"Mel, you didn't happen to bring tape in that big bag of stuff, did you?" Min Hee asked, unfurling a SHINee poster. 

"Crap! No, I didn't. I brought a pair of computer speakers, though."

"Yes, that's very helpful. We can't decorate anything without tape!"

"...true. And we're going to need nails to put up shelves." 

"Great. Looks like we're going to have to go shopping tomorrow. Who's going to take the first turn?"

"Can we go together the first few times, so we can figure out the area? Not to mention that I don't know much Korean."

"You are so hopeless. Alright, it's already late. Why don't we just go to bed? We can start working tomorrow. Your schedule doesn't start until next week Monday, too, right?"

"Yeah."

"Great. Goodnight!"

"Min Hee... Min Hee..."

"Mmmnfff...." She rolled over, putting her pillow over her head. 

"Come on, it's already almost ten in the morning! I've been up for five hours! I'm starving, and we have to go get tape!"

"Fffmrrmmhhmm..."

"No! The whole 'five more minutes' thing never works! Come on, it's time to get up!"

I yanked the blankets off of her, not really hoping for much since it was summer. "Come on, Min Hee! Our life in Korea begins today! We have to make this dorm into a proper place to live! But first you have to GET UP!!!!!"

Min Hee rolled ever towards me, apparently forgetting that the bed was narrow, because she rolled right off, hitting the cold wood floor with a thud.

She sat up, suddenly awake. Her hair was tousled, and she'd gone to sleep in her clothes. "Where am I?"

"You fell out of bed."

She looked around, still drousy. "What time is it?"

"Ten in the morning. We have to go get tape to start fixing this place up. And food. It's a weekday and I haven't had breakfast. I'm famished!"

"Famished?"

"Very, very, very hungry. Now come on, you lazy bum! You're worse than my sister!"

"You have a sister?" She asked, slowly getting to her feet.

"Yeah, an older sister and a younger brother. My sister isn't a morning person. My brother has his days. I can get up right away whenever."

"Oh." She yawned. "Alright, just let me get a shower and we'll set out."

While I waited for her to get out of the bathroom, I quickly opened my laptop and slid my camera's SD card in, to transfer the pictures I had take so far, especially my gem, the picture of me, Henry, and a bowl of Jjajangmyun. I had just posted it to Facebook when Min Hee came out. Wow, fast bather.

"You ready to go?" she asked.

"Yeah, let's head out. Make sure you lock the door."

"I can't believe you tried to give the cashier a 50 thousand-won bill for a few rolls of tape!" Min Hee yelled as she shouldered her way through the door, kicking her shoes off at the doorway. She dropped the bags she had been holding on the floor and scowled at me.

"I'm sorry! I'm used to dollars! I asked you for help and you didn't hear me!"

"I was at the other end of the store!"

"Agh, whatever. Let's just forget about it and start sorting through this stuff. I'll get better at it when I live here longer. Thanks for translating for me, though."

"Don't mention it. So, where are we going to start?"

"Well, I think we should start by putting up these shelves in that corner right there, and then we can start organizing the food on them. Music?"

"Please."

I ran over to plug my computer speakers into the outlet, then stuck my mp3 player in. "Alright, this is my "work" playlist, so we're starting with... "Sherlock" by SHINee.

"I love that song! Help me with these shelves."

By the time we had the shelves safely screwed to the wall, we had turned the volume up three times, until we could feel it making the walls vibrate. Just for Min Hee's sake, i had repeated the song, if only because we both wanted to start at one end of the room and do the peacock dance until we got to the other end.

"OH I'M CURIOUS, YEAH!!!!"

When the song ended, we collapsed on the floor laughing. "Come on, Min Hee," I said, getting to my feet and holding out my hand to help her up, "help me push these beds to the middle of the room so we can lay the tarps down and start painting!"

"I GOT YOU, LITTLE RUNAWAY!" I yelled to the beat of Super Junior's "SPY," chasing Min Hee around the room with the paint roller in my hand. She grabbed one of the paintbrushes from the paint can and retaliated, making me run around the room, both of us singing to the song. Our previously white walls had been only half-covered with the light blue paint Min Hee and I had compromised on (I wanted Sapphire Blue, she'd wanted Pearlescent Sky Blue. So we picked something kind of in the middle), and we'd listened to about twenty songs. Things got louder and louder. We were having a great time.

"GO KICK IT IN THE !" I yelled.

 A voice from outside the door suddenly yelled something in Korean. Min Hee and I just about had a simultaneous heart attack. Quickly, I ran to my mp3 player, hitting pause, while Min Hee flung open the door. It was a bit of an awkward situation, since both of us were covered with paint. 

"We're sorry, we didn't realize we were bothering anyone!" I yelled, rushing to her side. 

More Korean, sounding very displeased.

There were a bunch of guys glaring at us from the doorway. Young guys, early twenties, maybe. But they looked familiar. Who could it be... 

Suddenly it clicked.

"EXO?" I asked.

"Nae." The person who had answered me continued, and I felt bad because I couldn't understand anything he was saying. Luckily I had Min Hee.

"He says that their dorm is downstairs, and that our music is so loud that they can't even think."

Whoops! "Mianhae!" I bowed, turning another shade of crimson that contrasted with the light blue paint on my face. "We were fixing up the room, and playing music to make it more fun. We didn't realize we were distracting anyone!"

Min Hee relayed it to them, and then they said something to her that gave her a surprised look. They looked at me expectantly, not that I knew what was going on.

"What? What did they say?" I asked her.

"They asked if they could come in and see. They said that they never did anything to their dorm when they moved in, so they're curious about what we did to ours."

I shrugged. "Nae," I said to them. As they came in, Min Hee said something about "Min Guk", meaning the U.S, and "Not Korean," so I assumed that she was telling them that I didn't speak Korean. But I was focused on counting the number of people that came through our door. One, two, three... six... What, there's more?! All twelve EXO members?!

 "Woah! Daebak!" I heard one say. Who was it... Kai? Lay? Agh, I don't know the names of the EXO members! Their debut song was mediocre in my opinion, so I didn't really get hooked.

One of them went to the side of the wall that had already been painted blue, looking at it curiously.

"Careful, it's still wet!" I warned, being careful not to yell, since these were my Sunbaes. They'd debuted already, and I was still a trainee. Which kind of made me wonder...

"Why do you still live in this dorm? Isn't this the trainee dorm? Wouldn't you have moved out, since you've debuted, and are already like, super successful?"

They looked expectantly at Min Hee, and with a sigh, she translated, then translated Kris's response (at least, I think it was Kris). "They're going to move into the new dorm soon, as soon as it's finished getting renovated." She said something to them, and then they nodded and filed out. As soon as the last member was through the door, Min Hee closed the door behind them and turned back to me. "Well, that was interesting. And you know, I don't think the life of a translator is really for me. I can't wait until you start taking Korean classes."

"Yeah, me either. Now come on, let's finish painting this wall."

"Yay! It's done!" I shouted, pulling my paintbrush away and getting down from the ladder we had borrowed from the custodian. We'd turned the music back on, only a little bit quieter than it had been before. It was still pretty loud, but we hadn't gotten another visit from the EXO members, so we figured that we must be okay.

"Great! What's next?"

"Well, we can't really do anything until the paint's dry. Can't put the furniture back, can't put anything up on the walls..."

"So what can we do?"

"Well, my friends told me to make a video about my dorm as soon as I got settled in. So I was going to do that."

"Okay, I'll go wash out paintbrushes."

She went into the bathroom and I set up the computer for the video.

"Uh, Hi guys, it's me, Mel. I've been in Korea for three days now, but haven't seen much. Just the airport, our dorm and the neighborhood. The local market is so hectic, but it's fun! Um, anyway, this is my dorm. It's pretty simple, just two beds, two wardrobes... we added the shelves. Actually, it looks a bit weird now because we just painted the walls. See, they're a light blue. This is my side..." I moved the computer camera toward the left side of the room. "And this is... Oh! This is my roommate, Min Hee." I added as Min Hee came out of the bathroom and sat down on her bed. She waved, then flipped open the magazine she had been carrying.

"Min Hee's another trainee, but she's recruited from England. The company put us in the same room because we both speak English, although hers isn't as good, since she didn't start learning until she moved to England five years ago with her family because of her father's job. We have a few differences, but so far we seem to get along okay. We're decorating the dorm together. It's kind of the day's project. It's actually been pretty fun. We had our music playing and were dancing to it while we worked, and our, uh... downstairs neighbors came and told us to quiet it down. We haven't started training yet, but as I said with the picture I posted yesterday, I had someone show me around the company so I already know where to go when I start on Monday. I have a meeting scheduled tomorrow, though, to set up my schooling. Anyway, things have been pretty good here. I just decided to make this video while we waited for the paint to dry. The next time I make a video, the room'll probably look pretty different. Until then, Annyekasseo! Goodbye!"

I saved the video, then posted it to Facebook and then sent it in an e-mail to the family members that didn't have a Facebook account. On a whim I checked my Twitter account, something I barely ever looked at, and burst out laughing.

"What?" Min Hee asked.

"I have a new follower on Twitter by the name of Henry Lau!"

"Chincha?!" Min Hee jumped off of the bed to come look. "Are you sure it's him?"

"Pretty sure, since that's the same account that I follow."

"Woah...you're so lucky! I haven't met any of my favorite idols!"

"What about EXO?"

She shrugged. Yeah, them. But you're a SuJu fan and Henry is following you on Twitter! I haven't even met any of the SHINee or So Nae Shi Dae members!"

I patted her back. "It's okay Min Hee. Your time will come."

She glared at me. "You . Come on, let's go get something to eat while the paint dries. I'm starving."

"Come on, Mel, kimchi doesn't taste that bad," Min Hee argued as we came back into the dorm.

"I think I'm going to be sick."

"You'll get used to it!"

"Never!"

"You say that now, but after a few months here, you'll change your mind."

"Lies! You know what, just forget about it. I need to get the memory of that stuff out of my brain. Let's start putting the furniture back in the right places. Help me move this bed!"

We plugged the music back in and continued dancing to it as we moved furniture, stood on the beds to hang posters, tossed tape rolls back and forth, then, finally, pulled the clothes out of our bags to put into our wardrobes. Finally finished, we sat back down on the floor to admire our work.

"I like it." I said, drinking a cup of tea to refresh myself.

"Me too. Although I have to wonder about the fifteen fanarts."

"What, SuJu 13+2? They took so long to make, and I couldn't just leave them at home... They inspire me!"

She laughed. "Whatever. Time for bed. We both have meetings tomorrow. The hard stuff really begins tomorrow."