There he was…  like a flaming firecracker burning across the stage, his body movements as fluid as the angelic voice flooding from his smirking lips.  I could barely witness the performance from my wave in a sea of screaming, surging fan girls.  I wanted to tell them to shut up, but that might have made my own shrieking bursts of joy a little hypocritical.  Then it happened; the singer suddenly stopped, and glanced directly into my eyes in the sea of attractive, cute, short Korean girls.  Curse them, by the way.  But it didn’t matter!  He was looking at me!  The music stopped, the lights dimmed, and I was like fricking Moses parting the red sea as I stepped forward and he leapt off the stage.  

           But he didn’t stop… he …floated upward, sped up, and crashed into the ceiling far above me as it burst into a million shining pieces that looked like that scene from the Hunger Games 2.  And then I realized that first off, that man’s face was a blur that looked like an inhuman Asian monster.  Second off, I realized that people don’t fly even if they are the iest Korean idols alive.  And thirdly, I noticed that the fan girls around me were starting a cupcake kiosk for some reason and wearing Naruto cosplay.  Then, finally, I looked up in my room at the alarm clock shouting at me.  “Ahhhh!  Izzy don’t like it!” I said in a stitch voice as I shut it off.  “How dare you wake me up in the middle of my dream.  Aigoo.”  I let out a fart the size of China and burst out laughing.  

                  Then suddenly my eyes widened and I started flopping around on my bed like a dying fish and screaming like a banshee on fire.  “Moooom!”  

             She was already awake, of course.  “What?!”  She called from the other room.

            “Moom it’s today!!!”  

              “I know it’s today.  Now come on.  We have to be there at 5 Izzy!  If you don’t hurry up and take a shower-”

                 “I’m going!” I yelled excitedly.

               “What?!”

               “I SAID I’M GOING.”  

            “WHAT?!”  

             I sighed at my mom then rushed out of bedroom, eyeing my idol posters and screaming. “Kyaaaaaa!  Korea, here I come!”

           Breath in, breath out, breath in, breath out.  My heart pounded against my chest, like it was making an outward dent, and I’m 90% sure my started expanding.  At least I severely hope my was expanding.  The Koreans may have the cutesies, but if I have the  sies- NO.  Focus.  The tiny Kalispell airport seemed so foreign to me-  my first flight, and it just happens to be all by myself on an international trip.  

            “Well, this is it.”  My mom stared at me at the gate to my plane.  “Remember Izzy, call me as soon as you get to LAX.  DO NOT LOSE THAT TICKET.  Stay with the stewardess at all times, you here me?”  

               “Mom I know, I know, I know.”

              “Alright.  Oh Izzy, I don’t know how I’m going to make it to Thanksgiving without you.”  She hugged me tight.  

                “Aigoo, mom why you so adorable when you sad?”  I kissed her on the cheek.  “Mwah!”  

I was just glad the rest of my family said goodbye before the airport.  

                  “ Alright, I have to go.  Love you!”

                 “Love you too, Mom.”

               She finally pulled back and smiled, then walked away in the rush to get to work on time.  

                 BREATH IN, BREATH OUT, BREATH IN, BREATH OUT.  I flipped out on my first ever airplane takeoff and pretty much had what I professionally know to be a heart attack.  Most definitely a full on heart attack.  Don’t question the accuracy of an adrenaline-filled, nervous 17 year old’s self diagnosis of a serious medical condition.  Don’t question it!  

 

              “Becca… that’s it…. That’s the flight holy freaking crap!”  The long line of Koreans seemed to go on forever, even in the enormous LAX airport.  “Beeeeccccca!”  My voice squeaked, but I yanked it down so I wouldn’t look like a total weirdo in front of all the Koreans.  So, so, so y!!!!!  I squeaked and shivered and fangirled like a mad woman on my insides.  On the outside I put on my creepy, murderer face and looked like a demented ert at the nearest Korean teenage boy, unable to keep my expression to myself.

               “If I get any more jealous, I think I’m going to fall over and I’m literally going to die.  I swear it I will die.  Invite all of them to my funeral. Or better yet, SEND ME A PICTURE!”  

                “Okay, just… a sec.”  I squeaked, trying not to think of ovary explosions.  “I’ll text you it.”

The phone in my hands shook as I tried to take a picture without looking like a total psycho.  I took a deep, calming breath again as they called the seats for my row.  But I couldn’t help the ever-widening smile on my face as my arm brushed against another one of the iest people on Earth.  And I also couldn’t help the squeal that leapt from my tongue when a 30 something year old guy started speaking in Korean.  And I don’t think I could help smelling their beautifulness as I stood close and boarded the plane that would take me to my destiny for the final high school year of my life.  

                    I hummed in approval of the mint ice cream staring me down.  The cart of foods brought me back to the sweet tastes of years ago when I ate the stuff.  And my mouth watered like a flooding waterfall, not quite the same amount as when I saw 2PM’s abs, but enough to make me have to swallow.  I looked down at my flat stomach- years of self discipline and anguish from lack of cookies went into that tone.  And I’d be damned if I ruined it right before I made it to the ones who inspired me to keep it that way.  Even for the stewardess’s adorable Engrish.  I answered in my heavily-accented Korean, trying to practice with an actual native speaker.  “I’ll just take a water and a vegetable tray please.”  She smiled as though I was cute.  ME.  Ha!  Cause with my trouble with pronunciation and shortness sitting down I could be cute!  I could be short!  Mwahahahaha!  I sat there relishing in my imagined compliment and then realized she was already holding the products out for me.  “Oh…. Kamsamnida.”                                                                                       I received them with both hands.  I had to reach over the ajushsi sitting next to me to get them, and call me insane but I would’ve fangirled over that 60 year old man if it wasn’t already three hours into the flight and if I hadn’t already done that the second he sat down next to me… and if I hadn’t already fangirled over every other single person on the flight including the 20 something Korean girl on the other side of me.  I admit it- I have a problem. 

                8 and a half hours later, I found myself awake in the middle of a plane full of sleeping, vulnerable Koreans.  You don’t know self control until this situation happens to you.  I couldn’t sleep in my own excitement.  The flight was practically over.  I probably should have been exhausted- a 5 hour flight to Los Angeles, and a 12 hour flight to South Korea all after having gone to sleep at 1AM the previous night and waking up at 3AM.  

             And then it happened.  “We are preparing to land at Incheon National Airport.  Please put trays in upright locked position…”  I snapped my head up from my manga book and my heart resumed racing at the speed of light, even in the impenetrable dark of the late Korean night.  You know that feeling you get when your heart suddenly soars so high you feel like you might explode, and then you feel like your ovaries might explode to cause you’re in the same country as the iest people alive that you’ve looked up to for 4 years but have never actually met and now you’re going to marry them and make babies and do the boom boom jiggety for a week straight while- okay, maybe I’m getting carried away.  Let’s just say, all I felt was joy… because, well,