‘I feel like a criminal.’ Eun Mi thought as she headed down the hall of the children’s wing at the hospital. She’d skipped out on paying rent and her bills and disappeared without telling her landlord. She could go to jail. Rubbing her temple, she turned down the next corridor and headed down the hall to the girls’ room.

“Oh, Eun Mi…” Came a male’s voice from her right. “I was waiting for you.” Eun Mi jumped, her mind interpreting the voice as her step-father’s and turned to run. “Hey!” He grabbed her arm and held her in place. “It’s me, Dr. Park.”

Letting out a soft sigh of relief, Eun Mi bowed in apology, trying to regain her composure.
“Mianhae.” She whispered, straightening up and looking at the young doctor’s face. He’d be rather handsome if he wasn’t so involved in his work. A fait blush spread across her cheeks at the thought and Eun Mi bowed again. She had only just turned him down to hang out yesterday. “M-mianhae.”
“Why are you here?” He asked, ignoring her blush and her apologies. “They didn’t call you?”
“What do you mean, ‘why am I here’? I come every night after classes.” Eun Mi was confused, why was he acting like this? Daehyun might have been in love with his job, but he was always friendly and kind to her. Right now, he was being rather cold.
“ Eun Mi,” He rubbed his temples and looked down. “I told them to call you. Ae Sook’s family came to get her. They said they wanted her last days to be at home.”
“Oh, well that’s no problem, I can still go read to Hee Ju—“
“Eun Mi…” Daehyun sighed. He stepped forward and placed his hands on the sides of her upper arms. “I’m sorry, but Hee Jung passed away this morning. That’s why Ae Sook’s parents thought it would be better to take her home. She was very distraught. Hee Jung was like a dongsaeng to her.”

Eun Mi felt like she had been punched hard in the gut. As her eyes filled with tears, she turned – breaking out of Daehyun’s grip – and fled from the hospital, out towards the park nearby.
“She was like my dongsaeng too.” Eun Mi cried, sitting down on a bench and crying. “I have no job, no home, I might as well be a criminal, I don’t know how I’ll continue to pay for school without becoming a e or stripper, and one of the only two things actually keeping me going has died, with the other on the way.” She continued to rant to the almost empty park, sobbing loudly as she finally let herself break down. It was, as she’d heard a foreigner say once at work ‘the straw that broke the camel’s back’. She hadn’t really understood it at the time, but after the friendly foreigner had explained things, it seemed to make sense.

“Please don’t sell yourself.” A calm, caring, male voice came from her left. Eun Mi almost thought it was her conscience speaking. She looked up, wiping her face and eyes, not caring about smudging her make-up at who was talking to her.

She was met by the face of a very attractive man, maybe two years older than her, sitting on the bench next to her.
“M-mianhae. I didn’t know anyone was sitting here.” The man looked slightly surprised by her reaction, but shrugged it off.
“It’s fine. You’re not really planning on doing those jobs are you?” He asked, concern showing in his face and voice. “I think I know of a job you could do? It’s not very glamorous, but it comes with room and board. They pay’s decent enough to cover school fees.”

It seemed like it was too good to be true. Eun Mi regarded the man sceptically. Sure, he seemed nice, but men could be pretty cunning. Her step-father was a prime example of that.
“What’s the job?” She asked, momentarily forgetting her tears. Really, it was too good to pass up, if room and board were involved.
“I’m in a group, Super Junior – you might have heard of us?” From Eun Mi’s blank expression, he assumed not. “Anyway, I’m in a kpop group, and our old housekeeper recently left work to get married. She used to live in the apartment across the hall, but that’s been put up for rent. I knew our manager and company had been talking about hiring a live in housekeeper. You’d have your own room, and rent and food would be included in your pay. You’d have to clean up the two apartments we live in – half of us are on the 11^th floor while the other half are on the 12^th – do things like laundry and cook our meals. You might also be able to get work at our company, if you really need the money, but I know looking after all thirteen of us is a full time job already, plus you’d have school. I know it’s not glamorous, but—“
“I’ll take it.” Eun Mi responded “Really, you don’t need to say any more.”
“Well, you’ll have to meet with our manager first…” He looked back towards the hospital, before turning back to her. “I’m done here, anyway, so why don’t we go meet with him now. You said you didn’t have a place to live right? The sooner we get this sorted, the better.” Eun Mi nodded in agreement and stood.
“My name’s Bae Eun Mi, thank-you very much… Uh…” She stopped mid-bow and straightened back up. The man chuckled and bowed.
“Choi Siwon.” When she didn’t react to his name, he scratched the back of his head and looked sheepish. “I hate to sound conceited but, you really don’t know about me or Super Junior?”
“Mianhae.” Eun Mi, shook her head and bowed 90 degrees. “I didn’t really have time for music growing up. My studies were very important to me.”

Truthfully, Eun Mi may have heard something about a ‘Super Junior’ while at school or working, but in her four years of university, she’d never really mingled with other students or made friends. Her home town had been incredibly rural and the music that was being released there was always 10 years behind the more modern parts of South Korea. When Eun Mi had moved to Seoul for school, she couldn’t afford to keep a television or CD player, and she didn’t really pay attention to the radio. She didn’t really feel like delving into that box and pulling everything out though.

“My car’s this way.” Siwon explained, pointing towards the carpark. Nodding, Eun Mi followed him along in silence. “Do you have any stuff? Or is that all you have?” He nodded at her duffle bag.
“This is it.” She replied simply. Siwon nodded and opened the car door for her.
“Alright, next stop, Super Junior dorms.”