“Liaaaa!” I hear my name being screeched. Luckily the thin wall separating my room from the main room manages to muffle the sound somewhat. I keep my eyes closed and attempt to resume my dream.

“Lia unni, I know you can hear me!” The voice shrieks again and I attempt to cover my head with my pillow. Before I can, I hear a bang and a hand is suddenly shaking me. “Don’t think about ignoring me again.”

“I don’t appreciate this treatment.” I groan, my face buried in the slightly too soft mattress.

“Unni, it is your first day at your new job.” I roll onto my back so I can look at the disturbance, my roommate Eun Mi, the first person I met when I first moved to Korea, and one of my few friends out here. Her brown eyes shine down at me in the bright autumn morning light. There is an expectant smile on her face but it is still not enough to rouse me from my exhaustion.

“Oh, and how excited I am.” I say, finally pushing myself into a slouched sitting position, rubbing my eyes lazily.

“You should be excited! Do you know how much I want your job?” Considering how little English Eun Mi knew when I moved here two years ago, I find it shockingly easy to hold a conversation with her now. She picked up my mother tongue much easier than I hers, despite her rather vigorous attempts at drilling the Korean language into my head. Even in high school, I had been terrible at languages. Three years of learning French, and all I could tell you was my name and age. And even then I’d probably be off by ten years.

“I know, you’ve mentioned it before. You love them.” Eun Mi makes a noise like a boiling kettle and runs out of my room. I can’t decide if I would rather go into this job with her mentality or mine. When I received the offer from the music company I worked with as an assistant to gain a little more responsibility, I had been ecstatic. They told me I would be working as part of a team, for one of their groups, who deal with public relations. We would accompany this band to anything involved with the media, TV and radio appearances, public appearances, photo shoots, the whole shebang. It was the exact step up the ladder I had been wanting to make for a while. And finally it was happening. The only problem was that I had very little interest in working directly with a band, especially one full of nearly a dozen young boys with an enormous and dedicated fan base. I had never wanted to be involved in that kind of lifestyle; young money, screaming girls, inflated egos. Dealing with music producers was enough for me to handle.

I decide to get up, hoping that while eating breakfast with Eun Mi, some of her excitement and unending energy might rub off on me. I pull on my dressing gown and head into the main room to find Eun Mi holding out a bag to me.

“What’s this?” I say, brushing one of my many stray and uncontrollable hairs from my face.

“Your lunch.” Eun Mi says, the smile never leaving her face, even as I reach out to take the bag from her. I immediately almost drop it.

“Good Lord Mimi, what is in here?” I ask.

“Just a bento box, and some of that plum tea you love. And some apples.” I go to peer into the bag and Eun Mi slaps my hand away. “Don’t look yet! I want it to be a surprise.”  I frown at her and put the bag on the table.

“Breakfast?” I ask and she nods like a five year old and we sit down.

You’d think I’d want to make a good impression on my first day at a new job. I’d received the address for the studio where the band was having a photo shoot, my first meeting with them and the team I will be working with. I prepared myself appropriately, made sure I was dressed in smart casual; a sleeveless white blouse covered in a tiny grey bird print, tight but smart black jeans, a cropped grey jacket and black pumps. I pulled my hair back into a high ponytail, tied with a blue ribbon, there was no way I was having my hair down given how it was behaving that morning. I even let Eun Mi do my makeup; heavily lined top eye lid and pink lips. She waved me goodbye at the door while still dressed in her pyjamas, I still have no idea how she was going to make it to work on time. Deciding not to trust the early morning Seoul traffic, I brave the subway. Of course there was no seat by the time I arrived, and I find myself squashed between a group of teenagers on their way to school and a drunk old man who looked (and smelt) like he had been riding the subway all night. After having the old man nearly fall asleep on me, I managed to squeeze past the noisy teenagers to a space near the door, ready to jump out at my stop. The only problem was, someone decided to get stuck in one of the subway doors, delaying us by ten minutes, and then there was an announcement that the station where I was supposed to get off was closed due to a fire in one of the toilets, no idea how that happens. So, after the advice from a fellow passenger, I disembark from the train a stop early. He claimed that the street I was looking for was only a few minutes walk from the station where I would be getting off. The only problem was that, as mentioned earlier, I don’t read or speak Korean very well. So when I finally smell fresh air again, I have no idea which way I am supposed to be going. I try to stop a few people, but, much like back at home, everyone is too busy heading to their destination to stop and help. They probably think I’m some confused tourist, which I might as well be at this point. I finally find a traffic officer to help me and he points me in the right direction, except by this point I am almost half an hour late. I practically run down the road, nearly getting hit by traffic at least twice, until I notic