Lilly looked around the counselor’s office, smiling to herself as she saw all the photographs and encouraging posters plastered on the walls. She was probably more comfortable in this room instead of any other room in the entire building, which was saying a lot. Her thoughts began to roam as she saw the poster for the Best Friends across the Sea progam, wondering again what her pen pal would be like and if they got along.

“Lilly, right? Glad you see you here.”

Lilly stood as she heard the voice, but sat and smiled more when her counselor came into the room as sat at his desk. The man was the most respected in the whole school, and everybody came to him when there was any sort of problem or even if they just needed to vent or talk to somebody.

“Ah, you’re enrolling in the pen pal program, right? I was hoping you would, I think it’d be really good for you. You’re obviously very bright and doing fantastic in classes, but you seem to not have a lot of friends here. Why is that?”

                “Well,” Lilly started. “The students and I… we just… we don’t get along very well. They have different opinions than I and we clash often.”

“I understand that, I was exactly like you in high school. Have you looked over everything you have to do to be in the program?”

With a nod, Lilly pulled out the papers she had printed and filled out, handing them over. Her counselor looked them over and nodded, then pulled out a paper of his own to give to Lilly.

“Those are the names you can choose from, any stick out to you?”

Lilly looked at the list, immediately drawn to the South Korea section when she saw it. Each country had a list of names under that, and under each name was a little description of the person. She looked over the names seven times, but the only one that stuck out to her was ‘Donghae.’ Lilly pointed to it as she slid the paper back on the desk, her smile bright.

                “This one,” she said softly, nodding confidently.

“Donghae? He’s also a first timer for this program. I have a feeling you two will became great pen pals.”

The counselor did a few things on his computer and set everything up, then turned back to Lilly.

“Once you finish your letters just put it in an envelope and write your return address in the corner and his name in the middle. We’ll address it and send it off, from there just send your letters off from your house or the post office. Here are some stamps to get you started if you don’t have any. Do you have any questions?”

Lilly shook her head and smiled more as she took the stamps. “Nope, I think that’s it. Thank you for everything.”

“It’s not a problem, I’m glad you joined the program,” he said, writing up a hall pass. “Go on ahead to class; show them this so they know you were here.”

Lilly nodded again and took the pass, then made her way to class. She didn’t know if her sudden excitement had come from the fact that she was hopefully going to make a new friend or the fact that she had Photography next, but in all honesty, Lilly didn’t even care. Things were starting to look pretty awesome, and that was all that mattered.

Getting into the class right as the bell rang, Lilly quietly slid into her seat and waited for the teacher to start her usual lecture. Today they were focusing on the different ways lighting mattered in a picture, and how to get the best lighting even when you were in a darkened room. None of this even interested Lilly, she knew all of this information and really only took this class so she could start her portfolio early.

After a long hour of lecture and answering pointless questions, Lilly ran home and immediately began to work on her letter.

Dear Friend,

                Hi! I’m Lilly, and I’m from North Carolina in the United States. I’m not sure how well you know English, but I do know a bit of Korean.

“No no no, I don’t want to start like that,” Lilly muttered, tearing out the sheet of paper she was writing on from her notebook. She began to write again, starting differently.

Dear Donghae,

                Annyeonghaseyo! Lilly imnida! I’m excited to start these letters with you, you sound really interesting and fun from the description that I was provided with when I was choosing my partner.

“No… that sounds weird too,” she whined, tearing that piece of paper out and throwing it to the side. She pulled out her phone and looked up ways to start pen pal letters, scribbling ideas down as she scrolled through the web pages. Lilly also made sure to write down some phrases in Korean that she knew she would use, hoping they would be correct in the letter and would make sense.

That was the scariest part of this whole process for Lilly. She didn’t know how much English this ‘Donghae’ knew, or even if he knew anything more than hello. If she threw in some Korean phrases, would he think it was cute and nice or would she use them wrong and insult him? What if she made no sense and she never got a response back? All of these doubts and questions ran through her brain, leading Lilly to throw her papers on the floor and shut her computer before she searched more and ended freaking herself out and backing out of the program. She couldn’t do that; everybody wanted her to do it, she wanted to do it. She would.

Grabbing the notebook and pen again, Lilly sat on her bed and began to write out the letter. There were several crossed out lines, but she left them alone and just wrote her thoughts. She’d read it over to make sure it made sense, but right now, right in that moment, all she wanted was to write to her new friends, and that’s what she did.