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I woke up the next morning to find that I had yet another practically empty day ahead of me, other than a few musical errands I had to make around the property. But I had no problem making multiple stops to the all the studios in exchange for all the rest that I’d been deprived of for the past few months. On top of that, my schedule was set to reboot tomorrow, bringing me back to endless days and nights of work, so I was ready to accept any number of easier days.

The first thing I had to do to start off the day was stop by the management building and sign a bulk of albums for contest winners. Then, I immediately set my sights on the cafe to bid to the pastries that were calling out my name. I wouldn’t have necessarily gone out of my way to indulge in my cravings but since I was out and about already, why the hell not?

A rush of entertainers flooded out of the building to attend to their schedules, carrying coffee cups, brown bags and general conversations with each other. A few gave me nods and little hello’s as they went on their way.

I went straight over to the cashier and ordered what I wanted. It wasn’t much- just a pastry and small drink to hold me over. My eyes lingered on my order total as I fetched my wallet out of my back pocket, unconsciously ignoring the employee as he told me the price himself. I was through my bills when someone stepped up from behind me, speaking up before I could scold them for what I assumed to be impatience. It ended up being good that I didn’t.

“I got it,” the person offered. “Can I quickly add my order onto that?”

“Uh,” the employee stuttered, his eyes darting to me for the answer. To be honest, I was just as shocked as he was and was totally rendered silent, proving to be useless. He returned his gaze to the girl whose voice alone I immediately recognized. “Sure.”

Despite not sounding too sure, he took her order anyway. As she happily handed the money off to him and waited for her change, I finally turned to her, staring at her incredulously.

“Anna? What are you doing?”

She looked at me in confusion, as if randomly paying a basic acquaintance's bill was completely normal. “What do you mean?”

“Why’d you pay for me?” I reiterated, feeling stupid just asking.

“Are you not happy about it?”

“I- no, it’s not that,” I explained slowly, not accustomed to such bluntness in a girl. “I just don’t get why you did it.”

She gave me a smile. “Consider it a thank you for helping me out yesterday.”

“Goodness,” I scoffed in disbelief- a good disbelief. “That really was nothing. You didn’t need to go out of your way to repay me.”

“I mean, it’s not like I followed you here with the intention of buying your food for you. I just happened to be here at the same time as you, saw an opportunity and decided to act on it. So, I wouldn’t say I went out of my way,” she pointed out astutely, grabbing my attention. There it was again, that blunt nature. I bit back an amused smirk.

"So, what you're saying is you're really just an opportunist?" 

“Precisely."

Well, if I hadn't already been intrigued before, I certainly was then. She had a certain vibe to her that I already couldn't seem to ignore or dislike. In fact, I loved it. I was unable to tear my eyes away from her as she took her bagged order from the still confused employee, thanking him pleasantly before stepping out of line and turning to me.

“So, were you planning on eating here? If you were and want some company, you’re welcome to join me,” she offered warmly, casually glancing through the contents of her bag to make sure she had gotten everything she’d paid for.

“Who else are you eating with?”

“No one, I came alone,” she answered with indifference.

“Wow, brave for a newbie." 

“I like to think I’m brave,” she seamlessly wisecracked in return, earning more of my respect. “But I honestly wouldn’t mind some company myself.”

“I guess I can be that for you,” I reasoned sarcastically. I was glad to see it was humor she was able to understand and play along with as she scoffed and led the way to an open table.

Almost a half an hour later, our table was littered with empty cups and bags but that was a matter neither of us were paying any mind to. How could we when we were so engaged in conversation?

“There’s no way you just happened to already be learning Korean before SKEES scouted you. I don’t believe you at all,” I expressed in half-hearted doubt over her most recent revelation. She shrugged, satisfaction written all over her face.

“My best friend in high school was Korean. She would always tell me about all these things happening in Korea so I ended up getting really curious and looked into the culture on my own,” she explained. “I couldn’t believe everything that was happening here- all the movies and music and everything. I generally just started to catch onto the language, though I’d be nowhere if I hadn’t officially been taught, especially so vigorously.”

“So, you’d heard of some of the artists and actors here before you came?”

“Yeah,” she nodded. “But I haven’t really seen any of them around since coming here.”

“You’re probably talking about more of the veteran entertainers, then. They typically get apartments off-property after they’ve reached the peaks in their careers since they don’t really need the hype or the constant activities anymore,” I revealed, helping her understand SKEES more and more, little by little. “Do you remember who you might've watched or listened to?”

She pursed her lips and stared down at the table in thought, racking her brain for some names to quench my own curiosity. “I never really looked into the actors but I really loved Taeyeon. Oh, and that boy group SHINee. I thought they were awesome, and then my friend told me they were a big deal.”

“They sort of still are,” I chuckled, very familiar with the two given names. SHINee was the first group SKEES ever assembled after having a history of only releasing solo artists. Groups were still rarer to come by in modern times but SHINee opened up the door for them to exist at all. “But yeah, neither Taeyeon or the members of SHINee live on-property anymore. They still promote and perform, though.”

“So, people really only get their own apartments after they’ve made it big?”

“I wouldn’t necessarily say that. There are lots of entertainers living on-property who’ve made it big already but just haven’t been around that long. It’s more of when you’ve lasted so long with so much success that you can afford to settle down more. You’ve really got to be a high-valued veteran in the industry with a lot of leeway,” I clarified as best as I could. I’d never met someone who didn’t just know these things, as it was all pretty common knowledge in Korea. There was so much that I could cover for her that I just didn’t have the time to.

“I see,” she nodded in semi-comprehension. “Your music industry is so…”

“Calculated?” I offered her an adjective that I’d heard more than once, making her giggle but nod again. “I know. But hey, it’s your industry, too, now.”

“Yeah, I guess it is,” she smiled, leaving me unable to resist doing the same. It was almost like an instinctual reaction to her own. “But I have so much to catch up on. So much to learn.”

I waved off her concern. “You’ll be fine. You’ve already done a great job with the language, though you did make a slight mistake earlier.”

She groaned, her head dropping back and her body slumping in her seat dramatically. “Noooooo. Did I really?”

I grinned down at her in amusement. “Yep.”

“What did I say?”

She looked at me in total dread for the information to come, as if the mistake was the gravest of all sins. I couldn’t lie, I was thoroughly entertained by her.

“You were trying to tell me that you couldn’t remember what the time difference was between Seoul and New York but instead, you told me that you lost the time difference between the two.”

She stared at me in clear displeasure over her mistake, a frown etched on her face. It was honestly a very understandable one to make with the words being so similar in pronunciation. She must’ve come to that conclusion as she sighed and straightened up.

“Alright, I guess I could’ve said something much worse.”

“You could’ve,” I agreed. “I’ve heard some pretty bad mistakes.”

“Oh my god, like what?” She asked eagerly, like a reporter eating up the newest, juiciest news. Or maybe one of those chatty high school girls I’d always seen in American movies. Though, something told me she wouldn’t be too happy if I told her that.

“Alright, well, I was at a joint fan-signing this one time with a few other artists, one of whom was my friend Namjoon who was sitting next to me. It was an overseas fansigning event and a lot of times, international fans will come prepared with Korean words or phrases to say to us,” I began, making her cringe.

“Oh boy, I can already see where this is going.”

“I mean, usually they’ll mess up pronunciation or grammar or something. We see that all the time and we never really mind,” I disclaimed before continuing. “But at this one event, this girl moved onto Namjoon, who was clearly her absolute favorite idol. Like, she was really excited when she met me but with him, it was a whole other level. So, I don’t know where or how the poor girl learned her Korean but instead of calling him her ‘ahgi’, she called him her ‘saeggi’.”

“Her newborn animal?” She questioned in confusion, making the literal translation of saeggi.

“Yes, but calling a person “saeggi” is like calling them a curse word in Korean.”’

“Oh my god,” she gasped in English, bringing a hand to cover her grinning, open mouth. “Oh my ing god.”

“I see you’re not shy with curse words yourself,” I chuckled.

“I curse too much in English,” she admitted, happily poking fun at herself. “And I have a bad feeling that won’t change much when it comes to Korean.”

“You know what they say, once a potty-mouth, always a potty mouth,” I pointed out teasingly, making her laugh.

“I guess I’m doomed, then.”

I laughed with her, surprising myself by how good of a time I was having with her. It was only our second interaction to date, all of which only happened over a span of two days. And yet, she already felt like an old friend.

I felt like I could've gotten used to having her around.