I mean, it's just nice to have insider information without feeling like you look down on us."

    "Look...down...on you, what do you mean?" I asked.

    "Well, it's hard to talk to the students here, you know," another girl I didn't know said.

    "Have you tried," I asked.

    "It's hard when you don't know the language," someone else said.

I understood what they were trying to tell me; they were scared to ask anyone for helping because they feared getting laughed at or rejected. I knew the feeling, probably better than most but I couldn't help feeling a little bit better about my own personal circumstances. I hadn't been so lucky as these students who had others who spoke their language to help support them. I'd been virtually alone; my mother hadn't been here long enough to help me learn anything about Korea and my dad had strictly wanted to keep it American inside the apartment so everything I'd learned had come from Jong Hwa or Mae Ri. Heck, even Ji Soo had helped a little. In some ways these students had been luckier than I but in others, I'd definitely gotten the better part of the deal.

    "Well, do any of you have questions," I asked tentatively, not expecting anyone to actually ask me anything. I was wrong, almost immediately I was accosted with questions about the Korean culture and language, I could hardly keep up with my answers.

    "What's with the whole "hyung"-"oppa" thing," a girl asked me a little while later, I think her name was Chelsea.

    "It's all part of the hierarchy, in Korea there is an order to everything and there are levels, these titles are all a part of that," I told them.

    "What do they mean," Chelsea asked.

    "Well, younger males call older males "Hyung" as a sign of respect--it's an indicator of their age. In Korean society, there are roles; elders help guide their juniors--sunbae's and hubae's--while the juniors show respect to their elders so 'hyung' really just shows a hubae acknowledging his place in the relationship," I told them. "It's the same for "oppa" just for girls addressing older males," I tried to keep it simple but that was the difficult in the Korean culture, one thing was always connected to someone else, there was a reason for everything, I'd learned.

It continued on like this until someone noted the time and we all had to rush to pack our bags to make it to the last pick-up bus that would take us to the dorms. There was a lot of chatter about the Korean culture when we all climbed the steps to board the bus and I couldn't help but feel a little excited that I'd been able to help someone else. Instead of being the one that didn't know anything, I had now become the knowledgeable and the idea made me feel good.

My happiness was short lived when we got back to the dorms and I realized tonight was my first night of work. I had to give Annabeth a quick goodbye so I could head up to my room to get my homework done as fast as possible. Although I got through most of it within a couple hours, Math always seemed to elude me, at least without the assistance of someone else. ...And that someone else was no longer by my side. I pulled out my phone and debated if I was really going to send a message to Jong Hwa in order to get help with my math homework.

We hadn't had any communication since the last time we were together. I'd pulled out my phone several times to text him but I'd resisted because I needed to get used to not having him around. That would make his eventual departure easier. Mae Ri, on the other than, had texted me several times throughout the day for the past two days. I'd texted her back when I could but Jong Hwa, so far, had been utterly silent.

It was because of that silence that I decided to not ask him for help and I put my phone away. I glanced at Emily's alarm clock and noted that is was already well past dinner time and I hadn't eaten anything since lunch. My stomach gurgled loudly but I ignored it. I needed to get to sleep and set my alarm for 2:30 so I could get a few hours of sleep before having to be at work.

I turned the light off at my desk and made my way to the closet where I'd hung my jacket. I still hadn't been able to convince myself that I needed bed sheets so I continued to sleep in my jacket, sweats and slippers. I knew eventually I'd have to break down to get them but I wanted to save my money where I could and right now, bed sheets were not an expense I could afford. I wrapped my jeans up in a shirt again and climbed the step ladder.

Because I was so used to falling asleep later a night, it was hard for me to sleep so early which is probably what accounted for me feeling miserably tired the next morning when my alarm went off at 2:30. Emily grumbled loudly but turned over and fell back asleep as soon as I shut off the alarm. Even though every fiber of my being wanted to stay in bed, I needed the job so I dragged myself out of bed anyway. I changed into my jeans and a plain white t-shirt and packed my school uniform into my backpack before quietly leaving the room. The bright, fluorescent lights in the hallway nearly blinded me as I made my way to the stairs and down to the common area.

As soon as I stepped outside the first door I was stopped by the security guy and I was surprised to find out he was Korean.

    "Omo, where are you going," He asked me in severely broken English so I decided to just respond in Korean.

    "I work in the mornings," I told him.

    "You need to have a special waiver form in order to leave the dormitories this early in the morning," he told me.

    "Oh," I hadn't known that, well now what the heck was I gonna do? "Can you let me go for today and I will call Chan Min about the waiver," I asked him with pleading eyes. "It's just, I really need the job."

He hesitated for a moment, not sure what would get him into trouble but eventually he nodded, "Just for today."

I bowed and thanked him before I headed out into the cold, March morning. I didn't know when Spring was finally going to come to Korea but it couldn't come soon enough, I thought as I bit down on my lip to avoid shivering. I fast-walked the eight blocks and was almost out of breath when I finally reached the club. I entered the passcode and introduced myself to the over-night security guy. He seemed nice and showed me where I could find the cleaning supplies before leaving me to my work.

***

The club had two floors; upstairs held the karaoke rooms and downstairs was where the bar was located. I couldn't tell which floor was the worse to clean up. Downstairs, probably, I decided since there were no walls to keep the mess enclosed.

After nearly three hours of sweaty, grueling work, I finished my work day by cleaning the bathrooms. I checked back in with the security officer and he ran through the checklist before giving me the thumbs up which left me with about thirty minutes before the buses would arrive. I used that time to wash up in the bathroom at the club before heading out.

I arrived ten minutes before the bus got there and I silently patted myself on the back. That wasn't so bad, I thought. I even felt somewhat refreshed after working so much before school, I didn't feel tired at all.

Of course, that was before I reached third period and nearly slammed my forehead onto my desk after almost falling asleep. The student next to me must have saw me struggling because she asked me if I was ok when the teacher's back was turned.

    "Gwanchana," I whispered back and hoped I was telling the truth. I had to keep shifting in my desk to keep myself awake but no one was more happy than I was when the lunch bell rang. My stomach had been gurgling since the first hour as if to remind me that I hadn't had dinner or breakfast. Not that I needed the reminder, I thought.

Which is how I found myself arm-in-arm with Annabeth walking at a clipped pace to the lunchroom. Once I'd gotten through the lunch line and sat down, I didn't even wait for the others before I started shoveling rice into my mouth.

    "You're a hungry little lass today, aren't'cha?" Brian asked a few moments later while he openly stared at me. His fork dangling in his hand.

    "Hmm," was all I said as I continued to eat quickly.

    "You do realize we have a total of thirty minutes to eat, there's no rush," Brian said teasingly as he finally started on his own food.

    "So, whats up," Derek asked as he carefully chewed his food.

    "Nothing, I was just hungry," I began to feel a little self conscious. I had just piled a whole bunch of food into my face like Ms. Piggy, I thought silently.

    "I didn't see you at dinner last night," Derek hinted once again. "Or at breakfast this morning," he finished.

I decided that actively ignoring him was my only way out of this situation, "Hmm, hey Annabeth, did you ever figure out your Korean homework," I asked her and only felt a little guilty about using her. I knew she'd perk up and ramble on about her homework which would effectively shut Derek up and I was right, it was a useful strategy.

She kept talking until it was time to get back to class and for once, I didn't mind her cheerful happiness.

***

Because there was no study hall after school I snagged a spot on the first pick-up bus and headed back to the dorms after school. During the ride I checked my phone for new messages and found five new messages from Mae Ri alone.

    "Aish, Mae Ri-ya," I chided and read each one thoroughly. She wanted to come by the dorms to see me after school today but I quickly sent a reply saying I had too much homework but that she could come by tomorrow. That would work because I'd have the whole weekend to do my homework. Tonight I needed to do the minimal amount of homework and get some sleep.

She sent back a cheery response--I could tell by the smiling cat emoticon she used--and I put my phone away. I just wanted to go home and sleep, I was so tired. I leaned my head up against the window of the bus and closed my eyes.

The next thing I knew Derek was sitting in the spot in front of me, staring. "Kkamjjakiya," I jumped back as far as the seat would allow.

    "Sorry, sorry," Derek raised his hands. "I tried to wake you up by calling your name, then I was going to shake you but," he made an "X" with his fingers and reminded me that I'd told him to never touch me. I had to give him kudos for following orders, even to such extremes as this.

    "No, it's fine. Look, forget what I said the other day, I don't like being manhandled, that's all," I told him and he looked confused. "Just don't, you know, jerk me around abruptly."

He nodded his head fervently, "You got it."

I looked around and realized the bus had stopped moving, "Are-are we at the dorms," I asked.

    "Yup, got here about ten minutes ago, I was trying to wake you up to tell you we were here," Derek told me.

    "Oh, thank you," I picked up my backpack and slid out of the seat. Derek followed me off the bus and walked side by side with me towards the dorms.

    "So, ah, you know, I meant to apologize for walking in on you and your, ah, friend the other night," Derek said with a lot of hesitation.

    "It's ok," was what I settled on. He chuckled nervously, waiting for more of a response but I had none to give him.

    "So, is he-is he your boyfriend," Derek asked.

We had reached the front entrance to the dorms when I stopped to consider his question and how much information I was willing to share. I guess I had nothing to lose by being honest and saying we were best friends. However, something didn't feel right about making it look like Jong Hwa was only a good friend when he was so much more than that. "He's--someone I'm interested in."

    "So you two aren't dating," he questioned.

    "It's complicated," I told him.

    "Complicated how," He kept pushing for an answer.

    "Why do you want to know," I asked, letting my annoyance leak through my voice. Couldn't he take a hint?

    "Because I don't want to be attracted to another man's girl," he said exasperatedly.

I had been taken by complete surprise and I was unsure of what to say to that. "Are-are you always this honest" is what I settled on.

    "I try to be," he sighed and ran a hand through his hair. I had to look away because it reminded me so much of Jong Hwa. "I didn't mean to make things uncomfortable, but I've been thinking about that moment...and," he took  deep breath. "Nevermind, I'm sorry I brought it up," he pulled open the door as if to leave but I stopped him.

    "He isn't my boyfriend," I told him quickly. "He--I love him," saying the words to someone who wasn't Jong Hwa hurt more than I thought it would. "I love him, a lot actually, but it's complicated right now."

    "Because you switched schools," Derek asked as he let the door slide shut.

    "No, because--look, he's a good guy, he's kind and gentle, he's honest and hardworking," I hadn't meant to spill everything to Derek and yet here it was all coming out of my mouth. "He's the kind of guy every girl wants as her boyfriend but," how could I explain so he'd understand. "I'm not--he doesn't love me, I mean, not like that anyway."

    "Didn't look that way the other night," Derek said quietly. He was right and deep down, I knew he was right but I had spent the last three days telling myself that what had happened in the front foyer didn't mean anything and I had done all I could to make that memory seem less important. It wasn't working very well, but I was trying.

    "Maybe not but all the same, we're just friends," I said.

    "So I'm confused, are you telling me it's okay for me to like you or are you telling me you're unavailable," he asked me, point blank.

I didn't want to hurt this man's feelings but I also didn't want to lead him on. "I'm unavailable." I didn't apologize because I wasn't sorry and I didn't belittle either of us by saying 'we can still be friends'. Yeah, there was no way around this ensuing awkwardness that was bound to sprout up between us. Why couldn't he have just not said anything at all?

    "I"m glad we got that all cleared up," he said and nodded briskly and opened the door. "Let's go in, it's cold out here."

I nodded and followed him in, I just needed to escape to my bedroom as soon as possible.

    "By the way, when does spring usually hit Korea, 'cause man, I really want to throw around a baseball," Derek said and effectively broke the awkwardness all on his own.

We spent another ten minutes chatting about the normal weather patterns in Korea before I finally disengaged to go to my room. He seemed absolutely normal, despite our previous conversation and I thought, maybe things wouldn't be so uncomfortable after all. I could pretend like that conversation never happened.

When I reached my room, I felt lighter somehow and the feeling wasn't entirely unpleasant. I pulled out my backpack and attacked my homework with more motivation than I'd had previously. It wasn't until almost an hour later when I remembered that I needed to get a waiver from Chan Min.

    "Aish," I muttered as I searched for my phone and started to put in the passcode that when remembered that I didn't have service. "Aish," I said more loudly as I headed for the door. I was heading for the front desk when I passed by Brian in the stairway. "Hey, Brian could I--" I'd been going down the stairs at such a fast pace that I missed the fact that Brian had actually been using his phone.  "Oh, sorry, never--"

    "Baby, hold on," Brian said into the phone and put his hand over the receiver. "What'd you need," he asked me.

    "I was going to ask to use your phone but you're on it," I told him and waved off my request.

    "One sec," he said before moving his hand away from the phone. "Baby, go take your shower and call me back afterwards." He was silent as he listened to whoever 'Baby' was. "Nah, it's okay. Okay, love you too." He hung up the phone and passed it to me.

    "You didn't have to do that," I said humbly.

    "Nah, she had to get ready for school anyway, she just had a late start this morning," he explained.

    "I'll just be a minute, I promise," I held up one finger for emphasis before taking the phone and dialing Chan Min's number. I prayed he was still in his office. He wasn't, the phone kicked me to the front desk where the receptionist answer the call.

    "Is-is Soo Chan Min-ssi still in the office," I asked her.

    "Aniyo," she said in clipped tones and I envisioned the snarky-looking receptionist that sometimes manned the front desk. "He's left for the day, would you like to leave a message?"

    "Um, do-do you have his cellphone number by chance, it's kind of an emergency," I said.

There was a pause on the other line before she responded, "Unfortunately I can't give out personal numbers, what kind of an emergency is it, I could connect you to the Director."

I had an intense internal debate on whether I wanted to ask this kind of a favor from the Director himself but I had no other choice otherwise I'd miss work tomorrow and I would lose the job. I was already starting to feel the panic rising in my chest. I squeezed my eyes shut to try and control the urge to hyperventilate. "Yes, please."

    "One moment," she said and a moment later a piano started playing in the background.

Oh please, oh please, I begged to whatever higher power was listening.

    "This is the Director speaking," the Director said after the piano cut out.

    "Oh, Annyeonghaseyo," I squeaked into the phone, I was so nervous. "Jeosonghaeyo, It's Lily Smith," I was even more scared of asking for a favor from him than I was of Chan Min, what had I been thinking when I asked to be transferred to him?

    "Oh. The receptionist said it was an emergency, what's going on," he asked but not like he was mad. He actually sounded worried.

    "It's not an, I mean, it kind of is, but--" my words came out jumbled.

    "Slow down, Lily," he said in a soothing voice and I took a deep breath.

    "I have a job but it requires that I leave earlier than allowed in the morning, so I need--"

    "A waiver," he finished for me when I stopped to take another deep breath.

    "Yes, sir," I confirmed.

    "When do you need it by," he asked gently into the phone.

    "Tomorrow morning, I know it's such short notice but I was caught doing homework and I--"

    "It's okay, it's okay, I'll have one faxed over," he said.

    "Kamsahamnida, jeongmal kamsahamnida," I was so relieved I actually bowed before I remembered that he couldn't see it.

    "Cheonmaneyo*," he said. "Hey, Lily, let's get together sometime next week."

And all my happiness evaporated in that moment. Why would he want to meet up with me? This whole call had been a mistake, it didn't matter if I didn't have a job if I was kicked out of the program. There went school, college, everything, I thought to myself and felt all the panic drain out of me as depression set in. The only reason he'd be calling me in to meet with him is if I'd made a fatal mistake in this phone call.

    "You still there," he asked and there was a muffled sound on the other side.

    "Yes," I reassured him.

    "So you'll come see me next week," he asked again.

    "Yes, sir," and we said our goodbyes and hung up. I handed the phone back to Brian and thanked him for letting me use it.

    "What was all that about," he asked as he pocketed the phone.

    "It's nothing," I told him as I started back up the stairs.

    "Well, it's obviously something," he said. "Hey, wait" Brian grabbed a hold of my wrist and effectively cut off my ascent. "What happened/"

    "It's none of your business," I shouted and yanked my wrist out of his hand. "It's-it's none of your concern," I repeated in a much milder tone.

    "You know, Lily, we're all going through the same stuff here," Brian gestured towards the common room door.

    "I doubt that Brian," I rolled my eyes and started back up the stairs.

    "We're all in a different country," he said through clenched teeth. "We all feel alone, it's an adjustment for all of us but we don't have to go through it alone, and neither do you. I know you want to be 'mysterious' but cut yourself a little slack. It might make the adjustments easier," he finished with a long sigh.

I had the sudden urge to scream but I refrained, just barely. "You don't know anything about my situation, I'm not like you guys. I was never like you guys, so don't force us all into the same category. It's an adjustment?"  I laughed condescendingly and took one step back down. "My father left me here! With nothing! No money, no clothes, I didn't even have a toothbrush! I had a pair of sweats in my backpack and what amounts to twenty dollars in my hand. We are not the same."

    "Lily--"

    "No, you want to know what we have in common? The only thing we have in common is that we are both in this program. That's it and this conversation is done." I waited to see if he'd say anything else and he looked like he was going to but his phone went off in his pocket. "It's probably your girlfriend, you should pick up."

I didn't wait around to see if he'd actually pick up his phone or not because I quickly ascending the stairs and was out of sight within moments. I locked myself in the dark room where I could breath a little. I hadn't meant to explode on Brian, and I also hadn't meant to give away so much information about myself. Knowing his big mouth, he'd probably tell the whole common room about the conversation he'd just had with the 'mysterious' newbie and I'd have to face all of them tomorrow.

I slapped myself on the forehead, how could I have been so thoughtless? I went back to my desk and packed up all my books and put my uniform in the backpack as well. It was only a little after five but I got ready for bed anyway. I didn't want to see anyone or talk to anyone for the rest of the night, I just wanted to escape into sleep.

A little while later the sound of knocking broke me out of my dreamless sleep but I ignored it. It was either for Emily and she wasn't here or it was someone wanting to talk to me and I didn't want to talk to anyone.

    "Lily, are you in there?" I heard Derek ask through the door. Yeah, I definitely didn't want to talk to him. I stayed  perfectly still until he left a few minutes later.

***

Derek...

Lily hadn't been at dinner tonight either, I thought to myself. Maybe she'd gotten so distracted by her homework that she'd forgotten when it was served. I snagged a dinner bun, a small milk carton and an apple to bring to her. It wasn't the best meal but it was all I could carry in my hands.

    "Yo, where you going with that," Brian called from the table he was sitting at with a few of the other students.

    "Ah, Lily didn't come for dinner and I thought she might be hungry," I said. I expected Brian to make some sort of innuendo but he didn't.

    "Ah, I see," Brian said. "Make sure she eats, eh?"

    "I'll try, I guess we'll see," I said. Brian seemed out of character tonight, I wondered if something happen with his girlfriend back home. I know he'd left on tense circumstances, maybe they'd broken up, I wondered.

I left the cafeteria and made my way up to Lily's room, I didn't see any light coming from under the door but I knocked anyway. After almost five minutes, I gave up. She was either already asleep or not even in her room. I debated on whether or not to leave the food lying outside her door but decided against it, no one wanted to eat an apple or a bun after it'd been sitting on the floor. There was also no guarantee that she'd come out tonight at all and see it.

But...what the hell was I gonna do with a bun, an apple and a carton of milk?

To Be Continued...

***

*Cheonmaneyo: "No problem" of "You're Welcome"

Nae Chingu (My Friends) Chapter Fifteen

Nae Chingu (My Friends)

Chapter Fifteen

Chan Min insisted on buying my uniform himself rather than letting me use what little allowance I was afforded on the uniform. I had to admit, I was grateful because the price of the uniform would have eaten all but a few won from my allowance and I would have been stuck with nothing until next month. That’s if I couldn’t find a job first, I told myself. I still held hope that someone would hire me but I needed to keep looking. Chan Min wanted to take me around to buy more stuff but I insisted that I needed to get back to the dorms and he reluctantly drove me back.

    “If you need anything, you will call me,” Chan Min said sternly which, admittedly, wasn’t very frightening, what with his glasses being slightly askew, but I gave him kudos for trying. The glasses reminded me of Jong Hwa and I idly wondered what he was doing. Had he left Ji Soo's house yet and gone home? Not for the first time I wished my father hadn't turned my phone off. Had it been on, I don't know if I would have called Jong Hwa but I knew that I wanted too.

I had been mean this morning by not leaving him a note or saying goodbye in person. At the time it had seemed like a good idea, a clean split if you will, after the last two terrible days but now I was only filled with regret. So much regret, I thought, as it settled like a lump in my throat.

    "Lily," Chan Min said my name questioningly and I was pulled back to reality. "Are you okay?"

    “Of course,” I said even though I knew it was a blatant lie. I had asked for help today because it was a matter of survival and I would most likely ask for help again under the same condition but as far as letting anyone get close to me any more, well...let's just say my father had killed that dream for me. 

He said goodbye and I waited until he’d driven out of sight before I headed down the street in the opposite direction than I’d taken earlier. I’d seen my options on the east side of the dorms but now I needed to scope the west side. As long as it was within walking distance, I would pretty much accept any job at this point, that’s how desperate I was. I was also hoping I could find a cellular store down this way as well.

It was only after two hours of searching that I realized how dismal my options truly were. I found a delivery place that was hiring but nothing else. I hadn't taken note of the neighborhood when I first arrived but now I had time to observe my surrounding streets and it was pretty. I assumed that when my mother talked about growing up in the 'ghetto' of Minnesota that it looked a lot like this. Of course, my idea of a ghetto was far different considering I'd had most of my education in Germany and there, well, history had a different description of the word.

The neighborhood looked like it was borderline impoverish with buildings that looked bleak and dirty. It bustled with the movement of people but there was a lot of idle people-watching from some very sketchy looking characters. Of course it was Sunday so most people didn't have to be at work so that might account for the lack of purpose in most people's movement but it still had made me uncomfortable. At least on the east side of town it hadn't been so bad or so...creepy. I was really questioning whether I wanted that delivery job or not.

I walked back towards the dorms and by now it was already well past sundown and I was almost sure I had missed dinner so I stopped at a nearby gas station to pick up a couple snacks. I hadn’t noticed how hungry I was until I bit into the red bean bun I bought. Normally I wasn’t a huge fan of red beans but it tasted delicious today and it was gone within seconds. I took out my list of priorities and crossed off the few I’d been able to get today and decided I would run past the two places that were hiring tomorrow to see if one of them would give me a job. Of course, that would be after school, I sighed. I may not have switched countries this time but once again I was starting at a new school and dreaded it just the same.

I walked back to the dorms and bypassed everyone in lieu of getting to my room as soon as possible. I opened the door to my room and noticed it was empty, which I silently thanked the Gods for. I took the alone time to change back into my gym clothes and wrapped my jeans into my t-shirt and threw it on top of my bunk as a makeshift pillow since I denied the bed sheets Chan Min had suggested buying earlier. I put my jacket back on and carefully climbed the shaky stepladder in my slippers and curled up for the night.

I hadn’t realized I was asleep until I was woken up by the whispered mutterings of my roommate.

    “No, it’s weird. She doesn’t even have a blanket. She has her backpack and as far as I can see, that’s it,” Emily loudly whispered into her cellphone. She waited to hear the reply from whoever she was talking to on the other side of the line. “No, I didn’t ask her, why would I?” More silence, “Who cares?”

    “I can hear you, you know,” I muttered.

    “Look Jaina, I gotta go,” she said and hung up. “I thought you were sleeping.”

    “Kind of hard with you yapping away,” I said and was totally okay with how rude I sounded.

    “Excuse me,” she sounded affronted.

    “I don’t care if you talk about me, but at least have the decency to leave the room first,” I told her.

    “Whatever,” she responded and all I could do was roll my eyes. Yeah, because that was a staggeringly good response, I thought. It was hard to fall asleep after that but eventually, after Emily went to bed herself, I was finally able to sleep.

***

I felt like I’d only been asleep for a few minutes when Emily’s alarm went off in the morning and she grumbled as she descended to the ground level. She opened her small closet door and took out what looked to be a basket and left the room. Figuring she was going to shower, I took the time to descend and change into the uniform. I had to admit, these uniforms were much better than my old ones because at least they weren't tan. They were dark blue with a white border on the lapels. SFLHS hadn't required a tie or bow for the girls but this school did and because I hated the idea of something around my neck, I opted for a loose fitting tie style rather than a bow. The skirt hung a little longer on the legs and was pleated. The only bad part was I no longer had any nylons to go with the uniform so instead I had to bare-leg it. I mentally added nylons to my list of priorities. I checked my watch and realize I still had a little over an hour before the bus would be downstairs to pick us all up.

I  used that time to get breakfast and found it mostly empty of people. There were a few people sitting at one of the tables but I paid them no attention as I picked up a tray. The buffet offered things like eggs, bacon, and limpy looking pancakes, all of which I ignored in lieu of oatmeal and an apple. I snagged a small carton of orange juice and situated myself at the back of the cafeteria and away from everyone else.

I was about halfway through my oatmeal when a tray clattered to the table in front of me and I was broken out of my peaceful reverie. I glanced up only to find Brian sitting down in front of me.

    “Morning, Newbie,” he smiled and I barely refrained from cringing. I could see it now, by the end of the day everyone would be calling me Newbie. “Why are you sitting over here,” he asked me.

Because I’d like to be alone, I thought but said “No reason.”

    “You aren’t one of those girls are you,” he asked me with a cocked eyebrow as he stuffed a whole piece of bacon into his mouth.

    “’Those’ girls?” I regretted the question as soon as it was out of my mouth.

    “You know, loner types, the mysterious girl that everyone wonders about,” he wiggled his fingers when he said ‘mysterious’ and I couldn’t hold back my annoyance.

    “You mean the type that like to be left alone,” I asked.

    “Is he bothering you,” a newcomer asked and I looked over Brian’s shoulder to see Derek coming up from the buffet line.

This morning just got better and better, I thought bleakly to myself.

    “Nah, just getting to know the Newbie,” Brian said between bites of pancake and bacon.

    “Don’t call her that,” Derek scolded lightly.

    “Thank you,” I said in his direction and went back to eating. Aside from getting up and walking away from these two and leaving the cafeteria entirely, I wasn’t going to be able to avoid the stares that were already being directed my way from the other table of students so I might as well ride it out until I was done eating. Just because they were sitting here didn’t mean I had to talk, I told myself.

    “You ready for your first day,” Derek asked me while he started eating his own plate of food.

Of course, if I was asked a direct question, it would only be rude of me not to answer and even though I didn’t want to interact with these people, I didn’t want to be overtly rude either so I answered his question, “Sure.”

    “You don’t sound all that excited,” Brian commented.

    “It’s not my first time at a new school, or my second, or third for that matter. The excitement tends to lessen as times goes on,” I responded blandly and spooned the last bit of oatmeal into my mouth.

    “Yeah but you’re in a different country, doesn’t that make you nervous,” Derek asked.

    “Like I said yesterday,” I stood up, prepared to take my leave. “I’ve been living in Korea for three years. I think my first day will be infinitely less nerve-wracking than yours was,” out of habit I nodded my head in their direction and left the table. I’ll finish my apple in the commons area, I decided.

No one bothered me after that and I was able to board the bus in peace, except for the background noise. I would have given anything to have my iPod at the moment just to—wait a minute, I thought. I desperately grabbed at my backpack and opened the small pocket on the side. I wanted to cry as soon as I saw the white cord of the headphones, it was the best thing that had happened to me in as many days. I pulled out the iPod and slipped the ear buds in my ears. The sound of VIXX in my ears almost brought another wave of tears, I could drown everyone out now, or at least until my battery died, I remembered. My iPod cord had been plugged into my laptop back at the apartment which had assumingly been packed up and sent back to the States with my father. Well, that was great, I thought. I’d just have to pick up another one.

The bus ride was short, thankfully, and I was halfway to the front entrance when someone grabbed my elbow and swung me around hard enough to dislodge the earbuds from my ears and I took a quick step back from whoever had done it.

    “Don’t,” I said loudly enough for the people near me to look in my direction. Derek was standing opposite of me looking confused. “Don’t ever touch me again.”

    “I’m-I’m sorry, I just—“ he lowered his hand and did truly look sorry. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. “I needed to tell you that you need to go to the Administration’s Office before you come to class. I forgot to tell you that yesterday,” he finished lamely.

    “Thank you,” I said tensely and walked away from him and towards the entrance.

Unlike the first time I transferred to a Korean school, I no longer had problems reading the placards and found the Admin’s office fairly quickly. The woman registered my file, took a photo for my student I.D., walked me to the library to pick up my required text books and escorted me to class. When she knocked on the door, I prepared to give another introductory speech, one that would be better than my last attempt.

    “Students, this is our new student, Ms. Lily Smith,” The teacher said in perfect English despite her relatively thick accent. “Lily, won’t don’t you tell us a little about yourself.”

Here goes nothing, I thought. “Annyeonghaseyo Yeoreobun, Jeoneun Ril-Li-imnida,” I spoke the rest of my introduction in Korean and watched as the faces changed from idly curiosity to amazement as I spoke in clear and concise Korean. "I moved to Korea almost four years ago. I transferred here from Seoul Foreign Language High School and my only goal is to finish high school in Korea without incident. Thank you."

    The teacher let out a nervous chuckle, "Well, that is impressive, Lily but," she awkwardly patted my shoulder. "You might you want repeat that all in English. This classroom is English oriented so Korean is rarely used and only during the Korean teaching lesson."

Oh. I refrained from sighing and repeated everything I'd said in English. Here I'd been thinking I could avoid any awkwardness and not only had I just walked into an already awkward situation but then I'd compiled it by trying to avoid it. After I'd finished, the teacher ushered me to a desk that was near the back and effectively moved on with her lesson plan. 

For the first time since I’d left Ji Soo’s yesterday, I missed my friends. I could picture Mae Ri, clear as day, sitting in front of me twisting the end of her hair around her finger as she listened to the teacher talk. I could only imagine what her outfit looked like today. Ji Soo would be sitting in his classroom by now doing only God knew what. And Jong Hwa…if I closed my eyes, I could see him sitting at his desk looking intently at the teacher and taking in every word that the teacher spoke. Every once in a awhile he’d look down to hash out a few notes but then he’d be back to focusing on the teacher.

I didn’t notice I wasn’t paying attention until everyone began pulling out books from their backpacks and I had no idea what the teacher had said. I paid attention from that moment on and didn’t think about my friends after that. They were off doing their own thing at their own school and I was here and I couldn’t afford to waste time not paying attention, not when my entire livelihood was riding on my academic success.

***

The morning classes breezed by and I was happy to find out that my expensive education at SFLHS had paid off. We had been much farther ahead and although I felt like my final semester of high school would be a breeze, I didn’t want to get too cocky and let down my guard.

When the class was dismissed for lunch, I opted to head somewhere quiet rather than face my peer’s scrutiny. It seemed I wasn’t so lucky when Brian stopped me in the hallway, standing next to him was Derek and another girl I hadn’t met yet. She looked at me curiously. She had short brown hair that some how managed to be messy and cute at the same time. She looked rather small standing next to Brian and only reached about shoulder height. I hadn’t seen her around the dorm but then again, I hadn’t seen much of anyone really.

    “Newbie, the lunch room is over here,” he called after me when I’d gone in the opposite direction.

    “I wasn’t planning on going to the lunch room,” I said as I turned around.

    “Why not,” Derek asked, looking concerned.

    “I was attempting to be ‘mysterious’,” I put emphasis on the word and looked pointedly at Brian. There was a moments silence before Brian’s loud guffaw echoed down the hall.

    “Touché, touché,” he nodded as he said it. “Well you’re welcome to join us if you feel like not being mysterious.”

    “Duly noted,” I said.

    “You’re not even going to introduce us,” the girl said from in between the two boys. “Fine, I’ll do it myself.” She took a few steps forward and very boldly stuck her hand out for a handshake, “I’m Annabeth and you must be the new kid on the block.”

I debated weather to take her hand and opted for not being completely rude so I took it and introduced myself, “What tipped you off?”

She laughed openly,“That was quite an impressive speech you gave earlier, not that I understood a word of of the first part, mind you.” She smiled sweetly at me and let go of my hand. “You must have picked up Korean really quickly."

    “Well, like I said, I’ve been living in Korea for three years, kind of had to learn it to survive.” I informed her. She didn’t seem so bad, I thought.

    “Really,” She sounded impressed and looked back at the two boys. “Looks like I found my new language tutor,” she looked back at me and sidled up next to me. “I struggle over the littlest pronunciations but you obviously have them down pat,” she hooked her arm with mine and started walking towards the lunch room and I had no choice but to go with her. I glanced at the boys after we walked past them, hoping they’d offer me some assistance but Brian simply waved at me and Derek looked like it was better me than him.

    “Careful, she’s sneaky,” Brian whispered at me as Annabeth kept prattling on about the Korean language.

Needless to stay I spent the entire lunch period sitting next to Annabeth as she talked at me about everything she experienced since coming to Korea. Rather than finding her annoying, I found her to be a pleasant distraction from missing my friends. In between her ramblings, I tried to imagine what my friends would be doing right now. I’m sure Mae Ri was doing her own bit of rambling to Ji Soo and Jong Hwa about what Kdrama she’d seen the night before and Ji Soo and Jong Hwa would make noncommittal comments just to appease her. I smiled at the thought.

    “What,” Annabeth asked innocently.

    “It’s nothing, keep going,” I told her and she happily complied.

When lunch was over, Annabeth and I walked back to the classroom arm-in-arm which I assumed she did because she knew I'd just as soon as walk away from her than stay glued to her side as I currently was. However, her luck ran out as soon as we hit the classroom because my desk was clear across the room from hers. I disengaged from her arm as soon as I was able and took refuge at my desk until the teacher announced the start of class.

***

I had learned from my previous experiences at every school I had ever attended that there were several universal truths and one of them was this: when the school bell rang, the students all vacated their desk as soon as it was possible. It didn't matter if it was Spain, Germany or Korea, every student wanted out of the confines of school as soon as they could. I was no different, except that when the school bell rang, my first order of business wasn't to get up and leave the classroom, it was to immediately put headphones in my ears to avoid the awkward after-school-chatter. Back at SFLHS, it wasn't never an issue because I'd been with Jong Hwa, Mae Ri and Ji Soo but here was a totally different circumstance.

With the sound of Infinite's "Before the Dawn" playing in my ears, I packed up my backpack and left for the bus that would take me back to the dorms. I needed to run by the delivery place that was hiring as well as the gentleman's after hours club; I hoped one of them hired me otherwise I'd have to go farther than a mile out to find a job and that would be a lot of walking since I didn't want to use whatever money I had left stored on my bus card on anything that wasn't borderline emergent.

I didn't notice that Derek had been trying to catch my attention until he jumped in front of me. Annoyed, I pulled out my earbuds, "What?"

    "Sorry, it's just that you, um, told me not to touch you this morning and I didn't want to make you angry so," he stopped midsentence.

    "Okay," I dragged out the word indicating I was waiting for him to continue.

    "Well, we have an after school study hall, um, I was--we were wondering if you wanted to join," he asked and ran a hand through his hair. The gesture reminded me of Jong Hwa because it was his usual habit and I unconsciously softened my tone for what I said next.

    "Thank you for the offer, really, I can't," I said. "It's just that I've got these errands that absolutely need to be taken care of today. Rain check?"

    "Sure, yeah, sure," he smiled widely and nodded. "We meet Mondays and Wednesdays, just, you know, so you know," he finished.

    "Great, um, count me in," I cringed inwardly. The words had left my mouth before I could think to change them and now it was too late. Crap!

    "Awesome," he said and walked away.

 Double crap! Ugh, did I really just join a study hall group, I asked myself. Yep, I nodded, sure did.  I decided to blame Jong Hwa and his endearing mannerism. I sighed and logged it as a problem for another day.

***
Nearly two hours later, I walked out of the gentleman's club feeling like I'd finally won the lottery but only to find out that it was only for $20. The delivery place required a mode of transportation so I couldn't even apply but the gentleman's club had no such requirements. In fact, I left the building with the job but the only problem was--I had very little time to work with. The manager hired me with the understanding that I could work whenever I wanted during the day as long as I got the job done by the start of the business night. In order to do that, I'd have to work at the wee-hours of predawn since I'd be in school all day. My only saving grace was that the club was closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. That meant Wednesday through Friday I'd have to wake up around three in the morning just to clean the whole building by the time I needed to be back at the dorms to catch the bus to school.

My inner child wanted to sit on the floor and complain except I couldn't and it wouldn't help me even if I did. So instead, I walked back to my dorm and all the while making a schedule in my head. I hadn't been paying attention to anything around me until I hit the common room and heard my name shouted clear across the room.

I looked up to see the source of the voice and was nearly floored when I saw Mae Ri jump off one of the couches and come towards me. Actually, I was pretty sure my mouth had been hanging open because when Mae Ri swung her arms over my shoulders in a tight hug, her shoulder gentle nudged my mouth close. As if seeing Mae Ri wasn't astonishing enough, watching as my other two friends stroll over at a much slower pace had me looking around the room in confusion just to make sure I was, in fact, actually at my dorms.

    "Mae Ri-ya," I gentle hugged her back.

    "Bogoshipeo*," she whined into my ear and pulled back. "Jeongmal*!"

    "Na du*," Ji Soo said once he'd gotten closer and he reached out and squeezed my shoulder in true Ji Soo fashion.

I looked at Jong Hwa who nodded and quietly whispered a "Na du" as well. I couldn't take my eyes off of him, I couldn't believe he was actually standing in front of me, especially in a place as foreign as this. It had only been a day since I'd last seen him but it had felt much longer. My fingers itched to touch him but I refrained, mostly because I knew everyone else in the room was watching the four of us. I could almost feel their beady little eyes staring and it was enough for me to be very conscious of my actions.

    "Yeo-yeogiseo*?" Even though I had been speaking Korean much longer than I'd been speaking English, I still had to consciously switch back to Korean after speaking in English for 99% of my day.  "Wae*?"

This obviously had not been what Mae Ri was waiting to hear because she looked at the boys questioningly before looking back at me and said in a much less excited voice, "We missed you and wanted to see how your first day went."

    "Oh, it was-it was fine," I said and nodded somewhat encouragingly but it was clear that I'd made a mistake just by the look on their faces. "What?"

    "'It was fine'," Ji Soo repeated. "That's all you can say about it?" I think he tried to make it funny except it wasn't funny to me. In fact, this whole situation was incredibly uncomfortable which was something new for me--for us, even. I'd never been uncomfortable with them but I was completely caught off guard.

    "Well, what do you want me to say Ji Soo? It was exactly like every other first day of school I've ever experienced," I said, maybe a little too coldly because his half-smile was completely wiped off his face after I was finished talking.

    "Hey, Lily," Brian walked up to my group and nudged me on the shoulder. "Who are these guys?"

Your timing couldn't be worse, I silently shouted at him. Ugh, I so didn't need this right now. "They are my friends from Seoul Foreign Language High School, my old school," I said after a moment. "Jong Hwa, Ji Soo, and Mae Ri." I pointed to each person individually and if Brian was smart he would see the tension that was etched on all of our faces and walk away.

He wasn't smart. He smiled and said "Nice to meet you" instead. If enunciating each word loudly as if my friends were deaf wasn't bad enough, he stuck his hand out for a handshake to top it off. First off, every Korean was taught basics of English and second, shaking hands was a very western custom and although Jong Hwa shook Brian's hand out of sheer politeness, Ji Soo wasn't feeling as generous. Actually, Ji Soo just stared at it as if the very act of touching it would give him AIDs and an already awkward situation just got more awkward. Wonderful.

    "I'm sorry, Ji Soo is moody, don't take it personally," I said to Brian which earned me a surprised looked from Ji Soo at the sound of me using his name.

    "What did you tell him," Ji Soo asked quickly. When I didn't answer, he looked at Jong Hwa, "What did she say?"

Jong Hwa and I just looked at each other and just like that the tension eased. We laughed freely at Ji Soo's expense. I didn't bother to explain the situation to either Brian of Mae Ri or even fill Ji Soo in on what I'd said.

    "Sorry," I said and wiped a humor-induced tear out of my eye. "They're my friends," I reiterated to Brian just as Derek came walking up to the group. We were creating quite a stir in the common area since no one had even bothered to hide the fact that they were all staring.

    "What's goin' on over here," Derek asked with a smile as he mosied up closely next to me but with Brian on my other side, I couldn't move and had to remain wedged between the two.

    "Lily here was just introducing me to her friends," Brian informed him.

    "Oh, it's nice to meet you," Derek also held his hand for a handshake although I had to give him kudos for not raising his voice like Brian had. Jong Hwa once again shook hands but did so out of politeness, I assumed. When Derek moved to shake hands with Ji Soo, Brian slapped his hand away.

    "Don't bother with that one," he said.

I looked at Jong Hwa and we both looked at Ji Soo at the same time before breaking out into fits of laughter again.

    "Ya! What did he say," Ji Soo asked indignantly while gripped Jong Hwa's shoulder to try and shake an answer out of him.

***

It was nearing the time for the last bus when I finally said good bye to my friends. I had showed them around my dormitory but I managed to steer them clear of my room. Mae Ri had asked repeatedly to see my room but I'd always been able to distract her with something else. The last thing I needed was for them to look at the room and realize I didn't even have bed sheets, not to mention that having my friends meet the venomous Emily would only end in disaster.

I was walking them to the front of the building when Mae Ri exclaimed loudly, "Oh, I almost forgot!"

    "What," I asked as we walked through the door that separated the dormitories from the main entrance.

    "Let me see your phone," she held out her hand as if me giving her my phone was a sure thing.

Which it was, I thought to myself as I reached for my phone automatically. I didn't even know why I still had the thing considering it didn't actually work outside of a zone with wifi but I handed it to her nonetheless.

    "You have wifi here right," she asked me while clicking on the touch screen.

    "Yeah," I said as I peeked to see what she was doing.

    "I know your phone is turned off, but," she left the rest of her sentence dangle and she waited for something to download.

    "Mae Ri what are you putting on my phone," I reached to pull it out of her hands but she stepped back quickly out of reach. "Ya, Mae Ri-ya," I warned.

    "There," she said and handed me back the phone. I looked at it and all I could see was a green screen with a speech bubble with the word "Line" in it. I'd heard of it but I'd never understood the use, as far as I knew it was a messaging system and that was all.

    "Mae Ri, I can't use my phone, it's disconnected," I told her but she kept smiling.

    "I know, but Line lets you use the text messaging feature as long as you have wifi," she said excitedly. "As long as the other person has it as well and today we all downloaded it onto our phones."

She pulled it up on her phone and showed me. I looked from her to each of the boys and they both nodded to confirm her words.

    "This way you can get a hold of us at any time," as if to prove her point she shot me a quick text with the word 'daebak*' in it. "As long as you have wifi, I mean."

My heart lurched in my chest uncomfortably and I had to rub the spot of my heart just to ease the tension, my voice sounded thick even to my own ears as I said, "Thank you."

    "No problem," she came in for a quick hug and I hugged her back graciously. "We better get going before my dad calls out the police," she joked.

    "You're right," I let her go and turned to the boys. "Make sure she gets home safe," I pointed at each of them in turn.

    "Of course," Ji Soo said and did something completely unexpected. He hugged me. In the past three years, all I'd ever gotten from Ji Soo was a shoulder nudge so to say I was completely taken aback was an understatement although I understood his reasoning as soon as he started whispering in my ear.

    "You are taking your pills, right," he whispered so only I could hear.

    "Yes," I whispered back and felt grateful that he had known I wouldn't have wanted him to ask me that in front of the other two, especially Jong Hwa.

    "Good girl," he teased and pulled back. He had such a look of concern on his face that I had to swallow hard to keep back the tears I knew wanted to spring into my eyes. He nodded at me as if he understood and patted my shoulder.

The moment was broken the second I looked at Jong Hwa though. He'd been exceptionally quiet all night but then again, it might have just been because Mae Ri had been doing most of the talking, as usual. Ji Soo must have sensed the difference in the air because he clapped Jong Hwa on the shoulder and said, "We'll head out first. See you at the bus stop." He took Mae Ri by the arm which was a good thing because she looked like she was about to protest. "Come on beautiful, let's get going."

    "But--" and they were gone.

Jong Hwa simply nodded and never took his eyes off mine. As soon as Ji Soo and Mae Ri walked through the doors we were in each other's arms. I'd wrapped my arms around Jong Hwa's waist and he wrapped an arm around my shoulders and gently held the back of my head with the other. It felt like the most natural thing in the world even though we'd never hugged like this before.

Maybe Jong Hwa and I had always been headed towards this change in our friendship but I had never even considered it a possibility. How had he become my world? And so quickly. I breathed in his clean scent and realized I didn't care how we'd gotten here as long as we'd gotten here. I buried my head further into his neck and was unwilling to let him go until I absolutely needed too. Had it really only been two weeks ago when all we'd been was friends and now it seemed like we were so much more.

    "I miss you," I said into his neck and felt him hold me tighter. "Everything seems to hard now, I can't even control my emotions, I'm mad all the time. Sometimes I just feel like falling asleep and never waking up again, it's so hard."

    "I know," he said and pulled back just enough to see my face. "I know but you'll be okay."

The tears I'd held back with Ji Soo flowed freely now, "You can't leave me, okay?" I gripped the back of his jacket, not willing to let go until he'd promised me he'd never leave my side.

    "That will never happen," he said and kissed my forehead.

Which is the exact moment that Derek walked through the door behind us. "Hey Lily, it's last--oh," he stopped talking abruptly and just stared at us.

We didn't exactly jerk back from each other but we did drop our arms and stepped back from each other. My shoes looked really interesting all of a sudden, I thought, as I picked at something on the tiled floor with my toe.

Derek cleared his throat and said in a much more subdued tone, "It's, ah, it's last call. The security guy is going to lock the door so you better come back inside."

    "Alright," I said and nodded. Derek looked at Jong Hwa once more and nodded before walking back inside.

It seemed strange that we hadn't felt awkward moments ago but now, with Derek breaking us out of our reverie, we could barely manage eye contact. "I'll text you when we get Mae Ri home," Jong Hwa said and I bit the inside of my cheek and finally looked at him.

    "Thank you," I said. He reached up and gently stroked my cheek with his thumb before turning around and walking out the door. When the cold blast of night air hit my face I had a sinking feeling. He'd just promised to not leave me but experience had taught me that everyone left so it was only a matter of time before I would be forced to say goodbye to Jong Hwa. The thought hollowed out my chest and my heart ached.

I shook my head to shake the thought loose. It hadn't come to pass yet and I would deal with it when it did, I told myself. I walked back inside the dormitories and immediately headed for the stairs that would take me to my room. I hadn't changed out of my school uniform even though it had been several hours and I was dying to not only get into something comfy but take my mind off everything that had just transpired even though I knew when I closed my eyes for the night, all I would be able to see was Jong Hwa's face.

I saw Derek watching me out of the corner of his eyes but since I didn't want to answer the questions I knew he wanted to ask me, I pretended like I hadn't seen him and left without even uttering a goodbye. Emily was asleep by the time I got to my room and I quietly thanked the Gods above.

***

Jong Hwa...

At first I cursed at Derek for breaking in on the moment that Lily and I had shared but as I walked to meet up with Ji Soo and Mae Ri at the bus stop I chalked it up to being a blessing in disguise. I hadn't liked the fact that in only a day she'd somehow attracted the attention of two boys. I knew she hadn't done it on purpose, the look on her face when they had come over to us had all but confirmed that she'd felt anything but affection for them but the relief hadn't lasted very long when I realized that Derek obviously didn't feel the same. When she hadn't been looking, Derek would watch her and I felt the pangs of jealous deep in my stomach.

I decided he walked in at the right moment, at least he'd have no question about who I was in Lily's life. Hopefully he would take the hint. I'd never been a possessive person but I wanted to stake my claim on Lily even though she wasn't technically mine to claim. Yet, I hoped. Things had changed tonight whether Lily and I had expected it to or not and I couldn't help but feel a kind of exhilaration at the realization.

I felt like I had secretly like Lily for so long that I didn't know how to actually like her in the open, in front of our friends, much less strangers. Walking away from her had been the hardest thing, especially when I knew that Derek guy would be waiting for her beyond the door. I wished I could just take her hand and bring her home with me but that wasn't possible so I had done the only thing I could, I left. Mae Ri waved to me as I got closer and it broke me out of my train of thought.

To Be Continued...

***

*Bogoshipeo: Literal translation "I want to see you" but more accurately means "I miss you"

*Jeongmal: "Really" or "Seriously" it is interchangeable with Jinjja.

*Na Du: "Me too"

*Yeogiseo: "You're here?"

*Wae: "Why"

*Daebak: Korean slang for "Awesome"

Nae Chingu (My Friends) Chapter Seven

Nae Chingu

Chapter Seven

Thursday came without word from Chan Min Wednesday night and I could feel myself start to become panicky. I could barely focus during school and often caught myself looking out the window at the tall buildings of Seoul. God, what if I didn't get in? I really needed to figure out my options, Mae Ri's parents hadn't come to a decision yet which surprised me and if I was being honest, I was a little hurt. For three years I'd been Mae Ri's best friend, had spent countless nights at Mae Ri's parents and they'd never given me any indication that they didn't like me but then again, I'd never asked for them to let me move in. I guess that was slightly different than a weekend sleepover... Regardless, if they chose not to let me stay I wouldn't allow myself to be eternally hurt by it; they were good people and I would trust they had their reasons. I just needed to make sure Mae Ri understood that so she didn't do anything stupid, like actually run away. I sighed and didn't notice that our chemistry teacher was calling my name until Mae Ri turned around in her seat and knocked on my desk.

    "Huh," I looked up at Mr. Gu, who looked at me with his shrewd eyes and told me to answer the question. The only problem was, I hadn't actually heard it. "Joesonghamnida*," I apologized. "Could you repeat the question?"

    "Maybe you'd find your time better spent elsewhere, perhaps the hallway until class is over," he pointed to the door. It took me a second to realize he was serious. I gave him a hesitant bow before making my way to the door. It was no secret that Mr. Gu didn't like me, he hadn't since the day I transitioned to the regular classes. He'd never told me why but I suspected it was because I was a foreigner but since I couldn't do anything about that, I chose to stay out of his way.

Being out in the hallways wasn't all that bad, besides the embarrassment that came along with everyone knowing you got kicked out of class, it gave me time to reflect more on my options. Despite my many efforts last night to think of a plan B, nothing was forthcoming so I had to start thinking of the possibility of me not being able to stay at SFLHS. If that was the case, I could drop down to a regular public school and work part time jobs to pay for the hostel, that wouldn't be too bad expect the amount of hours I would have to work to pay for a hostel room would be a lot and wouldn't leave much time to study. But then again, if I dropped down to a public school, the chances of me needing a lot of study time also dropped considerably. So there was that; the only problem with that solution was I would be without my friends...but it was better than the alternative which was moving back to the States. The word "but" kept traveling around in my head and I eventually shook it to get it out. There would be no 'buts', I needed to find a solution and commit myself to it. If dropping down to a public school and working a part time job to cover hostel costs was better than the alternative then I guess I would bite the bullet and transfer. There, I nodded in self assurance. I had a solid plan B.

    "You look like you just came to a conclusion," a voice said from behind me. Ji Soo was standing there with his hands in his pockets looking at me. He looked somewhat conservative today and hadn't added much to the standard SFLHS ensemble except for the two asymmetrical earrings that dangled petite-looking skulls from his ears. One was longer than the other which made it look slightly odd but still completely Ji Soo.

    "I did," I smiled at him. His class must have been released early if he was showing up outside our classroom. After chemistry was lunch and luckily we had the same lunch hour as Ji Soo.

    "And what was it?" He asked as he scrubbed at the floor with the tip of his black tennis shoes.

    "If I tell you, you'll only tell Jong Hwa who won't like it so I think I'll keep this one to myself," I teased halfheartedly. It was true however and we both knew it, there wasn't anything that Jong Hwa and Ji Soo didn't tell each other so if I was going to keep this plan B to myself, I wouldn't be able to tell anyone, except maybe Mae Ri.

    "Now I want to know even more!" Ji Soo whined just as the doors to my classroom burst open indicating the class had ended. "What're you doing out here anyway?"

    "I got kicked out," I said sheepishly.

    "Jinjja? You never get kicked out," he looked genuinely surprised. "What happened?"

    "Exactly what I'd like to know myself," Mae Ri burst in as soon as she found us standing in the hallway.

    "Daydreaming," I covered quickly.

    "Daydreaming," Ji Soo scoffed. "You daydream in the middle of class, now I've seen it all?"

    "What, am I not allowed to daydream?" I pretended to sound  hurt.

    "I've never seen you do it before," Mae Ri said. It was about then that I noticed Jong Hwa had never come out of the room.

    "Jong Hwa eodiya*?" I started back for the classroom, I needed my wallet anyway if I was going to buy anything for lunch. I almost ran into Mr. Gu as he came out of the classroom but I sidestepped quickly while he only sniffed at me snootily. God, what crawled up your butt today, I wanted to ask.

By the time I turned to head through the door Jong Hwa was already heading out and we collided head first into each other with enough force to knock me on my butt. I didn't have time to stand back up and straighten my skirt before Mae Ri was in Jong Hwa's face and yelling at him about his terrible manners.

    "Mae Ri," I tried to pull her back. "Mae Ri-ya!" That finally got her attention. "We just bumped into each other, I'm fine. No need to go all Edward Elric on Jong Hwa, it was an accident." I patted down my skirt while Mae Ri pulled herself together. Yeah, I thought, sometimes she was a handful but she always had my back.

    "Here," Jong Hwa passed my purse off to me. "For lunch," he muttered before heading towards the cafeteria and suddenly I felt bad for Jong Hwa. I hadn't done anything wrong but sometimes Mae Ri was over protective and ever since she found out about the possible move, her protectiveness had gone into overdrive. Also, it couldn't have been easy to like Mae Ri, the girl was a landmine just waiting to be stepped on. That thought brought up another one from a few days ago of Jong Hwa insisting that Mae Ri and Ji Soo start dating. Why would he say that if he wanted to date Mae Ri himself?  That thought process left me feeling slightly queasy and I rubbed my stomach to help ease the feeling.

    "Well if you stopped daydreaming, we could head to lunch," Mae Ri pointed at my hand which was currently rubbing my abdomen. "Kaja," she turned around and headed for the lunch room.

After waiting in line and getting our food we all sat down and started to eat. This was the most quiet we ever got, mostly because Mae Ri's mouth was usually full of food instead of talking but today it seemed extra quiet. Before I knew it, my thoughts were back on the tests I had taken for the ESE exams and going over my answers again. This process had been on an endless loop in my head since Monday and the longer and longer it took for Chan Min to call me, the more and more I worried.

It went by like this for a few minutes before Mae Ri gasped in shock suddenly. I turned my head just in time to see Cho Geun Ma spill her milk down Mae Ri's back. If it had been any other student, it would have been considered an accident but since it was Geun Ma, we knew it was purposeful. One look at Mae Ri's face and I knew she was about to explode. Geun Ma and Mae Ri had been rivals since middle school when Mae Ri starting dating Geun Ma's crush. It was before my time, but from what I'd heard Mae Ri was quite the playgirl back then and often flitted from guy to guy. Since I'd known her, she'd only had one boyfriend and it hadn't lasted very long at that.

    "Mae Ri--" I tried to get her attention but it was too late.

    "You little--" was all Mae Ri got out before she was up from her seat and pushing at Geun Ma who was all too happy to fight with Mae Ri. The problem was, fighting was absolutely prohibited and if Mae Ri threw the first punch, she'd more than likely be expelled or at the very least suspended which would probably cost her the scholarship she needed to keep going to this school.

    "Ji Soo, grab her!" I shouted and we all left our food abandoned at the table in an attempt to get Mae Ri away from Geun Ma. Ji Soo got a hold of Mae Ri around the waist and began hauling her towards the door but that didn't stop Mae Ri from attempting to get a kick in. Having no other option, I jumped between Mae Ri's foot and Geun Ma and took the kickin Geun Ma's place.

Because I wasn't fully prepared for it, Mae Ri's kick knocked me to the side and the sharp corner of the lunch table found a nice little home behind my right shoulder and the pain knocked the air out of me. I mean, I could breath but I tried not to hoping the pain wouldn't be as bad. There were a group of people around me, all staring down at me but no one offered to help me up. At least not until Jong Hwa pushed his way through the pulled me to my feet. He must not have actually seen me fall because he pulled me up by my right arm and I nearly passed out from the excruciatingly sharp pain that shot down my arm.

    "Ah!" I yelped and he instantly let go of my arm.

    "Where are you hurt?" He asked almost frantically while looking for signs of bleeding.

    "My shoulder, I'm ok," I gasped out and cradled my arm to my chest. "Where's Mae Ri?" I could no longer hear her.

    "Ji Soo has her, lets go to the nurses office," He started pushing people out of the way, the cafeteria was abuzz with chatter and I was actually starting to feel a little woozy, like I was too warm all of a sudden.

    "No, lets find Mae Ri first, she's going to be too much for Ji Soo to handle," I pushed my hair out of my face and took several deep breaths to try and pull myself together.

    "But you're hurt," Jong Hwa said but I ignored him and headed for the cafeteria doors. I didn't know where they had gone but based off the stares and quiet tittering of gossipers, I just followed the trail until I could hear their voices.

    "You know you can't get into fights, she's only provoking you to get you expelled!" Ji Soo was saying loudly to a crying Mae Ri--or at least I assumed it was her crying, I couldn't confirm it until I turned the corner.

    "My uniform," she gasped between sobs. "It's ruined, Ji Soo!"

    "I know, Ma Cherie*," Ji Soo said quietly right as I turned the corner. 'Ma Cherie', I didn't know French but I knew enough that it made me wonder why Ji Soo used that term for Mae Ri. I shook my head and decided it wasn't important right now and focused on what had happened.

Mae Ri was huddled on the ground with her SFLHS jacket lying in her lap. Even from ten feet away I could see the huge milk stain on the back of it and I cringed silently to myself. These uniforms weren't cheap and neither was a good dry cleaner. Chances were that stain wasn't going to come out fully. Ji Soo was sitting on the balls of his feet in front of her trying to console her but not doing a very good job of it based off his last statement.

    "Hey, Mae Ri, it's ok," I pulled out a tissue from my pocket. "You know, a stain like that I can get out without a problem." I attempted to cheer her up, no idea if I actually could get the stain out or not. "Here, just wear my jacket and I'll take yours home to wash," I started to ease my jacket off but as soon as I moved my right arm, the shooting pain started again and I sucked in air.

    "Oh Lily, I kicked you," Mae Ri forgot all about the jacket was busy looking over me in an attempt to find a wound. Little did she know it was my shoulder that was wounded. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean--I mean I did, but it wasn't meant for you!"

I forced out a laughter as I finally got the jacket off my left arm but it didn't get much further before both Ji Soo and Jong Hwa reacted to something behind me. "What, what is it?" I tried to turn but Jong Hwa just pulled down my jacket more until it was hanging off my right elbow.

    "That's it, we're going to the nurse's office," Jong Hwa didn't even wait for an answer before he hauled me up by my left arm and the sudden altitude change made me gag.

    "Wait," I choked out while I breathed through my mouth.

    "Oh Lily," fresh sobs erupted from Mae Ri and I had the feeling something terrible had happened and everyone knew it but me.

    "What--" I felt weak and was extremely warm by now. "I don't feel--" and that's the last thing I remembered before waking up in the nurses office nearly fifteen minutes later.

***

When I woke up I noticed a few things first: 1) I was lying on my stomach in the infirmary with my uniform shirt pulled halfway down my arms and; 2) my friends were all whispering behind the pulled curtain. I tried to listen but couldn't hear what they were saying because it was too low and definitely too fast.

Instead of trying to figure out what they were discussing, I decided to do a self check. It was my first experience fainting and I assumed I'd feel even worse after waking up but I actually felt better. I wonder if fainting is a lot like restarting a computer? I reached for my right shoulder and felt a gauze pad over where I'd gotten hit. I moved my arm and although it still hurt it was no where near as excruciating as before.

They must have heard me move because my friends quickly shushed up and three human sized shadows appeared just beyond the curtain.

    "Lily, are you ok?" Mae Ri asked tentatively. "Can I open the curtain?"

    "Just a sec," I called before sitting up and pulling my shirt all the way up. It took another moment to button the shirt back into place but when I felt like I had been put back to rights, I said "Ok."

Mae Ri pulled the sheet back and the first thing I thought was that she looked awful. Her eyes were puffy and her face was blotched like she'd been doing some serious crying, her face hadn't even looked this bad when we found  her in the hallway after the Geun Ma incident. "Oh my god, Mae Ri, what happened?"

Fearing the worst, that perhaps she was going to be suspended or expelled, I grabbed her hand and pulled her onto the bed to sit next to me. "What happened?" I asked again and was shocked to see Mae Ri burst into tears. This was absolutely not what she needed. "Ya, ulji maseyo*," I said and pulled her into a  hug. I looked over at the other two and Ji Soo was leaning against the opposite wall with his hands in his pockets and Jong Hwa was looking out the infirmary window. What he was looking at, I didn't know. It was clear I wasn't going to get an answer out of them.

    "Ok, ok," I pulled back from Mae Ri and wiped her face clear of tears but because I didn't have a tissue, I had to wipe my hands on my skirt. "Ok, Mae Ri-ya, nae chingu Mae Ri, what happened? Did you get suspended?"

She sniffled a few more times before shaking her head. Uh-oh, "Di-did you get expelled?"

She shook her head again and I felt relieved and I laughed excitedly. "Then why are you crying? This is good!"

    "I hurt you," she mumbled while still trying to compose herself.

    "Oh I'm fine," I emphasized the word "fine" because I was. I was a little achy but it wasn't like permanent damage had been done. "Really, I'm fine."

Jong Hwa took an audible breath at the window and Ji Soo pushed off the wall and walked towards the desk and picked up what looked to be like four passes. "Why don't we head back to class, we're already late."

What the heck? All of my friends were acting very weird and it instantly raised my shackles. What had I missed while I was out? "Is something going on I should be aware of?" They all said no at the exact same time which only proved that I had truly missed something. "What is it?"

    "It's nothing," Ji Soo said before handing out the passes to each of us and putting a half-assed fake smile on his face. "We're late, we should go." He nodded at Mae Ri who silently nodded back.

    "I'm going to run by the bathroom first," Mae Ri said and pushed off the bed.

    "I'll go with you," I said and stood up but she shook her head.

    "No, it's ok. I just have to wash my face, I'll see you in class," she said and was out the door.

    "Kaja, Jong Hwa," Ji Soo said and Jong Hwa finally turned around. He didn't look alright either, I couldn't tell what was going on by his face. He just seemed different than earlier. I was about to ask him what was wrong when he swept past me and headed out the door. Ji Soo gave me another forced smile and headed out the door as well. With no choice, I followed after them but I lagged behind intent on figuring out what happened. Since we were walking behind Jong Hwa he didn't notice when I pulled on Ji Soo's sleeve to keep him from going into class.

    "I'm not an idiot, Ji Soo, something is wrong," I looked at him pointedly.

    "Look, it's just better if we all act like nothing happened and go back to normal," he said.

    "Ji Soo--"

    "We're all upset about what happened in the lunch room but we'll get over it," he said which sounded mostly true. He still looked like he was keeping something back though. You didn't get to be best friends with someone without knowing the person well. And I knew my friends well...

    "Did Jong Hwa say something to Mae Ri," I asked and Ji Soo sighed so I must have been right.

    "Why do I even try," Ji Soo muttered to himself and then said something in French. "Jong Hwa may or may not have been upset enough to say some things to Mae Ri."

    "Like what," I asked.

    "Like saying that Mae Ri could have killed you if it'd been your head rather than your shoulder that was hit," Ji Soo sighed.

He what--! Why would he say that, I asked myself.

    "Listen, he was upset after you fainted in the hallway, he'd thought you might have hit your head," Ji Soo continued. "The nurse said you fainted due the pain and the sudden adrenaline drop but that you were otherwise fine. It just shook us all up, that's all."

    "And that's the whole truth," I asked him.

    "The whole truth," he nodded. "Can I go to class now, some of us has a rank to maintain," he joked. I nodded and he left to go back to class.

After he was gone, I headed back to my own class but I waited for Mae Ri before I went back in. When she finally made it back to class, she looked much better than she had in the infirmary. It was amazing what cold water did to the face. I smiled at her and she smiled tentatively back.

    "Look, don't listen to Jong Hwa," I hugged her again and pulled back, afraid I'd make her cry again. "I'm fine, we're fine, we're all going to be fine, so lets just put it all behind us."

    "Ok," she nodded.

    "Just one more thing," I said and took off my jacket. I started to push Mae Ri's off her shoulders before she protested.

    "No, Lily, it's--"

    "It's not ok, I can't have my best friend going back into a class with a milk stain on the back of her jacket," I said before saying, "it doesn't go well with those green nylons of yours." That earned me a laugh and the jacket.

Honestly, I didn't mind wearing a milk stained jacket, even after all the stares I got when we went back into the classroom. I'd been an outsider for so long that people staring at me no longer had an effect on me. Besides, the glare we got from Geun Ma more than made up for it. As we sat down, I shot a thumbs up to Jong Hwa who gave me a small smile before turning back to the front to listen to the teacher. He too, had a rank to consider.

***

Despite the excitement of the day, the rest of school passed by incredibly uneventful for which, I'm sure, we were all grateful. We were all walking out of the school together, somewhat subdued than we usually were but still, we were all together despite the mess that happened during lunch. We all headed for the city bus that would take us to the convenient store. It was like secondhand nature to us so although we were all a little awkward around each other, it was comforting to know that we were all still on the same page.

What would it feel like if we all stopped being in sync? I shuddered to think about it. TVXQ's Mirotic started playing and I quickly removed my gloves so I could answer my phone.

    "Yeoboseyo?" I didn't recognize the number.

    "Ms. Ril-Li?" a deep voice asked.

    "Ne," I answered. Who was this?

    "Ah, Hello. This is Soo Gae Sik," He said which meant nothing to me.

    "I'm sorry, I don't know who--"

    "I am the Director of the Educational Student Exchange," he provided with a small chuckle.

I stood up so quickly that I hadn't realized I'd done it until I was already on my feet. "Oh! Ah-Annyeonghaseyo, Soo Gae Sik-ss!" I bowed even though I knew he couldn't see it.

    "Annyeong," he laughed again. "You just got out of school, no?"

    "Yes," I chirped excitedly.

    "Do you have time to come down so we talk about the program," he asked.

    "Yes, I can head there right now," I checked my watch and looked at my friends who were all staring at me curiously.

    "Good, good," he said. "I'll see you soon." And he hung up. I had long since gotten used to the Korean version of saying goodbye on the phone which consisted of just hanging up when there was nothing else to be said. I put my phone away and turned to my friends.

    "I'm sorry, I have to go," I told them. "That was the Director from the ESE, he wants to see me right now."

    "Really?" Mae Ri said.

    "What're you talking to us for, go," Ji Soo commanded.

    "Call me," Jong Hwa said as I rushed across the street to catch the bus that would take me to the ESE. I got there just in time to get on the bus, all the while waving at my friends who were cheering me on from across the street.

That's when it hit me, we were truly going to be ok.

***

When I got to the ESE, I was pushed through to Chan Min almost immediately who greeted me with a big smile. I rushed to him and gave him a hug, which I'm sure surprised the heck out of him. I pulled back quickly so I didn't make him more uncomfortable than he probably already was.

    "I'm sorry, I just had to do that," I apologized quickly.

    "It's ok," he gave me a small laugh.

    "The Director called me, that's a good thing right?" I asked him.

    "It's a good thing," he nodded and ushered me through the door that lead to his office. We made our way back to his desk and we sat down. "Your scores on the tests were incredibly," he said first.

    "That's good news, my education wasn't a waste, then, huh?" I was giddy and I told myself to calm down.

    "No, quite the opposite," he sat back and crossed his legs. "The Director was also very impressed by your essay but I don't want you to get too confident."

    "Oh, I'm not. I'm just glad I've come this far," and that was all I needed to hear to close down all sense of excitement. Now I was just nervous.

    "The Director is a fair man and I think the interview is just so he can meet you in person but he's been known to turn away potential students despite their exam scores so just remember that," Chan Min nodded to make sure I understood and I nodded back. "Smile and be honest, you ready?"

Suddenly I felt like I didn't want to meet the Director. My palms had become sweaty and I rubbed them on my jacket to try and get rid of the moisture. "Yeah, I think I am."

Chan Min showed me the way to the Director's office and gave me one last piece of advice, "Just breath," he said. I had to suppress a laugh because his advice reminded me of my favorite movie, "Ever After" where the leading lady tells her self to just breath before revealing herself to the prince and it was enough to calm me down again. Chan Min knocked on the door and waited for the Director to tell us to come in.

The office wasn't fairly big which surprised me. In fact, it was downright humble! There was a small, wooden desk that the Director sat at which had piles of papers on it with a computer and a lamp. Although it was standard to have higher ranking executives to have plaques on their desk to indicate their name, it was usually something stylish but not this time. This time it was just a piece of wood with his name etched into it in fancy lettering. There were two chairs sitting in front of the desk that were spindly looking by comparison to the plush chairs that were sitting in the lobby. The most impressive thing in the office were the letters of certificates and awards that were hung on the wall behind the Director and the Director himself, not at all what I expected.

I expected a man in an expensive suit of about forty years old, based off his voice, but what I got was a man of about sixty in a knitted sweater and black dress pants. His face had clear lines of old age, and he looks quite homely. His thinning hair was swept off to the side in a borderline messy fashion and he had a pen behind his ear. His appearance shocked me but it must not have been surprising because Chan Min entered the office and didn't hesitate in introducing me. Going with the flow, I gave a respectful bow and introduced myself.

    "It's nice to meet you, Ril-Li," he said and gestured to a chair in front of him. I nodded to Chan Min who nodded back and walked back out of the office and shut the door. "How are you doing?"

Listening to Chan Min's advice, I was honest. "I'm nervous, Sir," I told him and took a sit in front of the Director.

He laughed and sat back in his swivel chair and looked at me and I felt like I was being inspected. I was just glad I didn't have to take my jacket off because then he would see the milk stain. "Why are you nervous," he asked me.

    "For several reasons," I admitted. "I-I really need," I back tracked. "Want. I really want into the program." I tried not to stutter but whenever I got nervous, I stuttered.

    "Any other reasons, I should know about," he asked inquisitively. It wasn't in a mean way, but like he was honestly curious as to why I was nervous.

    "Honestly, because what I decide next depends on the outcome of this interview," I told him.

    "How so," he replied.

    "If you decide to decline my application then I'll have to start working on my plan B because either way," I took a deep breath. "Either way, I'm staying in Korea."

    "Hmm," he said noncommittally.  He took a few moments before he pulled some papers off his desk and began reading them.

I squeezed my eyes shut, I just messed up. I shouldn't have been honest, why couldn't I have just said I was fine! My chest tightened but I beat it back, if I was going to freak out, I'd freak out when I was out of this office. When I opened my eyes, he was still reading from the papers and I waited to be dismissed.

    "In your essay, you wrote you deserved to be accepted into the program because you "found a home in Korea"," he quoted. It must have been my essay he was reading from.

    "Yes," I concurred because I did, in fact, say that. Maybe I wasn't finished after all...

    "Why?"

Why? Why what? Why did I write that? I was confused, "Why, Sir?"

    "Why is Korea your home?" He clarified and dropped my essay onto his desk.

Why? That was a good question, one I had an answer for. "When my father moved me from Germany, I was upset. I was leaving my friends, I was leaving my school, but it wasn't until I started living in Korea that I realized I was never upset because I was actually leaving Germany." I said and looked down at my fingers. I'd never spoken about it because once I accepted Korea, there was never any need too. "When my father said we were leaving Korea, of course, I was upset because I would be leaving my friends again and my school but I was mostly upset because I was leaving the district I lived in, I was leaving the view outside my bedroom window, I was leaving the people at my local market. I was leaving the streets of Seoul and the buses, the taxis, "I stopped talking because I could have honestly kept going. "My point is, I was leaving a country I loved, a country that was as much a part of me as my own soul and what more could be considered home than that?"

When I was finished, he gave a nod of acknowledgement and pursed his lips. "Well, that's it then."

That's it? Did that mean the interview was done, or that I was accepted? Why did this man keep using such cryptic sentences? "Sir?"

    "Chan Min will help you with the paperwork," he said dismissively and waved towards the door.

    "Th-the paperwork?" I asked, confused.

    "Oh, Ms. Ril-Li," he chuckled which only added to my confusion. "You were accepted before you even walked through that door."

***

When I left the Director's office, I was in a daze. So dazed that I couldn't even feel excited. It had happened, I had been accepted. I was staying, I was--

I had to brace myself on the wall while I waited for the feeling in my legs to come back.

    "Ril-Li?" Chan Min came around the corner with a concerned look on his face. "Gwaenchana?"

    "How did you know I was here," I didn't even bother answering his question. I felt hot and I was wondering if I was going to faint for the second time that day.

    "My father called me and said you looked unwell," he said and checked my forehead.

    "Yo-your father?" I asked him.

He looked kind of sheepish, "the Director is my father," he told me.

Following that little revelation, Chan Min helped me back to his desk and by the time I sat down I was feeling better and in fact, borderline ecstatic. I had gotten into the program! I had actually done it. I felt like I could give Chan Min another hug by I refrained. I'd hug Mae Ri later.

    "As far as paperwork goes, it's just a temporary contract and school placement documents," Chan Min told me and he pulled out two forms. "I'll just explain the contact briefly; It's an agreement between the Educational Student Services and yourself that state that as long as you keep your grades at a minimum GPA of 3.8 and agree to stay out of any trouble while attending school, we will cover all room and board costs and educational costs as well as providing a small amount for allowance that will be given monthly."

I nodded as he continued.

    "You will be required to move into the dorm, as soon as next week. Since the semester has already started, we have already paired you with a roommate from America, her name is Emily. I'll provide you with a list of items you'll need but not much is allowed in the dorms beyond that. If you have any questions on items you'd wish to bring, you can always ask me." He flipped a few pages. "The contract also pertains to your post-secondary education obligations. Assuming you've read about the elite high school program, you know you have to major in education, right?

    "Yes," I said.

    "Good, then, that should be all the key points. Stay out of trouble and keep your grades up and everything should be fine," he smiled and gave me the contract along with a pen. I signed my name and dated it. He took the contact from me and placed it in a blue file that had my name on it. "Ok, next on the agenda is picking a school."

    "Picking a school, like a college," I asked. It seemed a little early to be picking a college but then again, maybe it was all part of the program.

    "No, a high school," he said and looked up at me. "You'll be needing a pick a high school to attend from here on out," he told me.

My stomach bottomed out as I realized I wouldn't be able to continue to attend school with my friends...it seemed I would be transferring anyway. How was I going to tell the others?

To Be Continued...

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*Eodiya: Where or Where is
*Ma Cherie: French for "My Dear"
*Ulji maseyo: "Do not cry"